Well, I feel bad about the Buffy ranting, because I did get quite a boost from the show when I was young(ish), because I know she was a teenage character and everyone's sort of horrible as a teenager, because it's overall a brilliant universe in terms of world-building...
But as a character, she's a prime example of what I hate about latter-day feminism, in which being 'feminine' (in a primarily consumerist fashion) is more laudable than any other effort, particularly in media figures. There's so much emphasis put on the '...and she's sexy!' bit of any character's description that starts out 'She's a doctor/scientist/mother/professor/athlete/tomb raider' that it's as if it's unnatural to not want to be traditionally attractive even if spike heels and tight clothes would get in the way of your job.
So Buffy wants a 'normal life,' but as she doesn't seem to have a burning desire to be a professional ice skater or an architect or a supreme court judge (I don’t think she even declared a major in college?) or a mom, this comes down to wanting to date boys and buy expensive pretty things - a sort of proto-Carmela Soprano. I don't have much sympathy for her, if that's the normal life saving the world keeps her from.
Her whole identity for most of the show is about hiding her strength, for partially logical reasons, as it’s better for the secret identity etc, but primarily because ‘physically strong hero’ is not an identity for a girl to embrace and be proud of. Boys certainly hate strong girls. So she’ll go out and fight the monsters no one else could, but only when she’s nagged to by the mean Watcher and only in spike heels and tight clothes. Because she’s a normal girl that they want the audience to relate to, not some freak who’d revel in her abilities and heroically make like Atlas in the face of overwhelming responsibility!
There’re a few Slayers in the show who do exactly that (particularly Robin’s awesomely fierce mother), but they’re wrong and in fact they die specifically because they don’t have ‘a life’ outside slaying. And then in the last season and comics, you’ve got dozens of other slayers, and they’re uniformly tiny, pretty, and wearing tight clothes and make-up. Can there not even be one big super-strong girl who’s gung-ho like Vasquez in Aliens?
All this to say, I’d like Buffy ok as a character who reacts one consistent way to having awesome superpowers along with a grim destiny, if she wasn’t so stridently designed as New Feminist Icon while trampling over a big aspect of my identity.
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caution: tealdeer crossing
Date: 2010-01-31 09:54 pm (UTC)But as a character, she's a prime example of what I hate about latter-day feminism, in which being 'feminine' (in a primarily consumerist fashion) is more laudable than any other effort, particularly in media figures. There's so much emphasis put on the '...and she's sexy!' bit of any character's description that starts out 'She's a doctor/scientist/mother/professor/athlete/tomb raider' that it's as if it's unnatural to not want to be traditionally attractive even if spike heels and tight clothes would get in the way of your job.
So Buffy wants a 'normal life,' but as she doesn't seem to have a burning desire to be a professional ice skater or an architect or a supreme court judge (I don’t think she even declared a major in college?) or a mom, this comes down to wanting to date boys and buy expensive pretty things - a sort of proto-Carmela Soprano. I don't have much sympathy for her, if that's the normal life saving the world keeps her from.
Her whole identity for most of the show is about hiding her strength, for partially logical reasons, as it’s better for the secret identity etc, but primarily because ‘physically strong hero’ is not an identity for a girl to embrace and be proud of. Boys certainly hate strong girls. So she’ll go out and fight the monsters no one else could, but only when she’s nagged to by the mean Watcher and only in spike heels and tight clothes. Because she’s a normal girl that they want the audience to relate to, not some freak who’d revel in her abilities and heroically make like Atlas in the face of overwhelming responsibility!
There’re a few Slayers in the show who do exactly that (particularly Robin’s awesomely fierce mother), but they’re wrong and in fact they die specifically because they don’t have ‘a life’ outside slaying. And then in the last season and comics, you’ve got dozens of other slayers, and they’re uniformly tiny, pretty, and wearing tight clothes and make-up. Can there not even be one big super-strong girl who’s gung-ho like Vasquez in Aliens?
All this to say, I’d like Buffy ok as a character who reacts one consistent way to having awesome superpowers along with a grim destiny, if she wasn’t so stridently designed as New Feminist Icon while trampling over a big aspect of my identity.