So Angela ... - Breathless (2014) Discussion

[–] !!!deleted!!! (41638798) 10 years ago

Well, it means both Angela and Otto are still in love, but both are in the "poo" where their marriages are concerned!

As for Angela being in a biracial relationship, well, unusual for the time certainly. Not that prevalent.

But I just took it as an ITV diversity box ticking exercise to introduce a little extra drama into Angela's personal situation.

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[–] emuir-1 10 years ago

I don't mind an ambiguous ending and once I had sorted it out and realized that I was not wrong about the manipulating Elizabeth, trapping Otto like a spider in a web then it all fell into place. She really did a number on him. The look of dismay and disbelief on Otto's face as he understood at the end that between the needy Elizabeth and the equally needy anesthesiologist he was trapped for the rest of his life, was quite a good ending. You don't HAVE to have a happy ending every time.

The one thing which did seem to strike a wrong note was the interracial marriage of Angela and her husband. Mixed marriages were extremely rare in 1961, and Angela would have had to be very brave or very unconventional to go against the prejudice of the time, something we had not previously seen. The Profumo scandal broke in 1962, and the tabloids had a field day with the association of the party girls involved with West Indians in the London night life.

I got the feeling that the writer was not born back then and did not realize what a problem it would have been for Angela. I am not saying that it never happened, things have changed a lot in the past 60 years, but she would have been something of a pariah. when Otto saw her in the cafe holding hands with her husband, who he did not know was her husband, he must have understood then that he didn't really know her.

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[–] teresah233 10 years ago

I really can't see Angela in a bi-racial marriage. Even though she is a social climber at heart, I could see Jean, her sister, jumping into a bi-racial marriage.

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[–] mmsbk 8 years ago

Who is a social climber at heart? You can't possibly mean Angela can you? She is married to a man, who totally wrong though the sentiment is, would have prevented her from being able to 'climb' anywhere.
He was posted missing at sea and in order to work as a nurse in those days she had to be unmarried (same for teachers). That is why she kept being married secret. She actually fought against falling in love with Otto, far from trying to 'climb' by catching him.
Jean certainly might have married to do so, but marrying a black merchant seaman would have been the last way of doing it .
Marrying the Aga Khan perhaps.....

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[–] rdavies23 10 years ago

It usefully sets up a "prejudice" storyline for S2 (assuming there is a S2) as well as complicating her relationship with Otto and her domestic arrangement with her father. The writers clearly have further series in mind. Whether they'll get them is another matter given the lukewarm response to S1.

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[–] boogles 10 years ago

Yeah, that is a good point that it could setup a "prejudice" storyline. It looks likely that there will be no second season yet. At least at the moment.

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[–] !!!deleted!!! (41638798) 10 years ago

Yes, it could set up a storyline to show prejudice of that moment.

It was interesting, as well, that it was Angela who was in an interracial relationship.

Otto fell for her; but she repeatedly, and especially again toward the end kept exclaiming, "You don't KNOW ME!"

Now Otto sees that he really does not know Angela; she's not only married, she's a woman so free of prejudice of her time that she has married an Afro-Caribbean gentleman.

So this dynamic puts Otto further away from Angela than he thought he was; further alienating him emotionally in his already fragile state and messed up life with Elizabeth.

It's more loss for Otto than ever; he comes to the café, sees Angela with her husband for one. Then realizes she lives a life that is very far away from what he knows---an entirely white suburban London existence.

So he's really left alone and adrift in all ways by the time he has the crazy, nutty bunny boiling Elizabeth cornering him in the bedroom.

Otto's is so alone at that moment.

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[–] miranda4 10 years ago

I guess everyone is going to yell (in writing) at me but I do not think Angela would have married, even dated, a very dark skin man. Neither the time frame nor her demeanor support her doing that. I would have found that part more believable if he had been more of a Harry Belafonte type. There had to be something different about him just to make the story interesting but the very dark skin just sounds like the writers could not think of anything else.

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