So I’m finally making my way through all of GMW (after doing a full BMW rewatch), and I finished with Girl Meets I Do last night, and… I have much to say haha.
First I’ll start by saying that Shawn Patrick Hunter deserves *nothing* less than the utmost happiness and an amazing, stable home life, and I would never be able to be anything but thrilled to see him finally get his happy ending!! :’D Truly, much as I adored Shawn and Angela, at the end of the day if Shawn gets to be truly happy I am so down for whomever that happiness is with (and Katy really is adorable and sweet and I’m really happy for her and Maya as well <3 ). So YAY HAPPY ENDING!! YAY WEDDING!!
Now with that said (and I really do mean it!)… writers of Girl Meets World, have I got some WORDS for you on how disrespectful you were to Shawn and Angela’s relationship. Just… it’s pretty mind boggling.
At NO point in the GMW series was their relationship- and Angela in her own right, for that matter- given the respect it/she deserves, but I think the part that really helped me put a finger on why I have such a huge issue with it was Cory saying that Shawn’s “never been happy before.” And you know what makes that line so wrong? It’s that there is in fact an element of truth there: Happiness never was something that came easily for Shawn; I’d go as far as to even say he had a pretty darn clear case of depression. So it is not something to be taken lightly that he WAS, really and truly, happy with Angela. In fact, it was such a struggle for him to get there that there was a good solid half or more of a season devoted to the fact that he was so afraid of falling into happiness only to get deeply hurt yet again that he sabotaged the relationship rather than be happy. But that was his whole journey with Angela: by the end of season 6, he HAD worked through what he needed to work through in order to let himself be happy, and Angela worked through her abandonment issues as well, and for most of season 7 they were Well. And. Truly. Happy.
Much as I wasn’t crazy about how Girl Meets Hurricane oversimplified the circumstances of Angela leaving, that episode at least had a point with Angela’s “let what we had make you ready for something new.” Because THAT, above all else, is the truth: Shawn would never have BEEN ready for what he found with Katy if what he had with Angela had not been incredibly real, and deep, and meaningful to him.
I am honestly perfectly fine with the idea that Shawn and Angela weren’t meant to be each other’s “forever loves”. I would have been thrilled if they were, but I respect that in reality life just doesn’t always work out so perfect like that. But what I am NOT okay with is GMW trying over and over again to convince me that what she and Shawn had “wasn’t real”, and that Shawn had “never been happy before Katy.” Because THAT is what their relationship was all about: It was two people who had gone through a lot of heartache in their lives finding each other, and *learning* together (after a lot of trial and error) how to be happy and how to let themselves be loved and trust that it’s real and lasting. Shawn learned to trust in happiness and his worthiness of being loved *because of ANGELA*. So when GMW adamantly denies the importance of that relationship in Shawn’s life, it’s not just disrespectful to the relationship itself and to Angela, but to Shawn as well! Because it says “we’re perfectly fine erasing the immense amount of growth and healing and maturity that Shawn went through in BMW seasons 5, 6 and 7 in order to try and convince you that Shawn and Katy have never ever ever loved or been happy with anyone else but each other.”
It would have been SO easy for them, especially given the conceit of the show being that “there’s only one Cory and Topanga”, to have Shawn be the foil and show that, no, there’s not always only ONE single person that’s someone’s soul mate. Sometimes, someone can have one person they connect with on every level and could spend the rest of their life with, and it just doesn’t work out for any crazy combination of reasons life throws at them, and then later on that same someone can find someone ELSE they connect with on every level and could just as easily spend the rest of their life with, and that time the timing is perfect and it comes to fruition and it’s beautiful! That would pretty much be the perfect counter-point to the rarity of the Cory and Topanga “meet at 2 years old and fall in love forever and ever” situation.
But instead, they had to go and ruin everything that Shawn and Angela’s relationship meant to them, and for what? So that viewers would buy in more to Shawn and Katy? I didn’t NEED to be bought in! All they ever had to say is “Shawn is happy” and I was always going to be in! Even with as crazy little as we got to see of Shawn and Katy together haha, I was still always going to be all in if it meant Shawn and Katy and Maya got their happy endings. It was never about Shawn and Angela HAVING to end up together for me.
But all this “Angela never really meant anything to him” and “he was never happy before”… that is such total crap and I am NOT here for it.
I know tons of people have expressed similar sentiments, but I just couldn’t not get it off my chest as I watch all of GMW.
