Grr! Argghh! I've got issues

[shipperx]

It's my day off so I got to sleep late and have a nice breakfast while wearing PJ's and fuzzy slippers. I'm all happy and enjoying myself as I sip my morning coffee with no-fat milk and shot of sugar free English Toffee Torani syrup.

I surf by BAPS for the morning mocking of Marti Noxon's latest catastrophe "Point Pleasant," the arguments regarding LOST's Sawyer, and whether Walt will soon be wishing fellow survivors into the corn field (Twilight Zone ref.) I flip on the TV set and find that Wednesday's All My Children is playing (my local tv stations scheduling of the show is nuts). And lookie! Pretty brit-boy Ethan is all shirtless, tan, and ripped. Yum.

All is right with my world so I surf over to TWOP to read the All My Children thread and WHAM!, today's page is headlined by two people squicked about Spuffy! Saying how they had ruined BtVS with Spike and how sick all those teens were that loved Spike. Grr! Arghh! Said I have issues, right?

It continues to amaze me how I can go from zero to a hundred when that's brought up. It's like waving a red flag in front of a bull. I posted back some cold reply about my not being a teen and being a Spike fan. Then I declared that I was damn proud of being one and that the discussion was inappropriate to the AMC thread. If I had wanted to discuss Spuffy I would have been on the BtVS thread which I have specifically avoided for years.

Let's see whether I'm smacked down for that.

The thing that amazes me is just how quickly I can become quite angered over this subject. I could debate it with these people, but I don't want to. Seriously, I avoided the TWOP BtVS thread for years for a reason. I do not want to feel compelled to defend my Spike-love. It's not that I can't. I can. God knows, I've discussed the AR, the implications of the storyline, Marti Noxon, etc to the point that there's really nothing left to say that's not repetition.

One reason I really don't want to discuss it is because when push comes to shove, my conclusions on the storyline are not politically correct. Buffy didn't deserve to be raped, but she SO deserved to have her ass kicked. And I can't for the life of me see intent in Spike's actions. Spike had a melt down. And damnit, if Buffy's domestic abuse is in any way forgivable (and I'm not entirely sure that it is) then Spike's meltdown (which was significantly less damaging) is damn sure forgivable.

What's infuriating though is that TWOP is not a forum where this debate can even happen. We all know what happens to vocal Spike fans at TWOP. We all know what Sars, Ace, Sep, etc. do. The TWOP mindset is pure Spike-hate. That's just the way it is. What's appalling is the utter hypocrisy of it all.

This same thread that --out of the blue--drags Spike into the argument is one where just YESTERDAY the majority of the thread was gleefully supporting JR's threat to have his wife killed (No hypocrisy on my part. I thought it was pretty funny too. I wouldn't mind if they killed off his wife's character). To be fair they were also protesting the old Luke and Laura story. But can we ignore that Todd Manning (deliberate two-time rapist who organized a gang rape) is such an incredibly popular character on AMC's glued at the hip sister-show OLTL?

People gleefully root on Adam and JR to bring about the downfall of their wives (and, hey, I root them on too. Their wives are child-stealing idiots who deserve to be punished. Go Adam and JR!) but these same people point at Spike fans and dismissively say they're screwed up teens who think Spike is hot. Grr! Argh!

If I can think that JR's wife is a sociopathic bint that they try to play off as some little blonde saint and resent the hell out of it (along with 99% of the rest of the TWOP AMC board) then I'm allowed to look at Season 6 and Season 7 Buffy and see...well...pretty much the exact same thing.

I don't have sympathy for Buffy. Buffy was violent, using, abusive, and out and out cruel. Spike was wrong. He was wrong, but I see far, far, FAR less evil in his actions in the bathroom than I see in Buffy's actions over the last two years. And while I'm no more supportive of Spuffy than the people in the AMC thread were, it's for reasons I cannot even express there. (Namely, Buffy isn't good enough to deserve Spike's--or Angel's for that matter--devotion).

It isn't some easily pigeon-holed story. And I still resent the hell out of Marti and Mutant Enemy for trying to FORCE their wacked out "point" onto an unwilling audience. There was a failure in the storyline... but it was in the writing of it. It shouldn't have happened. It was a stupid, stupid decision full of Marti's insanely screwed up issues. But I refuse to take it as simplistically as she meant it, or as simplistically as people who hate Spike want to cast it as being. Despite Marti's attempt, one scene does NOT make Spike the "villain" in the Spike/Buffy relationship when so much more PERMANENT damage was done by Buffy.

Is it anti-feminist? I don't think so. I think it's feminist because it's holding a woman responsible for her own actions. It's judging a woman by HER actions and not by the actions of a man. Spike's meltdown does not absolve Buffy of her use and abuse.

And as for the meltdown itself, it was so contrived and manipulated that, I'm sorry, whenever I think of it, I don't really think of it in terms of the characters but in terms of the writers trying to "make their point." Buffy's convenient injury, her sudden shift to victimhood, her instant recovery to go kick Warren's ass all scream plot contrivance. So I simply refuse to take the issue as direly as Marti intended and as these TWOP people think I have to. I don't. I refuse to. I refuse to acknowlege Marti's dumbass plotting as having that much importance over a character who was developed over years.

And even though I don't agree with Fury. (I really don't and it's a whole other conversation about how stupid this is). Well, even though I find the argument in general ridiculous, since the AR was created for their dumbass reasons to "prove their point" about how as long as Spike didn't have a soul he could be shamelssly abused and was "evil" even when he wasn't, then by the same coin --in their bizarro reasoning-- Spike IS innocent by Fury's excuse:

"As absurd as it all is - and my god, it is absurd - the important factor that people seem to overlook {regarding the rape scene in Seeing Red}is that the creature that tried to rape Buffy is not the man we see on the show. To equate the Spike who attempted to assault Buffy as being morally culpable we'd have to make Angel morally culpable for everything Angelus did. It's absurd for me when people just feel "Well how could she be with the guy who tried to rape her?" That wasn't him; that was the demon that was in him that went to that place."'

Is it nuts? You betcha. But really, since the whole point of creating that offensive scene was to make some insanely stupid point about how a soulless being like Spike wasn't good enough for Princess Buffy, then he can be absolved by the same ridiculous soulless point. Is it rational? No. But the penning of that scene wasn't done from rational, character driven reasons. It was done for their bizarre "soul" reasoning and thus can so it can be resovled by the same thing.

So... okay. Running out of steam now.

Anyway, said I have issues, right? It really does amaze me how angry this manipulative plotting can still make me. It shouldn't, but it does.

Sigh. And, now having finally completed Chapter 11 of my fanfic, I have to dive into Chapter 12 where I have to begin taking on this issue in Spuffy myself. Guh!

Oh, and on an entirely unrelated subject, elsaf has an excellent point about evolution/creationism and the protests over evolution and creationism not being given equal standing when taught in schools (for the record, I wholly believe they SHOULDN'T be given equal standing.) Evolution as Theory

Comments

[deborahw37.livejournal.com]

now this is why I stay away from TWOP they drive me scatty!

nice rant btw

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

The AMC thread is usuallly fun because in this case I share the character hate. As long as you're in the same mindset with the board, it's okay. So I too hate Babe, Krystal, and Ryan.

The problem is when you aren't in sync with the TWOP groupthink. Or if you are too dumb to realize that there IS a TWOP groupthink.

Basically, I hate who they hate on the AMC thread and so it's fun. I don't hate who they hate on the BtVS thread so it's not fun. And in a way that's okay, it's just that they're so damn superior about it. That and it's moderated by dictators. But they mostly ignore the soap threads.

Still, anyone brings up Spike and Marti's crap that she pulled and it's like waving a red flag in front of a bull where I'm concerned. I can't help it.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Same here. I post on Smallville because I agree with the Lana hate on TWoP, but there totally is a groupthink on those boards. If you don't agree with the majority, you are pretty much invited to go play elsewhere.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Which is pretty much the attitude I take with the place. I have fun on the Days thread because EVERYONE hates the show in general and loves Jack in specific (which, when I think about it is highly amusing since Jack actually did rape his first wife on the show.) The general loathing of the show makes it a fun thread (that and the fact that it truly deserves every ounce of loathing). And I was attracted to the AMC thread due to it's intense loathing of the character of Ryan Lavery (a hate I also share). So in many ways, I think TWOP attracts the hate.

Of course that's also why I refuse to go to the BtVS/AtS part of it. Heck, for that matter I've avoided the LOST threads. It does bother me when I read nothing but hate on threads where I actually like stuff.

The soap threads have been fun because you can hate so easily on soaps. It was transplanting TWoP's virulent Spike-hate onto my Babe-Hate/Ryan-hate thread that bothered me. I don't like being blindsided because I still have BtVS issues. :)

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

It's so very inconvenient for the PC crowd that reality is so rarely PC, innit?

And I'll spare you my usual rant about how the "AR" wasn't one, except to say that if they'd explored what really happened in that bathroom (and in that relationship) in all its inconvenient, un-PC but very real complexity, THAT would have been a brave and dramatic storyline.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

The thing is it wasn't conceived of as a complex story. It was conceived of as a quick fix for the growing dislike of Buffy. It was nothing more than "turn her into a victim and they HAVE to be on her side." The Rape Cliche (of which has even been discussed on this very thread on TWOP) is designed to exonerate female characters who have lost popularity. It's done repeatedly and there is misogyny in that. Protest THAT misogyny if they want. But what was on screen was pure manipulation. Because if it had been character driven we wouldn't have had cheesy Buffy-cringes in Season 7, we would have had serious inspections of a co-dependent, dysfunctional relationship without the unilateral blame of Spike for that (contrived) AR.

Of course that would have meant looking critically at Buffy and Scoob actions and that was just never going to happen.

In retrospect Season 7 pisses me off as much as Season 6. Season 6 was deliberately offensive and Season 7 just tried to sweep it under the rug.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

I'm a feminist, and as you know, I'm right there with you when it comes to Spuffy.

Feminism means that women are just as capable as men, that women deserve the same rights as men--and with those rights come responsibilities. Feminism does NOT mean that women can play victim and absolve themselves of responsibility for everything that they do. You can't say it's wrong for a man to beat his girlfriend, but it's fine for a woman to beat her boyfriend. They are equally wrong. (Especially in a situation such as this, when Buffy was the powerful one in the relationship, and was, in every way except gender, in the position traditionally occupied by the man.)

You could fill a textbook with all the stuff that Joss and Marti fail to understand about feminism. (And the striking thing is how many people blindly follow exactly what the show leads them to think, without EVER stopping and thinking critically about it on their own.)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Joss's feminism seems antiquated to the point of being laughable and Marti is just plain fucked up. I actually become offended when Buffy is held up as a feminist icon. She isn't. She's just a bitch. A bitch with superpowers. She's a 1950s John Wayne stereotype who just happens not to have a dick. It's nothing but sexism upended.

Buffy is pretty much everything I'd never want to be.

If I'm looking for a TV heroine I can respect I'll look to Aeryn Sun and Dana Scully. Buffy isn't a feminist anything. She was a spoiled brat.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I've not too much more to add to your defense of Spuffy other than a big "hear hear" and that you've kind of explained to my why I never got into the habit of hanging out on boards. I dipped into TWOP as a reader from time to time, but I really noticed the groupthink after awhile. And to be honest, the reviewers there really let me down on those last few BtVS eps. Based on the sorts of things they habitually bitched about over there, "Chosen" should have gotten the slam of all slams, but no luck.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Chosen sucked in just so, so many ways. I'm not surprised that TWOP didn't analyze it though. TWOP really is more about spewing hate and entertaining themselves with snark. Even in the threads I like it's really about entertaining each other with snark. And in particular, due to Ace and Sep there seemed to be excessive, irrational Spike-hate that had little to nothing to do with the show as it existed (as opposed tohow they would have liked it to exist). I've seen infitely more reasoned and interesting reviews on LJ and on a few of the Spike boards. To be perfectly honest, despite TWOP's self-hype I don't think they were a particularly good BtVS board.

[shapinglight]

I feel the exact same way when I see people say stuff like that - although I'm not a Buffy hater.

I'd never go anywhere near TWoP because I've heard too much about how awful it is, and I'm sorry that something you were enjoying got turned into yet another reminder of the stupidest mistake ME ever made.

And thank you, Mr Fury, for absolving Spike, even if you did have use insane troll logic to do it.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Well aparently my cold reply put an end to Spike's being mentioned and they're back to the more enjoyable activities of hating Ryan and Babe. (Whish is why I go there in the first place). However, it's one particular poster who always seems to bring up Spuffy negatively on the board. I half way wonder if part of it is that I'm someone who has openly criticized SMG. (Since SMG was the original Kendall Hart she's regularly mentioned on the board and as the TWOP board is generally a Kendall-love board she's usually referred to with affection... something I don't have. Even though I do love the character of Kendall Hart. I half way liked SMG as Kendall Hart. However I, like just about everyone on the board, really like the present Kendall-- Alicia Menshew. So it's not like one HAS to love SMG. But if you don't love Kendall, you're really out of place on the list. So the SMG overlap has it's problems.

Since my dislike of SMG stems from Buffy dislike I tend to be at odds with the particular Kendall lover who adored SMG (and Buffy). I think the whole bringing up Spuffy thing is as much the SMidGe-love as anything else. Since the poster loves SMidGe, she/he hates Spike. And since I have great antipathy for SMidge, well, you see where it's going. I'm waiting for that particular poster to show up again.

Still, I post as regularly or perhaps more regularly than that person does so it's not quite the bully pulpit that the BtVS thread was.

[shapinglight]

Glad to hear that it's calmed down again a bit. I don't think all Buffy/SMG fans hate Spike. Do they?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't think so. But, I mean, we're talking about TWoP. So the odds are greatly in favor of someone on TWoP being anti-Spike.

However, conversely, I've found that on any "Days" thread if you ever mention Spike he's almost always a beloved figure (I think it's the Spike is a lot like Jack parallel. They both gained fame as snarky former bad-guys trying for redemption). If one was on a OLTL thread (since the character of Todd is well loved there, you probably also wouldn't get attacked because picking on the AR there would be ludicrous when compared to what Todd did (which when you stop to think about it, is insane because hello! Spike's a vampire and has a century of killing under his belt. It's just that somehow sexual violence is 100 times worse and sexual violence on SCREEN is worse than that. -- Albeit I have to admit to having been one of the ones very resistant to Todd redemption (at least until the recast where I then give the guy a clean slate because it's someone else playing the part). As much as I enjoyed Todd and enjoyed Roger Howarth's work as Todd, I agreed with Howarth that to be fair, Todd had to be a sociopath. So weirdly in one area I was an anti-redemptionist.

And I've digressed.

No, not all SMidGe fans have to be Spike-haters. But I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of SMidGe fans that hang out on TWoP probably are.

[shapinglight]

Sometimes you wonder just how long people are going to hang on to his. They're like dogs with a very old bone.

(Says the woman who can't let go of it herself, for different reasons).

[shapinglight]

Hang on to this, even.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

My guess would be forever. Truthfully, you can get into an argument on a Days board even today and it's trotted out on Jack and that was... 1985 when it happened. But that's one of an extreme minority. 99% of the audience ceased to care more than a decade ago.