Tara Explains it All!

When I was younger, Clarissa Explains it All was my favorite show. I LOVED Clarissa. Her life, the way she talked and acted, and especially her fashion sense. Not to mention the fact that it was one of the first shows on Nickelodeon that was completely about a girls life! Clarissa was cool. She was smart. She had friends but she wasn't the "popular girl", and that made me love her even more. It felt like she was LIKE ME. Like me, only cooler, haha! I mean, she did have a pet baby alligator, her own theme song and news network, I couldn't exactly compete with that. But I found a connection with Clarissa that I think is very important. It think that it is important for everyone to be able to "see themselves" in the media. Even now, the shows that I am drawn to are the ones that I feel like I can relate to or have a connection to. For some queer girls, Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, provided that connection. In Queer Girls, Kerry, age 16, says "If it weren't for queer girls on TV, so many teenage lesbians would have killed themselves in the struggle to find themselves" (QG 57). Not only does a connection with a TV character provide a positive image or role model to young girls, but it can also give them hope that there are people out there like them and freedom to imagination what could be beyond their everyday lives (QG 59). In a way, I think that's what Clarissa did for me.

Another thing that I really liked about the show was the fact that Clarissa's best friend was a boy. I'm pretty sure that it was the first time I realized that boys and girls could be just friends, they didn't have to be boyfriend and girlfriend. I also really liked that fact that while there were certain episodes that dealt with Clarissa's love interests, she was not boy crazy! It was great to see a character being confident about who she was and not always worrying about what boys thought. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, growing up, especially in middle school, I had a hard time with that. So many messages are sent to young girls telling them that they should be pretty so boys will like them, so watching Clarissa not really care about that was rather refreshing! It kinda ties into what Sarah says in Red about "truthiness". To her, "its about staying true to what you believe in, whatever anyone else thinks" (Red 212). By this definition, Clarissa epitomizes truthiness! I guess she was WAY ahead of her time!

Like I mentioned earlier, I especially loved Clarissa's fashion sense. She had the best clothes! I mean come on, mini skirts with combat boots! As an 8 year old how could you not love that?! I think that even though I watched the show when I was in elementary and early middle school, Clarissa impacted my fashion sense permanently. Just that fact that she wore what she wanted even if that wasn't what was "in" at the time made me really admire her. In high school, I was the girl wearing pink fishnets with a PeeWee Herman t-shirt, and rockin' it if I do say so myself :). Popular culture influences EVERYTHING, from what we eat to what we wear. I'm fortunate because the person I decided to emulate turned out to be a pretty good role model (mostly at least,my parents drew the line at midriffs and combat boots to church). Some young girls today aren't quite as lucky. So many little girls are looking up to people like Britney Spears, thinking they have to be sexy. Even younger girls like Miley Cyrus, who are supposed to be the role models for "tweens" today, keep showing up in pictures half naked and pole dancing! They even changed Dora the Explorer to make her sexier!! Now who are girls supposed to look up to?? I wish that there were more good influences for our girls today. We need smart, confident girls on TV whose whole lives aren't about boys. We need to bring back Clarissa!!