'I tried to tell you the dress is a little too much,' says Brenda. The attacker says it's because she was 'dressed like a slut' and even Kelly blames herself for dressing too sexy. Later that night, a man attempts to sexually assault Kelly. To help me unpack these moral lessons, and what we can still learn about them, I spoke to some experts.īrenda was not a fan of Kelly's sexy witch outfit. 'Entertainment works with teachable moments best when it's not too didactic and includes grey areas, allowing people to debate scenarios,' says Catharine Lumby, a professor of media at Macquarie University.īody image, disability, race, suicide, abuse, economic privilege - there are so many themes in 90210 I could touch on, but three that stood out to me were victim blaming, consent and mental health. I've certainly experienced plenty of nostalgia while comfort-watching 90210, along with some lessons about important social issues - many of which we're still grappling with three decades later. Nostalgia for a time when we were younger and less stressed is something many of us are craving in this climate. (Yes, Jim Walsh is still painfully self-righteous - that has not changed.) Watching Beverly Hills 90210 re-runs was at first about killing time and drooling over Luke Perry as Dylan McKay.īut I noticed there was a lot more going on than the love triangles and Peach Pit shenanigans my young brain in the '90s focused on.