Neither Willow nor Xander are my favorite people, but I feel that they were fairly and accurately presented, warts and all. Rewatches always uncover more layers, usually of the unpleasant sort. I know some people feel this way about Buffy, Spike, or Giles, too, which makes all these characters a stunning accomplishment in subtlety and nuance by the writers.
The thing about calling Xander on his (youthful) crap, is that high school girls mostly don't confront guys about this stuff, and we're seeing it from their viewpoint. Maybe if Giles or Jenny had said something? IDEK. Having Oz as a contrast is kind of genius, but it came later. Pairing him with Cordelia "Not Gonna Take It" Chase was also a good artistic choice and could have been even stronger, although Cordelia's extreme gender norm enforcer role probably made it tricky.
My thing with Xander is that I like to think that his sexism was somewhat lessened as he got older, and I can see a possible less bigoted future for him. He's not irredeemable, even on social justice issues. He's very young and very typical. But he's not a lost cause. Maybe even some of those guys that he's a stand-in for will be able to change and grow. I know lots of people think he's a stand-in for Joss, et al, (I have my doubts) but if so, it's probably along the lines of "I used to be a young idiot, too." Even those guys should be capable of redemption.
I love your question about how to write socially transformative characters. I don't have an answer, except to say that it's understandable that authors interested in these issues are lured into SciFi. It's really hard to do it in the "real" world.
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Neither Willow nor Xander are my favorite people, but I feel that they were fairly and accurately presented, warts and all. Rewatches always uncover more layers, usually of the unpleasant sort. I know some people feel this way about Buffy, Spike, or Giles, too, which makes all these characters a stunning accomplishment in subtlety and nuance by the writers.
The thing about calling Xander on his (youthful) crap, is that high school girls mostly don't confront guys about this stuff, and we're seeing it from their viewpoint. Maybe if Giles or Jenny had said something? IDEK. Having Oz as a contrast is kind of genius, but it came later. Pairing him with Cordelia "Not Gonna Take It" Chase was also a good artistic choice and could have been even stronger, although Cordelia's extreme gender norm enforcer role probably made it tricky.
My thing with Xander is that I like to think that his sexism was somewhat lessened as he got older, and I can see a possible less bigoted future for him. He's not irredeemable, even on social justice issues. He's very young and very typical. But he's not a lost cause. Maybe even some of those guys that he's a stand-in for will be able to change and grow. I know lots of people think he's a stand-in for Joss, et al, (I have my doubts) but if so, it's probably along the lines of "I used to be a young idiot, too." Even those guys should be capable of redemption.
I love your question about how to write socially transformative characters. I don't have an answer, except to say that it's understandable that authors interested in these issues are lured into SciFi. It's really hard to do it in the "real" world.