Daria

Daria: You're planning to make soda companies bid against each other for the right to market their products in Lawndale High? Mr. Lamm: That's right. All you kids have to do is what you'd do anyway: drink soda. Daria: Does that mean that everywhere I turn I'll run into a vending machine? Mr. Lamm: Well, there wouldn't be much value to the contract if the product weren't easily available. (chuckles) Daria: And what else? Mr. Lamm: Nothing but a few small discreet advertising posters in the halls. Nothing in questionable taste. And, if we're lucky, an exciting new high-tech scoreboard for athletic events, boys' and girls'. Daria: So the school will, in effect, be endorsing the soda? Is that really the school's role, to become a shill? Mr. Lamm: Miss... do you drink soda? Daria: Huh? Of course. Mr. Lamm: So? Daria: This isn't about whether I like soda. It's about whether a public high school should be using its status as a place of authority to serve as one more marketing tentacle of corporate America. With the taxpayers subsidizing it. Mr. Lamm: Surely you give your friends enough credit to know when they're being taught and when they're being sold to? Daria: I give them enough credit to figure out about three seconds after those machines arrive that they can't trust this institution. The few who still do.