The girl power movement of the 90s and early 00s brought a lot of pink and girls in cropped tops telling me to be who I want to be while gyrating their hips and pretending they could sing.
There were also quite a few super smart, capable, kick ass girls on the television screen. Girls that were smart and slightly off beat, who didn’t care about what anyone thought about them. I always identified with the latter group more than the former. Don’t get me wrong, I watched my fair share of Clueless (both the movie and the television series) but there were only a few television characters that I really felt were aspirational in my preteen years. One of those characters was an outspoken redhead by the name of Pepper Ann Pierson.
Before I discovered Daria, before Veronica Mars ever aired, before I was old enough to watch Buffy slay vampires, there was Pepper Ann. She was funny, and confident and…ok, not the brightest bulb in the hardware store. Remember the episode when Pepper Ann was assigned the task of wearing her school mascot uniform, a giant Otter suit? Remember when she thought that her crush, Craig, was in love with the otter without any idea that she was inside, and proceeded to wear the otter suit on all of their dates? Remember how she built up the courage to reveal her true identity, only to find out at the end in a hilarious “duh” moment that he knew it was her all the time:
Pepper Ann: “You knew who I was?”
Craig: “Yeah. You think I would want to hang around with a giant otter?”
Why yes Craig, yes she did, and that’s why we all loved Pepper Ann. The chronically late, video gaming, C student who was constantly talking to her own reflection and imagining it was talking back. Such an awesome character deserved an awesome theme song, and that’s exactly what she had. It perfectly incapsulated the spirit of the character, the girl marching in her own parade, who didn’t quite fit in but only because she was cooler than anyone in middle could really comprehend.
So, on the second day of Theme Song Week I solute you, Pepper Ann Pierson, and your awesome theme song.
