I think BtVS was intended to be a feminist show, but did a really uneven job of it. For me, it's a question of whether BtVS has enough (pop culture) feminist cred to burn that I'm willing to put up with the fail and give the dubious stuff a pass.
I think someone else might have said it, but I agree that, the way I see it, BtVS was intended to subvert an idea that was inherently misogynistic, so came by feminism naturally - but there was never an actual aim to take it there. Which left a lot of dodginess when they tried to use the mythos of the show as a 'female empowerment' metaphor, because it both was and it wasn't.
And, ooh, thanks for the essay. Yeah, I suppose it really does say something to have Buffy as the hero. Cool beans! (Even if I do love her as her self-assured S7 incarnation. Though I also wonder what it says that when Buffy does become the Final Girl - like in the Wish - she actually dies. Because that seems like an unnecessary corollary, and seems to me to say that female survival can only be shifted/inverted, rather than equally spread out... I might be too attached to Wishverse!Buffy.)
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I think someone else might have said it, but I agree that, the way I see it, BtVS was intended to subvert an idea that was inherently misogynistic, so came by feminism naturally - but there was never an actual aim to take it there. Which left a lot of dodginess when they tried to use the mythos of the show as a 'female empowerment' metaphor, because it both was and it wasn't.
And, ooh, thanks for the essay. Yeah, I suppose it really does say something to have Buffy as the hero. Cool beans! (Even if I do love her as her self-assured S7 incarnation. Though I also wonder what it says that when Buffy does become the Final Girl - like in the Wish - she actually dies. Because that seems like an unnecessary corollary, and seems to me to say that female survival can only be shifted/inverted, rather than equally spread out... I might be too attached to Wishverse!Buffy.)