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After an evening meal of hot dogs (thanks to Jake screwing up an order
for bulk-rate meat from an Internet company), the inevitable finally
arrives: Helen and Jake start putting gentle (but firm) pressure on
Daria to look into college scholarships. Daria is skeptical -- given her
glaring lack of extracurriculars, which most colleges like to see -- but
finally agrees to give it a go. Surfing the web, the closest thing she
can find is a $10,000 prize from the Wizard Foundation, given to the
student who best embodies "the Wizard pursuit of excellence" (whatever
that means). Further bad news: along with the application, the student
has to submit an essay about how he or she could change the world if
they could. Speaking with Jodie at school, Daria is openly skeptical of
the whole thing, but ultimately decides to go through with it, with a
Daria-esque twist: her essay is a scathing commentary about money, and
how its elimination could force politicians to stop pandering to special
interests, CEOs to treat the environment and their workers better, and
allow students to study instead of "wasting their time with pointless
scholarship essays." To her shock, Daria becomes a finalist... and finds
out that Jodie and Upchuck also made the cut. To say that Daria is
slightly irked would be an understatement, as she didn't expect
competition from "America's Studious Sweetheart" and the school's
biggest suck-up. To top it all off, Jane has developed a real attitude
over the whole situation (which only gets worse as time goes on), and
Daria finds out from Tom that Wizard's hiring and promotional practices
are not exactly progressive (very few women or minorities are hired or
elevated into top positions). Daria informs Jodie about what she's
learned, and while Jodie and her father agree that Wizard's practices
are pretty disturbing, Andrew manages to convince them to pursue the
award anyway by telling them that Wizard seems to be trying to fix the
situation, and besides, their policies will never change unless
women and minorities continue to make the attempt. To that end, Daria
finally makes an appointment with Dr. Danada, who basically tells her to
say what they want to hear and suck up as hard as she can... in other
words, exactly what Daria refuses to do. At the interview, Mr. Brower (a
Bill Gates lookalike) asks Daria, Jodie, and Upchuck routine questions
about their goals, their skills and faults, etc.; Jodie replies with pat
answers, Upchuck sucks up like a vacuum cleaner, and Daria is her
brutally honest self. In the end, none of them get the prize, and to add
insult to injury, Daria discovers that the people at Wizard thought that
her incisive essay was actually a light-hearted spoof! At lunch, Daria
and Jane reconcile, with Jane explaining that the reason she was so
upset was that she was feeling left out: her grades aren't exactly
stellar, while Daria and Jodie were fighting for a scholarship based on
their academic excellence. They both muse on how they must be growing
older, as they never used to think about such things. But Daria still
isn't willing to admit she's more competitive than she admits, because
if she was, she'd be in the parking lot competing in the hot dog
eating contest... which is being sponsored by Jake Morgendorffer
Consulting.
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Scholarship Pursuits:
While waiting for Jake's bulk rate prime rib (or whatever) and as he
lamented the fact that "food costs money," Quinn points out that once
Daria goes off to college, there will only be three mouths to feed.
Naturally, as Daria replied, that will hardly offset the cost of
tuition, room and board. Quinn, who is now using her recently discovered
intelligence more frequently, suggests that Daria should look into "one
of those scholarship thingies." Of course, Helen concurred with that and
moved in to try to persuade Daria to look into any possibilities she
could find. Since Daria doesn't have any extracurriculars, it would have
to be a purely academic award. Personally, I don't think having a lot of
extracurriculars is as important to college admissions boards as Helen
(and Jodie) think, especially in regards to someone like Daria that has
an exceptional academic record (though one or two activities, as a token
that there's life outside school, probably helps, and Daria doesn't even
have that). Helen finally gets Daria working on it by making it clear
that, if Daria wants to go to college, she should do it for herself to
try to get something to make sure she can better financially afford her
first-choice school. And, hey, if someone wants to give you money for
being who you are, why not?
Miss Wizard:
Once Daria decided to go for it, the first award she found was the
Wizard Corporation scholarship that would be given "for the pursuit of
excellence." As Daria tells Jane about the requirements for the prize,
which were a form and an essay, Jane scoffs at the whole process. She
said she doesn't want to "fill out five pounds of forms or kiss any
butts," before she caught herself. The next day, Jodie saw Daria in the
hall while looking for a new editor for the school newspaper and Daria
told her about the Wizard scholarship. Daria expressed her shock at the
amount of paperwork involved and was almost as shocked to hear that what
she described is "par for the course." Anyway, Daria turned down the
editor gig and told Jodie that she probably wasn't going to apply for
the scholarship anyway.
How Would You Change It?
The essay question itself was of the garden-variety "lame Miss America
finalist" question that has little or no real world value, unless you
have a lot of money lying around to get your ideas done. How would Daria
change the world? Some of her ideas included eliminating money, so
"promising young students could study instead of groveling for money."
Jane, while chowing on one of Jake's hot dog concoctions and listening
to Daria's essay, said that the essay wasn't going to work. Daria made
it clear that she wants to get the prize based on her real self without
making up stuff. Jane felt that was very naive of her, saying that Daria
must have been "born yesterday."
Hot Diggity Dog:
Speaking of Jake's hot dog concoctions, he seemed to have made a mistake
when ordering his prime rib (or whatever) and got hot dogs instead
("stupid blurry computer screen"). He then tried to peddle them off in a
variety of recipes, with the surplus going to Ms. Li's hot dog eating
contest. At least he got to show off his creativity, or his ability to
follow directions. This is just another example of Jake's questionable
judgment. Who would buy anything as perishable as meat in bulk for a
family of four?
The Final 100:
Daria made it as a finalist for Wizard's scholarship. It was hard to
tell if she was happy about it or not. She had to feel good about being
in the running but she was also one step closer to "selling out." Of
course, she wants to win (she said so herself) and was less than
thrilled that Jodie and Upchuck were also finalists. Daria is mad
because she told Jodie that she might apply and now felt that she didn't
have a chance against her without kissing some butt. Helen, after seeing
Daria's obvious disgust about that, told her that there's nothing wrong
with some competition (it's not like there wasn't going to be any
anyway) and that Daria might as well get used to it, and suggested an
interview coach to "tell [her] the things [she] would have learned
through experience." Jodie offers a referral to the same coach because
she felt bad about trying for the award. Both Helen and Jodie seemed to
think that the coach was a good idea. However, Jane felt that it would
be cheating. Personally, I wouldn't go to a coach, but I can't really
say I have too much of a problem with the idea.
Where's My Problem?
Tom, being the supportive boyfriend that he is, tries to help Daria
prepare for her important interview with a mock interview. He wants to
help her "stare evil in the face" by bringing up some of the injustices
in Wizard's hiring and promotion practices, which didn't seem too kind
to women or minorities. Daria didn't know about this at the time, but
her reaction to learning it was subdued. As Tom noted, she was neither
"leaping" nor "swearing" to do anything about it, probably because her
competitive juices got flowing and she was willing to ignore Wizard's
problems while going after their award. However, her principles got to
her and she went to Jodie's house to tell her Jodie about what she had
learned. Jodie's didn't really like it either, but they were both
surprised that Andrew Landon had already known about it. Daria's
intention in going to Jodie was that they both would drop out in protest
(even though Andrew thought otherwise), but Andrew convinced them
otherwise using the logic that this was a perfect opportunity for them
to try to do something about that. After all, if they dropped out, "they
could keep [them] out without doing anything." That's a very good point.
Also, it's hard to tell if Daria was suggesting that they drop out of
the contest to "reduce the competition," as Andrew implied, or because
she was looking for an out.
Prep Star:
Now that it seemed to Daria that she would indeed be going for the
scholarship (at least going through the motions), she broke down and
went for a coaching session. Her coach, Dr. Whatshisname (he was
forgettable enough as a character that I didn't bother to remember or
write down his name) gave her the standard advice. She should dress
nice, project "winner" and deliver what they want. Not bad advice (you
should hardly have to pay anyone for it), but because Daria resisted, or
at least made wisecracks about all of them, the good doctor felt he had
to ask if she really wants to win. She wants it, but not through
dishonesty. Does she feel she is deserving? That particular question was
the one causing the conflict in her. Wizards has less than stellar
ethics, so if she acts unethically, that makes her deserving, and if she
is ethical (and, by extension, honest) then she is undeserving. In
effect, she doesn't like what she has to be to deserve the award. I
think she may have missed the point a little with that reasoning. For
one, the award is supposedly for her academic achievement, not for her
potential as a Wizard hiring manager (though that criteria would also
make the entire interview process unnecessary). Also, sometimes it's
best to work within the system instead of staying out of it. If they
want to give you ten thousand dollars, take it.
So, This Is Oz:
Finally the interview arrives. A rep from Wizard asks Daria, Jodie and
Upchuck questions in a Dating Game format. That seemed a little
odd to me; I'd have thought that there would be two or three scholarship
people asking questions to each person individually (the way they did it
does work better for time constraints, though). Anyway, the interview
itself was predictable. Jodie and Upchuck gave the stock answers and
kissed a lot of behind while Daria was her usual flippant self. The
interviewer was getting visibly frustrated, letting out many audible
sighs; it seems he's heard a lot of this before (though his sighs at
Daria weren't as loud, but he did ask if she was trying to sabotage her
own chances). None of them won, despite Daria's high scores for her
"light-hearted spoof" of an entry essay. Oh well.
I Wanna Play, Too!
While all of this was going on, Jane showed her displeasure with the
whole process: the coach was a sign of a cheater, and Daria was sucking
up by even participating. After it was all over, she finally let it out
that she was troubled because she felt dumb watching all of the brains
duke it out for a prize. That's more than understandable.
Daria and Jane lament the events of "Prize Fighters," wondering aloud if
they're "buying into" or "selling out" to the system and abandoning
their standards to "get ahead." Maybe they're mellowing out somewhat and
are still learning how to use the system. Life is full of compromises,
after all. Daria did want the prize badly, not enough to lie, but enough
to be mad at Jodie. Maybe she's more of a pragmatist than she realizes.
In reality, this episode didn't do much to prove or disprove that. Daria
went along with the whole deal, but she went kicking and screaming, so
it's hard to tell what she wanted. Other than that, it also showed just
how hard it is to get one of those company-sponsored scholarships. I'm
not saying that anyone out there shouldn't go for them, but, as has been
my experience, the institution-granted scholarship market (in other
words, scholarships given directly by the school attended) is much more
lucrative. You usually can't apply directly for them, but many more are
usually available (how's that for a tangent).
Grade:
B
Daria as a Whole, Are They Graduating Yet?
Shouldn't Daria's class be about to graduate? Unless "Is It College
Yet?" is set months after this episode, the events of this episode seem
to be really late in the game to be throwing around terms like "first
choice school." The worst time to have yet to apply for the college
bound senior is a few weeks before finishing high school. By then, most
schools have their freshman class filled. This is just a minor
consistency in the Daria timeline, but it's definitely worth
mentioning.
Copyright © 2001 Mike Quinn [All Rights Reserved]. Used with
permission. The views presented in this review are those of the author,
and may or may not necessarily be those of Outpost Daria.
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