Too Cool for School?

By Carolyn D. Kylstra
Posted October 3, 2005

You know that saying, “One person’s trash is another’s treasure”? Well, The O.C. is my kind of television soap-opera trash… and I treasure it. In fact, The O.C. is possibly the pinnacle of television soap-opera trash. Well, second only to the first four seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Did I just completely shatter any semblance of credibility I might have had to begin with? Whatever, bitches, Buffy’s my f*ing hero.)

Anyway, calm down, Mr. O’Brien. I’m not using “trash” in a way that only further proves your point. Let’s take a look at what we’re debating here: a modern soap opera. It’s the Beverly Hills: 90210, post-Y2K. And in the ten or so years since the end of 90210, the teeny-bopper soap opera writers have learned a thing or two about improving upon the genre.

The writers and producers of The O.C. know their place. They’re not trying to be deep, or make any philosophical statements about the state of nature or human decency or the haves verses the have-nots. And they never claim otherwise. What’s more, they’re so hyper-aware of the totally materialistic and shallow content of their show and its characters that The O.C. is replete with blatant and gently-mocking self-calls. The O.C., as strange as it is to admit, is a breath of fresh air. It represents the beginning of a new genre of soap operas that address totally cliché dramatic issues in a completely self-deprecating fashion.

Girl shoots her boyfriend’s brother who tried to rape her when coked up and put him in a coma for three months? Hell yeah, they went there… but not without also making fun of “The Valley”, the soap opera within a soap opera that (how typical) utilizes the character-in-a-coma ploy, like, every other episode.

Classic. Funny. Mindless. Whatevs.

On an entirely different level of interpretation, The O.C. provides a very interesting social commentary about America and American values. The O.C. is timelessly fabulous because we, the silly time-wasting viewers, are predominately Americans, and we inately know, as socially engineered America-bots, that the characters on The O.C. live the lives that we desire. We Americans love the hell out of beautiful, rich, and dysfunctional people. The psychoanalysis is fairly simple:

1. They are beautiful. And beautiful people, when they don’t make us feel like crap and vomit up our meals, are fun to look at. Hell, beautiful people are fun to look at even if they do make us feel like crap and vomit up our meals. And the great thing about The O.C. is that every single character on the show is beautiful, regardless of his or her age. So there’s a beautiful person for everybody. Fun for the whole family, if you will.

2. They are rich. Here’s where we really dig into the core of the “reflection of American values” aspect of the show. A delightful notion that most Americans like to hold onto is that with enough hard work and motivation, just about anybody can live the American Dream. Newport Beach is an American’s El Dorado, the pot of gold at the end of the Red, White, and Blue Dream Rainbow. These people are so filthy rich that they get to live in pretty palaces and wear pretty things and drink pretty drinks and go to pretty restaurants and hang out with pretty people and look pretty - really, really, really pretty. They can also just go to Hawaii whenever they feel like it. The same holds true for random spas around Europe, various locales in Mexico (excellent for the rich under-21 crowd), and damn, let’s not even mention Canada. They could probably buy the country (not that they’d want to, to be fair). These characters get to live the lives that we want to live. If that’s not true freedom, nothing is. Think of The O.C. as extra incentive to get up in the morning. This all could be yours one day.

3. They’re dysfunctional. And that makes for great television. The thing about dysfunctional people is that you don’t want to be one and you don’t really want to hang out with them. God, could you just imagine that kind of drama? Bad for the complexion and digestive tract. But watching their dysfunctional, fabulously screwed up lives on television every week? A different story altogether. How exciting! Maybe it makes us feel better about our own problems. Maybe we derive a sense of guilt-free pleasure from witnessing the ruin of Marissa and Ryan’s relationship for the eleventh time. Maybe we live vicariously through these beautiful, rich, dysfunctional people. Whatever the reason, their dysfunctional lives are the crux of the whole show. If they were just beautiful and rich, would we still want to watch them? Actually, we probably would. I’ll take it back before you jump down my throat with talk of MTV’s Laguna Beach.

Critics often complain that The O.C. represents all that is base and evil about America. Materialism. Corruption. Adultery. Emo rock music. I say we get off our high horses and recognize the innate honesty of the show. But don’t shoot the messenger. Let’s make like the producers of The O.C. and learn to laugh at ourselves a bit. So we like beautiful, rich, dysfunctional people? That’s cool. We’re shallow, cliché, socially programmed idiots. But at least we know it.