So, I've now plowed through the last 10 episodes of Season 2 and the first 8 of Season 3 in a weekend. My brother and I were joking about how long it would take to watch the entire thing, saying that you could easily watch a disc a night, which is a season a week, so it'd be about two months, a bit more if you include Angel. Then I joked that 22 episodes at 40 minutes each were doable in a single day, if you started off well rested. Apparently that's exactly how he watches them.
So, did the Religious Right have anything to do with the script for Surprise & Innocence? Have premarital sex, make your boyfriend lose his soul! All kidding aside, I've been getting more and more engrossed. I have a mad crush on Angel, in his sensitive vampire state or his evil one. I like the developing complexity of the Slayer-Watcher relationship. I think that Spike is going to be hilarious. My favourite episode recently? The one where the grown-ups start acting like teenagers. Buffy's mom and Giles were hysterical.
I'm not very fond of Xander. And I think the show sends out some weird messages about sexuality. Xander tells Corelia "Wear something trashy...er." and refers to Buffy as a slut for wanting to date again. Willow calls Cordelia a skanky hoe when she finds out that Xander is seeing her. I just think this isn't acceptable. It shouldn't be such a blase thing to drag a girl's sexuality into the mud like that. And to do it because she got the boy you wanted? Ridiculous. Faith says that slaying makes her "hungry and horny" and Cordelia's response is to say eeewww. So, basically, it's ok to have the girls obsessing about getting a boyfriend and dressing to attract the male gaze, but we all know that it's looking sexy that is the point, not feeling sexual.
Beauty and the Beasts was a hard one to watch. I don't like the way the show portrayed the partner violence issues, but I can't seem to articulate why that is.
All these end-of-the-world plots had me wondering "who are the vamps going to eat if they kill all the people?" I'm glad one character in the show, Spike, seems to recognize the inherent stupidity of killing off all the food! And the plotline about being dumped on Valentine's Day made me flash back to Grade 7. I did, indeed, dump someone on Valentine's Day. It was an extremely unserious relationship - I don't think we had even kissed or been on anything approximating a date, even for seventh graders. And I had totally not even noticed it was the "Day of Love". But I felt mighty guilty when a carnation turned up for me after the fact. Oops! God, high school was cruel.
5 comments:
I'm not terribly fond of Xander either. But he ends up going through a LOT for Buffy. I can be no more specific because there would be spoilers....
I'm also quite uncomfortable with the way words like "bitch" are bandied about, but the overall product is, I think, so explicitly pro-feminist that it's possible to overlook it to some extent. Joss Whedon has said in a number of interviews that he wanted to create a feminist show, and I think that comes out most of the time.
Quit analyzing buffy and just love it. It's fantastic as is.
I like analysis. It's half the fun.
I think it's a good show, maybe even a great show. But there are some really unfantastic bits. I think that you can like something and critically analyze it too.
Thou hast sinned again!
I think a show like Buffy demands looking deeper into the plot lines. I just don't agree with what you've dug up. In fact a lot of the stuff you're saying is anti- feminist, I've seen as pro-feminist. So I've decided to console myself by believing that you're misguided. That there's nothing I can do to save your soul. Sometimes people are lost, and no amount of maps will guide them to the Truth.
Buffy is the way, the light and the hope. Awymn.
How do you see it as pro-feminist? I'm interested to hear. I certainly don't see myself (or the show's creator) as being the origin of feminist doctrine. I think the most feminist thing about this show is that it opens up dialogue.
Also, while I get that it's tongue in cheek, even religion is not above analysis and criticism. Nothing is.
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