Feminism and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

[TheBuffster]

Fluff thread inspired by a recent discussion on do feminists fancy evil men.

I'm outing myself as a massive Buffy fan, but I think the series despite being written by Joss Whedon, has some great feminist moments both on screen and off. What's your favourite feminist moment in Buffy?

I'll start. I love how series 7 ends with Buffy as an Artemis figure, single, beautiful deadly and not needing a man to discover herself.

I'm watching it with DD at the moment. I didn't pick up on the wonderful realism of season 6 and Buffys sudden burden of parenting Dawn, running the house and saving the world before. Its a interesting take on being a single parent.

Personally I have a big problem with the seeing red episode as it jarrs with Spike's character arc, and also makes some of Buffy's choices seem very questionable after, such as leaving Dawn with him.
But then it's a very good talking point on the 'why didn't she fight back' argument and consent in general.
Still, that scene is the worst in the whole series.

“And, of course, Spike's attempted rape of Buffy which Masters has said he thought didn't work the way intended as a spur for him to get a soul, but I thought the worst bit was that Buffy accepted him back after as though that wouldn't have a profound impact.”

She doesn’t though... well not explicitly, it’s left fairly ambiguous as to whether they’re together in that sense - on purpose according to things like writers and directors commentaries.

One of the things about how spike behaves though... is that he is literally a monster, as a viewer you want him to be the romantic hero, because he’s funny and nice to dawn and you want him to follow that whole redemption arc because love will save him.

But he’s not that person, he isn’t even a person and it wasn’t that long beforehand that he had the buffy bot...

I've started noticing that women who fight- especially when they fight each other- have a kind of sexualised, male gaze, hot cat fight vibe. I watched the last season of Westworld and it really tanked into 'two hot women fighting' mode. Almost as obvious as the 'lesbian sex' trope.

I only saw it in Buffy with hindsight though, and may have been looking for it.

I began to feel really uncomfortable with the violence leads to sex theme when Buffy was with the soldier boyfriend the first time I watched the series. Can’t even remember his name. I thought the show lost much of its magic by that stage.

Then more recently it made me reflect back on the whole thing, did it actually contribute to normalising violence against women as entertainment because “it is okay, she has superpowers”. Did it (and Firefly) also contribute to the belief prominent among many liberal feminists that women actually are as strong as men or do stand a chance in a fight against a man. Yes some young women seem to actually believe this. It is potentially a dangerous fantasy.

Second time round I tried watching with my daughters and the sexism stood out even from season 1. My daughters noticed it and we didn’t get very far. It was disappointing after having loved it in the 90’s. In was really innovative in style then so I think that made it particularly enjoyable.

It is interesting to note how sexism has changed focus over the past 30 years. You put out fires in one place and they spring up in another.

Drusilla was a great character in my opinion, so was Tara but Cordelia was probably my favourite in the end. I actually knew someone a bit like her at school who went through a similar metamorphosis.

I do think that the women fighting scenes seemed too much aimed at the male gaze.

@Binglebong

I liked the fact that she had massively fucked up relationships. It showed that someone could be so strong to the outside world and still vulnerable and a mess in other parts of her lives. She was stronger and a better fighter than all the men but they still could hurt her. She deserved better but that would be terrible tv!

Yes, very much so. I liked that Buffy made mistakes, not just with her relationships but in other areas too. She's supposedly a kind of superhero but she was also just a teenager forced into a role that she knew she wasn't going to survive. She felt very human.

It's interesting about the fight scenes observations. It's not something I have noticed myself. I will have to look out for it.
I did notice Buffy's body shape changing drastically when her pink ranger body double took over.
I think Buffy is less to blame for modern women thinking they can match men than more recent things. With Buffy it was made clear she wasn't the norm because she was a super hero. I've seen a few mission impossible style things that have had females trouncing males. In my mind she occupies the same sort of space as Brienne of Tarth, an anomaly not the rule.
Although the vampires did get less tough as the series went on to the point where Xander could knock them one.

I have a Buffy tattoo so that sums up how I feel about it
It's been my constant comfort blanket through school, college, post surgery etc

DD can't stand Buffy, she sees through the bits I excuse through nostalgia. She's very sensitive to crappy relationships and flawed people doing bad things. Also the affected "valley" style conversations are not cute and funny to her.

She's her father's daughter, but I guess it's ok as it means she sees the flaws

Me? I love Buffy forever.

What the fuck?!

Fucks sake.

It's like an invasion of out of towner, middle-aged slobby, blokey tourists thinking they can 'av it large, and 'av it loud' in our manor on a 'Weekender - just 'coz.

The weedy one with the bad dye job? Lordy no.

Or, as someone once described Spike to me, what turns up when you order Billy Idol from Wish.

I'm rewatching Buffy and loving it. It is showing its age in the way it suggests all boys / men think about or talk about is what they want to do to the girls. It sort of normalised objectification - the way the older supposedly nice soldier college boys talk about her in once scene was gross.
Best character is Spike - love the sarcastic clever quips, eye rolling and contradictions in being both evil and vulnerable.

Nah.

I loved Buffy as a teenager and will always have a soft spot for it. I rewatched it recently though and as others have observed there are lots of elements that don't sit comfortably with me now, particularly the glamorisation of fucked-up abusive relationships as romantic.

I think looking back it's strengths don't really lie in the feminist angles (which are quite superficial really - superstrong woman beats up lots of men) but in its exploration of other topics - teenage insecurities and friendship dynamics, growing up and struggling with adult responsibilities, finding your place in the world, bereavement, mental health, addiction etc.

I've been rewatching recently and realised that I'm less surprised by Buffy taking Spike back after he's tried to rape her and more that a show aired at 6pm had an attempted rape scene and repeatedly and starkly said spike tried to rape her.

in real life at the time (& likely now) his actions would have been hugely minimised as a misunderstanding/ just a bit pushy / her fault for all the 'I hate you, let's shag' goings on up till then.

There is zero chance the CPS would have taken it to trial as attempted rape. Even aside from the concern about courtroom spontaneous combustion.