boringoldraphael:

If ever there was a story that didn’t live up to the promise of its title, it’s Boy Meets World. Not once in the show’s seven seasons did titular boy Cory Matthews ever meet the world. On the contrary, with every passing year he retreated further and deeper into his insular bubble.

He married his high school girlfriend. He had the same grandpa-teacher through middle school, high school, and college, and also lived next door to him. Instead of moving away after graduation, he went to the same local college his older brother attended, where he hung out solely with his friends from high school. (Pity poor Topanga, who declined admission to Yale so she could stay in Philadelphia with her boyfriend, her boyfriend’s childhood best friend, her boyfriend’s idiot brother, and her boyfriend’s next-door neighbor-teacher.)

When the show started, Cory had dreams of growing up to be a professional baseball player. In the show’s later years, Cory rarely had ambitions more complicated than hey, let’s get Shawn back together with his quirky ex-girlfriend, SO THINGS CAN GO BACK TO BEING LIKE THE WAY THEY WERE. Of course, all the other characters on the show did their part to also not take on the great challenges of the universe. As the show progressed, Eric got stupider, Shawn got whinier, Feeny got Feenier, and Topanga went from Idealistic Feminist Flower Child to Girlfriend (Who Mostly Cares About Getting Good Grades). When Cory’s little sister Morgan was quietly written off the show and then reintroduced a year later, the explanation was that she was in her room for a really long time. Of course she was.

Is this the best we can do? When the future looks scary, fall back into what’s comfortable and familiar? Say No to risk, experimentation, and opportunity? Just stay in our room for a really long time?

Good God, I hope not.

Of course it’s easier to eat lunch with the same people every day, to stick with what’s safe and unchallenging. It isn’t hard to not ask the big questions or second-guess your own assumptions or confront the things that frighten you, both in the real world and inside yourself, to always always always be pushing pushing pushing. It isn’t hard at all to not do those things. Not doing those things is the default.

But there’s so much to see and so little time to see it. Why would you waste a second? If you’re not swimming, you’re sinking. If you’re not living, you’re dying. There are blocks of marble just waiting to be turned into Davids. There’s a great big world, just waiting to be met.

Raphael makes a really interesting point here, but reblogs are kind of cheap, so I’ll play devil’s advocate.

Of course it’s ridiculous that they have the same teacher every year, and it’s true that Cory’s group of friends never changes, but that’s how TV shows work.  They even make a lot of jokes about it in the series.  It makes an interesting point, though.  What if Cory went to college and Shawn moved away to find a different path in life?  What if Eric got a job in advertising and only showed up on holidays?  Topanga should have left a long time ago and focused on her own future, right?  They might stay in touch by phone, but that wouldn’t make a very good show.  Well it might, but ABC couldn’t pull it off.

Is it selfish of us to want Cory and Co. to stick together, even if it keeps them from expanding their horizons?  I think we all wish we could take our friends with us wherever we went in life, but that’s not likely to happen.  Boy Meets World gives us that hope.  The gang is always facing situations that threaten to break them apart, but in the end, they find a way to come back together, because that’s what really matters, and because if they didn’t it would be a really shitty show that nobody would want to watch.

My point is, meeting the world doesn’t mean moving on.  If I traveled the world, learning cultures and experiencing everything there is to experience, and I never made a friend worth keeping for life, then I’d say that I saw the world, but I certainly did not meet it.  The show doesn’t end by showing Cory at home with the gang, living life forever the way it always was.  The last episode of Friends involves Ross stopping Rachel from getting on a plane so that they can all just keep going to that coffee place, right?  I think that’s what happens, but I never really got that show.

In Boy Meets World, Cory leaves home for college, gets married, and gets a job.  His friends and family are with him through and through, and the show ends with the gang leaving for New York together.  “Even though you’ll think the world has gone out of it’s way to teach you all the tough lessons,” Cory tells his little brother, “you’ll realize that it’s the same world that’s given you your family and those friends.  You’ll come to believe that no matter what happens, somehow the world will protect you, too.  ‘Boy Meets World.’  Now I get it.”

What I’m trying to say is, Raphael posted the dumb intro.  This one is much better.  “Wandering down this road that we call life is what we’re doin’.  It’s good to know I have friends that will always stand by me, when this boy meets world.”