Angel certainly took a turn for the interesting at the end of season 4. The force that has been controlling Cordelia gives birth to a physical manifestation of itself, a beautiful goddess-made-flesh named Jasmine. Jasmine’s rhetoric–”my love is all around you,” “love one another,” etc–screams New Testament, and the divinely-influenced conception along with worship of Cordelia as the holy mother add weight to the argument for interpreting these end-of-the-season episodes as commentary on religion.
The part I find particularly interesting is that Jasmine herself seems neither good nor evil. She genuinely wants people to be happy, yet does so by stripping them of their free will (and eating some of them…but that’s beside the point). It is the horrible things done in her name and the intolerance of free-thought and alternative opinion that make her a villain. Those who come to understand that the happiness Jasmine makes them feel comes at the price of their free-will are not only ostracized, but hunted down like animals, even by their closest friends. In the same way, there’s not
hing inherently wrong with religion–especially a religion that preaches love–but there is something very wrong when that love turns to intolerance, hatred, and violence against those with differing points of view.
After discovering Jasmine’s true nature, Angel and company struggle with feelings of loss and loneliness. While under Jasmine’s thrall, they felt at peace, safe, and part of something bigger than themselves, but all that is gone when they find themselves in control of their own minds once again. The question is, does the warmth make it worthwhile to live a lie? It’s a question I’ve struggled with myself. Religion is comforting, and has always been a part of my life. The ritual of mass, the songs, the safety, the sense that you don’t have to be in control and that God can wipe away your mistakes was liberating. I always assumed that I’d be married in a church, baptize my children, and send my daughter to receive her First Communion in a frilly white satin dress (with a veil…man, was I bitter about not having a veil!). But I thought too much, and reading, learning, thinking, and talking led me to the conclusion that it was one big, warm, fuzzy lie. And, worse, a lie that more often than not leads to hatred rather than love. And I couldn’t live like I hadn’t noticed, so now when I go back to church with my family on holidays I feel like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, standing among the faithful and seeing with open eyes. I would never tell them that they’re blind, or misguided, or what have you, because I envy them the comfort of faith. Logic is real, but it’s cold.
I’ve already thought too much for comfort, so I like a show that makes me think.
would certainly be appropriate. Or, it could reflect the fact that if I had/were having a baby I would be terrified, nervous, and overwhelmed. I don’t go for all this dream interpretation hooey anyway.
le. The layers of skin and bone, the delicate connections of nervous tissue, the harmonious functioning of the complex whole–it all seems so vulnerable and breakable, like an antique china vase in a children’s playroom.
I was going through old pictures for a class project today and I found this one and it got me thinking. It’s November now, which means I am avidly looking forward to the Christmas holidays. I love Christmas, not because of the time off school or the presents, but because of the togetherness, the songs, the food, and this unquantifiable warm, glowy essence that makes the commonplace seem magical.
ysical condition and Deaf is a cultural movement. If this is the case, then it seems to me that a distinction between reading and Reading might be appropriate. The act of interpreting collections of written words, reading with a lower-case r, involves road signs and menus, dull essays and romance novels. Anything can be read, and all literate people read. On the other hand, I suppose some people can go their whole lives without Reading. Reading, at least in my estimation, involves a conscious settling of oneself with a book and a focusing of the whole attention on the song of its language and pulse of its narrative. It’s about the way the volume smells and feels in your hands–the reason I am so picky about the physical characteristics of my books. The same novel that I might read in the noisy breakroom at work I would Read later that same night with a blanket and a glass of wine in a quiet room. It’s as close to a religious sort of experience as I get these days.
est Wind Village, a woman I’d never seen before reached for my hand and just held it while I passed out snacks at her table.