Line #5 YMMV/Braceface


1	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
2	** In "The Pickford Project", Nina rescues Sharon from plunging off a waterfall, even comforting her afterwards, displaying rare affection for her. Afterwards, however, she passes it off by stating they wouldn't have gotten any bonus points if she had died. Was she solely concerned with gaining extra points as she claimed (as well as rubbing it in Maria's face for saving Sharon when she couldn't), or was she genuinely worried for Sharon's safety and didn't want to admit it?
3	*** Upon reuniting with the rest of the class, she reverts back to being hostile towards Sharon, blaming her for them coming in last, as well as claiming her prior kindness was simply her practicing for her next audition role. Was this true, or was her anger merely an act to save face in front of everyone?
4	** In "Vegging Out" Sharon becomes anemic and the doctor suggests that she might have to give up her vegetarian diet in order to get her iron blood level back up. However, Sharon (and by extension, the audience) only hears this statement from her mother, Helen, who was the one who received the phone call about the anemia diagnosis. Did the doctor really suggest that Sharon start eating meat again, or did Helen make the suggestion sound like it was coming from the doctor out of concern for her daughter and didn't want Sharon to blow up at her if the suggestion sounded like it came from her since Sharon has a tendency to self-righteous about vegetarianism and has a tendency to blow up at Helen if she says something that Sharon doesn't like?
5	* {{Anvilicious}}: After Sharon became a vegetarian, many episodes featured Sharon shoving animal rights down people's throats, in part due to the influence of Creator/AliciaSilverstone (Sharon's first voice and series executive producer), who is known for being a vocal vegetarian and animal rights activist. Tellingly, it's toned down significantly in Season 3, after Alicia left the show, with one episode having Sharon learn to eat meat again after acquiring anemia.
6	** In one specific episode, Adam is trying to get in good graces with his girlfriend Hannah's father, so at Sharon's urging, he joins the duck conservation group he runs. However, when Sharon finds out that the group condones hunting, she goes off on a rant on how evil it is. She even tells off Hannah (who happens to be a GranolaGirl vegetarian herself) for pointing out that the group supports hunting because it helps prevent overpopulation issues in the animals and hunting doesn't cause all environmental issues, especially when it's done ethically. [[StrawmanHasAPoint Despite the fact that these are very legitimate arguments]], Sharon brushes them off by saying that nature would work its way out. By the end of the episode, she gets her brother to tell the people off for supporting hunting (though what started it off mostly had to do [[BigBrotherInstinct with the group mocking Sharon's vegetarian views]]).
7	** There was, of course, the standard FreeTheFrogs episode, although it is mostly anvilicious since the frogs are pre-killed in real life, and Sharon befriending an otherwise bitchy character solely for agreeing with her about the frog.
8	** At the end of the episode where Sharon becomes vegetarian and learns to accept that Alden doesn't see anything wrong with eating meat, she says she can still "work on him" when they're married.
9	* BestKnownForTheFanservice: The infamous scene from "Busted" of Sharon undergoing breast inflation from a pump bra gone haywire is what many people today remember the show most for.
10	* FairForItsDay: Mark "Dion" Jones can come off as a gay stereotype to some viewers due to being a CampGay with a stereotypical gay occupation ("fashion designer"), but at the time of his character's debut, the idea of featuring an openly gay character in kids' TV was completely unheard of, much less one whose sexuality wasn't even treated as that big of a deal (Sharon even helps him find a boyfriend!).
11	* GirlShowGhetto: While the show is viewed by many as little more than a typical teenage girl show (and it does cover many of the bases), it also tackled some pretty important issues such as relationships (both familial and budding), racism, homosexuality, ethical views and changes within one's body as they make their way through adolescence, which considering the time period this came out (2001), was still pretty much completely unheard of in any kid's show. This in part led to a lot of censorship in stateside airings, ultimately culminating Creator/DisneyChannel's decision to drop the show after its second season (also part of a general trend of Disney canning many other series acquired by them from Creator/FoxFamily). Ironically however, many of Disney's own productions in the Late 2010s and Early 2020s are now starting to cover many of the same topics ''Braceface'' did.
12	* JerkassWoobie: Some episodes paint Nina as this. Her parents, while they clearly love her, rarely spend time with her; she's shown to have a poor relationship with her friends, albeit mostly due to her own behavior, with her best friend, Alyson, eventually cutting ties with her; and she's treated poorly by her cousin Petra.
13	* OnceOriginalNowCommon: ''Braceface'' covered or featured many topics that were unheard of, or even considered untouchable, for kids' TV shows back in the early 2000s, such as homosexuality, periods, and ACupAngst, in part due to the ValuesDissonance between what Canadians and Americans considered acceptable for kids shows. Many of these episodes even ended up being banned in the States, especially during the show's run on Creator/DisneyChannel! But in Late 2010s and Early 2020s, where these topics have become more normalized for American kids media to address in some way (including, ironically enough, many Disney shows and movies), ''Braceface'' comes off as a typically quaint "teen girl" show and its pioneering achievements end up being vastly overshadowed by the areas where it shows its age.
14	* RetroactiveRecognition: Sharon's younger brother is voiced by Michael Cera, in one of his many roles during his childhood acting career before he was known in the United States for playing George Michael Bluth on ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'' and the title character on ''Film/ScottPilgrimVsTheWorld''.
15	* StrawmanHasAPoint:
16	** In "Just Quacks", Sharon finds out that the duck conservation group Adam is planning to join also support hunting as a way to prevent duck overpopulation. When she confronts Hannah (whose father runs the group) about this, Hannah points that hunting is actually a major part of conservation, that hunting isn't a crime, not every animal population crisis is caused by hunting, and the group her father runs follows ethical guidelines when it comes to their hunting, such as bag limits and not hunting out of season. Sharon brushes all these points off by believing that nature would balance itself out if hunters didn't exist (which Hannah immediately shoots down), and the show obviously sides with Sharon since a large part of reflecting Creator/AliciaSilverstone's own views on vegetarianism and animal rights. However, this doesn't change the fact that Hannah's points are legitimate and true.
17	** In "For The Birds" Richard's new girlfriend Lauren has a pet macaw she acquired from Costa Rica. Sharon doesn't agree with this since she feels it's wrong to keep exotic pets acquired from the wild. However, Lauren points out that the bird has been domesticated and now wouldn't be able to survive in the wild, and is happy and well cared for by her.
18	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: The show is obviously set sometime before the late 2000s. The hairstyles and clothing worn by many of the characters are distinctly late 1990s-early 2000s, especially Maria's hair and midriff-showing dress shirt, along with Adam Spitz's "frat boy" clothing. There is also things such as Nina's RichBitch lifestyle (the show having been made pre-Great Recession), Alden fronting a GarageBand, and the PopPunk and GarageRock-flavored soundtrack. Most strikingly is the depiction of main character Sharon Spitz as an animal rights activist, with the show having been on the air at a time when animal rights activism was a major sociopolitical force with many celebrity supporters (such as Sharon's voice and executive producer Creator/AliciaSilverstone) -- thus Sharon and the other animal rights activists that show up are often painted in a positive light. By the later half of the decade, animal rights activism got such a bad rep (mainly due to [=PETA=]'s increasingly questionable publicity stunts) that it began being seen as a joke rather than a serious object of attention. And of course, one can't forget the flip-phones.
19	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Sharon is often a victim of this. Sure, she's only a teenager who's still trying to figure out who she is and navigate social circles in school, but her sometimes overbearing sense of self-righteousness (such as her vegetarianism and views on animal rights) and desire to fit in can cause her to do and say some pretty questionable things.
20	* ValuesDissonance: In "Dissection Connection", Sharon and Tally, after their protest to get rid of frog dissection on real animals goes nowhere, [[FreeTheFrogs eventually resort to freeing the live frogs in a nearby pond]]. The principal suspends both of them for stealing school property (especially since the frogs were supposed to be pre-killed, but there was a mix-up in the delivery that resulted in live ones being delivered and the biology teacher was going to send the live frogs back in order to get the pre-killed frogs), but other than that there are hardly any consequences. However, with invasive species becoming even more of an environmental issue, and the public now much more aware of how dangerous they can be to environments, Sharon and Tally would have also been legally charged with knowingly spreading an invasive species around if they had done so today because the live frogs would ''not'' be the same species as those that were living in that pond.

Context YMMV / Braceface