At the Lighthouse

Since I’ve gotten in touch with other young opera lovers, I have observed that young opera lovers usually come from one of three different backgrounds, teen-age wise. There’s the Hard Core Young Opera Lover, whose love of opera was symptomatic, and who grew up an atypically smart, serious, no-nonsense kind of teenager, studying hard, listening only to classical music, and hanging out almost exclusively with fellow no-nonsense teenagers. Then there’s the Late Bloomer Young Opera Lover who had a normal teenage doing regular silly teenage stuff and only discovered opera when in their 20s. And then there’s the third type, the Grey Zone Opera Lover who’s a little bit of both: The GZOL discovered opera early on, but was kind of in-the-closet about his/her fascination with this un-hip musical interest, and thus strived to live a fairly normal teen age, hanging out mostly with normal teens and listening to opera only on the quiet.

That’s me, that last one, the GZOL. I discovered opera at age 12, but I was so embarrassed about it that I didn’t really explore that side of myself fully during my teen years. I would listen to opera, and I’d let my closest friends in on my little secret, but apart from that, I did the usually teen age thing; hanging up posters of Pierce Brosnan and Hugh Grant in my room (which is creepy, actually, because my dad look so much like Hugh Grant), slamming doors and listening to loud rock music trying to annoy my parents, getting drunk and kissing boys at parties (that is, once I got off my scoliosis brace. A thick, plastic shell covering your entire upper body is not a turn-on, in case you were wondering. Oh my God, how I hated that thing.), and it was only when I escaped from the big-brother society of high school cliques that I started to explore openly my operatic passion.

This means of course that I have been exposed to all the same teenage cultural phenomena as the rest of the generation that grew up in the 90s, which in turn means that I have of course been spellbound by Spelling’s teen soap Beverly Hills 90210.

The second home of my generation – Casa Walsh

Out of nostalgia and guilty pleasure, I’ve been rewatching some season 3 episodes of 90210 lately, and what fun it’s been! These episodes first aired when I was 9-10 years old, and this was when I started watching. I wasn’t a fan of the show for a terribly long time (for about a year, I think, then Danish TV started re-running Dynasty and that was where my focus went), but it was very intense for a while. 90210 was the hot topic in the fourth grade, and my best friend back then and I had a minor crisis in our friendship when Dylan was made to choose between Kelly and Brenda – with my friend rooting for Kelly and me rooting for Brenda. Ah, good times.

I want this t-shirt SO BADLY!

Anyway, I’ve always disregarded 90210 as exactly that; a show of dubious quality that I liked when I was very, very young. But it’s still part of my past, and after writing reviews of 90210 episodes for an online soap opera discusssion forum, I decided to bring the reviews here on this blog, in order to shed some light on my (pop) cultural background, inspired by my friend Kåre’s blog post about a new Danish soap opera. Comments and discussions are of course very welcome!

I’m starting my reviews at The Paris episodes (where Brenda and Donna visit the Capital of Romance and learn valuable lessons) in early season 3. There are four of these episodes “Too Little Too Late”, “Sex, Lies, and Volleyball”, “Shooting Star”, and “Castles in the Sand”), but I can’t tell them apart, so I’m just going to review them collectively.

Let’s roll those credits, just to get in the mood, shall we?:

Aw, yeah. That’s the good stuff. I feel like wearing flannel and tuning in to Ace of Base.

Anyway. These episodes I’m reviewing are from back in the day when Brenda was still the female lead, and I’m somewhat impressed with the way the writers depict Dylan’s and Brenda’s relationship and how it’s starting to fall apart – it rings true to me. Brenda is obviously starting to have a problem with her dependency on and commitment to Dylan, which is only natural for a teenage girl in a serious relationship, and that is quite obviously why she chooses to go to France.

Aw. I’m pretty sure I had this promo picture as a sticker back in the day.

The Paris scenes themselves, however, are problematic, to say the least. The stereotypical way in which the country is depicted (rudeness, overly flirtatious men, weird food) is probably meant to be cute and funny, but really only comes off as xenophobic and annoying. Especially since it’s not balanced by anything – no positive statement is made about France or Paris throughout the episodes, at all. Even when Brenda meets a guy in Paris he’s not French, he’s an all-American college boy with a big white grin.

This would be Rick, or should I say “Reeck”. The whole “Brenda-fakes-a-French-accent” storyline is ridiculous (although nicely done when it comes to continuity. It takes up on Brenda’s enthusiasm for acting, and her very random love for faking accents, as seen in the “Laverne” episode), but Rick is so likeable he kind of wins me over. Dean Cain is f’-ing dreamy, the character is sweetly written, and I wish they’d made Rick a regular character. He’s a nice contrast to Dylan, and seems credible as a love interest for Brenda, who’s growing weary of Dylan I-play-by-noone’s-rules-but-my-own and-oh-btw-I-am-also-deep-and-troubled-and-like-to-read-Lord-Byron McKay.

*

Useless Piece of Trivia of the Day: the guy who played Rick went on to portraying Clark Kent/Superman in that very classy show Lois and Clark

Donna is in Paris, too, and also away from her boyfriend – David Silver. Their relationship is still quite new, however, and there isn’t much of a conflict for Donna, who spends most of the Paris episode being a kind of comical bizarro-version of Brenda. Which is nice. I think Donna worked well as long as she was mostly a comical character, but sadly one senses that this is the end of that era. The new era, the one where Donna is beautiful (ha!) and amazing and, possibly, a saint is kickstarted during these episodes, in which Donna is spotted by a scout from a model agency. Who wants to make Donna their new supermodel. That’s right, Tori Spelling as Face of the Year. Ugh. This is probably one of the least credible storylines I’ve ever seen on TV, and this says a lot considering that I’ve also been an avid viewer of The X-Files. And of course it just screams Daughter of the Producer, and I hate it when I have to spend energy on meta-topics like that when watching a show.

Notoriously hideous Tori S.

But things still haven’t gotten completely out of hands with the sanctification of the Donna character the way it is later on in the series, and she’s still kind of endearing a lot of the time. David and Donna make a cute commedia dell’arte-servants-type couple to Dylan’s and Brenda’s Gli Amorosi, and Brian Austin Green does a nice job depicting David’s gentle love for his first girlfriend, placing chaste little kisses and smiling warmly at her upon her return from Paris.

Brenda’s return is more problematic, thanks to her Troubled Boyfriend. And boy is he ever troubled, that Dylan McKay! Except he totally isn’t, and that’s very disturbing, considering that he’s spent a great part of his summer macking on his girlfriend’s best friend, Kelly. What an asshole he is. At this point, by season 3, we’ve suffered through episode after episode in which the writers have gone out of their way trying to present Dylan to us as a wild child, to be sure, but a wild child with a heart of gold. A big heart. And a love of poetry, and the ways of a gentleman (hence his whole don’t-kiss-and-tell policy). And yet here he is, cheating on his girlfriend with her friend and leading an obviously smitten Kelly on, and not even feeling guilty about it. His this-feels-too-good-to-feel-bad-about attitude grates, not because it’s immoral, but because the writers in previous seasons have pretty much forced me to expect more from Dylan, even though God knows most of the time I didn’t want to do so, because Luke Perry was so annoying with his permanent James Dean-wannabe furrowed-brow facial expression and his phony smokey voice. Barf.

The man who taught us all that it’s okay to be a total ass towards women if you only make sure to look really pensive and brooding and read a lot of Lord Byron at the same time

But Kelly is surprisingly likeable in these episodes, and that helps. There’s a lot of motivation going on, because Kelly has indeed had a crush on Dylan for as long as we’ve known her, but also because she’s been struggling to free herself from her skank-ho reputation throughout the first two seasons. The fear of getting caught in Dylan’s arms is induced by more than the noble fear of losing Brenda’s friendship – it would also mean a fatal set-back for Kelly, reputation-wise: Because what could be more slutty than sleeping with your best friend’s boyfriend? Also, Kelly and Dylan really do have more in common than Dylan has with Brenda – neither of them have Brenda’s somewhat bourgeoise college ambitions and plans for the future, and they’re both starting to realize this as their last year of high school is approaching.

I wanted so badly to have hair like that.

Meanwhile, Brandon and Andrea are both working at the beach. Brandon works for the Beach Club as a towel boy or whatever (we never really see him work, so I’m not entirely sure), and Andrea is the leader of a summer camp. This leads to a seemingly endless amount of scenes featuring Andrea and a hearing impaired little boy. I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell that storyline was all about, and I figure it was meant to serve as character development of Andrea: She’s been an ambitious over-achiever, but she’s softened, possibly through her friendship with The Gang which has forced her to go out and socialize more, and she’s realized that Life isn’t all about good grades and scholarships. Whatever. In any case, Andrea turns down an internship at a political convention with an Ambitious Republican Boyfriend in order to stay and help out the deaf kid. It’s all kind of dull, and there’s really no avoiding the fact that Gabrielle Carteris was just wrong for that part. About 32 years old by the time these episodes were shot, she was only six years younger than the guy who played Brandon’s and Brenda’s father, and she looked it, too. I never could get past that, and for all the Hermione Granger potential the Andrea-character might have had on paper, I always found myself staring at her crow feet wrinkles and losing concentration.

Looking like she failed high school about ten times: Andrea Zuckerman

But she does have a few interesting scenes, all of them with Brandon. It’s funny, this time around I find myself strangely intrigued by Brandon’s character. Sure he’s sanctimonious and hypocritical as all hell, but the writers seem to be aware of this, and he almost always gets called on it. Like in the very nice episode “Too Little, Too Late” in which he decides to make a move on Andrea – who’s been pining for him for years – simply because she’s dating someone else. Andrea will have none of that, and then she gives him that brilliant burn that we all wish that we’d given That Guy in our Past Who Took Advantage of Our Loyal Devotion: “What the hell was that?” she says warily as Brandon kisses her. “Just how I feel” says the loveable douchebag. “Look, don’t insult me like that, okay, not now… The only reason you’re interested in me is because I’m seeing someone else, and you know it. …You had your chance, you made your choice. Now I’d appreciate it if you’d get out of my way, because I have a date.” “So break it” he says smugly, and then Andrea: “What makes you think you’re so damn irresistible?” Squee!!! Love it! One of the best TV burns ever, IMO, although, as already indicated, I’m probably mostly influenced by the by-proxy satisfaction of hearing a young girl telling off a suave guy who’s just not that into her.

In the rest of his scenes, Brandon is making out with a racist, prejudiced girl named Brooke, who doesn’t like the homeless. Somehow Brandon’s relationship-storylines always seem to lead to Very Special Episodes. This time it’s about how prejudice is wrong, another time it was about the things you sacrifice in the name of ambition (when he was dating the ice-skating girl), then there was the unwed teenage-mom who taught him about the difficulties of combining a high school life with being a parent (and thus indirectly it was also about the perils of unsafe sex), and of course there was Emily Valentine who introduced him to such issues as Mental Illness and the Danger of Drugs. Luckily, cute little Nikki is waiting for him around the corner (she’s flirting with David Silver in the Paris episodes), and I remember her as a nice, balanced break from Brandon’s usual freak girlfriends, as well as a girl with a personality youthful and elfish enough to go well with boyish Brandon’s – I never did like him with more womanly types such as Emily Valentine or Brooke or That Professor’s Wife that He Was Doing in College.

Loveable douchebag with an Elvis ‘do and a lot to learn: Brandon Walsh

Next up: “A Song of Myself”!

/marie