AllMovie

Daria (voice of Tracy Grandstaff) and Jane (voice of Wendy Hoopes) experience the subjective nature of cinema firsthand when they shoot a documentary about Quinn (voice of Wendy Hoopes) in this episode of the animated MTV series Daria. Jake (voice of Julian Rebolledo) kick-starts the girls' interest in film when he begins excavating and archiving various home moves from when Daria and Quinn were younger. As usual, these childhood memories spark painful reminiscences about his own upbringing at the hands of a tyrannical father. Shortly thereafter, tyrannical teacher Mr. DeMartino (voice of Marc Thompson) seizes on an idea of Daria's and assigns his class to partner up behind the camera. While Brittany (voice of Janie Mertz), Kevin (voice of Marc Thompson), Jodie (voice of Jessica Cydnee Jackson) and Mack (voice of Paul Williams) learn some painful lessons about the separation between observer and participant in their quest to document a local supermarket strike, Daria and Jane strike out in their search for esoteric inspiration. Quinn is hardly their first choice of subjects, but the fashion plate is more than happy to fill in when various artsier ideas fail to take off. Following Quinn around for the day, the budding auteurs capture plenty of material that exposes Quinn's vanity and vapidity. But Helen (voice of Wendy Hoopes) intercedes when she gets wind of what Daria is up to. Her mom-inspired conscience acting overtime in the editing room, the sardonic filmmaker reluctantly shapes her raw material into a relatively positive profile. In the process, she inadvertently enhances her sister's already enormous popularity.