First of all, in order to complete this task, we
need to contextualize this mini-series. It portrays the North American society
of the 80s decade, mainly in New York City, Salt Lake City and San Francisco,
focusing on polemic themes like politics, racism, religion, homosexuality and
AIDS. In terms of religion they concentrate more on the Mormons and Jews, which
are the religions of the leading characters.The story is about two couples (one gay couple and other couple with a gay man and a straight woman) whose actions and relationship shows frustrations motivated by the themes that we presented above in the most varied perspectives as the story evolves. In this tale the conservatism and greed are demonstrated as the main characteristics of the society.
Both couples are formed by Jewish and Mormon
people, which despite being of different beliefs they have some points in common
for example the fact that they are against homosexuality and the fights that Jewish
and Mormons had so that they could be accepted in the society and stop
discrimination towards them, this fights includes innumerous migrations that
characterize this people.
Alongside this, the gay movement started to gain more and more strength. Who doesn’t remember Harvey Milk, one of the leading men behind the gay cause (around the 70s)?
In the series, the need of change moved by the
discriminated ones (Jews, Mormons and gays) that wanted to achieve a better
world, more socially stable, fair and tolerant was opposed by an angel that
didn’t want this change, he wanted stagnation. This character represents the
majority of American people at the time – Catholics and conservator ones – that
didn’t accept other cultures and ways of life like the homosexuality.
In this decade the society was ruled by Catholicism
and the angel defends that it should continue this way, he was afraid that a
mentality change could give more power to other religions or beliefs and, with
this, the stability that the community had would be questioned. In the other
side, we have the Jews, Mormons and gays that, in order to achieve the better
world that we describe earlier, had to appeal to the change, if not the years
of suffering, oppression and confinement would continue. A symbol of the gay
fight is the city of San Francisco that stands for liberty and equality, a place
that seems to be close to the ideal world of the minorities.
The interpretation that we make of the title is
that in this case the “Angels” doesn’t refer to the catholic ones but instead
the minorities that survived to injustice until the breaking point in the
people’s mentality that is pictured in this series.
BEYOND WHAT WE SEE is the title of this post
and it reflects all of the posts that we’ve been doing along the year. We’ve
been studying a big variety of themes on the blog in a deep way because we go
further than what everyone can know. And after all this was the purpose of this
task: widen our knowledge, not superficially but profoundly, and providing information
so that we can share with you, readers, some important facts.
Thank you for following, it has been very
pleasant, but now we need some rest!
Text written by the authors of the blog:
Cristiana & Margarida
