Did anyone else find Jodie SO annoying
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AryaHotPie — 12 years ago(November 23, 2013 04:14 AM)
I'm surprised someone made this thread, because I was going to but thought I'd be the only one who felt that Jodie is annoying. Glad to see I'm not! She seems to have all these hangups about how she is perceived due to race, but possesses little insight into other aspects of her behaviour- e.g. sucking up to authority figures, making speeches she doesn't believe in etc. For these reasons I thought it was annoying how she would keep propping herself up as an example to the Black community, for no reason other than being black. Also the way she talks grates on me, lol.
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Caffeine-Free — 13 years ago(October 24, 2012 04:46 PM)
She could be annoying I suppose but I think she was significant. Her storylines regarding race were unique, I thought. It was taken on and expressed in a way that not many shows do, even in the 90s and especially from a female character.
She added a strong element to the show too in that she was one of the only people that could get Daria to realize and admit what a "rigid, unrealistic, self-righteous jerk" she could be as she puts it after Jodie confronts her.
A thorn in her side that Jane never was. Both Daria and Jodie had more similar upbringing, at least with Helen being such a pusher and Jodie's parents being overachievers. Daria could be cynical and reject everything, whereas Jodie couldn't.
I think they brought that together really well in some of the episodes, the two sides of the coin sort of. As Daria always felt so put upon by everything but Jodie did too, but under more pressure to excel and please people. Daria needed to get smacked down sometimes, and Jodie was one of the few to do it. -
notforsale4 — 12 years ago(August 25, 2013 03:11 PM)
What does you being Biracial have to do with it? if anything, that could even alienate you from some of her viewpoints depending on your upbringing. I also don't like the subtle racism that is looming in this thread. It's hilarious to me how people attack characters of colour by assuming they are 'tokens' and such by adding their own thinly veiled racism to the commentary.
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peachie_keen — 12 years ago(August 28, 2013 08:45 PM)
^^^ "Finding racism where there is none" gets me every time.
@ OP, I actually liked Jodie's character, and I wouldn't say she was a token black character because of the fact that she was painfully aware of her being used by her community to paint a diverse backdrop. "Ethnic window dressing."
I dunno, that to me makes her a unique character, albeit underdeveloped due to lack of screen time. -
Jane_Doe01 — 12 years ago(September 05, 2013 12:50 AM)
Black people tend to make the same 'tokenism' observations and it's been a parodied subject in black comedy, so I don't think it's fair to assume there are racist motives behind mentioning it. I will say though that I don't agree in this case. Many TV characters of color have been tokens for sure (and actually I can think a few white tokens from minority shows), but I don't consider Jodie to be. Her character provided a pretty fresh TV perspective on minorities in suburbia. Nothing too groundbreaking, but thoughtful and differentrealistic without the melodramatic preachiness. Mack was probably a more likeable character though.
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Jane_Doe01 — 12 years ago(September 05, 2013 01:01 AM)
And yes I understand that in the 90s and society has changed somewhat now
It was late-90s until 2001, not really the same as just '90s'. Still, I'm not so sure that real life situations have changed so much there, although TV-wise, her character might be likely to date a white guy or two nowadays(maybe they'd have a black girl in the fashion club). -
Absolved — 12 years ago(January 15, 2014 01:02 PM)
I found her annoying, but not for the reasons mentioned her. Her being such a an overachieving goody-goody (with a near Pollyanna persona), and simultaneously angry about having to be that way, was off-putting to me. When she went off about having to be "Queen of the negroes" and the "perfect" role model for other black kids at school, I couldn't help but think that she had an annoyingly exaggerated opinion of herself. And her inability to stand up to her horribly pretentious parents and their OTT expectations made her a coward IMO.
That being said, you have to give her some credit for being the only one who could go shoulder to shoulder in confrontations with Daria, and accurately call her out when she needed it. -
trixie-k-88 — 12 years ago(February 17, 2014 08:59 PM)
The funny thing about her character is that I think they were trying to poke fun at casual racism or the "token black kid thing" whenall they were doing was reinforcing it. If anything they exacerbated it because Jodie's personality is often based on her race. I don't think there are any episodes where she has a significant part where she isn't talking about being black. I mean if you wanted to ACTUALLY integrate a cast of charactersit would help if you didn't constantly have them pointing out like "LOOK I'M BLACK! You didn't forget did you? Because it's annoying being the only black kid. AND I AM BLACK!"
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Illyngophobia — 10 years ago(October 06, 2015 01:52 PM)
I didn't find her annoying, but I am disappointed that she didn't have a lot of episodes where she had some form of a plotlinelet alone one or two where it's focused on her.
I would have loved to see a few about how she's tired of trying to live up to her parents' standards of perfection or add development with her relationship to Mack; sort of like what they did with Kevin and Brittany, where they had quite a bit of centered episodes and had their own episodes (like A Tree Grows in Lawndale if that counts).
Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing.
Orson Welles -
MovieGem — 10 years ago(October 08, 2015 09:34 AM)
BUT, I did like Jodie for the most part, b/c she was the neutral character. I actually liked that she brought up racial issues instead of being passive or overlooking things.Her parents were pretty extreme though lol. I liked Mack, he should have had more scenes.
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sweetprincessplacebo — 10 years ago(November 04, 2015 06:18 PM)
I loved Jodie, and she represented the life of many Black kids in an all white place. I definitely felt the same way she did, and it was crazy at the time I was a kid to hear EXACTLY what I felt. As far as her complaining they ALL complained, Daria complained about how everyone was stupid, Jodie made observations about being the only Black person and having friends to who lacked the empathy to even consider what they said to her. Considering how annoyed all of you were with her, can you wonder why all the real Jodies didn't like being the only Black person.
"Ain't nothing going on but the rent" -
VIETgrlTerifa — 9 years ago(December 27, 2016 07:36 AM)
I recently rewatched the entire series plus the two TV movies, and I found Jodie and Mack were even more relevant now than they were in the 1990s. It also helps that I'm a lot older in 2016 than when Daria first aired, but I was taken aback at how forward-thinking the show was in some of the lines they gave Jodie and Mack. Maybe it's not forward-thinking but lack of significant progress.