1-4: “IQ”

Hello. My name is Vikki and there is nothing in life that I value more than television show The Facts of Life. I grew up watching it over and over again. I own an external DVD drive because there’s no way I can be deprived access to my complete series DVD set. One of my proudest moments in life is Skype interviewing Clark Brandon, who played the bit part of Jo’s boyfriend Eddie in four episodes. I long to finally be cast on Survivor on a season with Lisa Whelchel. And I might, just might, have the chance to do something cool this summer. Fingers crossed.

Back in season one, Mrs. Garrett enters the dorm, where Cindy, Nancy, and Natalie quietly study. It’s exam time, and here come Blair and Sue Ann with study snacks.

Nancy foreshadows the episode’s conflict by desperately asking Sue Ann to help her prepare for her history midterm. Blair jokes that when Nancy’s boyfriend proposes to her (oh hay! Mono- and heteronormativity on fire!), Nancy will have to call Sue Ann to confirm her answer. Because Sue Ann is smart and Nancy isn’t. Get it?

Enter Mr. Bradley, who elicits from Mrs. G that she’s currently taking flying lessons because she’s ashamed to be afraid to fly. This is an awesome tidbit about Mrs. G that we never see again. Weak. Mrs. G as a pilot would’ve been epic.

Mrs. Mahoney, history teacher, joins Mrs. G and Mr. Bradley in the dorm. She delivers the history tests to be given to the girls tomorrow, and hands Mr. Bradley a large envelope that was delivered to her by mistake. It’s the IQ scores from their previous schools. Mr. Bradley beams that Eastland has the highest average IQ of any prep school in New York. Mrs. G questions the validity of tests administered in grade school, and Mr. Parker snots that if she were in the “education biz,” she’d understand. Vomit.

Don’t get me started on IQ tests. I performed extraordinarily well on IQ tests I took in first through third grade, and it has resulted in a lifetime of crippling insecurity for not being as successful as everyone thinks I ought to be. I mean, yeah, I’m smart, but there’s so much more that makes me who I am, and so much of that suffered because this culture gives so much weight to book smarts and puts so much pressure on people who happen to excel in that area.

Anyway, Mr. Bradley is an excellent stereotype as he insists that IQ tests are useful and he belittles Mrs. G’s intelligence in the process. Mrs. Mahoney insists that they’re only a guideline, not a permanent label and the kids never see their scores anyway, so it’s all good. Yeah. Tell that to…um…me.

Enter tiny Tootie, uncontrollably rolling in on her skates. She falls into Mr. Bradley as she explains that the teacher that is currently monitoring the geometry test needs to go to the bathroom and someone needs to go relieve her (heh – relieve). Mrs. Garrett offers to go, but Mr. Bradley mocks that she’s too soft to monitor a midterm, so he’ll take care of it if she answers his office phones.

All of this is just to get rid of everyone so that Tootie is alone when she finds the list of IQ scores on the ground.

Tootie, predictably, is happier than a pig in shit with this gossip.

“Sure didn’t know that she was the smartest…or that she was the dumbest!”

Nothing could possibly go wrong with this.

Upstairs, Sue Ann gives Nancy a primer on the Louisiana Purchase. Tootie comes in and announces that she has a secret – she knows who the smartest girl in school is.

Nancy says that everyone knows it’s Sue Ann, and Sue Ann is gracious when she says that’s not necessarily true.

Tootie: “Sue Ann’s right. It’s not her.”

Well, there’s grace, and then there’s the shattering of one’s ego. A dejected Sue Ann asks who is the smartest, then. Blair suggests that it couldn’t possibly be her.

Tootie: “You’re right, Blair. It’s not you either.”

Tootie announces that the smartest girl in school, according to the IQ scores, is Nancy! Nancy protests while the other girls crowd around Tootie to try to get a look at their own scores. Tootie offers to show them one at a time, and everyone seems pleased with their own score. Tootie and Natalie have the same score, and Natalie declares that she knew she and Tootie were soul sisters.

Molly gets the list away from Tootie an announces that Sue Ann has the lowest score on the list. Ouch. I know how bad that would have hurt me at their age. You build your identity around a thing but no one tells you how to manage when you discover that you’re in fact not the greatest ever. Dejected Sue Ann collapses onto the bed where Nancy tries to comfort her and the younger girls pile on.

Mrs. Garrett enters with a book and asks Sue Ann, since she’s so good at math, to help her with one of her flying problems. Sue Ann tearfully declares that Mrs. Garrett has come to the wrong place. She stalks out, and when Mrs. G demands to know what’s going on, she busts Tootie with the IQ scores. Tootie reluctantly agrees to go to Mr. Bradley’s office for her transgression.

Later, Mrs. G goofily runs around her room pretending to be an airplane and Sue Ann, seeking advice, bumps into her. Poor Sue Ann is just devastated that she’s “the dumbest girl in school.” Mrs. Garrett Mrs. Garretts.

Mrs. G, it turns out, is flying solo for her first time tomorrow, and she wouldn’t let Tootie presenting her with a low IQ score affect her. It’s a clumsy analogy, but she’s trying to tell Sue Ann that her grades are good and she’s always done well, so this little whatever shouldn’t matter.

Truly, I get Sue Ann. When an exceptionally smart person is made to feel as though their entire worth depends on being the smartest, it can be a savage upending of identity when one doesn’t stay on the top of the heap. I don’t know anything about that, nosiree.

Upstairs, Blair tries to sneak a peak over Nancy’s shoulder, which is weird, because it’s not really like you can benefit from studying with someone just by watching them study. But anyway, Blair is the fifth person today who has come to Nancy for help, and Nancy is frustrated as she reiterates that she can’t help and encourages Blair to talk to Sue Ann, who “knows everything.” Blair protests that she only comes to the best, and poor Nancy, truly frustrated by this sudden increase in expectations, throws Blair out of the room.

It’s another day in the dorm lounge as Nancy flips through a magazine on the couch. Enter Sue Ann, who asks if Mrs. Mahoney posted the exam scores yet. This leads to petty bickering about how the “smartest girl in school” should be able to help the “dumbest girl in school.” Nancy can’t deal with being called the smartest girl in school anymore, and Sue Ann misses that title. Both girls pine for the way things used to be.

Blair interrupts the miserable duo and encourages them to snap out of it because “exams come and go! Worry lines last forever!”

Mrs. G hurries through the lounge on the way to her flying test, but she does a 180 when she sees Nancy and Sue Ann depressed on the couch. When Sue Ann plaintively explains that they took their midterms, Mrs. Garrett assures her that she’s a great student and she always does fine.

Just at that moment, Mrs. Mahoney enters with the scores and posts them on the bulletin board. Mrs. G asks her to tell Sue Ann and Nancy that they did fine, but she can’t. Nancy obviously guessed at half the answers, and Sue Ann put answers where there weren’t even questions. They both failed.

Mrs. G reassures them that they’ll do better next time, but Sue Ann declares that there won’t be a next time. She’s dropping out of school, and Nancy wants to do the same. Mrs. G looks concerned as we fade to commercial.

We return to a classroom at Eastland, where Tootie executes her punishment of writing “I will not be nosy” five hundred times on the blackboard. A classic credits and flashback scene is born.

Tootie has written the required phrase twice, and is proceeding by simply drawing dittos. Mr. Bradley enters and indicates, “Dittos are not satisfactory.” Tootie replies, “Dittos don’t slice it huh?” I’ve never been fond of the inflection with which she delivers that line. I think it should be more like an actual question rather than a rhetorical statement. But I did not direct the episode.

Mrs. Garrett enters the classroom with despondent Nancy and Sue Ann in tow. She explains that Mr. Bradley’s IQ nonsense has these two girls packing to leave school. Nancy can’t stand being labeled “dumb” and Nancy can’t deal with the pressure now placed upon her. Mr. Bradley defends the use of IQs to pigeonhole an individuals natural ability, but, to Mrs. G’s surprise, he doesn’t know his own score. Neither does she, she explains, so why not take a test together, right now?

Mr. Bradley protests that they don’t have any IQ tests, but Mrs. Mahoney comes to the rescue and announces that a sample test was sent along with the scores. Mrs. G. joyfully prances to a desk in the classroom and declares that they should get started. Mr. Bradley continues to belittle her, and she taunts him just enough so that he can’t possibly refuse.

Question 1: “I’m going to read a set of five words. I want you to write down the two that are most similar: pen, chicken, gold, rifle, paper.”

Hmm. I’d have to go with “rifle” and “paper” because they each have five letters. “Pen” and “paper” are associated as concepts, but they’re not similar as words.

Mr. Bradley confidently scratches out his answer as Mrs. G thinks a moment and chuckles.

“Next set: tearing, melting, running, burning, canoeing.”

I’ll go with running and burning because they each have an ‘n’ immediately before the suffix.

Mrs. G: “Of course!”

“Pick a pair: singing, coughing, marching, eating, sleeping.”

Singing and coughing each have two ‘g’s. Also, they both refer to sounds that come out of the mouth. Mrs. G chuckles that “they get easier” while Mr. Bradley’s frustration grows.

He reluctantly raises his hand to clarify the words in this set, and mistakenly remembers two words from the previous set. He gets increasingly flustered and even goes so far as to try to sneak a peak at Mrs. G’s answers.

Mrs. Mahoney announces that they’re going to move on to the vocabulary section. I have an issue with this. Vocabulary shouldn’t be on an IQ test, because it’s such a function of culture and the words on such tests are often a function of privilege.

The first word given is “sudorific,” which I heard as “pseudorific,” which I would have guessed meant something that appears to be excellent but in fact is not. There’s a lot going on there that could speak to my competence, even though I’m unfamiliar with the word, which Google has informed me means relating to or causing sweating. Mrs. G chuckles, “I never knew that word would come in handy!” while Mr. Bradley seethes.

Next word: octillion.

Mr. Bradley: “Ah! Octillion! Now there is a word!”
Mrs. G: “Don’t put down a kind of dance, because that’s a cotillion.”

For Octillion, I would guess a large number whose number of digits is somehow related to the number eight. Apparently it’s one followed be either twenty-seven or forty-eight zeroes, and the etymology makes it clear that I was on the right track. So my fragile intellectual self identification is still intact.

Mr. Bradley’s isn’t, though. He loses his cool, declares the whole thing stupid, and tosses his crumpled test paper aside. Speaking of crumpled test papers:

Mrs. G tells the girls that she agrees with Mr. Bradley’s new acquiescence to the position that even those who are “exceptionally gifted” can perform poorly on a single IQ test. They don’t use the opportunity to encourage Nancy to believe that she has some skills she’s not aware of, but Mrs. G does suggest to Mr. Bradley that Sue Ann and Nancy be allowed to retake their midterms. To the girls’ delight, she throws in a dig at Mr. Bradley’s poor performance on the partial test they took.

With that, Mrs. G hustles off to take her flying test and Sue Ann agrees to help Nancy study for the history test re-take, on which Nancy pledges to get a 95, leading Sue Ann to promise a 96.

So, sadly, Sue Ann is still caught up in her identity as a smart person. It’s OK sister, I’m only recently learning to deal with that shit in a healthy manner. Love you, sis.