Tales of The Bad Boyfriend

[shipperx]

This started off as a long delayed post about my re-viewing Sex and The City but -- as these things do-- it morphed into musing about things from BtVS, to Pretty in Pink, to Veronica Mars (which I don't even watch.)


First, the origin of the musings: Sex and the City.

I never watched the first run of this show because I'm too cheap for HBO. However, there was enough media about the show, that I knew quite well how the show ended. I knew that there was a bit of controversy about Carrie ending up with Big because... well... Big is an asshole (and he is) who broke her heart repeatedly over the run of the series. For Carrie to end up with him seemed a less than optimal ending. In fact I've read protests that all of the women on Sex ended up in committed relationships.

I don't worry much that Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha ended up in committed relationships because...well... they all ended up with the perfect guy, didn't they? I know that's oversimplifying but the fact is that the male counterpart that was created for each of these characters were specifically created to serve the female character, to be the supportive, loving, adoring, unthreatened mate. There is a line near the end of the series where Samantha is saying that she never asked whether her friends approved of her guy, Smith. I sort of laughed. Honestly, how could they possibly disapprove of Smith? He's gorgeous. He's supportive. He stays with her unconditionally even when she treats him badly... but they also make sure that he's not a doormat by having him stand up for himself at certain points.

Smith was the perfect boy toy boyfriend. Certainly Charlotte and Miranda's mates were not the stellar physical specimens that Smith was, but both of those men were also shown to adore their girls unconditionally and to be supportive to the point of unbelievable. These too were the "perfect boyfriends."

Of all the stories I tended to prefer Charlotte's relationship arc in that Charlotte was the most obsessed to get married so they paid off that obsession with "the perfect husband" in the form of Kyle Mclaughlin -- he was rich, he was handsome, he was sophisticated... and it all went to hell. The perfect husband and the perfect wedding led to a miserable, terrible marriage. This was then followed by her ending up with a guy who had none of the qualities that she had thought she wanted. Harry was short, fat, bald... and wonderful. He loved her. He was supportive. He was rather adorable in his way. Charlotte discovering that what she really wanted wasn't what she had thought she wanted worked.

I suppose there was some parallel with Miranda as she was the most anti-relationship. She was also so successful that they played on a lot of classism and had the white-collar girl end up with the blue-collar guy who was all about family.

And Samantha sort of worked as a female fantasy as the older woman got the hot young boy toy... who also believed in her, stood by her through breast cancer, and was in general hot.

The truth is, they ended up penning pretty good relationships together for Carrie's friends and they found men who fit with the respective female leads.

So... why is there something slightly off with Carrie who is the star of the show? It seems odd to screw up with her.

Part of it reminds me of Bungel. In fact, Carrie/Big is probably a bit of what Ducks had wanted for Buffy. Big was initially penned in the early seasons as something of a Mr. Wrong. Oh he was handsome, mysterious, and glamorous... he was also emotionally unavailable and he left her (sound like Bungel?) Then Carrie after having been hurt, proceeded to deeply hurt rebound guy, Aidan.

Actually it seems to me that the timing was off in many ways. Like Smith, Harry, Steve, Aidan was "the perfect guy." But, Carrie, kept screwing Aidan over for Big. Exit Aidan a bit too permanently as he married elsewhere and "had the perfect life." (I'm tempted to make a Riley comparison here... except that that would an extremely unfair comparison for poor Aidan who did nothing wrong compared to Riley who was threatened by Buffy's strength, who got suckjobs from hos, and who blamed Buffy for his own failings. Actually, though ME intended Riley as "the perfect boyfriend" ala Aidan. Riley was closer to Carrie's "Berger." Berger was cute and you could see why Carrie would fall for him. Only Berger was threatened by Carrie's success and easily offended. He also ran out on her when his ego couldn't take her success. Actually of all the "bad boyfriends" that I'm going to end up discussing, Berger is far and away the most realistic. Berger wasn't a bad guy. He was just the kind that would made the woman subjugate herself in order to hang onto him because he kept making clear that his ego just couldn't take her talent and her success. Other than the way he broke up with Carrie he never did anything really terrible. But he was the quite ordinary (read realistic) version of "The Bad Boyfriend" (and Riley really does share more ground with Berger the Bad Boyfriend than Aidan "the perfect guy"... so ME was really kind of blind to the fact that their "perfect boyfriend" wasn't by any means perfect.)

Now, you have to understand. While watching the series I wasn't making these comparisons. It's just when I began analyzing the final season and "The Bad Boyfriend" plot that... well, let me explain.

I began this long musing with the admiration of Darren Star pulling off quite the hat trick in the "Sex and the City" finale. Big had been "The Bad Boyfriend" {tm}. Sure the die-hard Duckian-like romantics might go the whole "first love should be last love!" crap. But on so many ways, BIg was the worst guy for her to end up with. Really the timing was off. Rather than rebound guy, Aidan should have been the final guy, "The Perfect Boyfriend." But that door had been closed within the story. So as the series culminated they had to either have her end up with no one (which probably would have been the best choice in an intellectual sense) or try for a romantic ending to a romantic series. Clearly given the fact that the entire series revolved around romance, they wanted a romantic ending. With Aidan being out of the question the only big gun they could pull in was... Big. Except Big had been a terrible, terrible boyfriend. How do they pull of having HIM be the endgame guy?

Well, for all that Big shouldn't have worked out in the end, they penned the finale so that he worked. Of course they did that by making current boyfriend the one you wanted out of Carrie's life. Petrovsky was made "The Bad Boyfriend" {tm} so as to make Big look like the good boyfriend and true love.

Actually, the way they made Petrovsky "The Bad Boyfriend" {tm} was done quite well. Petrovsky was romantic. He gave Carrie what she wanted. He helped her escape from reality. And it was quite, quite clear that he was "The Bad Boyfriend" from the moment that he convinced Carrie to stick around for sex rather than have coffee with her friends. And... whoa.

That's what I was supposed to be getting from Season 6 BtVS, wasn't I? Spike was "The Bad Boyfriend" because he was distracting Buffy from her friends via sex. Huh. I mean, I knew that was what they were trying to do on BtVS... but it didn't work for me. It still doesn't work for me. And yet on "Sex and the City" the moment that Petrovsky convinced Carrie to stay and have sex thus standing up her friends, I knew he was doomed and "The Bad Boyfriend. Yet even as blatant as Spike's words about leaving Buffy's friends was in "Dead Things"... I don't have issues with Spike for it.

The pattern with Petrovsky as "The Bad Boyfriend" was that Carrie would sacrifice some part of herself to stay with Petrovsky in his fantasy bubble. Oh he was romantic and she had great sex. He bought her Oscar De la Renta and gave her carriage rides... but he disliked her friends and continually separated her from them, was rude to them, and looked down on them... and it made me hate him. And I can see where Marti and Joss were probably trying something similar to that with Spike. With Buffy looking to Spike for sex, for escape, etc. And Spike being with her instead of the friends who we were SUPPOSED to want with Buffy.

Except... huh. You know, I think part of where BtVS screwed up wasn't just that they made Buffy the one using Spike when you would expect "The Bad Boyfriend" to be using the girl. Petrovsky wasn't really using Carrie. He just... was a Bad Boyfriend {tm}. The thing is the realtionships were different. Miranda, Charlotte, Samantha weren't being excessively demanding. They weren't using Carrie themselves. And it wasn't some realtionship from years past that really didn't function. The female friends of Sex's friendships hadn't faded away. Their relationship (unlike the scoobs) was strong. Part of the problem with BtVS was that Scoobs had brought Buffy back for SELFISH reasons -- reasons that were never addressed, reasons that Buffy wouldn't even ADDRESS with the scoobs. In "After Life" the Scoobs were demanding of Buffy rather than supportive of Buffy. SPIKE was the one supportive of Buffy in "After Life" and in all the episodes up to "OMWF." More than that, Spike wasn't fracturing the Scooby/Buffy bond in "Dead Things." That bond was fractured. Buffy had walked away from her friends on her own and gravitated upstairs. In fact it was Spike who had urged Buffy to compassion where Willow was concerned in "Wrecked." So Spike really didn't come across as the guy separating Buffy from her friends... it came across as Spike being theonly one supportive of Buffy.

In Sex, Petrovsky convinces Carrie to quit her job, and again it was a sign that he was "The Bad Boyfriend." {Tm}

In DMP, Spike attempts to convince Buffy to quit her job... and we were supposed to see that as a sign that Spike was "The Bad Boyfriend" {tm}. But, again, ME was just so full of shit with all their mixed signals. The difference was that on "Sex" Carries job was her voice, her column, and it was JOYFUL. On BtVS the DMP was a soulsucking job (duh!) and while we were to see Spike telling her to quit as the actions of a "Bad Boyfriend" ... Riley telling Buffy virtually the same thing was supposed to be the work of a "Good Boyfriend"... huh?! That makes the kind of sense that doesn't!

It's the constant double standard.

Basically, Sex pulled off something in "The Bad Boyfriend" that BtVS tried to... and didn't.

It's just that "The Bad Boyfriend" is more than just the show telling us that he's "The Bad Boyfriend"... it's all about context. While the actions of Spike and Petrovsky were similar actions, the CONTEXT was so very different. Scoobs weren't a support system by mid-to-late Season 6... they were leaches. There was no friendship left to speak of, just the memory of one. So Spike appeared (to many of us) to be providing a support system that Giles and the Scoobs didn't. The Scoobs were no Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha. That's really one of the places where BtVS went terribly awry. If you want to make me feel bad about the girl abandonning her friends, try not making the friends total assholes.

And, while they THINK they're writing Spike as "The Bad Boyfriend" ala Petrovsky... Spike is actually far more closely along the lines of Smith (the hot, sexy boytoy who Samantha discovers is worth so much more than just sex. He's supportive, loving, and tolerant of all her shit. And Spike is actually Aidan, the guy who tried and tried and tried even though the girl is determined to unload all her old baggage onto him until she breaks him.) Marti Noxon (unsurprising) sucked as penning her "Bad Boyfriend" plot because... she didn't actually make Spike the bad boyfriend.

I mentioned Veronica Mars. Over on ww1614's LJ yesterday was a protest of the use of the Garbage song about a "bad boyfriend" in conjunction with Veronica Mars and Logan. I don't watch the show but apparently Logan is the sexy asshole and Duncan was the "first love" (Is that right?) For some reason we're supposed to want "first love" to win... aren't we? I know that's what Ducks wanted. And considering (even though I don't watch VM it's all over my friends list) Logan wasn't intended to have as big a role as he has ended up having. Was Duncan supposed to be the intended object of ultimate desire boyfriend? The first love/last love thing?

Why exactly are we supposed to want that kind of symmetry? In some way it reminds me of "Pretty in Pink." I remember when that movie first came out I read a review and the review was bitching about Molly Ringwald's character ending up with the guy she had had the crush on in the beginning... because it was just following the cliche. The first guy had to be the last guy just 'cause. Because REALLY Molly Ringwald really, really should have ended up with Duckie, damnit! Every time I see that old movie on TV I remember that "She should have ended up with Duckie, damnit!" But Duckie (who wasn't a bad boyfriend at all) loses the girl because he wasn't the object of desire boyfriend. He wasn't the "first"... and why does the first get dibs? Even when they screw up royally?

And this brings me back to the Sex finale. Darren Star pulled off quite the hat trick. He made Big NOT! "The Bad Boyfriend" in the final two episodes even though he had been in every other ep of the series! And Star did this by turning Petrovsky into "The Bad Boyfriend" {tm} (aided of course by the fact that Barishnikov and Parker HAD NO CHEMISTRY WHATSOEVER!). In fact they took this slight of hand one step further than just making Big look good just in comparison to Petrovsky. They had Petrovsky give to Carrie all the things that Big didn't. Big told Carrie that she wasn't "The one" when he left... so Petrovsky called her "The one." Big didn't take Carrie to Paris. So Petrovsky took Carrie to Paris... and then of course they had Carrie be disatisfied with these things. This works in the sense of Charlotte's story where the preconcieved idea of what "happy ever after" should look like is shot to hell (and that's usually a very good device) but it also works to nullify Big's earlier transgressions (he wasn't really denying her anything if once she finally got it, she decided that she didn't want it anyway).

The final slight of hand that Sex employed was that they made Big the voice of the audience in the finale. Petrovsky took Carrie away from her friends... Big sought out the girls to ask their advice and Miranda told him "Go get our girl." That was a masterful stroke. That makes it not Big going to get Carrie... that makes it the GIRLS going to get Carrie... by proxy. And of course we want Carrie back with her friends. So even if we don't want Carrie with Big because he was-- after all the ORIGINAL "Bad Boyfriend"...we are on Big's side in the finale because he is "the girls" by proxy. You root for him... even when you shouldn't because it's not him... he's representing the girls. And of course, at the end, the girls have to get together.

What's curious is that the finale works because of this... until you give it thought. Because Big reunites the girls we're happy. But am I happy she ended up with Big? Eh.

And, I believe we're supposed to be happy that Buffy is reunited with Scoobs at the end of BtVS. Except of course... it all rang hollow. The Scoobs "Friendship" was habit, not friendship. And (and AR aside, I will ALWAYS insist this) Spike was not "The Bad Boyfriend." {tm}

And, frankly, if you can't even work up the ability to use "The Bad Boyfriend" with the same skill as a frivolous piece of fluff like sex (where even though I have plenty of quibbles they at least knew how to write a "Bad Boyfriend" plot that didn't have to whack you over the head... and DIDN'T have to be explained in outside interviews. You could pick up on the clues because they were executed in a way that they came across) then you have no business using a "The Bad Boyfriend" crutch.

It's sad to say but all those who claim Joss is genius... yeah, not so much. "The Bad Boyfriend" cliche may be a tiresome one, but it wasn't so difficult that a dramedy like Sex couldn't pull it off. So if BtVS couldn't pull it off (or if VM couldn't pull it off) then question the genius of the writer because it's not that hard. And it's not so confusing that it takes a board war to figure out.


And I probably went on way too long about seven paragraphs ago. I'm groggy now. Night.

Comments

[timeofchange.livejournal.com]

Never watched Sex or VM but your arguments vis a vis Spike aren't wrong. I think that the creators were conflicted and confused and didn't listen to their own work. Because sometimes the work tells you, right? SOmetimes what you think you want your characters to do isn't what they really want to do, and you are best off just getting the hell out of their way. I haven't had enough coffee this a.m., so that probably made no sense, but I did want to tell you that you did make sense.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I tend to think that ME is definitely an example of losing perspective. ME was so set in their own mindset that they could never be objective enough to see what was actually on screen.

[cy-girl.livejournal.com]

I was dissapointed that Miranda wound up with Steve. I found Steve a really grating character and it just seemed that he wore her down more than winning her heart.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I liked Steve okay. I was disappointed in how quickly they turned Blair Underwood's character around in order to bolster Miranda/Steve. Blair Underwood's character had been a great guy who appeared to genuinely care about Miranda, then as soon as Miranda dumps him for Steve we're suddenly shown that Blair's character was a playboy who didn't particularly care for Miranda all that much. Which... huh? He hadn't been that BEFORE Miranda dumped him for Steve. I tended to think that was some writerly CYA action because they didn't want us thinking that Miranda and Steve had done wrong by Blair's character.

[rahirah]

That's very interesting. I've never watched either VM or Sex, but of course I heard enough about them to last a lifetime. *g* I think it all boils down to being clear-headed about your characters, something that's easy to say but ofen difficult to do.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

That, and I'm not really emotionally invested in the Sex characters so, unlike Spuffy, I can see the structure without my own feelings of betrayal being involved. :)

[hazel75.livejournal.com]

I was about to post a really long post about why I disagree with you about S&TC but I decided that was something for my journal, not yours. I disagree quite strongly about how successful the writers were on pulling off what they were trying to pull off. I still can't watch S6 because it makes me angry and ill.

But I didn't want to be disrespectful, and my language can get pretty strong on this subject so your journal's not the place for it.

I still get really riled up about this :)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Well it's according to what you mean by "sucessful." I think they managed to make me root for Big (enough) to not be mightily pissed off. But, honestly, on an intellectual level I don't think she should have ended up with him. It was just a slight of hand that they pulled to make something that shouldn't have worked sort of work despite my many misgivings.


That said, Barishnikov was the classic "bad boyfriend" in all the subtle little ways. Not a bad guy... but really, I never saw any chemistry with Parker.

I don't think the story really SHOULD have gone with her winding up with Big, but as that's the way it went, I think they did about as good a job as they could with something which shouldn't have happened.

[hazel75.livejournal.com]

That said, Barishnikov was the classic "bad boyfriend" in all the subtle little ways. Not a bad guy... but really, I never saw any chemistry with Parker.

For me, I saw Carrie as the weak girlfriend (with respect to him and her friends). She didn't seem to know how to balance him and her friends.

And Barishnikov was one of my first crushes so I might have been biased towards him :)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think Barishnikov is cool. And I thought he did quite well in the role because Petrovsky could have been really obnoxious. He didn't come off that way. I think that he did exactly what he needed to do. He was very attractive. He seemed genuinely romantic. He didn't come across as someone TRYING to upset Carrie (in fact, Berger was far more 'that' guy with the passive aggression). It's just that Petrovsky was pretty casually dismissive of the aspects of Carrie that didn't fit with his world. He wasn't a bad guy (and I resented the contrived slap at the end because that didn't seem at all right). He was her fantasy guy (very sweet with the Oscar De le Renta dress) but he -- like many artists -- wasn't outwardly focused so much as inwardly focused. HE didn't make her sacrifice her career... but he wasn't exactly accommodating of it either. He was concerned with what he was concerned with. I thought he was genuinely attracted to Carrie... but he never tried to be part of Carrie's LIFE (which-- btw-- neither did Big which is why I wasn't a big fan of her ending up with Big either).

I tended to think that Petrovsky was presented as "The Bad Boyfriend" but not a "Bad Guy." He wasn't a bad guy... just too much of an old world guy for Carrie... who really shouldn't leave New York or give up her column to live in Paris. The life Petrovsky offered wasn't the life that Carrie needed. He wasn't a bad guy... but he was fairly consisted as an attractive -- but wrong-- choice for Carrie.

And I thought Barishnikov did a good job of what he was asked to do. He was attractive. He was someone romantic enough that you (and you understood Carrie) believing him. And he was genuine... except he was also an artist and sort of demanded that his world be his way and that others accommodate themselves to it rather than the other way around. And Carrie was really not the character to fit that. (But I never really saw great chemistry between him and Parker... unlike in Turning Point where there was quite a lot of chemistry with the girl he had the affair with).

[hazel75.livejournal.com]

HE didn't make her sacrifice her career... but he wasn't exactly accommodating of it either.

True. And I guess what frustrated me was that her friends acted like he had forced her into doing all this stuff when it was she that chose it. And Carrie did accommodate -- she didn't have to -- re the kids, re the moving to Paris, and re the quitting her job.

In the end, I found Carrie way to passive and unwilling to take responsibility for her own actions. Instead, it was Petrovsky's fault that she moved to Paris and was unhappy. And, by having Big come and "rescue" her, it made her look even more ineffective -- she couldn't even leave a bad situation of her own making without someone doing it for her.

I wanted Carrie to choose for *her* and do well with her choices. Instead, the message I got was that Carrie needed other people to take care of her, and, a support system is one thing but a grown woman, imo, shouldn't need friends and a man to basically act as her parents.

I wish I could have an Aleks (however the hell you spell his name) -- in the end, you're correct -- he wasn't the right guy for Carrie.

And I can't think about the slap without getting furious. Furious. Absolutely furious. Carrie can't just leave him because they're not getting along -- he has to "hit" her. Gah.

I may have to see Turning Point. I *love* Barishnikov.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Have you ever listened to the DVD commentaries on the final episodes? I don't know whether they would make you feel better or worse (I know that Joss saying that Buffy loved Spike didn't make me feel better... just vindictive toward Ducks.)

But in the commentaries they mention that they don't want to cast Petrovsky as just the bad guy. For every thing they have Petrovsky do to make the audience question him as Carrie's guy, they said they also wanted a good thing to show he wasn't a bad guy. They wanted to be sure that all his reasons to leave Carrie alone in Paris were legitimate reasons. They weren't just excuses. They were real and understandable reasons.

That was also why they had Carrie go back and kiss Petrovsky at the end telling him it's not his fault but hers.

And (rightly or wrongly) they considered her as having saved herself as she realized she needed to return back to "her" life before Big ever showed up. It was also why she tripped Big before he could reach Petrovsky-- because Big wasn't there to "save" her.

Now this may well be a case of (like Joss and Marti) what they say they wanted to show and what everyone sees aren't in sync. So I don't know whether the commentary would ease pain or make it worse (because I know how that goes).

I did have problems with the ep "Splat!" though and the "after a certain age there's nowhere to go but down."

As for leaving the computer they admit that was a conceit along with the fact that the voiceovers stop once she reaches Paris because she had "lost her voice."

They also said that they introduced the couple in the bookstore to try to say that she COULD have a life in Paris with friends that were like her. Paris wasn't the problem.

But... I think the success of this probably varies with the viewer. And I don't know whether the commentaries would be balm to old wounds or salt in them.

[hazel75.livejournal.com]

Hmm, well, I guess I would say that they were largely unsuccessful in showing what they were trying to show. Them telling me that that was what they intended probably wouldn't do much for me. Much like Joss saying that Buffy did love Spike does nothing for me. I was one of the few who wasn't at all put off by Spike's "No, you don't, but thanks for saying it."

And Carrie didn't lose her voice -- she gave it up. I probably should go back and rewatch the ep because I was so angry after the first half that I was seeing red so badly that I may have misinterpreted some of what actually happened. And, I agree with the writers -- Paris wasn't the problem. However, I doubt they would say that Carrie's inability to function without her friends was her problem. Or maybe they would say that -- I just don't find that a very positive statement about her.

I hated the episode "Splat". Hated it. Thought it was one of the meanest, most insensitive episodes of a TV show I'd ever seen.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

And, though I don't know where you stand on the debate, I wasn't at all thrilled with Carrie ending up with Big. I was looking at it more in terms of story structure. I couldn't help noting in the last two eps how they had pretty much slipped Big into the role of the audience so as to drag Carrie back to New York... so even if you didn't like him, you ended up supporting his quest -- not for him -- but to drag Carrie back to New York.

I can see if you were invested emotionally where there isn't much of an emotional payoff in that. But as I watched the last 6 eps in one sitting (and the entire six seasons in the space of two months) I know I have no where near the emotional investment of someone who watched the series ep by ep as it appeared.

Real time with the gaps between episodes seems to leave far more space to emotionally invest than watching an entire series nearly back to back.

[hazel75.livejournal.com]

And I guess it didn't work for me because I didn't want her back in NYC. And I didn't won't her back around Miranda (whom I had come to view as a bad friend -- the kind who's only your friend as long as you're doing what they want you to do and will nitpick and nitpick and nitpick when you don't).

So the ending really didn't work for me. But I think you're correct that that was what the vast majority of the audience wanted, and that Big, therefore, served a good purpose from that standpoint.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Miranda could be insufferable on occasion... but I thought her questions were good ones. How could Carrie just dispose of her career out of hand like that? What was she going to DO in Paris? She was basically giving up her own life, and they had consistently made a point that he really didn't allow women all the way into his. She had to also have her own life. So she had good questions that Carrie didn't want to think about.

But, DAMN! Petrovsky gave freaking GREAT gifts!

[hazel75.livejournal.com]

And I don't get that about Carrie. She did basically give up her life to go live with Aleks in Paris. It appeared to me that she expected him to *be* her life once they got over there. Which I don't think he ever implied that he wanted for him or for her.

I remember thinking that Aleks probably would have dumped her eventually if she hadn't left and had continued acting the way she was acting. Here, he met what I'll be he thought was an independent, self-sufficient, fun woman in NYC who turned into a needy, ineffective, whiner within a week of coming to Paris.

And I just can't remember Miranda ever having anything truly nice or constructive to say about Carrie's move which is probably why I'm so hard on her.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I don't think she ever got over her objections, but she did suck it up and make nice with the farewell dinner and her saying pretty much "I'm sorry we fought." I don't think, however, she ever supported the move to Paris in an active sense (and never privately).

[hazel75.livejournal.com]

I would have preferred for Carrie to come to her own decision, leave Aleks and Paris by herself, and come back to New York by herself. I knew they weren't going to do that, but I was still disappointed.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I tend to think that it would have been the best thematic decision. It's what I would have chosen. I just got the feeling that they felt they "needed" a romantic ending (although, I don't think it was a particularly great thematic choice).

[swsa.livejournal.com]

I guess I don't think BtVS' goal with Spike was ever so simple. He was never intended to be a cipher-like character the way Alek was. So yeah, he was the "bad boyfriend", but he was also one-half of the "bad relationship". I don't think it's accidental that you couldn't dismiss him or root against him. To me, in order to compare Spike to Alek, you'd have to have multiple storylines about Alek's losing his place in the world, struggling to find where he fit in, and possibly having to go on a metaphorical soul-searching mission. I can't really say that I think SaTC did the storyline more effectively, because I don't think their goals were at all the same.

And dude, you so don't want to get me started on Duckie. I couldn't stand that little twerp. =) I actually ranted about Pretty in Pink awhile back here.

[swsa.livejournal.com]

Oh, and speaking of Duckie, I think I could never see a Spike comparison there...to me, Duckie's totally the Xander of the tale, and so yeah, no way.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oh, Duckie is TOTALLY Xander.

But Andrew McCarthy was Angel. There's no Spike in Pretty In Pink.

[swsa.livejournal.com]

*cough*Steff*cough

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Heh. Never thought about that. He was quite the sexy asshole (but not with Spike's romanticism).

Could she run off with a younger version of Spader's character on Boston Legal?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think that's part of where ME never got where they short circuited the season. No, Spike wasn't a cipher. But in interview after interview it seemed that the writers felt that we were wrong seeing Spike's side of the relationship. It always seemed to me that Marti WANTED us to be as lopsided about the story as Sex and The City was.

Ultimately, in terms of analyzing BtVS, I put Season 6 Spuffy as classic co-dependency. But that's because I DO see Spike in the equation far more than Fury, Marti, and Joss seem to. Their relationship was all kinds of dysfunctional and yet every Marti interview seemed to say that we were supposed to think of Spike as "The Bad Boyfriend" only... no. No I don't think so. Spike and Buffy were in a dysfunctional, co-dependent relationship. It was BOTH their problem. It wasn't Buffy having picked the wrong guy. It was about dysfunctional patterns going on within the relationship... relationship as in two people.

I always end up feeling that Marti (and Fury) saw it FAR more two dimensionally than Spike fans did.

[swsa.livejournal.com]

I agree that ME viewed it differently than Spike-fans, because I don't think they were coming at it from a single perspective. But I think there's a middle ground in saying some viewers saw it more from Spike's perspective, and in saying that ME saw it not all from Spike's perspective. To me, that's the difference. Yes, ME saw it less from Spike's perspective than Spike-fans did, but well, that's to be expected I think. But I don't think that translates to them not seeing *any* of it from Spike's perspective. If that was the case, there'd be no Spike/Dawn or post-AR scenes in SR, Entropy Spanya scenes, or Smashed attempted biting scene, etc. On SaTC, we were never meant to be in Alek's head. We were never meant to see him as more than a temporary roadblock.

I get that we're not going to agree on Spuffy or how successful it was. I just don't see the comparison here to SaTC. The situations and goals just feel completely different to me.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I didn't actually watch SatC with Spike in mind. It was just when I sort of struck on the scene where Carrie stood up her friends to stay in and continue having sex with Petrovsky that, in retrospect, struck me as a lot of what ME was trying unsuccessfully to say with Spuffy... at least in interviews. That scene illustrates a great deal of what many of the arguments regarding "Dead Things" were about on various board wars.

Of course I've always argued that Spike didn't cause any separation in Buffy and the Scoobs. Yes, Spike was trying to cling to a bond in "belong with me" stuff. But I always note that Buffy walked AWAY from the Scoobs before she ever knew that Spike was there. Spike wasn't right in what he was saying, but he wasn't the reason she drifted away from the scoobs. It was her action and her choice.

So, no, it's not the same as Petrovsky, but it is what I tend to think some of the writers wanted us to see... only many of us don't.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

They're making a sequel to Pretty in Pink?

Wow... that's... well, kind of depressing.

(And I like Andrew McCarthy... in St. Elmo's Fire and other stories. But really, I think I would have preferred a Kelly Taylor ending.

But I will always remember the review I read when the movie came out "She should have chosen Duckie, damnit!" That always sticks in my head. That and I was in England at the time (travelling) and I also remember the part of the review where they were saying that "the American kids thinks that she dresses strangely (i.e. she dresses like we do-- English)...) So I always end up thinking that she's dressed like an English girl because of that. :)