Girl Meets World 1x01 Spoiler-y Criticism
I want to preface this by saying that I enjoyed the episode overall, even though I think there were pacing flaws and an odd mix of over-exposition and lack of detail. (That may be standard for current Disnick shows, though, because I felt the same way about some others I've seen recently.)
The title "Girl Meets World" is one that means something. Beyond being an allusion, obviously, to the parent show, it projects the idea of a girl meeting the world. Coming to find her place in it, learning about the world, seeing how the world is made. The show's focal point must be Riley's experience, as much as longtime fans want to see a wealth of Cory and Topanga.
In Boy Meets World, Cory's experience was absolutely the centerpiece of the show. While Eric or the Matthews parents carried B-plots, the value of the show came from Cory's exploration of his sphere of influence. For the first two seasons, the biggest exploration Cory made was "who am I in relation to the world?" (Hence: meeting it.) Even though Cory and Topanga first kissed in 1x04 and seemed to be casually involved by 2x06-2x07, our introduction to Cory -- and Topanga -- was so meaningful because we got to see them without each other first. Even though Topanga's character started out as a joke -- and something of a Straw Feminist trope, too -- she was given a fully-rounded personality and life outside of Cory before we became too entangled with seeing them together.
(Or did we? This isn't the main discussion, but here are the characters who fell off the original show or were never seen on-screen: Shawn's sister Stacey, Topanga's sister Nebula, Topanga's mother, Topanga's aunt, any female teachers literally ever, Angela's mother, Virna, Theresa Kiner, and Shawn's brother who wasn't Jack. The majority of the characters BMW dropped or retconned, or included as a one-time mention for either drama or comedy, were women. But that isn't the point of this ramble.)
The pilot for Girl Meets World begins with the actual stoppage of Riley from going out and meeting the world by her father. Which, you know, she's twelve; it's Cory, the audience favorite; he's a concerned parent as much as Topanga is, and that's fine. But I kept waiting through the episode for Riley to meet the world on her own terms. To "make it hers," like Cory urges her.
I want the first season of this show, if not the very next episode, to be about Riley learning that the world is NOT a boy. And it's nothing against Lucas -- he's clearly the Topanga of this series and will be written as nice and well-meaning, like all of BMW's "good man" characters were. (Sidenote again: the episode where Topanga is sexually harassed by Fred Savage is like, scarring. That was handled with the gravitas it deserved.)
We have enough shows about pubescent girls learning how to make their world a boy. We have enough books about how boys change and shape the entire world of teenage girls. We have enough media about how without a boy, a young girl has no world. We've had enough.
Is Riley's crush on Lucas adorable? Sure. But it'd be more adorable if we had literally EVER seen her before she had it. Who is Riley? Why should I care whether Lucas likes her?
Really, who is Riley other than the daughter of a male character I like? What is her personality other than "a girl who is like young Cory"?
If GMW can't answer definitively who Riley, as her own person, is very, very soon, then it is a failure of a show. Cory Matthews was a real person. Shawn Hunter was a real person. Topanga Lawrence became a real person after years of writing and rewriting.
They chose to have two young actresses playing female characters carry this show. They have thus far written them as "Cory and Shawn, but obsessed with one boy and inappropriately harassed by another."
Riley Matthews has to be a person.
Maya Hart has to be a person.
Farkle -- the next big problem with the episode/show premise -- has to learn quickly, and with finality, that they are people.
What is supposed to be funny and charming to me about watching a really little boy sexually harass the protagonist of this show? Unless he's going to be the device that teaches Riley that in the world she's meeting, nerdy little boys who you thought were your friends don't see you as a human being and will hurt you, then Farkle needs to sit down and get taught a lesson by Topanga Lawrence-Matthews. (Topanga wanted to create an all-woman society of peace and tranquility with men tethered underground for breeding, for pete's sake [BMW 1x09].) His entire character role seems to be "remind us that Riley and Maya are both girls, but are DIFFERENT girls!" (because so far the writing doesn't seem confident that it can do both at once on its own).
Farkle, as a character, scares me. Because he is a little boy. And he is a sexual harasser. And it doesn't read on-screen as out of the ordinary. It isn't out of the ordinary. That is the world that Riley lives in. That is the world we ALL live in.
So my question for the remainder of the GMW run is this: will the writers acknowledge that it's the world Riley lives in? How will she meet it?
