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shadowkat1.Finished watching the last three episodes of Revolution which reminds me a great deal of Firefly, although Firefly had a sense of humor. Both are similar concepts. It's sort of Firefly by way of Lost and the Hunger Games, with no sense of humor. Takes itself far too seriously, LOST had a better sense of humor. Note to writers of this genre? It works better if you hire some comedy writers and take yourselves a bit less seriously. Also lots of Western cliches.
2. My Mother is reading Swanson on Swanson - the biography of Gloria Swanson, silent movie star and 1930s movie star. She told me that Swanson had to visit her fans by train, and was mobbed at each city. Sort of like the Beatles were mobbed when they first came to the US. Back then movie stars were "mobbed" by their fans because they were movie stars - there weren't as many. It was a big deal to see one. Unlike now. Also back then you did not have kids out-of-wedlock. Considered immoral and would ruin your career. So Gloria Swanson aborted two children she wanted to save her career, or her lovers at the time enabled it. Her first husband, who she had difficulty getting a divorce from, almost killed her by giving her an abortion drug - and not telling her what it was - he told her it would make her feel better. After she took it, lost the kid, and was quite ill - she asked the pharmacist and he told her it was worse than giving labor. Also, Swanson didn't know how to swim, but had to dive into a lake and save her lover in a movie that she was filming. She doesn't tell anyone this. Figuring if she has trouble, someone will dive in to save her. It's very dark. She pulls off the evening dress, has nothing on but a red teddy, dives in, and manages to surface and paddle to the boat. Then she apologizes to the director, stating she doesn't know how to swim. And asks is she has to do it again. No, he states, the stunt woman will do it. Later he tells her they'll go with her take, of course. On the way to the set, the stunt woman was in the car with her - she asked what the stunt woman did, not knowing she had a stunt woman, and the woman stated - I'm the swimming instructor. Good responded Swanson. The director told Swanson they needed to talk - after she finally confessed that she couldn't swim and had almost drowned for the movie.
Another interesting bit?
In Sunset Boulvarde, Swanson was initially supposed to share the film with Montgomery Cliff, but Cliff didn't want to be a lover to an older woman, he didn't consider it realistic and opted out, choosing instead to do The Heiress (based on Henry James novel Washington Square) was Olivia De Havilland. William Holden got tapped for the role opposite Swanson. But he was 30 and Swanson, at 50, they said looked too young for the part. The part was for a 50 year old woman. Swanson told them that 50 year old women can look younger and they should make Holden, who was 30 playing 25, look younger with makeup as opposed to making Swanson look older. Swanson won. YAY! Swanson! She didn't win the Academy Award for Sunset Boulevard, Olivia De Havilland did for The Heiress, but Swanson didn't really care. No one believed she didn't care - they all thought she was a diva. But Judy Holliday (Born Yesterday) and Betty Davis (All About Eve) understood.
3. Have come to the conclusion that while wrath can be motivating, jealousy and envy are a waste of time and should be removed from the emotional lexicon. I really don't see much point for either.
4. Legacy. The search for or the attempt to leave a "legacy" behind you is incredibly narcissistic, isn't it? I've been flipping this over in my head lately and slowly realizing why I despise the term legacy. It's not about helping people, or making the world a better place, but stroking your own ego and getting your validation from an external source. See? The thing of it is, if you have to get validation or approval from an external source constantly - you are doomed to failure. There's always going to be someone better and badder than you are. That's the wrong reason to do anything. It leads to hell. Always.
Learned this long ago...while in law school of all things, in which I was told that seeking validation externally doesn't work. If you feel you have no value, that you are a "0" and have to constantly achieve, constantly prove yourself, constantly obtain approval...you'll always feel like a 0. An empty well, never to be filled. My grandmother on my father's side was a bit like that..you could never fill that well. The person who explained this concept to me back in 1992, provided the analogy of National Merit Finalists - the brightest kids from high schools all over the country. They come together, and whoa, discover there are people brighter or as bright as they are...there goes their value. Out the proverbial window. Except of course for the kids who aren't basing their entire value or any of it on being a National Merit Finalist.
The character of Angel in Angel the Series is in some respects a brilliant critique of the classic hero trope - the hero's journey, where the guy has to prove himself through all these tasks, has to achieve so some sort of external approval. Whedon through his creation of Angel and Angel's story is in an odd way critiquing that trope, which exists in the Western genre and the comic book and horror genres as well as most religious mythology. We find it comforting, if we do all these tasks, God will choose us, we have a legacy...look how great we are. But how narcisisstic is that? And meaningless?
Throughout the series, Angel is told repeatedly that he should help others not for an reward or for forgiveness or to help himself, but just to do it. It's what Buffy actually does in her series. She gets no reward nor does she necessarily aspire to one. She chooses to do it, because she can't stand seeing these people suffer. She doesn't want Xander or for that matter Amy to die, and saves them. Angel doesn't quite get that. He keeps thinking there has to be more to it than that. Just helping people to help them?
So along comes Doyle with his visions, then Wesely with the Shansu prophecy, and the Oracles with the Powers, and their message that Angel was saved because he has a higher purpose, and the evil WRH who provide Angel with a tangible enemy to fight - one that is seeking to tempt and corrupt him much like the Devil did with Dr. Faustus or Daniel Webster. Of course there's also Cordy, who has her Daddy issues and her need for external validation and approval - Cordy always had to get her approval from outside herself - that was why she was such a beast in high school - it was all about being popular, and when she loses all of that, she wants to be a hero like Buffy, yet like Angel she doesn't understand what it means to be one. They romanticize the whole idea of hero. Heroes are well Superman, and Wonderwoman. They get awards. They get shanshus. They become Gods or Saints. They get medals. Neither much likes the pain of it all.
It's not unlike General Petraus, who has all that power, and is a military hero and fought the wars in Iraq, he wants the legacy, he wants the power, he wants the medals, and he wants the applause. But that's not what it is about. The true heroes never ask for applause, and rarely get it. They often die unknown...until years later. John Steinbeck was acclaimed a hero for writing Grapes of Wrath, yet he spent little time amongst the people he wrote about...while the woman who did spend time, who wrote down their stories, and gave her compassion, doesn't get her novel published until a year after her death. Whose the real hero, who leaves the greater legacy?
I look at Angel the Series years after its cancellation and I suddenly see a fascinating critique of heroism in American cultural discourse and mythology. No one in that series is a hero. They all want to be, but for all the wrong reasons. And there's the rub. It's Shakespearean tragedy in three part harmony. Pick your play, Othello, Hamlet, MacBeth or Titus Adronicus, or perhaps Julisu Ceasar...all plays about iconic and would be heroes...who die villains, destroying the very world they claim and wish to protect in order to enhance their ego. Illyria's introduction in S5 is a critique of Wes and Angel and Fred. She talks about how she was a God, a hero to her people, now long dead, ash. And she destroyed them. Just as Jasmine...is an echo of Cordelia's ego.
The way to hell is after all paved with the best of intentions.
Angel in a way is Whedon's version of Percy Blyshe Shelley's classic poem Ozymandias...
Angelus destroyed to obtain the approval of the old Gods, to obtain the approval of those around him, to be the biggest baddest thing out there - yet there was always something worse. Angel likewise wants to be the Chosen one. The chosen champion of Buffy, her lover. To be God's chosen one. The Prodigal son. To leave a lasting legacy. It's why he does what he does to save Connor. He loves Connor, true, but Connor is his blood, his legacy, the only good thing he's done, and he will make any sacrifice to save him - even if it destroys others lives. It's about his ego. If he truly loved Connor - he would never have done it. He would have let Connor choose his fate and not arranged it. He would not have interfered.
Angel the Series doesn't end well - it can't. Any more than Othello, MacBeth, Hamlet, or Titus Andronicus could. It's a tragedy. The heroes aren't really heroes except in their own pov and we're so deeply in their pov as an audience, we don't see it ourselves. But step back a bit and you do...see.
If there's any lesson to be learned from Angel's tale, it's this...legacy is for fools...and false heroes. Make your legacy about helping others, not about yourself. And don't help or do things to leave a mark on this world, better not to leave one at all...the world has one too many foot-prints large and small embedded on its surface as it is, after all.
2. My Mother is reading Swanson on Swanson - the biography of Gloria Swanson, silent movie star and 1930s movie star. She told me that Swanson had to visit her fans by train, and was mobbed at each city. Sort of like the Beatles were mobbed when they first came to the US. Back then movie stars were "mobbed" by their fans because they were movie stars - there weren't as many. It was a big deal to see one. Unlike now. Also back then you did not have kids out-of-wedlock. Considered immoral and would ruin your career. So Gloria Swanson aborted two children she wanted to save her career, or her lovers at the time enabled it. Her first husband, who she had difficulty getting a divorce from, almost killed her by giving her an abortion drug - and not telling her what it was - he told her it would make her feel better. After she took it, lost the kid, and was quite ill - she asked the pharmacist and he told her it was worse than giving labor. Also, Swanson didn't know how to swim, but had to dive into a lake and save her lover in a movie that she was filming. She doesn't tell anyone this. Figuring if she has trouble, someone will dive in to save her. It's very dark. She pulls off the evening dress, has nothing on but a red teddy, dives in, and manages to surface and paddle to the boat. Then she apologizes to the director, stating she doesn't know how to swim. And asks is she has to do it again. No, he states, the stunt woman will do it. Later he tells her they'll go with her take, of course. On the way to the set, the stunt woman was in the car with her - she asked what the stunt woman did, not knowing she had a stunt woman, and the woman stated - I'm the swimming instructor. Good responded Swanson. The director told Swanson they needed to talk - after she finally confessed that she couldn't swim and had almost drowned for the movie.
Another interesting bit?
In Sunset Boulvarde, Swanson was initially supposed to share the film with Montgomery Cliff, but Cliff didn't want to be a lover to an older woman, he didn't consider it realistic and opted out, choosing instead to do The Heiress (based on Henry James novel Washington Square) was Olivia De Havilland. William Holden got tapped for the role opposite Swanson. But he was 30 and Swanson, at 50, they said looked too young for the part. The part was for a 50 year old woman. Swanson told them that 50 year old women can look younger and they should make Holden, who was 30 playing 25, look younger with makeup as opposed to making Swanson look older. Swanson won. YAY! Swanson! She didn't win the Academy Award for Sunset Boulevard, Olivia De Havilland did for The Heiress, but Swanson didn't really care. No one believed she didn't care - they all thought she was a diva. But Judy Holliday (Born Yesterday) and Betty Davis (All About Eve) understood.
3. Have come to the conclusion that while wrath can be motivating, jealousy and envy are a waste of time and should be removed from the emotional lexicon. I really don't see much point for either.
4. Legacy. The search for or the attempt to leave a "legacy" behind you is incredibly narcissistic, isn't it? I've been flipping this over in my head lately and slowly realizing why I despise the term legacy. It's not about helping people, or making the world a better place, but stroking your own ego and getting your validation from an external source. See? The thing of it is, if you have to get validation or approval from an external source constantly - you are doomed to failure. There's always going to be someone better and badder than you are. That's the wrong reason to do anything. It leads to hell. Always.
Learned this long ago...while in law school of all things, in which I was told that seeking validation externally doesn't work. If you feel you have no value, that you are a "0" and have to constantly achieve, constantly prove yourself, constantly obtain approval...you'll always feel like a 0. An empty well, never to be filled. My grandmother on my father's side was a bit like that..you could never fill that well. The person who explained this concept to me back in 1992, provided the analogy of National Merit Finalists - the brightest kids from high schools all over the country. They come together, and whoa, discover there are people brighter or as bright as they are...there goes their value. Out the proverbial window. Except of course for the kids who aren't basing their entire value or any of it on being a National Merit Finalist.
The character of Angel in Angel the Series is in some respects a brilliant critique of the classic hero trope - the hero's journey, where the guy has to prove himself through all these tasks, has to achieve so some sort of external approval. Whedon through his creation of Angel and Angel's story is in an odd way critiquing that trope, which exists in the Western genre and the comic book and horror genres as well as most religious mythology. We find it comforting, if we do all these tasks, God will choose us, we have a legacy...look how great we are. But how narcisisstic is that? And meaningless?
Throughout the series, Angel is told repeatedly that he should help others not for an reward or for forgiveness or to help himself, but just to do it. It's what Buffy actually does in her series. She gets no reward nor does she necessarily aspire to one. She chooses to do it, because she can't stand seeing these people suffer. She doesn't want Xander or for that matter Amy to die, and saves them. Angel doesn't quite get that. He keeps thinking there has to be more to it than that. Just helping people to help them?
So along comes Doyle with his visions, then Wesely with the Shansu prophecy, and the Oracles with the Powers, and their message that Angel was saved because he has a higher purpose, and the evil WRH who provide Angel with a tangible enemy to fight - one that is seeking to tempt and corrupt him much like the Devil did with Dr. Faustus or Daniel Webster. Of course there's also Cordy, who has her Daddy issues and her need for external validation and approval - Cordy always had to get her approval from outside herself - that was why she was such a beast in high school - it was all about being popular, and when she loses all of that, she wants to be a hero like Buffy, yet like Angel she doesn't understand what it means to be one. They romanticize the whole idea of hero. Heroes are well Superman, and Wonderwoman. They get awards. They get shanshus. They become Gods or Saints. They get medals. Neither much likes the pain of it all.
It's not unlike General Petraus, who has all that power, and is a military hero and fought the wars in Iraq, he wants the legacy, he wants the power, he wants the medals, and he wants the applause. But that's not what it is about. The true heroes never ask for applause, and rarely get it. They often die unknown...until years later. John Steinbeck was acclaimed a hero for writing Grapes of Wrath, yet he spent little time amongst the people he wrote about...while the woman who did spend time, who wrote down their stories, and gave her compassion, doesn't get her novel published until a year after her death. Whose the real hero, who leaves the greater legacy?
I look at Angel the Series years after its cancellation and I suddenly see a fascinating critique of heroism in American cultural discourse and mythology. No one in that series is a hero. They all want to be, but for all the wrong reasons. And there's the rub. It's Shakespearean tragedy in three part harmony. Pick your play, Othello, Hamlet, MacBeth or Titus Adronicus, or perhaps Julisu Ceasar...all plays about iconic and would be heroes...who die villains, destroying the very world they claim and wish to protect in order to enhance their ego. Illyria's introduction in S5 is a critique of Wes and Angel and Fred. She talks about how she was a God, a hero to her people, now long dead, ash. And she destroyed them. Just as Jasmine...is an echo of Cordelia's ego.
The way to hell is after all paved with the best of intentions.
Angel in a way is Whedon's version of Percy Blyshe Shelley's classic poem Ozymandias...
Angelus destroyed to obtain the approval of the old Gods, to obtain the approval of those around him, to be the biggest baddest thing out there - yet there was always something worse. Angel likewise wants to be the Chosen one. The chosen champion of Buffy, her lover. To be God's chosen one. The Prodigal son. To leave a lasting legacy. It's why he does what he does to save Connor. He loves Connor, true, but Connor is his blood, his legacy, the only good thing he's done, and he will make any sacrifice to save him - even if it destroys others lives. It's about his ego. If he truly loved Connor - he would never have done it. He would have let Connor choose his fate and not arranged it. He would not have interfered.
Angel the Series doesn't end well - it can't. Any more than Othello, MacBeth, Hamlet, or Titus Andronicus could. It's a tragedy. The heroes aren't really heroes except in their own pov and we're so deeply in their pov as an audience, we don't see it ourselves. But step back a bit and you do...see.
If there's any lesson to be learned from Angel's tale, it's this...legacy is for fools...and false heroes. Make your legacy about helping others, not about yourself. And don't help or do things to leave a mark on this world, better not to leave one at all...the world has one too many foot-prints large and small embedded on its surface as it is, after all.