New ZIP code of drama to premiere
Courtesy of JUSTIN BRAUN
“The Monica 90404,” premiering today, is a Web series that takes a critical look at teen dramas like “The OC” and “Gossip Girl.” The show satirizes recurring themes in these shows, such as the younger ages the actors are expected to portray.
By Teresa Jue
April 25, 2010 9:36 p.m.
Emo cheerleaders, seductively boozy mothers and a whole lot of teenage angst take center stage in the teen Web comedy “The Monica 90404.”
The show, which premieres today on its website, satirizes the concept of the teen drama, in which melodramatic elements of popular shows with regionally based names such as “One Tree Hill,” “The OC” and “Beverly Hills 90210″ are heightened to a parodic level. Justin Braun, creator and star of “The Monica 90404,” developed the idea for his show after years of watching teen dramas and noticing how ridiculous many of the plots were.
“I started conceiving this idea for the show probably about two years ago. I watched a lot of teen dramas like “˜One Tree Hill’ and “˜The OC,’ and they all kind of had the same formula in the show. I thought it would be funny to take that formula and kind of flip it upside down and do a bit of a spoof of the whole process,” Braun said.
Taking place at Santa Monica High School, the show surrounds Braun’s self-aware character Brian, who broods it up to earn the love of the equally brooding cheerleader, Kiera, played by Julia Lehman.
With sidekicks ranging from promiscuous jocks and perennially perky cheerleaders to awkward best friends and the omnipresent Solo cup, the show spoofs the high school experience with the backdrop of familiar settings, such as downtown Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Pier. Add a Relient K theme song about persevering through bleakness, and the show multiplies its melodrama.
“I think everyone has this morbid curiosity on what teenagers do and how things play out in high school, the whole hierarchy. I just think if you take a step back and analyze it, it’s kind of funny how all these shows harp on these four years of a person’s life, which are the adolescent years, and we kind of focus on that whole idea in the show,” Braun said.
Undoubtedly, teen dramas are overwrought with problems of the adolescent. From the melodramatic death of Marissa Cooper on “The OC” to the brooding, squinty-eyed angst of Chad Michael Murray’s character on “One Tree Hill,” teen dramas can set themselves up for hilarity.
Shirly Brener, an actress and producer who plays the Web show’s aforementioned boozy mom, Mrs. Anderson, said she sees the soap opera appeal of teen dramas.
“There’s just something beyond the teen angst. I think it’s almost to the point of a late-night soap opera or a telenovela, and I think all the drama and all the interrelationships and all the sexual tension and the cat fights are what people get addicted to,” Brener said.
First-year business economics student Sofie Zarrabi, who watches teen shows such as “Gossip Girl” and “The OC,” said she derives pleasure from watching other teens suffer through the drama without having to suffer it herself.
“In my life, I like to stay away from drama, and watching those shows gives me the satisfaction of getting to experience it without it affecting my life,” Zarrabi said.
These theatrics are exactly what “The Monica 90404″ picks up on and deliciously spoofs in equally dramatic fashion. For instance, the show’s characters are a play on a situation often found in teen dramas, in which actors well out of high school age range play teenagers.
“It’s kind of funny because I’m 32, and the girl they cast as my daughter is only three years younger than me, but that’s sort of the point because the mom and all the actors on these shows like “˜Beverly Hills 90210′ are in their 30s playing kids who are 18. I think the joke begins there, that the mom looks kind of the same age as all of the kids,” Brener said.
As a show based on dramas that take themselves too seriously, Braun said it is natural to make fun of the teen angst on “The Monica 90404.”
“Teens just take things so seriously, and for them the littlest thing is the end of the world,” Braun said. “I just think that the heightened situations are so crazy that it’s really easy to make fun of it.”
