Over the last few months, I’ve been watching a lot Boy Meets World reruns. It’s on in the mornings in that time I’m preparing for the day and eating breakfast, and those few minutes before I leave for work. It was a show I enjoyed a lot while growing up, when it occupied the 9:00 p.m. slot of TGIF, and it’s admittedly a trip down memory lane, watching it on most weekday mornings.
But watching it through my old-as-shit grownup eyes now, it’s so obvious of what the dynamic of the show really was. It was never so much of the life and development of the main character, Cory Matthews through his own actions, as much as it was Cory and everyone else learning, living and understanding life by means of best friend Shawn Hunter’s constant fuckups. Pretty much all of the adversity of the Cory character stems from girls and school. All other conflicts throughout the series are funneled through Shawn’s character, and it’s up to Cory, his family and Mr. Feeny to guide him through all these life’s roadblocks, and where they can all learn and grown through his parade of failure.