Talk:Angel (TV series)

Race & racism in Angel

• a whole essay can & should be written about race/racism on angel; the use of demons to stand in for different races and offer opportunity for treatment of racism; specific episodes (are you now or have you ever been); characterization & relationships (gunn) --LQ 06:47, 18 February 2007 (PST)

70.253.84.45's edit

I'd like some opinions on the most recent edits to this page (made by 70.253.84.45) -- they seem to be a rebuttal to some of the deleted content, with no discussion attempted. is this OK? --Therem 20:08, 13 June 2007 (PDT)

some of the changes looked okay very cursorily -- maybe it would be better to try to write something that blends both, as in "some say that a; others think that b" ??? i won't be able to do it in next couple of days tho - you want to take a pass? --LQ 21:16, 13 June 2007 (PDT)

There are no other contributions in 70.253.84.45's user history, and in this edit to the Angel article, changing the phrase "was noticeably less feminist" to "examined feminism differently" is a non-sequitur. Going from ascertaining whether (or how thoroughly) something is feminist to how something "examines" feminism isn't the same thing at all. It does not follow, even as a contradiction! So I wouldn't call it a rebuttal, nevermind the lack of supporting evidence (that any edit might entail if the editor didn't have time to provide it). It seems like a bad faith edit to me, or a very clumsy one from a fan of the series attempting to "defend" it from an unflattering comparison.

Trying to create a blend of the two revisions, as LQ proposes, with a "some say that a; others think that b" approach to the modified sentence, would not work here, because the predicates are not the same, therefore the object of the sentence in the two versions cannot be compared. Grammatically, they're apples and oranges: the fruits of different semantic trees. (It could be interesting to compare how BtVS and Angel _examine_ feminism, mind. But not as a substitute to an examination of the feminism in their types of storytelling, they choices of narrative focus and so forth.)

And, thirdly, I am ever wary of injecting even-handedness in this wiki. Moving towards (politically "inert", therefore incumbent, as opposed to revolutionary) objectivity means distancing ourselves from the feminist subjectivity we need to create it. And, if we're in a rush, we can trip right into pitfalls like the above misdirection. --Ide Cyan 03:09, 14 June 2007 (PDT)

Quickly - I agree that we don't want "even-handedness" per se; however, not all feminists agree on any particular take. For me, I'm unwilling to see it as a "bad faith" edit even if other people want to edit much of it back. I'd like to look to see if there is something of interest or use in the edit. Here, for instance, consider "less" versus "differently". I would have gone with "less" initially, but there were certainly still feminist examinations on Angel. The premise wasn't per se a feminist retake, and the setup recapitulated much more common nonfeminist setups. But setup isn't the only aspect of a work, and Angel had episodes (like "She") that took on feminism in ways that Buffy never did. So, this editor may have been trying to get that point across, even if they did it in a clumsy fashion. So I'd prefer to add complexity and nuance that can accommodate any legitimate (feminist) insight. (And I do like the wikipedia thing of assuming good faith as much as possible until and unless there is strong evidence to the contrary.) --LQ 06:22, 14 June 2007 (PDT)