#carl and hoodsey

mmanalysis:

As much as I do like the show, As Told by Ginger, it is not above criticism and for me, the episodes revolving around her high school years are the weakest episodes to me.

They aren’t bad but they seemed to be lacking in something the other episodes had. To be fair, this does happen a lot when you take your characters into a different setting, especially if you’ve been at the same setting for a good number of episodes. I think there was a difficulty in translating the characters into a high school setting and taking elementary kids to a jr. high setting. I think with Carl’s gang, they could have made a few adjustments like making them taller or wearing different outfits to signify that they are older now. 

There’s also the issue of how Courtney Gripling was written in this arc. We went from the popular, top of the social chain girl to a girl who gets embarrassed, shoved into lockers, doesn’t get shown, and eventually lose her wealthy lifestyle. You could say its comeuppance but that would only work if Courtney acted like Miranda and Mipsy. If they wanted to show how a big fish in a small pond adapts to being with same sized or bigger fish, they should have spent more time on it. Instead it felt like the writers wanted to torture Courtney for funsies. 

Lastly, came the problem of Ginger and Darren’s relationship. The way the break up went started to go into a territory of annoying teenage angst with the break up happening around Ginger having appendicitis and Darren leaving her for the popular cheerleader. Actually, Darren transitioning into a football star just seemed off. While it’s true that people do change interests, we didn’t really get a reason why or even being shown him gradually liking it. 

Like I said earlier, these episodes aren’t the worse but did seem to be lacking in the charm the episodes had. Also, The Wedding Frame was a good sendoff despite Noelle Sussman. 

I think they did the shitty transition for Courtney bcuz she insulted the popular girls at the high school on the phone with her mother. They even flushed her phone down a toilet! She literally bought a fancy porta potty! Darren playing football was off, but I believe he joined for the fact that his older brother was in football and his dad most likely was as well. He probably wanted to follow the “winning streak”, which would also explain why he would like Simone as she was a cheerleader, and of course he wouldn’t opt for Dodie, even if she was a cheerleader too. That wouldn’t make sense, anyway. The episodes definitely lacked in charm. Actually, in just about everything, and I don’t know why they changed it. I mean, it started off good with Ging’s near addiction to coffee and her trouble with her teacher, so..what happened? I can’t help but wonder….

cartooncrunch:

mmanalysis:

Hey, did you know the show As Told By Ginger was doing feminism in more subtle ways than some adult shows? Here’s another episode that pretty much is in keeping with why As Told by Ginger is a great show for young girls.

The episode, Fast Reputation, is about Ginger wanting to be rid of her nice girl image and having her and her friends crash a high school party. What transpires is her meeting the “bad boy” guy underneath a table while looking for her keys and eventually sparking a rumor that more than that went on. 

While the show never outright says it, it’s pretty obvious that the rumor makes a reference that Ginger is a slut what with the girl who makes fun of nice girl image now taunting her about her “bad girl” image. Not to mention the girls gossiping about him having her house keys and the words “Ginger is fast” written in the bathroom. I think the show does a good job of showing how fast and degrading rumors can be to a person. 

It also touches on the whole virgin/whore dichotomy with Ginger being made fun of for being naive but then being judged for being “fast”, even if it wasn’t true. It’s a great mirror of our own society for ridiculing women wanting to wait to have sex yet degrading a woman for having sex. 

The words of wisdom actually come from Carl this time in the old phrase “Rubber glue, back to you” and Ms. Foutley pretty much saying that people will talk and you have to let them sometime because you know who you are as a person and you can’t let people take that away. It also feels like a subtle message that your private business is your own and whether you are having sex or not is nobody’s business. A little unrealistically is the rumor dissipating and nothing really sticking to Ginger but hey, I think they didn’t want to go too in depth with sexuality on a show for Nickelodeon. 

Overall, I suggest checking out the episode for yourself. Here’s a link to the first partandsecond part.

There’s so much I appreciate in As Told by Ginger, especially this episode. It’s not silent about real world issues generally skimmed over in a show for preteens.

I agree that they probably didn’t want to go too into depth but I think it’s pretty realistic how it dissipated once Ginger stopped caring and it became boring for them.

What stands out to me in this episode is how “the bad boy” acted. Based off his looks and everything else, I thought it was going to be a typical “boy brags and girl suffers rumors even though nothing happened” type of episode, especially since they didalmost kiss, but that doesn’t happen. For starters, they run into each other at the dentist where, because it’s the dentist, they comment something about her teeth being white, I believe it was some sort of nickname, while he’s in the waiting room with her. When she sees him at the party later, I believe he remembered this when they almost kissed, but when she didn’t want to, he didn’t push. Like, at all, which is just about the opposite of what I thought was going to happen. When she can’t find her house keys afterwards and he gives them to her at school the next day, it’s Courtney and Miranda who jump to assumption and approach him. He joking calls her the same thing the dentist called her, which again, dentist, so it hasto do with her mouth. It was a completely innocent and joking comment and not AT ALL sexual from what I remember, but without context Courtney and Miranda basically make up this whole story and thus the rumor starts. I love that they didn’t have Jake be an asshole who started the rumor to humiliate Ging or brag, it was just a misunderstanding. He really iscool :P