"The brilliant, sweet and sarcastic black girl magic that is Jodie Landon."
Tracee Ellis Ross has just answered the prayers of dry-humored 90s babies everywhere! Yes, the iconic actress is reviving a television classic like never before. It was recently reported that Ross would be producing a reimagining of the hit cartoon series Daria, but with an unexpected twist!
That's right, the upcoming version of the series actually won't be about Daria at all but instead will center around Morgendorffer's intelligent, no nonsense classmate Jodie Landon.
Check out the FULL article below from the good folks at Teen Vogue:
News broke from MTV Studios yesterday that the Blackish star would be voicing and executive producing Jodie —a spinoff of the original Beavis and Butthead-derived, cult classic Daria cartoon that dominated MTV’s airwaves 22 years ago.
The show will focus on Daria’s now culturally-iconic high school best friend Jodie Landon, who during the show’s original helm served as one of the only prominent Black characters during the show’s five seasons. The spinoff will follow Jodie as she navigates a work-life balance type of world and “comes into her own and enters the workplace in her first post-college job in tech,” according to the official press release. It went on to describe the upcoming revival as a “smart, funny workplace comedy full of commentary about everything from gentrification to sex to tech to call-out culture.”
Even while living in a culture where every other day there’s an announcement of a new television or movie revival, a Jodie spinoff is a concept that could actually benefit and influence a new generation of coming of age Black girls.
While Daria served as the angsty and ironic feminist anti-hero of the late 90s, Jodie’s narrative as a suburban-raised Black girl who knows how hard she had to work in order to obtain the success her family expects of her, is a story that Black women, no matter their age, can still relate to.
“Being able to give voice to fresh, feminist and unexplored stories of young women excites me,” said Tracee Ellis Ross in a statement. “With the brilliant, sweet and sarcastic black girl magic that is Jodie Landon, we will feature a diverse cast, comprised mainly of unapologetically smart and ambitious young female characters who are vulnerable and flawed and interesting and funny.”
MTV Studios went on to hint that more Daria universe spin offs could be on the way — but it was an excellently-timed move on their part knowing that Jodie was the relaunch that right now, Black women wanted most.
Thoughts?