Angela Li
Angela Li is a fictional character who appeared on MTV's animated series Daria.
Background and Personality
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 was constantly using school funds to purchase elaborate security equipment. 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 (this despite the show's airing before the Columbine High School shootings).
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 fund-raising 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.
For details on Ms. Li's political opinions, see Daria and Politics.
Enemies
Because of her antics and iron-fisted rule 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 Morgendorffer 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.
Trivia
Angela Li was voiced by actor Nora Laudani, whose name was long thought by some to be a pseudonym for Saturday Night Live's Nora Dunn. The rumor was quashed when Laudani appeared on an episode of America's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?.