Angela Li

Angela Li is a fictional character who appeared on MTV's animated series "Daria". She was voiced by actor Nora Laudani, whose name was thought to be a pseudonym for Saturday Night Live's Nora Dunn, the rumor that quashed when Laudani's husband was a contestant on an episode of America's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?".

Background

Principal Angela Li was head educator at Lawndale High during the show's five year run. She never says the name "Lawndale High" without affecting a tone of awe and reverence. The character was often portrayed as a self-righteous, iron-fisted tyrant who had very little respect for her students and who was constantly using school funds on elaborate security equipment for Lawndale High. Indeed, Angela Li has been seen as many as being a parody of school officials who, in the late 1990s, were obsessed with fear of school shootings and compensated with over-the-top security measures.

A running gag in the series was the vast amount of money spent by Ms. Li out of the school budget, often without even telling the other teachers. In one second season episode, Li spent the entire budget the school had set aside for building repairs on a top of the line polygraph machine. To deal with her inability to handle the budget for her school, Li would constantly force the students of Lawndale High to participate in forced fundraising schemes of varying moral quality and enact rules calling for all mandatory attendance of all school events that charged admission prices with suspension as penalty for non-attendance. Li also was not above exploiting the school itself in order to make a quick buck, by allowing companies to recruit students via workshop classes or going into business with vending machine companies that flooded the school with advertisements for soft drinks.

Enemies

Because of her antics and iron-fisted rule of domination at Lawndale High, Ms. Li has attracted a number of enemies though very few of them have shown the courage to actively go against her. These few enemies include Daria Morgendorffer and her mother Helen (as seen in "Arts and Crass" when Helen almost sues Ms. Li for trying to expel Daria for defacing the school poster that Daria was forced to enter in the school art contest and in "The Daria Hunter" when Ms. Li and Helen momentarily become friends, until they discuss Ms. Li's dubious school policies) and history teacher Anthony DeMartino. In particular, Mr. DeMartino is the only teacher at Lawndale High who has actively opposed Ms. Li's authority at the school and has become his teacher's union's de facto leader in the face of Ms. Li's tyrannical reign over the school.

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