Mara Brock Akil on ‘My So-Called Life’: ‘It Was a Beacon for What Was Possible’
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As part of Variety‘s 100 Greatest Television Shows of All Time issue, we asked 12 of our favorite creators of television to discuss the series that inspire and move them. Check out all the essays, and read our full list of the best TV shows ever made.
There was a time when people rushed home to watch TV shows live as they aired — a phenomenon we called “Appointment TV.” And in the fall of 1994, just one year into living my Hollywood dream at age 24, I would barrel into my apartment and hurriedly flip the channels on my 13-inch television to watch Claire Danes on “My So-Called Life.” This was more than a television show to me. It was a beacon for what was possible for me to create one day — entertaining stories and honest reflections of the human condition, without car chases, crimes, or procedural storytelling.
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At this time, I was unemployed with plenty of Northwestern student loans to pay back. In one year, I had gone from Production Assistant on “The Sinbad Show” to the WGA Writer’s Trainee on Fox’s ground-breaking dramedy, “South Central.” I was living the dream, until the show was canceled after airing its initial 10 episodes. Bliss had come and gone, so Thursday nights — after a long day of writing at Insomnia Cafe, drinking green tea until the refills turned into tinted hot water — provided me an hour to trade in the butterflies of my own so-called life for the bittersweet angst of Angela Chase, a young fifteen year-old girl trying to figure out life in Three Rivers, Pennsylvania.
Like all people who were young once, I got my life back from this seminal show. All of our teenage insanity was finally depicted as normalcy. Winnie Holzman’s series became an instant classic — for those who saw it. After only one season — even though Rolling Stone and Time raved about it — another great show was canceled. In all, we got 19 episodes to devour — and eat it up I did. (That’s not just because I was literally starving.)
I loved interrogating the cinematic choices — the lack of words used in this teenage coming-of-age story. Television at that time seemed to require teens to say everything they were thinking, or should be thinking to help track plot, as well as to set up their motivations for their next actions after the ubiquitous tell-your-friend-your-woes scenes. The freedom to show these young characters, unsure and lost in the abyss of their emotions, was captivating. Because simply put, sometimes you don’t have the words for why you want to trade in your old friend for your new friend. The space and the quiet contemplation that Winnie gave the storytelling also served as an invitation for the audience to project ourselves into the story and fill in the gaps with our own emotional intelligence — and our memories of teenage life.
In an era of procedurals that chased down the bad guys and the serial killers among us, “My So-Called Life” reminded us that the biggest drama in our lives is putting one foot in front of the other toward the direction of your dreams — even if you’re lost, between best friends, or, in my case, unemployed.
Mara Brock Akil is the creator of television series including “Girlfriends,” “The Game,” “Being Mary Jane,” and “Love Is ___.”
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