so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.
first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.
it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.
and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.
you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.
and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.
your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.
in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.
in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.
so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.
you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.
once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.
and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"
you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?
hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!
you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.
we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?
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Let's talk costuming: Avaunt!
So I think we can all agree that Aziraphale looks his most traditionally angelic in the Job minisode, no? In fact, all of the angels' costuming increases in drama for this particular episode. This is, obviously, a very deliberate choice on the part of wardrobe, so let's discuss.
On a technical level, the biggest thing that stands out to me about this fabulous robe is the draping. Oh, the draping. It feels like a classic angel 'fit because on a very fundamental level, it is. A lot of what we think of as angelic draws on Renaissance artists' depictions, with flowing robes, fluffy wings, and glimmering halos. In art from this era, there is a strong attention to detail on the natural flow of fabrics that makes Renaissance sculpture so breathtaking, such as here: (The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, Bernini, 17th century CE)
It's this ability to make solid marble look like fine silk rippling with movement that leaves such a strong impression in my mind when I look at these kinds of works.
In painting, too, there is a similar effect. Something about the material culture of the Renaissance really lent itself to this style, perhaps fueled by the rise in new textile luxuries that occurred in vaguely the same period. This is seen especially strongly for angels, such as in the sculpture above, and in this painting: (The Annunciation to the Virgin, Botticelli, 15th century CE)
There's a stark contrast between the dress of the two figures. The virgin Mary is no less ornamentally or expensively dressed, but her style is rather minimalistic next to the angel's voluminous robing. It paints a very clear impression of angelic dress, and the designers for Good Omens would have been aware, in at least a small way, of the art history precedence for such a thing.
The poof of the sleeves, the tucks down the front, the little belt with the train tucked in, the gathers, the weight of the fabric, everything about this robe is constructed to carefully recreate the rather fantastical imagery of renaissance art. It's not necessarily an easy texture to nail down, given that the artists themselves had no concerns of gravity, comfort, or the way it would look in actual 3d motion, while our brave costumers were dealing with all three as well as a budget, time constraints, and the constant consideration that white fabric just gets dirty so easy.
Here's some of the other angels as well, so you can see how theirs reflect those same dramatic themes.
And then, of course, when costuming a show you have a second question: What does this mean for our character? Or rather, we know how, but WHY did they make him look so traditionally angelic?
Well, thematically, the Job minisode centers around Aziraphale's struggle with being a good angel and Crowley's struggle with being a good demon. Aziraphale is learning how to be an angel that follows along with heaven as far as we can, and he's so terribly torn up about it. He spends a lot of his time fretting about doing what's expected demanded of him, even if perhaps he doesn't believe it to be the right choice. Natural, then, that he should look the part of the perfect angel whilst sorting out these ethereal woes.
Crowley even draws attention to it himself, giggling a bit at the suggestion that Aziraphale, with his fluffy hair and flowing angelic garb, could possibly become a demon. And it is a rather silly mental image; the garment itself would be comically silly in really ANY other context at all. In the same manner, his performance of angelic archetype borders on excessive:
He's trying so desperately hard here to be the angel he wants to and is supposed to be. He's dressed the part, he's using his big scary angel voice, but deep down he's clinging to an identity that doesn't quite fit.
(You'll notice in this shot the distinct difference between his and Crowley's dress on the level of silhouette as well as color. We see this a lot from the two of them, but with the points I made above it felt worth pointing out in this particular scene)
Here at the end, as he's coming to terms with the cracks in his heaven-given identity, his robe is largely in shadow, blurring out its startling whiteness. We do not see him dressed this way again. (He continues to wear white, obviously, but from here on out his style of dress mimics the human trends of the time rather than that classical angelic imagery)
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