Crystal Clear

Oh, I'm with you I definitely saw the double standard in them going for the 'innocent Donna' direction but they kept allowing Tori to dress as if she was going to nightclubs every night.

Plus, and I don't mean to speak out of line, but I can understand why David got a mixed message from it.

yulan

I never thought about ideas he might have got from her clothing. Maybe he expected to have sex with her in S2 just because he was under impression everybody was doing it, and that it was somehow expected from him to suggest. Or he thought Donna would be into it simply because she was... Kelly's friend, and tried to copy her for awhile.

Now thinking of it, her S2 chlotes might have been her most modest on the show. Halloween and Things to Do on a Rainy Day were probably the episodes where she showed the most skin.

But yeah. Interesting that she showed more skin in her Halloween costume of mermaid than Kelly in her witch costume, yet it was not considered ****ty while Kelly's was considered as such.

Crystal Clear

I get why Tori was so risque with her fashion on the show - it was quite mature for a teen show of its time, and she wanted to fit in. I totally get it. But I do think it was problematic for representing Donna; I don't think they got the balance right a lot of the time.

I'm not saying that Donna isn't entitled to dress how she wants to, but she always seemed so innocent (alongside Andrea, who never really dressed in a daring way even when she started getting involved with College guys) so I do think the fashion pertained more to what Tori wanted for herself, rather than being considerate of what was right for her character. Just my opinion, though.

yulan

Oh, it was definitely Tori thing, no doubts about that.

The story of Shannen and Tori:

Crystal Clear

That is staying on my watchlist! I will comment as soon as I get headphones to watch

I love that their real friendship was so significant that they get their own little video documenting it

yulan

I watched it ages ago, it was cute!

yulan

This is Donna next to Brenda, right?

Crystal Clear

^ Definitely is I loved how the phone cord got wrapped around random party-goers as she spoke to Jim and Cindy

yulan

Yeah

I like that blouse/shirt/however it is called on Donna. I forgot she was the one who opened the door to the police That must have been fun. Donna was so clumsy. God knows what she told them.

Donna was a sort of a bad girl in S1 though. Not really, but definitely not a nice virgin from later. In this episode she threw a party in her house with booze and sex upstairs and we saw her sexy dancing and kissing some guy (so much for S7 bull that she and David were each other's first kiss).

Crystal Clear

I definitely felt that in the first season, Donna was one of the Mean Girls (or Kelly's followers) and they were stuck with what else to do with her. Such as that episode BYOB where Brandon doesn't want to drink. I remember Donna and Kelly both acting quite self-entitled.

Oh and 1x07 where Donna is blatantly cruel about the fashion sense of the older teacher who was a widow and realized Brandon was cheating on the test. I thought she was so mean in that scene where she whispers something to Steve about him

yulan

Oh yes. She was not shy, waiting to come out of her shell or Kelly's shadow. She was arrogant and snobbish. She also called Brandon "a dope" after Brenda introduced him to her and Kelly - I guess because he did not seem willing to impress them.

Back to her party, I remember Kelly and Steve went upstairs to have sex, and I giggle thinking it could have been in Felice and Dr. Martin's room Donna had a different mother (Nancy) in S1, at the fashion show. I wonder what strict Felice who insisted on her daughter's virginity was thinking of her friendship with Kelly before let's say S2, given how sexual Kelly was. I do not think she would be very approving - or the premise was that the whole 90210 world was very hypocritical. Or more likely, that these rich people barely knew their children, leave alone their friends.

I also wonder what a snob like Felice was thinking of Donna's friendship with Brenda, given that Brenda was not from a high society. She did not seem to mind.

Crystal Clear

The writing for Felice was so abstract. I'm on a season 8 re-watch and she speaks about Noah in the same demeaning manner that she did about Ray (the social class, working on a boat thing) and I agree that it wasn't very believable how she had zero reaction to Donna's friendship with the Walshes. They weren't poor, but Brenda wasn't up the ladder by any means.

I remember that season 2 episode where Donna discovered Felice's infidelity and she runs to their house, where Cindy and Brenda comfort her. Would Felice really have walked away and put up with Donna yelling at her in front of another mother? It was different when Jackie accepted it from Kelly in season 1, because she was high on drugs.

yulan

Jackie and Kelly had a better relationship than Felice and Donna, I would say, even when Jackie was at her worst - much more open, direct, much warmer. And less hypocritical. I guess that particular time Felice did not have much choice in being yelled at

Crystal Clear

She did seem very taken off-guard by it; I guess she just partly conceded because she knew that the Walshes knew about her infidelity, so Donna deserved at least one chance to yell at her because the likelihood of Felice allowing it ever again was slim

yulan

I guess so