My So-Called Life
My So-Called Life is an American teen drama television series created by Winnie Holzman and produced by Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. It aired on ABC from August 25, 1994 to January 26, 1995. Set at the fictional Liberty High School in a fictional suburb near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, called Three Rivers, it follows the emotional travails of several teenagers in the social circle of main character Angela Chase, played by Claire Danes.
The show was officially canceled on May 15, 1995, despite being critically praised for its realistic portrayal of adolescence and the commentary of its central character Angela, and the series' reception of several major awards, which included a Golden Globe Award for Danes. Besides Danes, the show also launched the careers of several other actors, including Jared Leto and Wilson Cruz. The show became a cult classic and has been frequently cited by multiple publications including Time, Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, The Atlantic, and Rolling Stone as one of the best teen dramas of all time.
Premise
Angela Chase is a 15-year-old high school student who lives in the fictional Pittsburgh suburb of Three Rivers with her mother Patty, father Graham, and little sister Danielle. Each episode, which is usually narrated by Angela, follows her trials and tribulations as she deals with friends, parents, guys, and school.Themes
My So-Called Life dealt with major social issues of the mid-1990s, including child abuse, homophobia, teenage alcoholism, homelessness, adultery, school violence, censorship, and drug use. Many shows at the time used these themes as a one-time issue that was introduced as a problem at the beginning of an episode and resolved at the end, but on My So-Called Life these issues were part of the continuing storyline. The title of the show alludes to the perception of meaninglessness that many teenagers experience and encapsulates the main theme of the series. The show depicts the teenage years as being difficult and confusing rather than a light, fun-filled time.Cast
;Main cast- Bess Armstrong as Patricia "Patty" Chase, Angela's mother
- Wilson Cruz as Enrique "Rickie" Vasquez, Angela's gay friend
- Claire Danes as Angela Chase, a 15-year-old sophomore and narrator of the series
- Devon Gummersall as Brian, Angela's socially awkward next-door neighbor
- A. J. Langer as Rayanne Graff, Angela's new best friend, a rebellious alcoholic
- Jared Leto as Jordan Catalano, Angela's crush
- Devon Odessa as Sharon Cherski, Angela's childhood best friend
- Lisa Wilhoit as Danielle Chase, Angela's 10-year-old sister
- Tom Irwin as Graham Chase, Angela's father
- Mary Kay Place as Camille Cherski, Sharon's mother
- Johnny Green as Kyle Vinnovich, Sharon's jock boyfriend
- Lisa Waltz as Hallie Lowenthal, Graham's business partner and potential love interest
- Jeff Perry as Mr. Katimski, gay English teacher who takes Rickie under his wing
- Patti D'Arbanville as Amber Vallone, Rayanne's mother
- Danton Stone as Neil Chase, Graham's brother
- Senta Moses as Delia Fisher, student who has a crush on Brian
- Winnie Holzman as Mrs. Krzyzanowski, school guidance counselor
Production
Development
was approached by Showtime in the 1980s to write a show about teenagers. Herskovitz conceived of the series as a "very personal, very internal" story about a boy with the title Secret/Seventeen, but it was not picked up by the network. A few years later, after the cancellation of Thirtysomething in 1991, Herskovitz and his co-creator Edward Zwick approached Winnie Holzman, a writer on Thirtysomething and The Wonder Years, to brainstorm a new show. Holzman sparked to the idea of an "uncensored" depiction of teenage life. Said Herskovitz, "Most shows about teens on television and it really affected me. I remember she said something like, 'Boys just have it so easy.' And that's in the pilot. So I named the character Angela partly in honor of her."Intent on dismantling stereotypical portrayals of teens and parents on TV, Holzman wrote Patty Chase, the wife and mother character, as the breadwinner of the Chase family and husband Graham as the homebody. Holzman portrayed the parents as in the "midst of establishing their identities and discovering their incompatibility with traditional domestic tropes."
Casting
In keeping with their desire to portray adolescence authentically, producers looked for actors who were close in age to their teen characters. Before Claire Danes was cast, Alicia Silverstone auditioned for the role of Angela and impressed Zwick, and as an emancipated minor could work longer hours, but was not deemed the right fit for "Holzman’s messy high-school universe, which included subplots about drug addiction, bullying, binge drinking, promiscuity, and homosexuality." Herskovitz said, "We needed somebody who shimmered between beauty and sort of not formed yet. And in walks Claire. She read the scene in the pilot where she has a confrontation with her childhood best friend. There was a direction that said, 'Angela starts to tear up.' Claire gets to the moment. Her whole face turns red. She's having this intense emotional experience — and then pulls it back. Everybody was just knocked out." As Danes was 15 and had to attend school alongside filming, producers ended up increasing the screen time for the parental characters to accommodate for Danes.Wilson Cruz was cast as Rickie Vasquez, who was written in the script as "half black, half Puerto Rican, sexually ambiguous like Jodie Foster in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore". The character of Rickie was inspired by Holzman's peers as a teenager, as well as by the 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning, which explores ball culture in New York City. Cruz drew on some of his own experiences, such as a period of homelessness after he came out to his dad, for his portrayal of Rickie.
Jared Leto was supposed to appear in just the pilot episode, but his acting and chemistry with Danes impressed producers and he was upgraded to the main cast.
Filming
The pilot was shot in April 1993. An enthusiastic response from ABC executives and TV critics raised producers' hopes for a series debut in the 1993-1994 TV season lineup; however, ABC delayed My So-Called Life’s addition as they pondered over the right time slot for the show. The show finally premiered in the Thursday night lineup in August 1994, a year and a half after the filming of the pilot.The series was filmed in the Los Angeles area. Scenes at the fictional Liberty High School were shot on location at University High School.
Due to the show's rapid shooting schedule and the uncertainty of its future, producers "did not have the luxury of planning out the season's arc in advance," and story lines would unfold episode to episode. Network executives did give the show's creators relatively free rein to explore what were then seen as risky subjects for network TV, such as teen sexuality and sexual orientation.
Reception
Critical reception
Upon its debut, My So-Called Life received critical acclaim. Critic Joyce Millman said the show "evokes the emotional turbulence of adolescence with breathtaking accuracy" and is also "unusually perceptive in its portrayal of the push and pull of mother-daughter relationships." Millman added the show has an interesting take on "midlife crisis and marital boredom", and concluded "with bittersweet clarity, My So-Called Life shows us that teen angst is something we never outgrow."The Hartford Courant called it "one of the most humanizing hours of television to come along in decades." Steven Spielberg lauded the show and called Danes "one of the most exciting actresses to debut in 10 years", likening her to Audrey Hepburn.
In a critical review, Howard Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times found the teen characters grating and the plot lines to be too neatly resolved, but did praise Holzman's writing and Danes' acting. Rosenberg wrote, "you also recognize that Holzman has a witty grasp on adolescence and knows a bull’s-eye when she sees one...Another plus is the brooding self-consciousness that seems so genuine in Angela, a credit to Danes’ effortless performance. Her nervous body language speaks volumes, as do her character's private thoughts, delivered as part of a voice-over narration in the manner of 'The Wonder Years.'"
After the series' cancellation and over the years, the series continued to gain acclaim for its realism and is praised by some critics as one of the greatest television series of all time. On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, Season 1 has a 94% approval rating based on 53 reviews. The site's consensus reads, "Effectively avoiding cliche and cheesy exposition, My So-Called Lifes realistic portrayal of the average American girl is ahead of its time". On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating, the show has a score of 92 out of 100 based on 19 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". It is the 20th highest rated television series on the website. In 2007, it was listed as one of Times "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME". Time critic James Poniewozik wrote,
In 2008, AOL TV named My So-Called Life as the second Best School Show of All Time. It was number 33 on Entertainment Weeklys "New Classics TV" list of shows from 1983 to 2008, and as number 8 in the "25 Greatest Cult TV Shows Ever". TV Guide ranked the series number 16 on its 25 Top Cult Shows Ever list in 2004, as well as number 2 on its 2013 list of 60 shows that were "Cancelled Too Soon".