Yeah, you guys are really committed to this joke.
I commend you.
Who's joking?
Yeah.
Oh.
Cohen, what's the matter?
Nothing.
You're not man enough for two girls?
I gotta call Ryan.
We live in a world somewhat dominated by nerd culture.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars,
and every other nerdy media franchise
has been accepted by mainstream global culture with open arms.
However, it wasn't always this way.
There was a time when being a, quote, unquote,
"nerd" wouldn't have won you points at your school cafeteria
table.
Some have pointed to the rise of sitcoms like The Big Bang
Theory, or the ubiquity of Harry Potter or Twilight,
as the cultural touchstones that allowed for wider acceptance.
In reality, though, that turning point
might have been a little TV show that
managed to sneak in a bit of reel change--
a show set in Orange County.
See, it's arguable that Adam Brody's Seth Cohen of The O.C.
was an engine of cultural change.
It's hard to imagine a time when the nerdy outsider wasn't
positioned as the cool know-it-all,
but that was the case.
Did you say you need a ride to a Star Wars convention?
The Star Wars convention?
I'm sorry, her top was off.
You couldn't have at least said X-Men for me?
Prior to Seth Cohen, nerds generally weren't cool.
The writers of the show went out of their way
to play the character of Seth and his idiosyncratic interest
and obsessions as a positive thing, not something
to be mocked.
This was a radical departure from the style and habit
with which characters, like Seth, were
treated in other media.
Remember Revenge of the Nerds?
That's a whole movie franchise ostensibly built off "look
at the dorks."
The O.C. was a television show that ran from 2003 to 2007,
created by screenwriter Josh Schwartz.
The show starred Adam Brody, Ben McKenzie, Mischa Barton,
and Rachel Bilson.
In the hands of a more traditional showrunner,
the prime time soap opera would have been a standard,
run-of-the-mill 90210 clone.
You know the formula--
The CW is practically weaponizing it at this point.
You get a bunch of attractive 20-somethings, pair them up,
do the whole will-they-won't-they dance,
and play catchy pop music underneath shots of them making
out.
And while The O.C. definitely had those elements within it,
it also had something more.
Got a lot of testosterone pumping right now,
Ryan-- testosterone being the key ingredient missing
from Alex's previous relationship.
I just need a reminder of that.
The O.C.'s premise is a fish out of water story
following Ryan Atwood, played by McKenzie,
as a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who
ends up in Orange County.
Pretty stereotypical.
He's then adopted by the well-off Cohen family.
We follow Ryan as he attempts to navigate
the sometimes vapid, sometimes insidious world of California
high school, all with the assistance of his newfound best
friend by proxy, Seth.
On paper, Seth was a nerdy, lanky Jewish kid
who was into indie music and comic books.
This character has been featured in a million other TV shows
and media as the brunt of everyone's joke.
He's the bespectacled best friend relegated
to the supporting role.
However, the fact that both Schwartz and longtime writer
on the show, Allan Heinberg, were deeply avid comic book
heads meant they wanted to depict Brody's character
as the cool outsider, which is exactly what happened.
Seth's brooding, overlooked individualism
skyrocketed the character to popularity overnight.
He quickly became a style icon of the early 2000s.
He knew all the coolest bands, read all the coolest books,
and had seen all the coolest movies.
How did you first come up with the lightsaber?
The show flipped the let's make fun of the nerdy kid
for liking Star Wars trope on its head almost immediately.
Brody's casting helped aid in this.
Yes, you need the cute girls, flashy edits,
and luxurious California locations,
but Adam Brody is what made the show unique.
He's the charismatic cast member who
makes the most of every scene.
He rings every possibility for humor and charm
out of every line.
And let's also remember for a second
that the landscape of prime time soap operas in the early 2000s
was very different.
Today, it feels like every one of these shows
is literally based on a comic book property,
like Riverdale and Archie.
However, back in 2000, the prime time soaps that existed
wanted nothing to do with anything of that kind.
One Tree Hill, Desperate Housewives, Gossip Girl
and other shows of their ilk all had
a specific and refined aesthetic-- glossy
cinematography, instantly of-the-moment fashions,
and impossibly good-looking people
who looked genetically engineered in a lab.
The shows focused on the interpersonal drama and love
lives of these characters, but rarely focused
on their passions, interests, or character details
outside of the direct conflict of the week.
The O.C. managed to fit in that box,
but flipped those storytelling conventions on their head,
delving deeper into their characters' intentions,
their lives, and what mattered to them.
The show generated audience empathy for their cast
by exploring everything a traditional prime time
soap did, while also exploring the characters'
less-than-conventional interests, as well.
In many ways, Seth was everyone's gateway.
Both the audience and the characters on the show
were introduced to cool new pieces of media
and fell in love with them.
People who normally would not engage in some of these things
but would watch The O.C. were now
doing so, whether it be films or comic books.
It was some's introduction to those things.
In one episode, Seth goes to the literal offices
of WildStorm Comics at San Diego to pitch a comic book series.
This is to say nothing of the ubiquitous Wonder Woman, Flash
and other comic book character jokes.
There's a whole arc where Seth gets Ryan
into reading the Legion of Super-Heroes.
As if these references weren't enough for you,
there's also the fact that Seth routinely
has lengthy monologues about comic book creators,
like Brian Michael Bendis.
The show mainstreamed the idea that cool people
could be into nerdy things a good 10 years
before that conversation was actually
happening within the zeitgeist of pop culture.
And they didn't do this superficially.
It was a very specific version of that conversation.
Usually, movies or media that feature nerdy obsessions were
aimed at men and created by men--
think Kevin Smith or Tarantino.
Most of these dialogue specific auteurs
weren't aiming their projects at young women.
They were trying to appeal to male film buffs
because, well, that's who they were.
The O.C. was a decidedly glossy network prime time soap,
as I already mentioned, that just
happened to have these peculiar interests.
These conversations and long monologues
were being smuggled into a show primarily watched
by teenage girls.
There's even a running thread where
Seth tries to get Summer into Batman by giving
her Dark Knight Returns.
Start you off with some basics.
Batman, the Dark Knight Returns is very important.
Watchmen and The Sandman.
Enjoy.
And it wasn't just comics.
This happened with music--
"Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap became a viral meme
due to its use in the show.
Heap became a superstar musical act almost overnight due to The
O.C..
This goes for the band Phantom Planet, as well.
Their record, The Guest, shot up the indie charts
after their song "California" was
selected to be the show's intro credit song.
And much of this was thanks to Alexandra Patsavas,
who picked out all the bands that would appear on the show
and, specifically, what music Seth Cohen would listen to
during the episodes.
The show's musical orientation became so well known
that they introduced a fictional location, The Bait Shop,
intended to be similar to how The Peach Pit or The Bronze
were.
There, they literally had record labels courting The
O.C.'s producers, attempting to get them to spotlight
their bands--
sending them merch, free records,
and calling their personal home phone numbers
to attempt to sway them into using their label's
bands on the program.
Let's not forget that after all of this,
Adam Brody was literally cast as the Flash
in George Miller's Justice League: Mortal, which
would have launched a Flash franchise of movies out
of it, which unfortunately never happened due
to the mid-2000s WGA writer's strike,
but it's still kind of happened, at least in conception.
Modern memory of The O.C. seems to be, oh yeah,
wasn't that the one show where they killed Mischa Barton off?
Which is fascinating, considering
that it was a highly rated and critically lauded
prime time program, unfortunately
only lasting four seasons.
But in that time, it had six soundtracks
released, compiling all the bands it featured on the show.
However, during the third season, the show seemingly lost
its way, didn't quite know what to do with its characters,
and, well, permanently damage its public perception.
The old adage of don't judge a book by its cover
is so tired and fatigued that it's almost ridiculous
to even say at this point.
There's good reason that we judge books
by their covers- that's why they're there.
But that doesn't mean that you should avoid every cover that
catches your eye.
And better yet, when you're creating,
it doesn't mean that your book needs to be
exactly what's on the cover.
You can be a prime time soap opera
that cares more about what's happening in nerd culture
than it does fashion culture.
Once you have your structure with whatever you're making,
whatever you're doing, as long as it's consistent,
don't let the structure you've already created be a hindrance.
Use it to your advantage, introduce people
to something new, introduce yourself to something new.
It's not the best thing in the world to bait and switch,
but baiting and surprising is a whole different story.
Well, guys, that's it for today's episode of Nerdstalgic.
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