This is officially the most brilliant article ever

[lirazel]

...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 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!

Comments

[marketchippie.livejournal.com]

XANDER IS SUCH A DOUCHEFEST. For the record, the Xander/Willow business

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.

[marketchippie.livejournal.com]

*first paragraph died:

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.