BtVS Season 9: Does it have to mean something?

[shipperx]

:
Hmm... infamous Buffy phrase as title?

Anyway, a stab at rationalizing that the Buffy comics might have something buried deep down that's more than disposable fluff. Call it fanwanking (because it is!) but what's a girl to do?

So tilt your head a little and squint really, really hard and maybe (with a little tugging and pulling)...

The theme is Buffy has to find herself, so the plot made it a literal search.

She has to find herself in a paternalistic society which currently is passing all sorts of nonsense with rationales that young women don't understand their own choices so we'll legislate things in her body to help 'show her.' It's all to help, y'know. Without their help she might not understand what she's doing (see the paternalism in the legislation?) That's why they can vote that it's far more important for an employer to have the right to choose what's included in a woman's prescription coverage than it is for the woman to have that choice (paternalism again.) After all it's at the behest of the church bishops (so...literal paternalism, then since priests are 'fathers' and all.) And why Wisconsin can repeal 'equal pay for equal work' legislation. (That's ...well that's not actually paternalistic. That just stupid and discriminatory.) And I realise this stuff all passed recently but the bills and the culture that has led to the mindset, attitude, and the concepts that produce such things has been percolating for a very long time.) So Joss does what Joss does, he finds a metaphor (or a reductive cartoon. Your choice on how to view it).

Buffy is struggling to make her way in the world and to figure out what she wants for herself (inartfully perhaps, but it's still her life after all. She can make her own choices.), and some guy decides to 'protect' her. Y'know, for her own good. (Where have I seen that before? Oh! Hi, Twangel! ) In the process she's metaphorically roofied and date raped (but it was for her own good! [/snark]). Loses control of her own body (but it was just to protect her!). Loses control of a decision that she thought was hers to make (but, see, it actually wasn't. She only thought that it was.)In exchange for all of this, the guy has given her the illusion of the ideal traditional dream.

See, he gave her a beautiful house and pearls! Infinite free time! A gorgeous kitchen! Yeah, it's rather fake as she wasn't actually given a choice in the matter, but it is the paternalistic traditional concept of 'ideal' (and Buffy isn't immune to its allure...having been raised to see this as at least one kind of desirable ideal. She sees what's attractive in it. The problem isn't the lifestyle or its version of 'ideal' however. The real problem here is that she wasn't given any choice in the matter. Heck, neither was OtherBuffy. Other Buffy isn't living this life because she chose it. It was chosen for her... them. You know what I mean. Heck, not just chosen but given (or rather forced since there was no consent) By a man. For her own good. Of course.

It isn't really a shock that it's been bestowed on her by a 'benevolent' man trying to take care of her and not really understanding how literally taking the choice out of her hands is hurtful, paternalistic, and wrong. Maybe she wants that ideal... or maybe she doesn't. That's not the point. The point is that it's her choice to make and she wasn't allowed the opportunity to make it.

However, the guy thought he was being the 'good guy'. That he was playing hero and was 'protecting her.' And look what he gave her! The picture perfect life (paging Betty Draper and her feminine mystique ennui!) What's the problem? (A lot actually, since she had no agency in how this came about).

Now this could've been intentional or they could have hit on this by happenstance. And I'm not saying it has been well executed (come on. Look at the comics as a whole. Nothing new in that). Or that any of the logistics make sense (well.. that's just Whedon). It's all been played very fast and loose. I'm just saying that if you squint and tilt your head you can see a trenchant metaphor here (successfully planned and executed or not.) That and it's somewhat disheartening that 12 year old Arya Stark has a better grasp of this than 20-something Buffy.

:

Now back to standard Buffy comic mock-mode. :D

Comments

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Now back to standard Buffy comic mock-mode. :D

Perhaps the saddest lot of it all is what you just said? Is probably what they're going for. Thing is they completely stab themselves in the foot by making it all the way of the world, but the justified way of the world. It's all basically saying that it sucks...but it's also true as they've written the characters. The subversion actually turns into confirmation by doing this. Andrew? And Kenny and Twangel, really? We're supposed to say "You rascally boys!" and then forget about it and just oh, by-the-by, you had it coming anyway.

Smacks of an article in a magazine the other week where a columnist described why men have an entitlement problem when it comes to women and how on all the shows/movies/books/games, eventually the geek/unattractive guy gets the girl or gets over the girl and smacks her down. All well and good to point this out. The guy then goes on to say how that's not really his fault he behaves that way. That's basically what the comics do. What they (might) have set up as some kind of subversion just turns into propaganda.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

You can't concrit your fanboys (and yourself) without patting them on the head a little and assuring them that they're really noble in intentions.

Seriously, that's Joss all over. He likes to lob the criticism, but he's so wrapped up in being paternal in his feminism that of course the only paternalism he can grasp is the really obvious kind not the insidiousness of those reassuring 'good intentions'. Andrew and Angel are forgiven because well... they meant well. (I wish there was an eyerolling emoticon).

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Andrew and Angel are forgiven because well... they meant well.

Exactly. In the midst of it all they still play on Angel jokes, which itself would suggest how seriously they think that storyline was, and Buffy tacitly praising Andrew's ability to set up a so-called ideal life.

It comes off to me as, as you said elsewhere, blatant paralleling with Twangel and not in a good way. More like saying 'Come on, wasn't really *that* bad, was it?'

And she'll forgive him just as she'll forgive Angel. Book it.

[quinara]

The problem is, surely, that only time will tell whether this becomes a problem which has to be undone and solved, or whether this particular aspect of everything is just going to go by the wayside and the real problem is going to be that OtherBuffy doesn't like BuffyBuffy, with Andrew's 'oh, I know I should have asked you and you would've said no, but I didn't and now it's done' is all the comic's going to say about it. Is this going to be a problem between Andrew (+Twangel +Kenny +everyone) and Buffy, or a catfight between Betty Draper!Buffy and (?)Peggy Olson!Buffy? Because one of these things is narrative of feminist politics and the other is just feminist lipservice and enforces the trope as much as it shows it up.

I just feel like I've seen it all before with Joss and feminism. Everything is set in place and carefully set up and it looks exactly like this great feminist critique of everything - and then there's absolutely no follow through, or the logic completely breaks down in a way that essentially undermines the message in a way I can't gloss over.

To take the abortion issue as another example, it wasn't the movement from Buffy thinking she was pregnant to deciding to terminate that was the problem, it was the anti-feminist way in which it was set up and the lack of follow through that made it not much of anything at all.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

To take the abortion issue as another example, it wasn't the movement from Buffy thinking she was pregnant to deciding to terminate that was the problem, it was the anti-feminist way in which it was set up and the lack of follow through that made it not much of anything at all.

I thought that as well. Along with the logic used to come to the conclusion. Her wants/desires never entered into it, it was all about how she wasn't able to take care of it at that point(as Joss said). So their attempt to be progressive still basically places the benchmark of a woman's existence on whether or not she can care for a child, not on her own goals/choices.

[quinara]

Exactly. The elements of a feminist story are there, but the motivations and connections between them depend on anti-feminist tropes.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

So...Whedon, right?

[quinara]

Pretty much. I think it took me reading your comment to infinitewhale to realise that was the point of your post, heh - for some reason I thought you were saying that this plotline might go somewhere this time! Sorry about the comprehension fail.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

More like someway or another they actually hit on something. Doubt it will go far. And I'm unclear how they intended it to come off (that's never a safe bet with these guys). But... there it is. Admire it before it fades like the light after a firework explosion. ;)

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

The uneasy silence in that scene between Buffy and Xander in Seeing Red sums up Whedon in a lot of ways.

Buffy: My personal life is none of your business.
Xander: It used to be.

For a long time I wanted to think the silence after that was frustration, but you know, maybe we're just supposed to see her as the bad guy there for ruining things.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I never took it otherwise. Xander was the voice of Mutant Enemy more often than not. It's like the lecture that Xander gave Buffy about Riley. That wasn't subversion. It was a writer-rant at the audience.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

You are right. Poor Well-Adjusted Riley. :( If only Buffy hadn't made him cheat on her.

I'm not a Writer Is Dead type so it's hard for me to like the shows after that line. Sincerely. I'm waiting for him to say Warren was just a little misguided.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. You know, it just occurred to me that after that "It used to be" Buffy could easily have been thinking:

Yeah. Right up until you got on my case when my boyfriend was going to vamp whores! Fuck you, Xander. Way to be a supportive friend. Why should I ever open up to you again?

I know I would have found it cathartic. ;-) But Buffy isn't one to call her friends on that stuff. I wish she would. It would make the making up part more meaningful, for one thing.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

I liked to always see it as frustration because it's just such an assy thing to say. It's like, 'Whatever, dude.' That would fit both Buffy and Will's handling of Xander, but I don't know. Joss says a lot of WTF things and sometimes it's hard to tell if he's joking.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Sadly, this is accurate and one of the ongoing problems with the comic.

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

Thing is - this has been going on since nearly the very first issue of BtVS "season" 8. It's a feature, not a bug. And, it is actually a feature that i actively fight in my day-to-day life, something i dearly hope mankind will one day overcome and never return to that.

At best, this is a (badly written) cautionary tale, at worst it is enemy propaganda - but "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" it ain't.

[shapinglight]

I'm just glad it was Andrew and not Spike who set this up, given how much Spike's been harping on about Buffy needing 'normal.'

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

So say we all. "Normal" is so over-rated. :D

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

There speaks a load of truth. So far I'm thanking god that Spike's paternalism (of which there's been plenty) has been mostly benign. (But I'll continue sitting in crash position, thank you. It's always wise to do so).

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Um, yeah, I think that's at least part of the point. But I can never tell if my RAGE over paternalism is being pinged on purpose or by happenstance. I think it's often on purpose...but people always come up with convincing arguments for why it might not be. I wish it didn't come across so wishy washily. (Heh. That sounds silly when you say it out loud.)

Side note: MiAmor likes to listen to my rants, but after a recent one, he was a little worried. "Hey! You didn't mention the patriarchy even once in all that! You okay?"

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

So Andrew was responsible after all? Fucking hell.

(Steps back to my fanon verse where Andrew realised somewhere after S7 that he was really, really gay, that in "The Girl In Question" he was going out partying with two lipstick lesbians so guys wouldn't hit on them, and he certainly wouldn't think 2.4 children was the ideal.)