No Excuse

   The "Catfish" scenario is very troubling for me. What makes me uncomfortable is not so much that people pass for someone else, but the great lengths that people go to in order to maintain the act. First, I would like to point directly to the flaws of creating relationships through the Internet. As most of us have already agreed, we are not our complete selves on the Internet. Therefore, we should reason that the people we are interacting with are also not really being their true selves. I am not claiming that it is entirely impossible to form relationships through the web, just that as our friend Ned learned, we should proceed with caution.
   Considering the character of Angela, I think that she is in a very troubled place. She no doubt leads a very hard life. The health situation of her step-sons alone is enough to drain significant energy from a person. Caring for the boys daily is no doubt tiresome. It requires a lot of strength and patience. Being human, this strength and patience can waver at times and naturally we look for outlets. Angela expressed that a lot of her hopes and dreams had fallen. She had a sense of having given up and losing herself throughout the process of her life. I can understand her to a degree. I had a glimpse of what she has to go through daily and it isn't easy. However, I do believe that because we are going through tough times, that does not give us a free pass in life to do things that otherwise would not be acceptable.
   Personally, I thought Angela's art was really good. I am no art expert, but Ned obviously thought she was good or else he would not take the art paintings. Why did she have to pass as Abby, when she could have promoted her own art career from the beginning? Something that in the end of the film she apparently takes on. I do not accept the whole show that she created; inventing numerous fake profiles and commenting on her own posts with various accounts. Angela also telephoned Ned and passed as a younger woman; countless of calls and text messages were exchanged, and through it all Ned had no idea. When Angela really crossed the line was when she involved her younger daughter and then lied about having cancer. There were just too many lies that kept rolling on and on. I suppose it made it worse because we knew she was lying. To an extent those lies are more damaging, because you know the person is lying to your face at that moment. And when it is something as serious as some of the lies Angela tells, it can have a great effect.
   In conclusion, I understand that Angela leads a very tough life. Certainly a life tougher than most people. It is hard to summarize the life and troubles of a person in a couple of paragraphs. It is likely that we did not get the full picture from the film. However, I also believe that the hardships that life presents to us does not give us the right to act differently. That is not to take away the hardship of Angela's life, but at the same time acknowledging that because things aren't perfect we can act in a perverse manner.