In Praise of ... Jasmine

If there is one thing we love here at Geeky Splendor, it's an all-powerful goddess. Another thing we love is just about anything that springs from the mind of Joss Whedon (excluding the original Buffy movie and Dawn Summers a.k.a. "The Key", of course). In Season Four of Angel, the show brought us Gina Torres as Jasmine.






As we've touched on before, goddesses are imperfect and they do have their challenges, so let's get a few of Jasmine's flaws out of the way. As it turns out, Jasmine's "true face" wasn't astonishingly beautiful, but I've seen plenty of gorgeous actresses before they get into Hair and Makeup and while they aren't exactly decaying and maggot-covered like Jasmine, they sure do benefit from proper lighting and a quality foundation, if you know what I mean. Then there was that whole eating people thing, but it's not like they suffered. They were just happy to be in her presence. She didn't even chew, it was more of a glowy absorption process.






A thornier issue was that Jasmine-worship tended to curtail free will. But seriously, if you could be totally blissful in a happy, peaceful world and wear pink and listen to Pet Sounds, but not have much choice in the matter, wouldn't you go for it? Or would you be a stickler for the free will in a gloomy, violent world sans pink and peppy tunes? Have you noticed that people only talk about free will in relation to bad things? It's never about the free will to nuzzle puppies and sip mimosas and take a spa day. All in all, I feel the whole eating people and marginal mental enslavement thing was blown way out of proportion.


Misunderstood Jasmine was a real leader, brainy, cultured (fluent in multiple languages), had fabu hair and makeup skills (the way she applied her lipcolor is a lesson to us all) and she made everybody happy and achieved virtual world peace. Within days of her arrival, she was presented with a divalicious hotel suite and later she subtly suggested to her worshippers that a temple would be nice, too. That's my kind of girl. So she ate a couple of dozen folks a day. Did I mention the world peace and pink and Pet Sounds? Jasmine's dulcet tones, fashion sense, determination and ability to inspire genuflection earn her a Great Underrated Fashionista of Fiction Award.


I really wish I had great Jasmine clips for you, but most of what I found was montages set to Evanescence. While, I'm willing to rationalize the eating people, some things just can't be excused.