Leela and Amy's friendship

[on:]

Leela and Amy's friendship seems very similar to a platonic version of her and Fry's, in that Amy seems rather desperate to be friends with Leela, but Leela is jealous of Amy's beauty, intelligence, charm, wealth and warmth.  Even though Leela seems to have fairly average intelligence and Amy has a PHD, Leela has managed to convince Amy that she is the smart one.

Both are very insecure of the other.  Amy seems like she very much wants to be friends with Leela while Leela copes with her insecurity by putting Amy down constantly.

Amy's comments are very petty and are always aimed at Leela's bad taste in footwear, annoying and they are usually said in retalation.  Amy's comments are very easy to shake off.i  Leela's comments to Amy however, are far more vicious and spiteful, and are usually said unprovoked.   Leela is far more likely to provoke Amy then the other way round.

Amy: Lol ur shoes are ugly lol   (to the point that Leela responds by brutally murdering Amy in two what if scenarios and making Amy's death as painful as possible and then disrespecting her corpse.   The murdered body of Amy's dead deceased corpse shows she did not die without a fight.

Leela: Asian skank

Lol your boyfriend dumped you like a sack of turds

Also whenever wrestling, Leela is clearly the more physically powerful of the two, and she seems to take a bit too much pleasure in injuring Amy as much as she can.

Butterjunk:  When Amy says that when women are nice to each other that there's a problem. there is a worried expression on her face, as if she is pleading Leela to reassure her they are friends. 


Amy internalises her unhappiness and depression, while Leela takes it on others.   Leela deep down cares what Fry thinks of her, and her constant abuse of him is more or less a test, while her verbal and physical abuse of Amy comes from sadism rather then insecurity. 

[Reply #1 on:]

I fear you contradict yourself a bit in the last paragraph there, chum. In fact, I think the show makes an explicit case for Leela's cattiness toward Amy being the result of insecurity, not sadism. Her line to Fry in "A Flight to Remember" sort of crystallizes it: in her assessment, the thing that makes Fry and Amy a good couple is that "You have two eyes, she has two eyes." That innate insecurity, I think, is the driving force behind Leela's mistreatment of Amy (which I don't mean to justify by any means--just contextualize).

I'm also not sure I agree with the idea that Leela particularly cares what Fry thinks of her--or, at least, she doesn't care about his opinion any more than she cares about the opinion of anybody else, and sometimes we see her placing far less value on his opinion than the opinion of others. I mean, he tells her in "The Cyber House Rules" that she's perfect just the way she is, and she blatantly ignores his stated preference (a one-eyed Leela) in exchange for a chance to be a normal, two-eyed person.

That said, the turning point in the pilot episode comes when Leela realizes--thanks entirely to Fry, and his perception of her--that her job sucks. The turn at the end of "The Why of Fry" is based on a similar about-face. So, if the show does mean to suggest that Leela values Fry's opinion above all others, we also repeatedly see that she only recognizes the value of his opinion after she's listened to someone else's opinion and been disappointed by the result.

[Reply #2 on:]

Oh, I didn't explain myself very well.

Leela's sadism comes from her insecurity.  I am actually very doubtful of how much the "poor little Leela" act is actually true, because most of the flashbacks to the Orphinairum show her being as much of a bully as the other kids.   Leela's defining flaw (that is played for laughs instead of sadness or drama) is her aggression and her hypocrisy.   Leela from an early age is shown to have extreme aggression and anger issues, and I am pretty sure she gave as good as she got in the orphinairum.

The thing is Amy's remarks are very catty, the kind that Fry would go meeeeeeeow oever.  Leela's cattiness isn't catty, they are just hurtful.   Both Fry and Amy are shown to be dominated by Leela's larger, more aggressive, more forceful personality.   Amy sticks to very light hearted mean girl remarks, and they are more likely to be witty and shady.

Basically in RPDR terms Amy knows how to read and throw shade.   Leela just uses the parasol to emotionally gut Amy like a fish, and her nastiest remarks are often used when Amy is already very down or vulnerable.

The problem is with Leela is she cares too much what others think of her, but values the opinions of people who genuinely care for her like Fry, her parents and Amy and Nibbler, very little in comparison to say, someone like Zapp.   Leela is extremely neglectful of the needs of everyone around her.   She is like Marge in that sense, who barely seems to notice how unhappy not only Selma is but how Patty is.  The way Patty came out, it was clear the only person she had to come out to was Marge, and Patty stubbing out her fag on Homer.... well I felt bad for both Patty and Homer.     It felt like Patty once again had to admit that the fat useless blubber in law was in fact far more understanding, supportive and aware of her needs (and her twin sister's) and actually took more of an interest in her problems then Marge.    Selma saved the Simpson marriage when her entire family had essentially bullied her into silence, and it makes me wonder

has Selma actually been in love with ol' Homie the whole time?  Selma wants everything Marge has, yet Marge allowed Selma to waste the best years of her life and her youth, and has been low key homophobic to Patty for years.    Marge has been a terrible sister to both Patty AND Selma, and I think the Bouvier twins would have been much better off with Homie as their baby brother then their self absorbed fear of change sister.   Selma in particular gets bouht down by both her sisters, with Patty's aggression and possessiveness, and Marge's neglect and refusal to change: Selma is a better match for Homer in my eyes on the basis that Selma is theonly one of the Bouvier sisters who is willing to take charge of her life and break cycles.   Marge holds Homer back constantly, because she is so afraid of change and maximising her talents and beauty she holds back Homer and allowed him to let his mental, physical health, confidence, talent and good looks (and hair so beautiful it is remarked on constantly by women for its beauty) slide down the drain.

I degress.

Leela is so afraid of what others think that she will deny her own happiness, the happiness of those around her, because she is so obsessed with others think.  The emotionally strongest characters in the show, from majors like Fry and Bender and Amy, to minor characters like Ruth n'Esther, Chief O Mannahan, Smitty and URL, the Countess, Mom and so many more is that they are either oblivious or they simply don't care what others think, and it all comes from having the completer sense of self that Leela lacks. 

Atm the only thing Leela seems to use Fry for is sex.  The only time she ever seemed to treat him decently in the CC run was when every other character was gone and she only had Fry's perception of her to worry about.     Bender's paranoia (likely from the death of the only fembot who loved him for what he was and not what he wanted or pretened to be) ruined his chances (Bender only seems to fall genuinely in love with fembots with strong moral compasses like Countess and Angelyne) with Angelyne when she adored him and in a way, was a much more realistic relationship then the fairy tale Hollywood esque Countess x Bender pairing.   

For me there is something even more heartbreaking then how she treats Fry.

How she consistently lets Sally down.   Leela has the chance to break the cycle and save Sally from a future of unhappness and a lifelong set of behavioural

[Reply #3 on:]

I don't know.  Aside from, "Oh, so this is where you shop for your boots," Amy's remarks don't seem to be intentionally catty.  At worst, she just seems to be insensitive to Leela without realizing it.