The Wide World of Dirt

This past fall, my fiancée and I decided to watch MTV’s Daria.

Having already watched the whole series in college, I figured the show’s humor would land for us both, and at the time of writing, we have since finished the show.

Both of us were familiar with Beavis and Butt-Head, the 90s megahit from the same network that just so happened to feature the first iteration of Daria Morgendorffer.

Portrayed as a brainy girl, Daria played foil to Beavis and Butt-head throughout the first few seasons of the show, being affectionately called “diarrhea”.

Daria debuted on Monday, March 3rd, 1997 with its pilot episode “Esteemers” at 10:30pm ET, releasing just months before its parent show’s (first) swan song.

The show opened with Daria and her family moving away from Highland, Texas to the Atlantic suburb of Lawndale, Virginia (or Maryland, or Pennsylvania? I don’t know, ask Glenn Eichler.)

The first season of the show attempts to establish the new world, filled with dumb jocks, insane teachers, and Daria’s family, consisting of her mom Helen, her dad Jake, and her little sis Quinn.

The first 13-episode run helped mold the characters into the ones people remember, but they saved the best episode of the season for last: The Misery Chick.

“The Misery Chick” displays Daria at its best, tackling a profoundly complex issuethat many of us face in our lives: how are we supposed to honor the life of someone that was so terrible?

At the beginning of the episode, former star quarterback Tommy Sherman returns to school to participate in a ceremony to honor his playing career and famous celebration: accidentally running into the goalpost in the back of the end zone.

Student council member Jodie Landon is tasked with writing a speech about the storied QB, but running low on motivation, she turns to Daria for help.

Daria questions why Jodie is writing and performing a speech for a guy that Jodie doesn’t know, like, or respect.

Jodie reiterates that this is a part of the student council gig, and after Daria’s string of questions, she leaves exasperated, even telling her boyfriend Mack to go away.

Tommy enters and certainly leaves an impression, flirting with Brittany (and later Jane) before she runs away from him.

Tommy walks down the hall and meets up with Kevin and Mack, leading to him insulting Kevin and making a thinly-veiled racist remark towards Mack.

But, before he is due to be recognized for his accomplishments, Tommy makes the mistake of leaning up against Daria’s locker.

Daria calls attention to him, and the ever-intelligent Tommy feels that Daria was somehow trying to get with him, something she categorically shuts down.

Getting into her bag, Daria tells him that he must be a massive jerk if he’s being celebrated so soon after graduating. This sends Tommy into a spiral, claiming no one cares about or admires Daria because “she’s so miserable all the time” and “a loser.”

Unlike him of course. Tommy’s a winner.

As promised Tommy marches outside to the football field to try out his new goalpost while Daria and Jane remark that they hope he doesn’t live very long.

And, wouldn’t you know it, Tommy Sherman ran into the goalpost, and this time, the goalpost won for good, killing him.

Tommy’s death sends shockwaves into the community as several members of the school appear to be distraught and left ill-equipped to handle this loss. I mean, the guy brought them their most recent state football title. He was an icon in Lawndale.

Among the people who seek out Daria in the aftermath are school quarterback Kevin, Brittany, and of all people, English teacher Mr. O’Neill, all three acknowledging that Daria knows what it’s like to be brooding and miserable.

Kevin struggles with the loss of his idol, lamenting to Daria that Tommy was a big deal to him and the school, but now he’s just dead and gone.

Reasonably, Daria asks if this event led to Kevin thinking about his own mortality since he’s the current QB, but Kevin twists this into Daria saying Tommy’s death might conjure a curse.

It really makes you think.

Brittany appears right as Kevin leaves. Daria tells Brittany to talk to Kevin about this, but Brittany insists he wouldn’t understand. Brittany thinks the dead guy was a massive jerk.

She feels bad for thinking this way because it’s taboo to speak ill of the dead regardless of how they lived their lives on Earth.

I’m sorry, Brittany feels terrible about Tommy’s death because she hated him while he was alive, but she’s sorry that he had to die.

It really makes you think.

Poor Daria can’t get out of this conga line of mourners with Mr. O’Neill showing up right as Brittany exits, asking how Daria is coping with the loss.

This prompts the two to go back and forth about Mr. O’Neill making assumptions about his counterpart, saying she’s used to thinking about the morbid and occult more often than the average person that tries to shoo those thoughts away.

Say it with me, class:

Daria can’t wrap her head around why everyone keeps saying this, so naturally, she calls Jane who is less than agreeable with Daria and her point of view.

Daria reiterates that it’s sad that Tommy died, but it doesn’t change who he was when he was alive, which was a sleazy jerk. Frustrated, Jane cuts off the conversation to go out on a run, and Daria is left in her room searching for answers and understanding.

Given about five seconds to absorb the weight of that call, Quinn knocks on Daria’s door wanting to talk about the (dead) man of the hour.

Quinn and Daria sit at the kitchen table later with Helen. Quinn says the fashion club is collecting donations for safe new goalposts in Tommy’s memory. Daria’s quick to point out that the goalpost that killed Tommy was supposed to be the safer option. 

Shortly after, Quinn mentions Daria helped her through some of her grieving, saying that Daria, “is really good with this tragic stuff.” Helen then asks how Daria is processing the event, leading Daria to leave the house to go to Jane’s.

Only to find Trent when she knocks on the door.

A brief chat ensues between Daria and the apple of her eye where Trent mentions he went to school with Tommy and accepts that this was all just a terrible freak accident, soothing Daria.

Trent hints that Jane might actually be upstairs after her run, so Daria enters Jane’s room where she shows frustration with everyone coming to her trauma dump and not repaying the favor.

Jane continues to poke and prod at Daria, but the latter stands firm. Daria restates that she feels sorry that Tommy died, yet she can’t divorce herself from how Tommy acted when he lived.

Daria goes a step further by claiming people aren’t actually sad that Tommy Sherman died; they’re sad that they are going to die one day.

Jane interjects and mentions that everyone’s coming to Daria because she actually knows how to think and process, something most people don’t know how to do.

Tommy’s death makes people think about their own mortality, which Daria doesn’t appear to do from their perspective. So, they reach out to her for advice on how to be in these situations.

Daria and Jane both come to a resolution: this was a freak accident. It wasn’t good that they wished he would die, but it wasn’t their fault. And, Daria isn’t the misery chick.

The final bit of the episode sees Daria and the rest of her classmates huddled in Mr. O’Neill’s room talking about Lord Tennyson’s “In Memoriam”.

Daria explains Tennyson’s view on pleasure and pain, something she seems to agree with the author about. Class gets dismissed, and one. last. sorry mourner enters the fray: Sandi.

The fashion club president has a cat that puked all day the day before because it “OD’d on foundation”, so she turns to none other than Daria for some advice.

Daria explains that Sandi will need to pay for her mourning services. Sandi obliges. Daria tells her to simply find another way to feel, Sandi complains and grows angry with the advice, but Daria is quick to remind her that her anger exemplifies Daria’s point.

This episode is polarizing as I’ve seen many people take a stand against Daria’s perspective.

I agree with her and always have. Personally, I think that you should be treated in death as you treated others when you were alive.

If you were a saint in life, then you should be praised in your passing. If you were a complete sack of shit while you were alive, don’t be surprised if the only people showing up to your funeral have full bladders and an open fly.

Obviously, only the writers of the show know who Tommy Sherman was before this episode. In the brief glimpse the audience got of him, he was a colossal sack of shit.

He openly flirts (or attempts to) with three underage girls; he says something racist; and, he rudely mocks a teenager and calls her a loser, all before going out with a clang.

I know that I’m in the minority here by supporting Daria’s point of view. Many people still remain civil when sending their condolences to someone who was a massive jerk.

One of the prominent examples is XXXTentacion, an American recording artist that died via drive-by shooting in 2018. X had a checkered history for someone that died at the young age of 20.

This includes a laundry list of crimes that encompass assault, domestic violence, witness tampering, burglary, and rape.

Not exactly a good dude.

When he passed, tons of people actively celebrated X’s death because of the human they knew him to be finally being (forcibly) laid to rest.

Of course, many of his supporters played the “respect for the dead” card, trying to take the high road in the situation, but for me, I only respect people that respect life and others.

X clearly didn’t do that, so I felt the backlash was appropriate. I still stand by it.

Two recent instances concern the deaths of conservative icons Rush Limbaugh and Henry Kissinger.

Limbaugh’s sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, and xenophobic radio show was broadcast to millions of eager listeners every single day, spreading hate around like Johnny Appleseed.

Henry Kissinger oversaw a number of atrocities as Presidents Nixon and Ford’s Secretary of State, notably the legions of civilians killed due to his policies, his support of dictatorships, and turning a blind eye to human rights violations committed by the US and its allies.

The damage these two did to America and abroad show why everyone is not worthy of peace in their passing, especially those that actively thwarted peace at every possible opportunity.

You may disagree with this stance, but I want to know why you feel that way without subjectivity.

Take your personal feelings about the subject and discard them. Take the receipt of their actions and apply them to someone from your neighborhood.

Would you say something like, “Oh, that’s so sad,” or “That’s a real shame he died,’ if Bob from down the block was raping and beating people up? Probably not.

It is okay to actually be relieved when someone vile has passed. That’s one less person on Earth that was actively trying to destroy it.

Maybe it isn’t cause for celebration every time, but I find it beautiful and poetic when the world gives people the ending they deserve, the ending they’ve earned.

Yes, Tommy Sherman’s death was tragic and unexpected, which is awful.

Maybe if he’d lived longer, he could have reformed himself into a productive and friendly member of the Lawndale community.

But, I don’t mourn the missed potential of sacks of shit, and it should be fine to feel that way.