Cheesiest scene in Angel?

TriBel said:
True but BtVS was 30 years after Sontag's essay so I'm allowing for some refinement in technique. 🙂 I suppose there are different levels of "playfulness", ludic irony etc. but I always found BTVS/Angel absorbed their own self awareness - wore it lightly as it were. TBH, if they hadn't I think I'd have given up with them.
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They tend to shift back and forth between sincerity and self mockery. That's why I love them.
 
Angel was full of a lot of cheesy scenes, but Angel handled the cheese differently than Buffy did. Though pretty much anytime Lorne was on screen was the cheesiest for me. **hands Boufay a sucret for the cough**
 
Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers
LMAO sucrets...
Mylie said:
It was the final nail in the coffin of "AtS hates female characters" for me.
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I honestly think Angel is more progressive when it comes to female characters than a lot of shows nowadays.

There are female characters on AtS with agendas, needs, lives independent from men. Lilah, Kate, Faith, Anne are amazing examples. Justine is one as well, to a certain extent (she's obsessed with Holtz, but that is because of her sister's death), and Cordelia in the early seasons. Drusilla on Angel is not always motivated by Spike, and Darla is ultimately very selfish despite her thing for Angel. Jasmine and Illyria kind of work if you consider them women.

Fred, however - Joss's personal favorite, and Eve, and later seasons Cordelia - are terrible examples. And some storylines are sexist as well.
 
NeonSlayer
NeonSlayer
But we don't see Faith in prison. Her story was not told. It was all off screen.
Carrie Hopewell said:
It's also a dragged out sob fest. The whole team acts like losing precious Fred is the worst thing to have ever happened. They weren't as upset about Fred, or Connor being kidnapped or the world nearly ending some times.
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I don't have a problem with the way they act because it feels like the cumulative result of years of fighting and loss. Doyle's death, Cordy's coma, Darla, Alonna, Connor (though they don't remember him)...so when it happens to Fred it feels like the last straw.

Mylie said:
Yes!! Finally someone who agrees! I had trouble sitting through that episode in my rewatch and was honestly baffled at how acclaimed it is. The writing is weak, the lines and most of the delivery is so cheesy and the whole thing feels so obviously manipulative. It's like I'm watching a Hallmark movie.

The only redeeming quality it has is the last scene between Wesley and Fred, because Alexis and Amy are top-notch. Other than that, it's one of my least favorite episodes of the show. And yes the whole damsel in distress thing while all her men are trying to save her really doesn't do it for me. It was the final nail in the coffin of "AtS hates female characters" for me.
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I agree about the damseling and I do absolutely hate that Joss chooses to destroy another female character, but I'd take Fred's death over Cordy's evil-turned-coma if I had to choose, because it does give us Illyria, and Alexis and Amy are brilliant. I also think the sentimentality leans more towards cliched than outright cheese-fest here.
 
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Carrie Hopewell said:
There are female characters on AtS with agendas, needs, lives independent from men. Lilah, Kate, Faith, Anne are amazing examples. Justine is one as well, to a certain extent (she's obsessed with Holtz, but that is because of her sister's death), and Cordelia in the early seasons. Drusilla on Angel is not always motivated by Spike, and Darla is ultimately very selfish despite her thing for Angel. Jasmine and Illyria kind of work if you consider them women.

Fred, however - Joss's personal favorite, and Eve, and later seasons Cordelia - are terrible examples. And some storylines are sexist as well.
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Problem is that when you take into account the show as a whole, much of the progressiveness of characters like Lilah, Faith and Anne is outweighed by the fact that the most prominent female characters - Fred, Cordy, Darla - end up dead. Not only that, it's done through a violation of their bodies, turning them unwillingly into vessels for another being. Darla's arc is the only one I can forgive in this context because it's just done so brilliantly and I think it's a fitting end for her character. But even it is somewhat tainted in retrospect by what happens to Fred and Cordy. It would have fared much better standing alone, and in contrast to more empowering arcs for the other two.
 
Mr. Pole said:
That my issue with Chosen; Buffy does the same thing. It's a recurring theme through all of Whedon's television work (minus The Office and Roseanne).
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True. But on AtS they're presented more horrifyingly as monstrous births which pretty much destroy their female characters, whereas at least 'Chosen' gives it the veneer of 'Yay! Empowerment!', even if we can say it ultimately gets it wrong.
 
TriBel
TriBel
I actually think it goes further than that inasmuch as there's a) a recuperation of the abject female body/the body that lacks and b) the essence of the scythe is surely a female essence? However, it goes off topic :-(
EarthLogic said:
Problem is that when you take into account the show as a whole, much of the progressiveness of characters like Lilah, Faith and Anne is outweighed by the fact that the most prominent female characters - Fred, Cordy, Darla - end up dead. Not only that, it's done through a violation of their bodies, turning them unwillingly into vessels for another being. Darla's arc is the only one I can forgive in this context because it's just done so brilliantly and I think it's a fitting end for her character. But even it is somewhat tainted in retrospect by what happens to Fred and Cordy. It would have fared much better standing alone, and in contrast to more empowering arcs for the other two.
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Oh yeah, I agree. I often feel bad for insulting Fred or Cordy because I feel a bit sexist, but their storylines are often sexist. And obviously, even Lilah is unceremoniously killed off, Kate leaves the show, Anne has 2 episodes, Faith only has a small arc, etc.

I wasn't defending AtS as a feminist show. @Mylie said something about the final nail on the coffin for AtS. I got a bit defensive because she said AtS like BtVS wasn't as bad? So I felt the need to defend the writing a bit 🙄. I do think AtS has female characters I can enjoy without being appalled by how sexist the writing is, even if they're usually side characters or have unfortunate endings...
 
Carrie Hopewell said:
I wasn't defending AtS as a feminist show. @Mylie said something about the final nail on the coffin for AtS. I got a bit defensive because she said AtS like BtVS wasn't as bad? So I felt the need to defend the writing a bit 🙄. I do think AtS has female characters I can enjoy without being appalled by how sexist the writing is, even if they're usually side characters or have unfortunate endings...
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Sorry, I didn't think you were. I was just picking up on the point you raised - and perhaps also venting a bit of feminist anger as well 😛. I agree that you can still enjoy a lot of the female characters. And it's not so black-and-white: they usually are set up and developed very well (except Cordy who I'd say regresses) until Joss turns around and decides to destroy them in the worst way possible. What annoys me the most is the fact that it's a recurring thing - he seems completely blind to how it all comes across from a feminist perspective.
 
The last scene of Cordy in r m with a vu with the ghost (dennis 's mother) it's soo silly the way Cordy in two seconds stops to cry and gets up just because she heard the word "bitch". She went from cry to smile in two seconds, it's stupid.
 
WillowFromBuffy said:
I'm with @Fool for Buffy Cordelia came back from the dead to take things back to basics. That means beating the bad guys and helping the helpless, not trying to control the beast from within.
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Except it ends with her giving him a vision on how to beat the beast from within, which not only goes against the AtS premise of one day at a time small acts of kindness it led to the entire city being trapped in a Hell dimension. In the comics Angel had to commit suicide to undo the damage he caused.

She sent the AI team on a suicide mission to take down WR&H. That is not back to basics.
 
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