One More Spuffy Rant...
Sep. 19th, 2003 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxOkay, shows me the...er... "enlightenment" of wandering into other boards after having been a resident of BAPS and TabRas for so long. But-- WHAT THE FUCK is with the Spuffies who say that those of us who think that the ending of Spuffy SUCKED just want something sacchrine and sweet?
Excuse me, but this is just so not an accusation usually thrown at me.
I didn't want sacchrine. I didn't want soap opera melodrama. I didn't want Spuffy as B/A redux and can these people please get out of their mindset long enough to see that the poeple pointing out that the way S/B was presented wasn't fulfilling get overthemselves long enough to realize we have a right to complain?!
Jesus, there's a HUGE DIVIDE between sacchrine melodrama and having to read Buffy expressions like a psychic reads tea leaves! Tea leaves are tea leaves, damnit, and a blank faced actress is a blank faced actress! It's not some metaphor for being disconnected, it IS being disconnected! Beating the hell out of someone because of self loathing isn't a metaphor for beating the hell out of someone because of self loathing. It IS what it is. There's now freaking metaphor there!
Don't tell me that I don't understand. I understand just fine. I understand that when Spike says "No, you don't" when she said "I love you" that he mean "No, you don't." I understand that when battering someone saying "there's nothing good or clean inside you" that it's not "okay" because someone is stressed or has a lot of pressure. It's not okay. It's not a metaphor for depression. It is what it is.
Someone go grab a Magritte's painting and explain "The Treachery of Objects" to some of these people.
(er... that's the painting of the pipe saying "Ceci n'est pas une pipe."--"This is not a pipe") It's not a pipe because it's not a pipe. It is what it is -- a painting of a pipe.)
For a metaphor to be a metaphor... there has to be something going on that's metaphorical. Someone who is a bitch to her friends, abusive to her lover, and wallowing in self pity isn't a metaphor for disconnectedness -- it IS disconnectedness. What's so difficult about this concept?
Saying that we wanted something requited as a story, something where Spike wasn't always but always "beneath" Her Precious Pinchface, something where the woman didn't prance around throwing herself at every guy who walks into town because she was ashamed of the one who loved her enough to stick by her bitchy self isn't asking for stupid soap opera. What's stupid is thinking that one can say that a woman who played with a guys heart UNTIL. HE. DIED. is a "great love story." It's a shitty love story.
I didn't need trite B/Aer stuff. I didn't need vaseline coated lenses and googly eyes. But I needed a hell of a lot more than the half-assed crumbs that Spike and Spuffies were dealt. Don't condescend to me and say I wanted something simplistic. I didn't. I just didn't want something abusive, vacuous, and deliberately ugly. I didn't want to spend all my time trying to rationalize why Buffy really wasn't a heinous bitch when 95% of her actions were those of a heartless, heinous bitch.
She used Spike to. his. death. No "flaming hands" is going to excuse for me that Spike died believing he was unloved. No "flaming hands" is going to make me forget how nauseating it was to see her "bask" for PodAngel when he blew into town.
No, damnit, I NOT satisfied with where Spuffy ended up and I don't have to make excuses for that. It was all over the screen why I'm not satisfied.
If anyone is fooling themselves, it's not the ones who came away disappointed and dissatisfied. It's those with their heads stuck in the sand claiming "Yes, but Buffy was just in a bad place." Buffy was in a hell of her own making... and she can freeze there.
Excuse me, but this is just so not an accusation usually thrown at me.
I didn't want sacchrine. I didn't want soap opera melodrama. I didn't want Spuffy as B/A redux and can these people please get out of their mindset long enough to see that the poeple pointing out that the way S/B was presented wasn't fulfilling get overthemselves long enough to realize we have a right to complain?!
Jesus, there's a HUGE DIVIDE between sacchrine melodrama and having to read Buffy expressions like a psychic reads tea leaves! Tea leaves are tea leaves, damnit, and a blank faced actress is a blank faced actress! It's not some metaphor for being disconnected, it IS being disconnected! Beating the hell out of someone because of self loathing isn't a metaphor for beating the hell out of someone because of self loathing. It IS what it is. There's now freaking metaphor there!
Don't tell me that I don't understand. I understand just fine. I understand that when Spike says "No, you don't" when she said "I love you" that he mean "No, you don't." I understand that when battering someone saying "there's nothing good or clean inside you" that it's not "okay" because someone is stressed or has a lot of pressure. It's not okay. It's not a metaphor for depression. It is what it is.
Someone go grab a Magritte's painting and explain "The Treachery of Objects" to some of these people.
(er... that's the painting of the pipe saying "Ceci n'est pas une pipe."--"This is not a pipe") It's not a pipe because it's not a pipe. It is what it is -- a painting of a pipe.)
For a metaphor to be a metaphor... there has to be something going on that's metaphorical. Someone who is a bitch to her friends, abusive to her lover, and wallowing in self pity isn't a metaphor for disconnectedness -- it IS disconnectedness. What's so difficult about this concept?
Saying that we wanted something requited as a story, something where Spike wasn't always but always "beneath" Her Precious Pinchface, something where the woman didn't prance around throwing herself at every guy who walks into town because she was ashamed of the one who loved her enough to stick by her bitchy self isn't asking for stupid soap opera. What's stupid is thinking that one can say that a woman who played with a guys heart UNTIL. HE. DIED. is a "great love story." It's a shitty love story.
I didn't need trite B/Aer stuff. I didn't need vaseline coated lenses and googly eyes. But I needed a hell of a lot more than the half-assed crumbs that Spike and Spuffies were dealt. Don't condescend to me and say I wanted something simplistic. I didn't. I just didn't want something abusive, vacuous, and deliberately ugly. I didn't want to spend all my time trying to rationalize why Buffy really wasn't a heinous bitch when 95% of her actions were those of a heartless, heinous bitch.
She used Spike to. his. death. No "flaming hands" is going to excuse for me that Spike died believing he was unloved. No "flaming hands" is going to make me forget how nauseating it was to see her "bask" for PodAngel when he blew into town.
No, damnit, I NOT satisfied with where Spuffy ended up and I don't have to make excuses for that. It was all over the screen why I'm not satisfied.
If anyone is fooling themselves, it's not the ones who came away disappointed and dissatisfied. It's those with their heads stuck in the sand claiming "Yes, but Buffy was just in a bad place." Buffy was in a hell of her own making... and she can freeze there.
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-19 09:40 pm (UTC)Excuse me? Even if I bought this -- I don't, it's not like her heart was physically frozen in carbonite and there was something there to melt with a magic bunsen burner -- how offensive is that? The brittle little girl who used and abused someone as a faithful dog, giving him an unknown and dangerous weapon while sending Angel away to safety, and then tossed him a bone when he died gets to have everything magically made better for her, and I should applaud that? Hell no! I applaud the people who fix their own problems! I applaud the people who see the cliff of their own inadequacies looming above them, and find a way to build a ladder!
If I'm to believe what these people are saying about why Buffy wasn't a horrible person at the end, then I'm to believe she got to be as awful as she liked because nothing was ever her fault. That she was physically incapable of love all these years, and now a better chapter of her life begins. One: bullshit. Angelus may have hurt her deeply, but she might have avoided a great deal of that pain if she'd pulled her pretty little girlish head out of her ass and researched who he actually was rather than cooing over how pretty the women he killed were. And after that? She made every choice. She turned away from compassion. She rejected it. She was brought up to be Joyce Summers, but chose to be Locutus of Borg.
Two: how awful would it be for someone who actually had changed himself for the better to sacrifice himself so she can have all the work done for her? Buffy is surrounded by people better than her, and refuses to open her eyes to the lessons they might be able to teach. If I'm to be expected that someone had to die to open her eyes to the light... my God, that would be even more offensive than the message I actually took from the show.
Needless to say, I do not agree with the magic bandaid over Buffy's heart theory.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-19 09:55 pm (UTC)Fuck, Buffy's journey. She went from a girl who cared about nerd Willow, to someone who buried Chloe like a dead hamster! She ran into the arms of the bastard who broke her heart, dumped her, murdered her Computer Science teacher, and who hadnt spoken to her in years. She came up with the world's DUMBEST plan that was rescued by her devoted, abused lover sacrificing her life so she and her friends could buy shoes and mocha lattes. What that tells me about Buffy's journey is that she became a selfish bitch whose idea of self improvement are the same as a fifteen year old that heads out to the Galleria to find the meaning of life.
If this is Joss' grand metaphor then his metaphor both sucks and blows. I don't give a shit about Buffy's issues. I'd feel for them if the dumbass bitch ADDRESSED them every now and then, but no. Buffy issues are always excused by everyone. No need to acknowledge them for more than a moment and god forbid she actually CHANGE her behavior!
No, Joss has created one of the most loathesome female so-called "heroines" it has ever been my misfortune to ever watch. I have more sympathy for comic book villainesses like Catwoman than the sick and twisted form of "heroism" that is Buffy. Buffy is a selfish, repressed bitch with a martyr complex and a chip on her shoulder. That simple.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-19 10:09 pm (UTC)What I want to know from all those people who say that we've been watching the slow deconstruction of Buffy, but that now she's ready to go out into the world and regain the light that's seeped out of her life: why were these seven years of her life chosen as the ones to show, if we were supposed to be watching the tale of a hero?
Kira Nerys has faced a whole helluva lot more than Buffy Summers. Her entire planet was occupied by an alien race who enslaved the populace and slaughtered or raped at will those who caught their eye. From childhood, she waged a guerrilla war against the Cardassians. She never had anything good in her life until she was in her late twenties. She wasn't just fighting evil... she was starving, cold, and sick while she did.
By the end of the show, this angry, bitter woman had become capable of enormous love and devotion, had learned moderation in her behavior, and was a respected leader of a station with two thousand-odd people. They could have shown the years of her life where she was angry and reactive, and it would have been interesting. But it wouldn't have been a tale of a hero, no matter how many times Pillar and Behr insisted that it was perfectly obvious as such to anyone smart enough to understand the series.
If we had seen that BtVS was supposed to be one theory on what being a hero does to a person, then I would not have issues with what we were shown. It was that incredibly annoying mantra of "She's a hero! She's a hero! She's not doing anything really wrong, because she's a hero!" that drives me batty.
I was not shown a hero. I was shown a sweet but shallow girl who devolved into someone who'd only be called soulful on the technicality. If we're supposed to believe that she's the hero they've labelled her... why did they tell a story where she wasn't?
no subject
Date: 2003-09-19 10:02 pm (UTC)Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-19 11:18 pm (UTC)Thank you! To paraphrase Fox Mulder:"I wanted to believe." I really wanted to interpret what was onscreen as being deeper, more layered- more. But there was no *there* there for me, and it ended with a whimper, not a bang.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-20 12:39 am (UTC)I couldn't agree more. I'm sorry, but what we were shown wasn't some complex mythopoetic indication of the yin-yang with ancient Egyptian influences and the archetype of the Trickster, complete with flaming hands symbolic of the Great High Orgasmic Barbecue of Malachi. People can spout off all they want about how I don't "get" the metaphor - sorry, babes, but there wasn't one. Depression is not a metaphor for depression, whether it's set in a fantasy world or not. And abuse is not a metaphor for abuse.
Fact is, the writers delineated Buffy to be an emotionless, cold little bitch, and expected us to stick with her and identify with her all the same. The audience didn't, they embraced Spike. So they made Spike the "bad boyfriend" in order to excuse Buffy's actions. No metaphors here. If there were metaphors, they were abandoned early - like the equating of nakedness with vulnerability and the female sexual role.
We're not stupid because we see Spuffy in the way it was depicted, instead of some high-drama, elitist, "deep" relationship. We're not latent B/A shippers, wanting idealistic romance. We simply don't take shit and try to spin it into gold.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-20 11:10 am (UTC)Exactly! This is the part of the argument that drives me nuts! This is Mutant Enemy we're talking about. The same people who couldn't be bothered to finish writing the script for "Lies My Parents Told Me" until the thing was half filmed! The people whose "story" plan for Spike was "He starts out crazy in the basement... stuff happens... and he dies in the finale so we can have a happy ending." These people can't plan worth shit! They ADMIT that they had no idea what in the hell they were doing throughout large portions of Season 6. They admit that they were constantly changing things and restructuring the story. They can't keep any continuity (magic coat placement in the basement, anyone) yet I'm supposed to believe that these same reckless, unorganized people constructed some metaphorical subtext for the season that is so brilliant that poor little me can't begin to get it?
Look, I was a fine arts major in college. I was really well trained in the bullshit of explaining what I'd done as "And this is to represent the way that man interacts with nature" and I'm telling you, 75% of the time it's bullshit spewed to make sense to someone so you're not stuck saying "I did this because it was what I wanted to do." Yes, there are metaphors. And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And the point of a television show is to COMMUNICATE with the audience. So if the story sucked on a level that most people are walking away saying "That sucked ass!" then guess what, it did! Because even if I were to buy (which I don't) that Joss actually had some brilliant metaphor that I'm just too damn stupid to get, then he STILL fails because he didn't communicate to the television viewing audience. Actually, I think Joss "communicated" just fine. I just think he had some dumbass, reactionary "girlpower" metaphor that was absolutely was as offensive, trite, and ridiculous as it looked.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-20 04:44 am (UTC)Lately, there has been an almost militant push on many boards to put Spike with *anyone* else as long as that person loves him. This sentiment is pushing people's emotional buttons and hence you get material like what you quoted above. Trying to explain or combat what is esentially an emotional issue with logic (on either side of the question) is probably not going to resolve much.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-20 10:30 am (UTC)Wanting Spike to have SOMEONE to love and be loved by is actually a simple, concrete request. Give him a love interest and I'll accept it. It's not saying that it will be the bestest thing ever, it's saying that they want SOMETHING out of this even if it is, in a sense, a consolation prize.
And I'd never argue with those who have reached the point of say "Joss Whedon can go to hell with his bullshit stories!" It's just that I can't quite let go yet. The I'm talking about though is if I said, "The people who have stopped watching are idiots. They don't see the brilliant metaphorical masterpiece that Joss put on screen. That you were looking for simplistic, mundane things like... oh I don't know, rational plot development and enjoyable episodes, but Joss wasn't playing such a pedestrian game. He was telling a grand metaphorical tale that he told BRILLIANTLY and if you're dissatisfied you're just too damn stupid to have seen the total beauty of the story he was telling where Spike acted as the ying to Buffy's yang and her beating the shit out of him was representative of her reconnection to life and Spike is her life so when she's smiling at the crater it is Spike's ultimate triumph and the greatest love story EVER. Pshaw! Those of you who wanted to see him feel love, to see him treated like a person, to see him find some fulfillment in life. You're just a stupid to "get" that Joss wasn't telling an ordinary story that can be viewed just as a STORY. You have to look to the grand allegorical meaning of this.
Er... yeah. Right. It still sucked. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 06:44 pm (UTC)