This Week's Script Cavalcade: Blossom Blossoms
It was the TV decade that brought us Boy Meets World, My So-Called Life, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Freaks and Geeks and everything in between. It was the 1990s – and the same poignant, truthful focus that John Hughes brought to movies about teens and growing up in the 1980s seemed to gradually make its way to small screens. From sitcoms to one-hour dramas, TV shows from the 90s took a Hughes-ian cue and treated the subject of coming-of-age not with exaggeration, but with subtlety and seriousness, often finding honest humor as a meaningful by-product. Perhaps this is why those of us who literally came of age during the 1990s often look back on the decade with fondness (whether it was actually a great time to be alive or not). Shows like these help us to recognize the lessons inherent in our own experience and offer us instruction on how to face the newness and scariness of getting older.
A particularly phenomenal example of “lessons-in-growing-up” TV is the second episode of the series Blossom. Entitled “Blossom Blossoms” and written by Racelle Rosett Shaefer, it was the first episode of the show to air when the show was ordered as a mid-season replacement by NBC in January of 1991. (Its pilot had already aired in July of the previous year). As a part of the 90s theme we’ve been exploring on our social media channels this week, I want to implore you to check out this script the next time you’re in the WGF Library.
The general gist: Blossom, an adolescent girl, being raised by her single musician father and two goofy older brothers starts her period… and she can find nobody to provide her with the understanding and instruction that she needs as she cycles out of girlhood and into womanhood.
The episode draws attention and gives gravitas to the uniquely feminine part of growing up, which up until this point was very often under or misrepresented or made out to be some kind of horror show (Carrie, anyone?). In fact, the subplot finds Blossom’s brothers, Joey and Anthony, making horror videos for school about things that can incite violence. As the story progresses, the episode lovingly references and subverts “The Carrie trope” and we learn with Blossom that one thing that isn’t violent or scary, but completely natural is getting one’s period – and it’s okay to talk about it.
I write in a previous post on this blog about Lisa Simpson trying to find somebody to understand her struggle with sadness and how her mother steps in to empathize and help at the 11th hour. What’s interesting about Blossom is that she doesn’t have a mother to give her instruction during this time. She has her father, her brothers, her best friend and an older woman named Agnes, who lives next door, but there’s nobody to give her the kind of support she really needs (or so she thinks). With her father and brothers, she’s afraid to even broach the subject.
It’s up to Blossom’s Father, Nick, to step in and zoom past his socially prescribed role and offer a kind of compassionate mothering to his kid. When Blossom gets up the nerve to tell her Dad she got her period, he sits her down and talks with her while attempting to braid her hair. He vocally celebrates that his daughter is getting older and encourages his sons to do the same. It’s sweet and almost revolutionary to see a rock star Dad avoid falling into the pitfalls of storytelling banality. He’s not on the road, having abandoned his family. He’s more than there for them.
With television writing like this, a critical part of growing up is not only brought to light, but championed. Girls get reinforcement that their experience is valid, learning that it’s okay to talk about their periods and ask for help when they need it, that it shouldn’t be something catastrophic, or to be ashamed of – and perhaps fathers, mothers, brothers, friends and chosen families too can find an example of how to support each other.
If you want more 90s teen-focused TV, be sure to peruse our catalog. Along with The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, you can find:
A newly acquired draft of The Fifth Element by Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen,
Season 3 of Starz' Power,
and many, many episodes of 1980s detective procedural, Remington Steele.