I know this will come as a shock and all that, but yesterday, I got involved in a fight about Buffy.
Okay, it wasn’t so much a fight as a measured discussion of opinions but it started with a fight. Namely, this charming post by someone who really, really doesn’t like Firefly. My response is buried on the second page (I got past the comment screening; hoorah!), but in a nutshell it was me agreeing in principle to the notion that Whedon isn’t this great bastion of feminism, but disliking the tone of the way the argument was presented. I lamented elsewhere that the whole post essentially suffers from Lex Luthor Ranting Syndrome; a legitimate idea presented in a way that makes it seem outrageous or distasteful.
Now, I don’t know much about Firefly; I got about two thirds of the way through the pilot before realising that I loathed the series and everything it stood for (also: it was tremendously boring). But I am a disaffected ex-Buffyverse fan,1 so I can talk with some conviction about that. And I don’t think the narrative is particularly feminist. I got some good, mouth-foamingly pro-Joss replies to my post above (ironically, most of the responses to my other few posts in the meta comments were positive). They didn’t get past the screening, so you’re just going to have to take my word for it that I’m not making these counter-arguments up.
My first point about the non-feminism of Buffy is that the logline of the show (“cheerleader fights demons”) is essentially focused on the inherent ridiculousness of female empowerment. “Ha ha,” we say. “A blonde valleygirl with strength and cunning? Yeah right!” I get told that this argument misses the point of the show, which is to parody horror conventions by having the blonde, cheerleader type do all of the monster-destroying
. And don’t get me wrong, I get that’s the point but… to be honest, I don’t think it’s something that’s in such desperate need to be deconstructed that we should start pulling out the back-patting just for an attempt. I mean, seriously, have the people who make this argument ever actually watched a monster/slasher film? Apparently not, because if they did they’d know that it is, in fact, usually the woman who defeats the evil in the end. So this is my problem; sure, it’s a deconstructed trope but I think that nowadays the trope exists more through its deconstruction than anything else; it’s solving a problem that’s not there, and by saying the problem is there when it’s not, it’s… not misogynistic, exactly, but… problematic. And really, do people defend Wes Craven as a feminist icon with the same blind devotion as they do Whedon? That’s not a rhetorical question, by the way; do they? Because he’s done the same thing as Whedon twice now; and earlier. I mean, you people who make this argument do know that, right?
Right.
My second point is related to the first, and that’s the idea that the show tends to project that having great power makes a woman less sexually and romantically desirable. Buffy expends a lot of energy wanting to be a ‘real girl’, and while it’s never quite explained what a ‘real girl’ is, it certainly doesn’t include great physical strength and personal responsibility. Is this is a reasonable response? Well, realistically I think yeah, it is but I think it also needs to be looked at in comparison with male heroes in similar situations. It’s certainly true that male heroes occasionally go through bouts of “But I just want to be normal!” as well, but I think that there’s two thing here. The first one is that they don’t do it as often (and, I mean, I haven’t done an empirical study or anything, so feel free to prove me wrong with numbers), and it’s their reluctance to embrace their power that is seen as the ‘obstacle’ rather than the power itself, as is the case with women. The second this is that, with men, their power ultimately is supposed to make them more sexually attractive to women rather than less. So why isn’t the reverse true? Why do male heroes have to embrace their strength to be attractive (Clark Jerome Kent I am looking at you), while female heroes are expected to divest it? Buffy is very, very guilty of this; her partners are either equally powerful (Angel, Spike) or disaffected by their weakness in relation to her (Riley). Why doesn’t Buffy get her Louis Lane?
Finally, my third problem with Buffyverse Feminism is that it has a tendency to portray women as more likely to use power in a way that is corrupt and irresponsible, especially when unconstrained by men. Buffy herself is actually fairly immune to this, but Willow, Anya, Faith and Illyria all embody it. This is an old saw that’s been around forever (q.v. Eve), and okay I’ll admit it’s probably the weakest argument of the three because you could probably mount an argument that it applies to the men, too. Still, I think it bears mentioning and at least giving a cursory examination to. Because it’s an issue.
I should probably point out that it’s not like I think that all this is some conscious, Patriarchal plot on behalf of the writers. Only that these issues exist, and therefore interfere with the reading of the show as a pure feminist text. I’m a textual postmodernist, of course, so it’s all very subjective. I guess I’m not saying that the Buffyverse (and, by extension, Joss Whedon) is inherently non-feminist, only that I personally don’t think that it is, and these are my reasons. I mean, you can totally disagree with them if you like — that’s the wonder of academia (or acafen, as it were) — and then I can disagree with you and so on, ad infinitum. And I’m really not saying that Whedon’s shows aren’t enjoyable; ‘enjoyable’ has nothing whatsoever to do with ‘feminist’. And, seriously people, it’s okay to just like something for what it is without trying to hide your enjoyment behind some smokescreen of moral superiority. I mean, I like professional wrestling for godssakes.
Of course, there’s one other strawman in the room here, and that’s, You overanalyze things too much. And when you overanalyze things, anyone can make anything mean anything.
Well, duh. I know that the idea is dreadfully threatening to anyone who’s been brought up intellectually in the nice, safe pool of modernist, objective textual interpretation but that ain’t me, sistah. I do subjective analysis, and under subjective analysis the whole point is grasping at straws to support your pre-conceived notions
. Because there’s no right answer to anything. Like I said, it’s not that Buffy is inherently feminist or misogynistic; it’s that there are a bunch of arguments on each side (and some in the middle), and that it’s up to the individual to come along and pick which one they find the most compelling. You can’t be wrong, per se, but you can mount a weak or offensive argument. Which is my problem with -allecto-; the presentation of her argument is offensive and thus diminishes its impact. It’s just plain bad academics.
But — like Luthor ranting about the dangers of self-appointed vigilantes wielding god-like powers — that doesn’t necessarily make it wrong.
- For the record, my ex-fen status has nothing to do with any perceived feminism and/or misogyny. The last season or so of Buffy and Angel just pissed me off with their self-righteous, whiny, ego-stroking. I mean, Lorne with a gun? Just… no. ^
889 days ago
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