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This is officially the most brilliant article ever
...and all of you who have even the slightest interest in Buffy Summers should go read it now. It's attacking the idea of Buffy being whiny, and the whole thing made me want to shout, "YES!"
It's been posted at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ontd_feminism, but there are only 14 comments at the moment and they already make me upset, so I thought I'd post it here so we could have a friendlier discussion where we don't have to defend our love of the later seasons and of Spike and whatever else is being bashed over there.
So! Go forth and read it! You'll be glad you did!
It's been posted at
ontd_feminism, but there are only 14 comments at the moment and they already make me upset, so I thought I'd post it here so we could have a friendlier discussion where we don't have to defend our love of the later seasons and of Spike and whatever else is being bashed over there.So! Go forth and read it! You'll be glad you did!
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Dude. I am a Buffy, 100%. I am a crazy cold bitch. Or so I would be classified. Hence, I completely get Buffy. I don't always LIKE what I see (overidentificationoveridentification), but she is my homegirl. So there.
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Re: ONTD_feminism posts - if you're game, I'll go over there, talk about how season 6 Spuffy has to be read in conjunction with season 7 Spuffy and taken as a whole the two are BEAUTIFUL EXAMPLES OF REDEMPTION AND FORGIVENESS, you could agree with me, I could agree with you, Emmie could agree with both of us, and we could turn the whole thing into a Spuffy love fest. It's kinda like a dare - I'll do it if you do it.
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Oh, wow! If you would really do that, I would agree with you!
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Okay, this made me literally laugh out loud to the point where my mom came in to check on me.
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LOL!
And thanks for the link, btw. :)
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You're welcome!
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But, the public still reacts weirded out by women who are not "sweet" and "caring" (like Buffy season 1-3), but who actually speak for themselves, act confidently and dare to call shit "shit".
Buffy gets critizised because she's not the sweet (which is really just another word for "inferior" in this context) girl - she has shit thrown her way, and she names the shit shit. She has issues. She has a hard work life. She throws the punches as well as takes them.
She's not the "typical" white middleclass girlie - and i think a part of the audience doesn't forgive that. (Damn woman doesn't know her place...)
We have a whole industry built around the ideology that men and women are different, and somehow inferior.
I absolutely hate the insults thrown at one of the few cool and relateable female heroes in fiction (i mean, i have >i> really difficulties relating to, for example, wonderwoman....). And all just to put her down - so never ever a woman (not even in fiction) gets the idea she might be worthwhile.
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I have only ever found Buffy Summers to be whiny at one point in the entirety of the show: beginning of s4, post-Parker mess. That whole arc was sort of personally frustrating to me—damn, I hate so much of the beginning of s4. I forgive it because it's the show undergoing a tonal shift and trying to figure out what in the world it's doing now that high school is over, but oh, it's a mess.
Tangent alert, but also segue, because I don't understand people who vilify s6. I just don't get s6 hate (she says, not having finished s6 yet, but hey). Is it uneven at points? Sure. Is it the most uneven season the show has? Hell, no. That'd be s1, which is pretty much a pile of sloppy freakshow babies and took about a year for me to get through (two words: "The Pack". I took a six-month break from watching the show because of that one episode alone); followed by s4, where the beginning is a giant mess but things get lovely once Riley shows up. And does s6 have some of the most glorious moments in Buffy history? Fuck yes it does. Paging "Once More, With Feeling".
Plus, the Buffy/Spike arc is perfectly conceived and I will defend it to the death, especially in s6.
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OH YES about S6.
Tell me your feelings on "The Pack"! I am interested!
Plus, the Buffy/Spike arc is perfectly conceived and I will defend it to the death, especially in s6.</>
YES YES YES.
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Re. "Pack", it's just that it's BAD. It's not good. It's not clever. It's not funny. Xander's a shit. And my computer died in the middle of it, and I remember thinking "to hell with this, I do NOT need to watch this show." There are a bunch of episodes like that in s1; the last two are pretty good, but in general, it's just bad quality. And I feel like I never hear people panning it—is that a nostalgia thing? A Joss thing? What are you doing, fandom?
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S1 generally fails except, like you said, for the last two eps, which are one the show starts to show that it could be more. I generally hate Xander, so that episode I tend to just block from my mind (OH I'm gonna pretend like I don't remember! Even though I do! DIE XANDER).
I think it's nostalgia. People just love to bash the later seasons and love on the first three, which I don't understand ever.
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NO. I mean, love on s2 and s3 FOREVER & EVER, especially s2 (it brought me Spike/Drusilla and therefore I will never ever love any season more), this I understand—but for the most part, Buffy is an uneven show. Every single season has crappy, forgettable episodes. Every single season has shining moments. After s1, the show tends to be mostly shining moments, but no season is perfect. But they're all good.
I wonder if it's the morality change. After s3, the show loses its obvious structural center, the high school. That's why I forgive s4 for starting off so weak: the show is actually going through the exact same identity crisis that they give Buffy, so even though I find the whole thing unrelatable and exasperating and petty, it's also 100% valid. (As an arc. Episode by episode, the writing is bad until they find an arc; this, I can't and don't need to forgive.) Seasons 5 and 6 lose structure and completely rewire the moral systems of the show. They get messy in a way that the show's never had to before because they're adult. Buffy morality in the early seasons is almost perfectly linear: good/evil, order/chaos, win/lose. The closer they get to adulthood, the grayer the show gets, and it definitely gets way more willing to zero in on the faults of its would-be heroes. Messy. Which I love, but which is obviously always going to be more challenging than clarity.
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The X/W business in s3 is my least favorite relationship-shaped thing the show has ever done. God, it made me like the two of them so much less. I'm not wholly sure my esteem of them has ever recovered, not that they were ever that close to my heart.
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Hi! We kinda have a club for that, and now we totally want you to join!
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and have no desire to learn. :Dno subject
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Anyway. It was nice to see this article--it needs to be said that Buffy isn't whiny as often as possible and in as many venues outside of my brain as possible.
It's kind of interesting when you think about it. The only superhero I can think of (though, admittedly, I'm not all that into the superheroes as a genre) with obvious emotional issues is Batman. And he deals with his emotional issues by completely closing off--which reminds me quite a bit of how Angel deals. They both seem to be received as all the more sympathetic for their inability to function as emotional beings. Their stoicism is perceived as both a marker of the tragedy and pain they've endured and of their strength of character. But Buffy--when she's stoic and emotionally closed off, she's excoriated for it. And when she's emotionally expressive she's excoriated. I would argue that it's about fitting into "acceptable" emotive expression stereotypes for the genders--but I don't think that's it. Because Buffy seems damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. I almost think it's that Buffy is actually SO accessible as a character, that she loses all that superhero elevation worship that Batman and Superman and even Angel get. And then she's just subject to the criticism that all women are--you're a bitch if you aren't a super-sensitive spring of emotions; and you're a whiny girly girl if you express emotions.
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WE CAN DO IT!
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I went and read your posts! I was SO clapping my hands and bouncing up and down as you schooled that person with the SMG acting comment!
Holy crap. SMG in the Body kills me so dead.
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If I'm allowed to join this time, at least I'll be prepared for the next Buffy-related post there.
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Gah, SMG ~kills~ me in The Body, too. She's so brilliant. I love both her and Buffy.
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it needs to be said that Buffy isn't whiny as often as possible and in as many venues outside of my brain as possible.
Exactly!
I don't really know much about superheroes outside of their movies (which I'm a big fan of), so I can't address it in that context, but I love what you have to say here.
But Buffy--when she's stoic and emotionally closed off, she's excoriated for it. And when she's emotionally expressive she's excoriated.
EXACTLY.
I almost think it's that Buffy is actually SO accessible as a character, that she loses all that superhero elevation worship that Batman and Superman and even Angel get. And then she's just subject to the criticism that all women are--you're a bitch if you aren't a super-sensitive spring of emotions; and you're a whiny girly girl if you express emotions.
This is really fascinating. I think you are correct.
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Hahaha! I thought the EXACT same thing! (And then Emmie swooped in with her righteous blade Buffy defending and cut that person in two!)
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At any rate, I agree that Buffy's accessibility changes how people view her in comparison to other superheroes, and tends to lead to people ignoring her heroism and focusing on her "faults," like actually being emotionally affected by emotional devastation.
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Are there any complaints levied against other female superheroes? I'm just curious whether the kind of criticism Buffy gets is received by other female characters.
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Why are people (women) so unforgiving of women characters like Buffy? *sigh*
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I do not know, but it infuriates me. I blame the patriarchy.
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I guess I'll wander over to the ONTD feminism post now...
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