On weekday mornings from 9-10 AM and weekends from 10-11 AM FX plays reruns of 90210. Watching the show is one of the many guilty pleasures I allow myself (the others include eating as many Oreos as I want with milk, because I need to get my calcium, and french manicures because I like to feel fancy).
So this past weekend I caught up on some old-school Beverly Hills fun. Before describing the episode, I feel it necessary to pay tribute to the cultural icon that was Beverly Hills, 90210. The show aired in October 1990 when I was in full fledged braces and geek hair (I had a perm. A subject for another post). It concluded 10 years later, May 2000, when I was a junior in college. The finale was a horrendously acted yet appropriate conclusion with the wedding of Donna and David, whose love story, though more of a B-plot, managed to ride out the entire 10 year run of the show.
The drama! The characters! The scandal! Dylan is rich and does drugs. Brandon and Brenda are so wholesome and Jim and Cindy Walsh are The Best Parents Ever! Kelley was so sophisticated with those Warhol-esque portraits of herslf in her room. And so misunderstood by her recovering drug addict of a mother. There was David Silver, the sweet geek (90210's answer to Screech), BMOC Steve Sanders (gotta love him), and good girl Donna Martin (on her Daddy's show because he ran Hollywood. Even at 10 years old I understood that).
But the character that I want to discuss is Andrea Zuckerman. Brainiac and reliable friend Andrea. Editor of the school paper. The girl who had to turn down Yale so that she could remain on the show. The girl I de facto related to, because I had nothing in common with the other characters. Remember when she gave herself to Brandon as his going away present and he turned her down? That had to hurt. And how she finally set her ego aside and agreed to share the Editor-in-Chief position with Brandon? Andrea, you had a symphathetic friend in 10-year old Sophia.
Getting back to this weekend. It was an episode that was taking place during their first year in college. Andrea's RA was her literature professor. So cute in the floppy haired academic way. He asks Andrea out; and they end up sleeping together! Whoa! My hands down favorite scene from the episode is when Andrea confesses her concern to him:
Andrea:
You can't be my lover in the bedroom and my teacher in the classroom.
Skeezy Prof:
Well I guess it's settled.
Andrea (hesistant):
It is?
Skeezy Prof:
Yes. I guess you'll have to find another English professor! (Both giggle and start making out)
I started to think more about the allure of the goody-two-shoes gone bad-girl. Quite an interesting struggle. It doesn't necessarily have to be one character within a specific show, either. I remember the shock of finding out that Jessie Spanow (Elizabeth Berkely) was the lead in Showgirls (click the link to read about the DVD release). The NC-17 rating was so scandalous; the rush of newly minted 18th-year-of-lifer boys to the movie theater remains quite a fond memory.
So who finds the transformation more interesting - men or women? Do men really like the idea of the geek turned stripper? Or is it more the subtle empathetic fascination that normal women experience?
It's probably neither. The Andrea story line was pretty freaking boring. Nothing compared to Dylan cheating on Brenda or Donna Martin Graduates!
Oh, and for your procrasting pleasure, here are some quizzes that test your trivial knowlege (oops, i meant knowledge of trivia) of the show.
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