Buffy's Not the Only One with Religious Themes, Cory Mathews Has Some Ideas Too
A half hour ago, I set for myself a fairly solid plan to waste the next thirty minutes of my life. I had an exam today and have been working a little too hard since early this morning. This wasted time was to be my one breather, a chance to veg out and drift away from thought. So, I popped in my roomie’s ancient Boy Meets World DVD’s (the episodes from back in middle school, of course). Who wouldn’t want to veg out to the antics of a pre-teen Cory Mathews?
Yet, this episode surprised me. One - because I hadn’t seen it before and I have come to believe that no Boy Meets World episode escaped my obsession for ABC family. But mostly, I was surprised by the subject matter.
In this episode, Mr. Pheeny assigns The Diary of Anne Frank to Cory’s class. In some conventionally ridiculous plot line, Cory bets Mr. Pheeny that he can be a better teacher. He risks his bike, saying that he can get more students to pass a test on the book than usually would. Throughout the episode, Cory whines, as pre-teen boys do, having trouble finding a way to get his classmates to listen. He thinks that "history is history". That all changes when he comes home to Eric’s girlfriend crying because someone in the mall hurled a slang term for Chinese at her. He now knows what he has to do.
Now, I am less surprised by a sitcom’s attempt to address a serious subject than by how actually accurate the writers were in portraying the idea that in white suburbia, kids grow up thinking that prejudice no longer exists. I used to think that no one could be that behind the times. I thought prejudice was a thing of the past, just like Cory did. But all that changed one trip to Sarasota, Florida last year.
My best friend, Iris, had moved down there a couple months before. The good friend I am, I came to visit right away, to make sure she was settled. The crazy, party girl she is, she had a hundred new friends already. One night of my visit, she invited a bunch of boys from her new high school over to swim. It was the Saturday night before Easter, and somehow it came up that I didn’t have to worry about getting up early – I, being Jewish, wouldn’t be attending church. I mentioned light-heartedly that I didn’t even remember what Easter was about.
The boys immediately dropped their jaws. One’s silly cowboy hat even fell off his head. They stood, staring at me like I were an alien, for almost a minute. I motioned to Iris and began to say, “Well she’s …”, but Iris cut me off before I could finish with, “half Jewish, too.” That’s when I knew prejudice still existed.
So, the point of this rambling - cheers to Boy Meets World. Hopefully it can teach some Sarasota boys that both country music and prejudice are a little out of style.
Yet, this episode surprised me. One - because I hadn’t seen it before and I have come to believe that no Boy Meets World episode escaped my obsession for ABC family. But mostly, I was surprised by the subject matter.
In this episode, Mr. Pheeny assigns The Diary of Anne Frank to Cory’s class. In some conventionally ridiculous plot line, Cory bets Mr. Pheeny that he can be a better teacher. He risks his bike, saying that he can get more students to pass a test on the book than usually would. Throughout the episode, Cory whines, as pre-teen boys do, having trouble finding a way to get his classmates to listen. He thinks that "history is history". That all changes when he comes home to Eric’s girlfriend crying because someone in the mall hurled a slang term for Chinese at her. He now knows what he has to do.
Now, I am less surprised by a sitcom’s attempt to address a serious subject than by how actually accurate the writers were in portraying the idea that in white suburbia, kids grow up thinking that prejudice no longer exists. I used to think that no one could be that behind the times. I thought prejudice was a thing of the past, just like Cory did. But all that changed one trip to Sarasota, Florida last year.
My best friend, Iris, had moved down there a couple months before. The good friend I am, I came to visit right away, to make sure she was settled. The crazy, party girl she is, she had a hundred new friends already. One night of my visit, she invited a bunch of boys from her new high school over to swim. It was the Saturday night before Easter, and somehow it came up that I didn’t have to worry about getting up early – I, being Jewish, wouldn’t be attending church. I mentioned light-heartedly that I didn’t even remember what Easter was about.
The boys immediately dropped their jaws. One’s silly cowboy hat even fell off his head. They stood, staring at me like I were an alien, for almost a minute. I motioned to Iris and began to say, “Well she’s …”, but Iris cut me off before I could finish with, “half Jewish, too.” That’s when I knew prejudice still existed.
So, the point of this rambling - cheers to Boy Meets World. Hopefully it can teach some Sarasota boys that both country music and prejudice are a little out of style.
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