In season one of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cordelia is introduced to us as a villain. She seems like a typical mean girl trope. She bullies Willow. She’s self-obsessed, and materialistic. But as we get to know her better throughout the next three seasons and in Angel, we get to know her as a layered, complicated individual. She’s mean, but she’s honest. She often prioritizes herself, but she also has moments of profound generosity. Charisma Carpenter expertly brought this character to life, with enormous empathy, dedicated emotional labor, and she did it all under the conditions of a toxic work environment.
Right off the bat, the fact that we as an audience are ever able to get past Cordelia bullying our beloved Willow is a testament to what a deeply nuanced and lovable character she is. Willow is introduced to us as an adorkable hero. She’s awkward, and timid, but when she needs to step up and help battle vampires, or cursed Halloween costumes, or internet demons, she doesn’t hesitate. It’s very easy to root for wonderful Willow, and it’s equally easy to despise cruel Cordelia.
Cordelia’s high school years are defined by her vacillation between conforming to her mean popular friends, and working with the Scoobies, a rag-tag group of misfits and ne’er-do-wells who will pretty much accept anyone for who they are as long as they’ll put in the time and effort to help save the world at least once a week. At first, Cordelia is uninterested in battling the forces of evil. To her, battling the forces of evil seems weird and gross, and that assessment is largely correct. But Sunnydale being Sunnydale, the forces of evil are pretty much unavoidable. After Buffy saves Cordelia’s life a few times, Cordelia associates Buffy with evil and blames her for it. After Buffy saves Cordelia’s life a few more times, Cordelia comes to appreciate the necessity of what Buffy and the Scoobies do, and the sacrifices they make to do it. Cordelia also comes to fall in love with Xander, recognizing that his commitment and bravery outweigh his immature sense of humor and lack of style. Cordelia eventually abandons her popular status to fight the good fight with the Scoobies.
As a fellow Scooby, Cordelia’s sense of practicality, her material wealth, her honesty, and her fierce intimidating nature serve her and her compatriots well. She saves Willow and Jenny Calendar from a horde of vampires by picking them up in her very cool car. After she and Buffy are chased all over Sunnydale by various bad guys competing to kill them, and Buffy is too weak to fight anymore, Cordelia frightens the last remaining villain away, with a kind of terror only a mean girl can bring. Even after Cordelia and Xander break up, and her relationship with the Scoobies becomes antagonistic again, she is still helpful to them, researching and investigating. When Buffy is cursed with the ability to hear people’s thoughts, Cordelia is the only person she isn’t tortured to be around, because Cordelia is the only person who says exactly what she thinks anyway.
The best part about Cordelia’s transformation is that it isn’t really a transformation. She matures, and our understanding of her deepens, but the core of who she is, what made her a villain in the beginning, is also what makes her a hero later on. This is illustrated most beautifully in my favorite episode of Angel, “Rm w/a Vu.” Cordelia finds a spacious, gorgeous, rent-controlled apartment with only one flaw: it’s haunted af. At the climax, when the ghost is horrifying Cordelia, she makes the mistake of calling her a “bitch.” This reminds Cordelia that she is a bitch. She will not be bullied; she is the bully. Everyone at Sunnydale High was terrified of her, so she turns the tables and bullies the ghost away.
In Angel Cordelia continues to grow while remaining true to herself. Her commitment to self-preservation expands to include Angel and the whole team, recognizing that she is safest and at her best when her family is also safe and at their best. Her materialism, rooted in practicality, turns Angel Investigations into an actual sustainable business, which helps the whole team, and helps them help others.
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Then, apparently in retaliation against Charisma Carpenter for having the audacity to procreate, (a thing lots of human beings do), Cordelia’s character takes a totally nonsense turn. She completely abandons the material world to become a power that be, an entity that seems to exist for the sole purpose of being frustratingly vague. Then she comes back and has a sexual relationship with Connor, who was once a son to her. Iew. This whole part says nothing about Cordelia as a character, and nothing about Charisma Carpenter as an actor. It says a great deal about how small a person, how terrible an artist someone would have to be, to turn a beloved character and a beloved show into utter balderdash in the name of petty unwarranted revenge.
Personally, and like most women who have ever acted, I’ve had a few experiences attempting to act while being belittled and harassed behind the scenes. It is extremely difficult. Those conditions are not conducive to great performances. Still, while Charisma Carpenter put up with egregious behavior from her boss Joss Whedon, she created one of the most vivid iconic characters in television history. It says a great deal about the level of skill and talent she possesses. Charisma Carpenter slays.
