Character Analysis

[erikamarie]

Tim, knock it off, please

You wrote:


I can't help but think that if Rex had made that comment to the later seasons Phoebe, she'd be out of her clothes and halfway to the bedroom before he could finish the sentence.


And this is a very, very sexist remark

[erikamarie]

Nov 11, 2015 18:35:32 GMT -5 lilchi7212 said:

I don't know what sacrifices she made but I thought Phoebe went through some adversity just like her sisters.

I agree,all the Charmed Ones spent eight eerie years, for this reason I suppose that the Elders used Phoebe and Coop to make up a sort of witches strongly empathic, as if a genetic manipulation

[Deleted]

Hey, Erikamarie, take a pill and calm down, okay. 

Phoebe Halliwell is a fictional character, she does not exist.  Her feelings cannot be hurt because she has none (only what the writers give her). 

Now if I had made the same remark about the real life actors, then yes, that's going over the line.  However, this does not apply to a fictional character.

[erikamarie]

A concept is a concept, fictional character or real woman, it's the same

[Deleted]

Nov 12, 2015 3:40:03 GMT -5 erikamarie said:

And this is a very, very sexist remark

No, what's sexist is the fact that the writers and the Frog Network thought that a half-naked Alyssa Milano was the ticket to high ratings in the later seasons (it wasn't), as well as the man-hungry, baby-crazy stereotype of a woman Phoebe was written as in the later seasons. Yeah, how progressive is that, a woman whining about her "biological clock" and acting like it's the end of the world if she doesn't get married and pregnant, ASAP.

[erikamarie]

Enough with clutching at straw!
To give a negative opinion on a character because she has sex with many men is sexist

I not even understand all this emphasis on clothing: I remember some Phoebe’s ugly evening dress, some Prues’ awkward triangle – not a shirt, only a triangle- some Paige’s miniskirt, nothing that might offend even a bigot

You'ld see some hot pans or mini-miniskirt that my feminist mother wore in the '70s, by comparison Phoebe’ld seem a nun!

Anyway the argument should be a character analysis, not the usual, boring whining about low-cut dresses

[Deleted]

Nov 12, 2015 15:03:05 GMT -5 erikamarie said:

Enough with clutching at straw!
To give a negative opinion on a character because she has sex with many men is sexist

I not even understand all this emphasis on clothing: I remember some Phoebe’s ugly evening dress, some Prues’ awkward triangle – not a shirt, only a triangle- some Paige’s miniskirt, nothing that might offend even a bigot

You'ld see some hot pans or mini-miniskirt that my feminist mother wore in the '70s, by comparison Phoebe’ld seem a nun!

Anyway the argument should be a character analysis, not the usual, boring whining about low-cut dresses

You realize that we're talking about a FICTIONAL CHARACTER that was mostly written by men, right?  And, those WB execs who mandated that Alyssa and Rose show more skin?  Also mostly men.

It's hard to deny that marketing like this had ANY motivation beyond cheap fanservice:

[Deleted]

These pictures are pretty good evidence.  The writers were aiming for horny teenage boys.

[erikamarie]

All these images don't rob out the fact that

I can't help but think that if Rex had made that comment to the later seasons Phoebe, she'd be out of her clothes and halfway to the bedroom before he could finish the sentence.


is a sexist way of think

PS I am sorry, I have some evening dresses similare to Paige godness dress and on the beach usually I put on swimsuits smaller than the Valkyries costumes: maybe I'ld take myself off the board for indecency

[Deleted]

My main point was that while Season One Phoebe rejected Rex's advances, the later seasons Phoebe would not. 

Later seasons Phoebe happily went round the bars, trying to pick up men.  I was showing how much the character declined under Kern's watch.

[sol]

Tim, more you talks more you makse the situation worse

That remark wa heavily maxilist,accept it

Charmed was a family show, moderate in concepts and images,the teenagers see a far cry from the web and in other series
and if you are shocked by those clothes, it's better you not ever visit Madrid in the summer!


As to "Later seasons Phoebe happily went round the bars, trying to pick up men" now I'm offended
Is there anything unbecoming in doing this?

I'm 25 yers old, I live alone, I have a degree in Literature, a master in Economy,I work for a marketing agency 10 hours a day, may I go wild during the week end?
And yes, it happens that with my female friends we happily go to pubs or bars or discotheques and we pick up nice guys and even my grandmothers don't think it was a disreputable attitude

I'm gobsmacked

[sol]

Aug 23, 2013 13:16:24 GMT -5 cyma said:

This was posted on the IMDB boards. It's to help make sense of Phoebe's transition during the later seasons:

Phoebe's mechanical search for her future baby daddy actually makes sense, for the most part, and I think it is consistent with her character development. I guess audiences are so used to seeing characters change "for the better" that they see characters changing for the worst as bad writing, when in actuality it can be a realistic depiction of the evolution of a person. Evolution being "the change in the inherited characteristics" and not the growth into a highly moral individual.

In season one, Phoebe is a fun spirited young woman who is more in love with witchcraft and her sisters than attempting to find a long-term romantic partner. She's the epitome of the early twenty-something who desires to find themselves. By season two, Phoebe moves beyond accepting her destiny as just a witch, like in season one, but grows to embrace her role as a Charmed One and protector of the innocent. While magic is still fun for her, she begins to take it more seriously this season. This maturity leads to her wanting to be like her sisters and have a career alongside being a witch, and so she goes back to college to earn her B.A. degree in psychology. Unlike her sisters, who also attempt to find men to settle down with, the cupid from "Heartbreak City" helps us learn that Phoebe doesn't really believe true love can exist for herself. So, while she learns to consider the possibility of finding true love, her main focus is on her craft and her education.

In season three, Phoebe sees that love can conqueror all with Leo and Piper as [an] example, and decides to truly take a chance on love for the first time with Cole. She opens up her closed heart. Some fans think this relationship is the beginning of Phoebe becoming more selfish, but isn't that what naturally happens to someone who falls in love, really falls in love for the first time? Their new partner becomes their everything. In the past, Phoebe has merely had romantic flings, nothing serious. With Cole being her first serious relationship, and it being a literal forbidden love, it is only natural for Phoebe to give her all to make it work. Especially since this is the first time she opened up her heart to really let a man into it.

I think by season four, after losing Prue while attempting to save Cole, Phoebe is at the point in her relationship where she thinks Cole has to be the ONE. Otherwise, were the events of "All Hell Breaks Loose" really worth it? While she wanted things to work with Cole, I think Piper was right that losing Prue, finding Paige, and thinking she needs to stop being the baby sister and become the middle sister was a big toil on Phoebe. Phoebe told Piper that after a death, you aren't supposed to make any big changes. Deciding to marry Cole was a big change, but it seems as though almost losing him when he was mortal made her decide to take a leap of faith. I think Phoebe and Cole needed a break after Prue's death, but there's no way she could justify breaking up with him since her fighting to save him played a part in Prue's death.

During seasons five through six, I think Phoebe's heart was beginning to close itself off again after everything that happened with Cole. She was so afraid of what she had become in late season four, that she attempted to cut herself off from anything that reminded her of that time in her life. This included Cole and her witchcraft, as she placed a majority of her focus on her job. Then in late season five, she meets Jason and dates him for a year, but she never really opens her heart to him fully. How could she when he was the rebound? When he finds out about her being a witch, and then breaks up with her for it, I think that's when Phoebe's heart fully closed itself off again. I think Jason breaking up with Phoebe was the point when Phoebe went back to believing that true love wouldn't exist for her. Not the way she saw it happen for Piper and Leo. The look on Phoebe's face when Jason walks away her from says it all. She knew he loved her, because of her empathy, but at the end of the day, that love wasn't enough to make him stay.

For someone like Phoebe, who always feared that love would never be enough to make a relationship work, her fears from "Heartbreak City" were officially validated. In her mind, Cole couldn't love her if she was good, and she believed evil couldn't love. Jason (and later Dex) couldn't love her as a witch. I don't think Phoebe believed a man would be able to love her unconditionally anymore. Given her examples of relationships, Prue and Andy, Patty and Victor, Penny and her multiple husbands, Phoebe probably thought Piper and Leo were the exception and not the rule when it came to a Halliwell finding love.

So, when Phoebe gets the vision of her future daughter, Phoebe probably doesn't even think that she has a relationship with her daughter's father in the future. She probably thinks she married a guy, had her daughter, and probably ended up in divorce like her parents. That's probably way she didn't care about falling in love with the father of her child. I remember, Phoebe says, "Who has time for love?" during her quest to find the father of her child and for me, it validates my theory that Phoebe didn't believe a romantic love was in the cards for her. She just wanted to find the father of her child, have her daughter, and deal with the inevitable "break up" that she knows was destined to happen because she no longer believed she would have true love. I think Phoebe was forcing her premonitions to protect herself from another heartbreak. I think that for Phoebe, if she avoided "falling for her daughter's father" that, when she found him, it would hurt less when he left her after her daughter was born. I think Phoebe truly believed no man could love her unconditionally by that point in her life.

When Phoebe started knocking off her responsibilities as a Charmed One in favor of finding her baby daddy, I think it stemmed from her realization that being a witch would always play a part in her being someone undeserving of unconditional love. I think Phoebe's failed turns in her only serious relationships, with Cole and Jason, not only closed her heart off to love, but also stilted her earlier love for magic. In her experience, it seemed that Phoebe might think being a witch was part of the reason why she wouldn't have true love. Her destiny as a Halliwell, much like Penny, Patty and Prue, wouldn't allow it. That's why I think Phoebe's mechanical future baby daddy search was not a purely PhoeME kick, but a self-preservation from heartache kick that was a consistent fallout from her taking a chance on love after already not believing in it for so many years.

I love your analysis!

It's true, after all those tragic events, the loss of Prue, of the love of her life ,of her never born baby, Phoebe'ld no more be the sunny and hopeful girl of the first seasons, it'ld be odd to hope otherwise


I'ìs an acceptable reaction to shut herself and run away from anything that can hurt


Why don't you try to write analysis for Prue and Piper also?

[Deleted]

Tim, more you talks more you makse the situation worse

  What's Phoebe gonna do, sue me?  Oh yeah, that's right, she doesn't exist!

Truthfully, I don't give a rats behind about Phoebe's clothes or lack thereof.  It's the character herself I'm talking about.  Es says it best in her signature picture, part of which I will quote here:

our sweet Phoebs who loved magic more than sex.

Season One Phoebe was a compassionate and caring person, and she was my favourite sister. 

The later seasons Phoebe was a vain and selfish creature who cared only for her own creature comforts at the expense of the Innocents she (and her sisters) were supposed to protect.  To make matters worse, they no longer cared when an Innocent died on their watch, it just just "Meh, who cares?"  The ONLY time when Phoebe showed any hint of emotion when an Innocent was lost was when Kira was vanquished by Zankou (I would have loved to have paired them up in the R&H Chronicles, however, Kern saw fit to marry Phoebe off to Mr. Cardboard).

Just look at how Phoebe and her sisters acted in Season Eight.  They just wanted to party and go shopping.  Whenever Billie tried to remind them of their duties as Charmed Ones, it was always "Shut up, Billie."  Watch Obscuras Lupa's review of Season Eight, you'll see what I'm talking about here. 

To sum up.  I would love to call the Season One Phoebe a friend.  However, I would not want the later seasons Phoebe even as a passing acquaintance. 

[sol]

Ok, you are uncomfortable for what you told, you used a fiction characters to critique a behavior, don'y worry, I behave like Phoebe, I'm single and happy for my freedom, not even my grandmothers'ld scold me!


Then: I don't live for tv show, I just don't know the actors and actresses, I'm not so curious about the writers, I think it's strange all this hate against some fiction characters

I love Charmed, if I was so against the show I'ld spend not even a minute, here, but I believe you'ld ask yourself why you get mad because a fiction character!

It's Friday, I'm going to the sea with some friends, maybe we'll pich up some guys!

[Deleted]

It seems a lot of people here cannot tell the difference between fanservice and an individual woman dating or wearing a short skirt.  The latter is perfectly acceptable and normal, because we're dealing with a real person making her own decisions and thinking for herself. 

That is NOT the same thing as a FICTIONAL character being written and depicted in a way BY MEN to explicitly appeal to the Male Gaze, nor is it equivalent to real life female actors being marketed and promoted in a way BY MEN to explicitly appeal to the Male Gaze.

I want to do a little comparison to show you just what the WB's intentions behind Phoebe's (and Paige's) sleeping around were.  A couple of times in Season 6, we saw Chris either sleeping around or making out with a woman:





Notice how Chris was the one who was always fully-covered in his make-out scenes.  Compare this to similar scenes with Phoebe and Paige:




Annnnd... it's still the woman who's undressed.   If Phoebe and Paige stripping their clothes off really was nothing more than "empowerment," then why didn't we see Chris do it, too?  Say what you will about him as an actor, but there's no question that Drew Fuller's hot.  At the time, he was young and extremely appealing to young women.  LOTS of horny young women would've loved to see him undressed, and yet, that never happened.  It was always Phoebe, Paige, or some other female character who stripped down. 

It's like there was some sort of underlying bias on the part of the straight, male writers and producers.[/sarcasm]

[Chrisaholic]

That happened then in "Army Wives" but that's beside the point here. Still, it is true that mainly the women were undressed and not the men here. Cliché?

[Deleted]

Nov 13, 2015 15:28:53 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

That happened then in "Army Wives" but that's beside the point here. Still, it is true that mainly the women were undressed and not the men here. Cliché?

Army Wives was a different show under the control of different writers and producers.  If I recall, it aired on Lifetime, a network explicitly geared towards women, so I wouldn't be surprised if the show had more Mr. Fanservice than Charmed did (which aired on a network that only cared about Horny Teenage Boys, despite its actual audience mostly being young women).

[Chrisaholic]

Completely agree, betty. And you're right with airing "Army Wives" on Lifetime. Still, I bet for many Charmed fans, Chris/Drew Fuller was a hot factor in returning to the show.

I know, I know. We're talking about Phoebe here. Who was more active regarding her love life than all the other sisters, I think.

[Deleted]

It is interesting to note that in Season One, when Connie Burge had full control, there was less revealing clothing.  As i said, Phoebe was clearly upset at Rex's remark about her having to sleep with him to get that job interview. 

However, in the later season, after Kern has seized power, the clothing got more and more revealing. 

Of course, that was also when Hellish became costume designer.  If you want skimpy, call Hellish.  I wonder whats she's doing now, I'm sure there are a lot of porn channels that would love to hire her.

[Deleted]

Nov 14, 2015 12:35:05 GMT -5 @tim66 said:

It is interesting to note that in Season One, when Connie Burge had full control, there was less revealing clothing.  As i said, Phoebe was clearly upset at Rex's remark about her having to sleep with him to get that job interview. 

However, in the later season, after Kern has seized power, the clothing got more and more revealing. 

Of course, that was also when Hellish became costume designer.  If you want skimpy, call Hellish.  I wonder whats she's doing now, I'm sure there are a lot of porn channels that would love to hire her.

Yeah, I can't consider that a coincidence at all.   Especially when you consider that the Frog Network started pushing Charmed as softcore porn more and more in the later seasons.  Their network was dying, and they thought that Horny Teenage Boys were the ticket to saving it.  I wouldn't be shocked if Hellish was one of the many, many mandates the Frog Network shoved onto the show.