On the Buffyverse’s weirdly shallow definition
I recognize that I’m roughly **checks watch** 25 years late with this ice-cold take, but I’ve got a bone(r) to pick with the whole Angel’s soul thing.
But first, I obviously have to acknowledge that this show, which is basically the platonic ideal of a problematic fave, has not in any way aged well. I can’t even count the ways that it failed on race, sexism, etc.—better writers than I have done this work already many times over. So I’m just here to rant on one of my top five pet peeves.
It’s the one where Angel—cursed to lose his soul if he experiences “one moment of pure happiness”—turns evil after having sex with Buffy. Look, I’m not even mad about that moment being the catalyst. If they are supposed to be in love (and it’s clear that the show wants us to believe that they are, despite the actors never convincing me of that), then their first time going all the way would have been a deeply special moment for both of them. To call it “pure happiness” might be a stretch, but I can suspend my disbelief that far.
What bothers me is that forever after, in both Buffy and Angel’s TV shows, it’s generally accepted as a fact that the only thing that can turn Angel into Angelus is sex. This is effed up for two main reasons:
- It’s juvenile. Maybe for a horny teenager the epitome of happiness is sex, but for anyone with a speck of maturity, real love and happiness are deeper than that—and Angel is somewhere north of 200 years old! Yet the shows assume that Buffy and Angel are safe as long as they never do the nasty again. Is it impossible to think a couple could have a perfect moment of contentment without their genitals touching? Well, for Angel it probably is, because…
- After losing his soul the first time (or okay, technically the second), he’s now fully aware of the curse’s fine print. He knows that he is meant to suffer, and that if he does feel true happiness he’ll lose himself and attempt to torture and kill everyone he loves. Can you say BUZZKILL? IDK about anyone else, but if that were me, that fact alone would be enough to keep me from ever being happy again. That fact would, in all probability, be enough to drive me fully insane. Every moderately pleasant moment would become a source of anxiety as I obsessed over how close to happy it was making me, thus robbing it of any potential joy.
I’ve thought about this waaaaayyyy too much over the years, and it bothers me more with each re-watch.
It’s probably expecting too much to want a decent answer to the question “What is pure happiness?” from a late-90s monster-of-the-week TV show. Still. Couldn’t someone involved have dug a little deeper than “happy = sex”? Or am I the one who’s crazy?