Gone Fishing

The movie Catfish depicts the story of Nev being deceived by a woman named Angela. Angela pretends to be a number of people on Facebook. She convinces Nev that her young daughter Abby is an artist. Nev sends photographs he takes and then receives a painted version of them. He thinks that Abby is the one doing the paintings. When Nev visits, Abby tells him she doesn’t paint very often. In the end, it is revealed that Angela is actually the one doing the paintings.

One persona of Angela’s was her supposed oldest daughter Megan. Nev and “Megan” message and talk on the phone and both seem pretty affectionate towards one another. Abby told Nev that she didn’t remember what her sister looked like and that she hasn’t seen her in a while. Since there is no Megan, I think the worst part of all of this is that Angela got her daughter Abby involved in the lying as well. Abby was a young girl so she might have even believed she had an older sister. Even if Abby knew better than to believe there was a Megan, what could she have learned from her mother’s actions? Could she think it is ok to lie to and trick people in order to make oneself feel better or for personal gain? This is not a very good lesson at all for a young girl to be learning.

When Nev met Angela and she partially confessed what she had done, he did not react in the way that most would expect. It was clear that he sympathized with her. This probably was because Nev saw her home life. Angela had to take care of her husband’s seriously handicapped children from his previous marriage. She also had to take care of her daughter Abby. She had given up her career and probably most of what she enjoyed doing.

 I also felt pity for Angela even though she was wrong for pretending and lying to other people. It is clear to me that she felt very lonely and this was her way to cope with her life. Angela used her art to help her handle the stress of caring for her family. When Nev showed a genuine interest in her art I believe it helped her cope even more. I think that Angela truly just wanted to feel appreciated. While she went about obtaining that in a way that is wrong, I can’t help but pity her.