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The Forum > Article Comments > The Joss Whedon post we-had-to-have, or Joss Whedon and feminism - part one > Comments

The Joss Whedon post we-had-to-have, or Joss Whedon and feminism - part one : Comments

By Deborah Kate, published 16/1/2007

Musings about 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' from a feminist (and somewhat post-modern cultural studies) perspective. Best Blogs 2006.

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It's a laugh to see the word feminism deployed. Feminism was over the moment women got the vote and the right to wear trousers. Now, almost every gal under 40 is pushing to restore second-class citizenship to women, after realising that the world of men they thought a paradise is, in fact, brutal and unforgiving.

As part of a face-saving exercise, pop-culture artifacts like Buffy allow women to be feminists by proxy, i.e. "I want to be a cossetted damsel in distress, protected and owned by men, but I have the Buffy/Angel DVD boxed set, so clearly I must be an independent power grrrl who makes her own rules."

It's the fans of "Buffy", "Sex and the City" etc who recently embraced that feminist icon, Paris Hilton, on her recent visit.
Posted by Sancho, Tuesday, 16 January 2007 11:23:13 AM
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Very interesting. Buffy was a great hit with all ages – pre-teens to late 50s when it began – and both sexes in our household. In terms of dealing “with the real concerns of most adolescents”, Buffy was vastly superior in that respect to all of the shows which more obviously focused on them. And the humour was brilliant. Firefly and Serenity not quite in the Buffy class, but still excellent.

In my office some years ago, I sent an e-mail around the 60-70 staff, mostly much younger than me, with a subject line from Buffy – the musical – I think “I touch the fire and it freezes me” – just to see who recognised it. Sadly, no one did, one or two thought it might be Lennon or Dylan!

Sancho, Paris Hilton? I know many Buffy/Whedon fans, all of whom would have contempt for PH. Wash your mouth out.

(I had four question-marks after "Hilton". My post was blocked with a red message that "There is no need for so many question marks. Remove them."! Shame on you, Graham!)
Posted by Faustino, Tuesday, 16 January 2007 2:07:49 PM
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Weird. I was a fan of the buffy series, though it didn't have a patch on Angel... That being said,the Angel series didn't have the same feminist angle. Or did it?

Firefly was probably the best of the bunch. This didn't really address the central role of the captain however, who was pretty close to the stereotyped male hero, save for the occasional foray into self-deprecating humour.
Posted by TurnRightThenLeft, Tuesday, 16 January 2007 3:59:20 PM
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Deborah,

It's great to see an article on Buffy on this forum. I consider the Buffy/Angel series to be the greatest show in the history of the universe. It's humour, story-arcs, and in general super-cool ideas were what attracted me to the shows.

Specifically on feminism, as a male I appreciated watching a show which was overtly feminist, but did not try to 'bash' males or masculinity. Your comments on Xander are accurate, and I found I associated and empathised with him on many occassions, but I would be wary of presenting Xander as a progressive character, as some kind of ideal 'feminist' or feminised male who, if only there were more of them the world would be a better place.

The Buffy-verse was full of strong, very-much-masculine characters to whom I felt I could associate with and look up to. Specifically with regard to Angel and Spike, I admired the way they were completely unapologetic about their masculinity. The fact that they were vampires was an important metaphor, in that this unabashed masculinity can be utilised either for good or for evil. The ultimate message from these characters was that it isn't masculinity or femininity which makes us good or bad, but our humanity.

Faustino,

You'll get an encouraging response if you find a way to quote random Buffy/Angel lines in a conversation. Something like, "so you just thought you'd pop around for a friendly chat and it's not the end of the world..."
Posted by dozer, Tuesday, 16 January 2007 7:22:54 PM
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True indeed sancho.

Proxies eventually become adequate substitutes.
Posted by trade215, Tuesday, 16 January 2007 8:41:42 PM
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"The ultimate message from these characters was that it isn't masculinity or femininity which makes us good or bad, but our humanity."

Firstly, Buffy r00lz, except the last two seasons.

Secondly, I never really noticed Buffy as having a feminist message, I guess because I've always known the above message to be an obvious given, that particular point was lost on me. Now that I think about it, it makes sense.

Having said that, there was a lot of reinforcing of stereotypes in the show...not necessarily in the characters themselves, rather the values and perceptions of things such as relationships and schooling and so on (my biggest gripe was that the characters kept going to school, even when there was impending doom. It made no sense!). That and Buffy always whined too much. She was my least favorite character until Dawn arrived.

But I guess thats the cost of constructing a thoughtful show that must also appeal to the mainstream (particularly in the US) - certain values, such as christianity, must never be questionned, even when you're fighting vampires. Go figure.
Posted by spendocrat, Wednesday, 17 January 2007 3:36:21 PM
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Surely the point that life went on as usual was because they were planning on preventing the "impending doom"? It's a bit hard to fight to save the world if you're thinking that the world's ending so why not just stay home.

But then, what would I know, eh sancho? I only watch Buffy so I don't have to be a well-rounded woman/person in real life.
Posted by Anna Winter, Wednesday, 17 January 2007 8:35:32 PM
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"I only watch Buffy so I don't have to be a well-rounded woman/person in real life."

Not necessarily, but a lot of women take that option.
Posted by Sancho, Thursday, 18 January 2007 10:38:27 AM
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spendocrat,

True, it is an obvious given, but that not always the message you get from programs/ articles/ books coming from a feminist perspective. That's why I found Buffy so refreshing.

By the way, are you suggesting Buffy took a positive approach of Christianity? Not that it bothered me, but I always thought it held a rather dim view of Christianity.
Posted by dozer, Thursday, 18 January 2007 9:29:49 PM
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Mmm... I'm with Dozer on the Christianity section.

Yes, the Vampires are representative of the ultimate anti-christian. (No crosses, no soul etc).
As I understand it, the reason why they were represented in European lore as being so fearful was not because they could kill you (heck, lots of things can kill you) it was their ability to render you soulless and damned to hell.

In Buffy however, it wasn't this simple. Two of the central heroes were vampires themselves. In one of the series, she fought a god.
She lashes out against the men who created the first slayer, and rebels against the priest-like figures of the watcher council. All of this is somewhat anti-authority and somehow feels almost anti-church.
None of the characters were regular church-goers, when logically, if they believe in the power of christian relics to defeat vampires, then they would normally be christians - but they aren't.
Posted by TurnRightThenLeft, Friday, 19 January 2007 9:09:04 AM
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TRTL, my post on yesterday's article "Promoting innovation in education" relates. In Buffy, it's the attitudes and volition of the individuals that matters, not adherence to a dogma or institution. Perhaps the Scoobies values are inherently Christian, I never thought about it and don't intend to, they're on the side of "good", which is non-sectarian, and work it out as best they can, warts and all. That's life.
Posted by Faustino, Friday, 19 January 2007 10:17:02 AM
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dozer - although I wouldn't say the approach to christianity was entirely positive, most of the characters were christians (not churchgoing, but christian nonetheless)...a faith that, realistically, would have been revised a little when fighting vampires/zombies/demigods. It seemed more like a reluctance to take any clear stance, for risk of alienating a section of the target audience...which seemed like a bit of a copout to me.

Back to the feminism thing - while it did have a number of good messages, there was still some certain shallow hollywoodish values...surely just one unattractive female would add some realism. Not to mention there was a different thousand dollar outfit per female character per scene. Plus I don't think being heroic for 10 minutes per show and then whining for the other 35 minutes really qualifies as being a strong female role model.

Nitpicky, I know, but we are talking about subtle messages within the show. To me the value wasn't really in the messages anyway (as they tended to somewhat mixed..at least from my perspective), it was more just pure enjoyment for the hell of it.
Posted by spendocrat, Friday, 19 January 2007 11:11:24 AM
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I can remember a number of specific incidences throughout the series where christianity is dismissed as irrelevant and lacking any power:

-Can't remember the season or episode, but the standard argument about paganism/ wicca being older than Christianity and thus more powerful is employed.

-Reference is made to the unusually large number of churches in Sunnydale, and spoken of as though when so many bad things happen in a town people flock superstitiously to a source of comfort.

-The episode in season four where Buffy and Faith swap bodies, it turns out that Buffy's boyfriend, who has always seemed a bit straightlaced and dullish, goes to church.

-There is an episode in season four where a frat house exhibits dangerous poltergeists. The explanation (and fair enought too) given is that the former matron of the house was a bit of a wowser who made the former residents feel guilty about their sexuality, the repression of which was exhibited in such poltergeists.

This portrayal of religion is typical of the Buffy series. I don't really care about upholding christian values, but I think values of loyalty and friendship (scooby values) transcends religion.

And yes, the main reason we all watched it was it was really-super-cool. No, we're not nerds at all, are we...
Posted by dozer, Monday, 22 January 2007 5:30:10 PM
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