My Admirable Admiration: A Lesson In Tightropes

Credit goes to the Mysterious Mr. Enter and his series "Admirable Animations". mrenter.deviantart.com/



Ever since I was 10, I've watched "As Told By Ginger" and looked forward to every episode. I was perplexed when I couldn't find any high school episodes and was ecstatic to see the DVD release of the finale. Hell, you can tell she inspired me due to the avis I use in my Twitter and Deviant accounts. So Ginger has seen me through my preteen years, junior high, my 13th birthday, and even my 8th grade graduation....and I've hardly found any other cartoons to match up aside from "Daria" and "Hey Arnold!" I can safely say that Ginger deserves to be grouped with relatable and (sometimes) complicated young female characters like the cast of "Girls" and Peggy Olson and Sally Draper of "Mad Men", actually I'd say those shows owe a lot to ATBG, only that said characters often lack a strong figure like Lois Foutley (how is it that L. Griffin is the more well known Mom?). ATBG had character development, characters who were both sophisticated and naive, a lot of laughter, heart, and it wasn't afraid to talk to the audience on their level and with the assumption that viewer is mature and intelligent. Like Ginger, I've had to deal with a break up and getting an operation to get an organ (gallbladder in mine, appendix for Ginger) removed within the same week. Needless to say: even as a twenty-something in reception job working on her Master's, Ginger is still there for me.

So here is "A Lesson In Tightropes", a episode that can be stashed under melodrama yet does so much in the span of 30 minutes (including commercials). The episode starts with Ginger crossing the hallway whilst narrating "Have you ever been struck by the feeling that something is wrong? Nothing in particular, mind you, nothing you can quite put your finger on. Just an overwhelming sense that things in your universe...have well...shifted. And even if the answer is right there staring you straight in the eye, somehow you still don't see it." while greeting upperclasswoman and cheerleader Simone. It cuts to the boys restroom where Darren, her longtime friend and boyfriend is debating on telling the truth about his cheating heart. Then later Ginger jumpstarts band practice and sings a rocking  and angsty version of a song that will be very important in this episode: "Splinter In My Heart" when Darren shows up asking to talk. When Ginger is motormouthing about how they can work it out, Darren spits out that he's seeing Simone and her reaction is heartwrenching.

GINGER: Don't do this! Darren don't! *crying*
DARREN: Ginger, wait!
GINGER: I can try harder...I won't miss a game, I'll be there in the stands cheering you on and....
DARREN: You'll be miserable! Both of us will, it's not who you are.
GINGER:  Who am I?
DARREN: You're Ginger Foutley. And you're opinionated, headstrong, and wonderful....and you think football is stupid and you're probably right! And we fight all the time and things with Simone are just...well...easier.

Not cool dude

So Ginger storms off to her house. Where we cut to the Bishop household where Carl, Ginger's brother, critiques a romance novel that Hoodsey Bishop nicked from his mother's shelf. Darren storms in to see Dodie, Ginger's fair weather gal pal and Hoodsey's sister, where he cries about how he broke up with Ginger and Dodie just mouths shit that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was likely rolling her eyes at ("I made up that theory twerp"). Dodie continues to be useless (thankfully sassy and geeky Macie is around) when Ginger states how her insides exploded (foreshadowing!) while looking at the broken picture frame of her and Darren. Ginger continues moaning...as if in pain; time passes and mother Lois comes in to check on her and notices something is wrong with her napping daughter: her temperature is TOO DAMN HIGH! Her fiance and co-worker, Dr. Dave, calls for an ambulance. Carl and Hoodsey discuss romance novel jargon while Hoodsey's haughty mother Joanne reads a recipe for turkey...in a manner best read by Blanche Devereaux and asks Carl to call home for a ride, just when the ambulance passes.

Ginger is rushed to the operating room with Doctor Dave in charge while Lois waits outside. When Dave assures her she'll be better, Ginger makes a reference to another man in her life who left her.

GINGER: *groggily and dreamily* My Dad used to call me that [Pumpkin].

The screen goes black with a dialogue announcing that she's hemorrhaging. We then get a glorious animated shots and a different tune for "Splinter in my Heart" 

Shots consisting of the camera looking down at Ginger surrounded by persons in white, panning over to a worried Lois in the waiting room, flashbacks to Ginger's birth, her first steps, she riding a swing and transitioning from toddler to tweenhood, Ginger in the operating room thinking of her current life as a band member and songwriter, writing in her diary, the camera pans over pictures kept on the Foutley family mantle, Lois and others in the waiting room, Ginger with her oxygen mask, the clock in her bedroom reading 5:55 pm during a flashback where Darren climbs to her window in better days, and then likely thinking to her future in the city as a young woman at a laundromat where her creation from her "And She Was Gone" poem passes by and Ginger marks an ad reading: "WANTED Ginger Foutley. Must be Opinionated, Headstrong, Wonderful" and sees her preteen self in the washer window. The song ends where she overhears Dave telling Lois that the surgery was a success but she's still weak from fighting the infection, and we get a glimpse of how guilty Lois is just when her ex-husband and Ginger's father, Jonas, comes in. Dave leaves because...awkward.....to leave Lois to explain previous events. This is where Ginger wakes up and shows her insight.

GINGER: Thought that nagging pain in the pit of my stomach was trying to tell me about Darren, turns out it was trying to tell me something about me.

Dr. Dave watches, feeling awkward as his fiance bonds with her daughter and ex. Carl saves him from a nosy old lady where he shows his worry and avoids seeing his deadbeat dad.

CARL: If it's all the same Dave-O, I think I like to stay out here for a while...with you (SUBTEXT: I don't owe my daddy shit, you my real Father).

Simone consoles Darren while in the gift shop, saying this mess wasn't his fault at all. They leave after Darren tosses a note meant for Ginger, given how Darren is afraid to face her. Where we cut to Hoodsey reading a romance novel where a man makes his lover "murmur". Dodie and Macie come bearing gifts and a dorky "get well" song before Dodie spits out "Did you almost die?" and Ginger says that her scar is low enough to wear a bikini. The topic turns to Darren and Ginger asks if he knew what happened and whether he'll visit....while Dodie and Macie try to let her down easy: Darren isn't going to visit and Ginger tries to make the best of it....and let's it be known she is bummed out about this piece of news. This is where I can relate, you wonder if the other person cares and get into another funk. But as this episode points out: it really, really is hell with both parties.

Speaking of relationship drama: Dave goes to talk with Jonas for awkward small talk and about the family, where Jonas addresses the elephant in the bedroom: his failure as a father to Ginger and Carl and a husband to Lois. The fact that David Dave (I know) is a far more reliable father figure and future husband than he'll ever be. Lois finds her atheist son coming out of the chapel where he notices she brought a coffee for her ex and gushes over how he's been so terrific with Ginger. Carl then rants about how Jonas wasn't there for him and Ginger and he's ruining Lois's and Dave's relationship with one another, trying to get back into the fold. Another elephant in the bedroom addressed. Later Lois confesses feeling guilty about how she isn't home enough and worried that her daughter could've died if she was out at work, again another example of the realism captured in ATBG, working moms often are made to feel guilty about holding a job outside the home and worry if they're with their kids enough...no matter how good and loving (as Lois is) as Moms. After consoling her, Dave then asks her if Jonas's attentiveness have attracted her to him again; and while it was comforting to Lois to have her ex around for their daughter, she is not in love and kisses Dave while Carl eavesdrops.

CARL: Now that's romance *satisfied*

We see a custodial staff woman gather garbage, which consists of Darren's discarded letter while Ginger's band-friend Orion comes to visit her. He tells her about how his heart broke, flew, and got put together about the news; Hoodsey comments how Ginger just murmured.

Ginger's old teacher Ms. Zorski comes to visit her and they trash talk Zorski's bitchy teacher cousin at school. Ginger talks to her about the break up and misses being able to talk to him and how he hasn't visited her....could he have stopped caring about her at a point? Same custodial staff comes by and Ginger notices the discarded card which is erroneously given to her (NOT COOL HER IMMUNE SYSTEM IS WEAK LADY) and reads:

DARREN: Dear Ginger, I feel so helpless right now. More than anything, I want to be there for you-but I don't know how. In spite of everything that's happened between us, I just want you to know that...
GINGER: That's it, that's all he wrote, why didn't he finish it? *moaning*
CUSTODIAL LADY: But he did finish it, it just doesn't have an ending. 

And we cut to a shot of Ginger's perplexed expression...foreshadowing something. And we cut to credits.

This episode was actually listed by DeebieDoobie in her countdown of her top 5 episodes and her review noting in the moral: "just because your significant other broke up with you doesn't mean they don't care about you anymore" which is something that really, really needs to be driven home more. 

Well thanks for heading on this journey with me and hope to see you soon when I submit more artwork, it's been an honor to make this emotional journey with you all.