Masculinity and Tenderness, or Why I Find Xander Interesting
gabrielleabelle is nothing if not a provoker of thoughts on the Buffyverse, and there's a fascinating discussion going on over at her place about whether Xander is or is not an interesting character. (The jury seems to be coming down on 'is not'.) This, as with so much her commenters write, got me thinking, and the subsequent tl;dr is a bit much to be contained in comments.
Firstly, and obviously, it's a good thing that we're all interested in different things. Buffy fandom is incredibly rich precisely because we all have different views on a multiplicity of things, and the huge variety of opinions translates into an amazing bounty of fic that explains, amplifies, critiques and comments on canon. There is something truly awesome about knowing that you can read new fic every day in Buffy fandom that will make you think about something you've never thought about before.
One of the thing that interests me about Buffy canon is its representation of sex and gender. A large number of commentators and writers, many rooted in the traditions and culture of fandom, have positioned BtVS as a (third-wave) feminist text. From its opening scene, the show undermines existing tropes about who is and is not a hero(ine), monster, warrior, or victim. This undermining is frequently done along gender lines.
Whether BtVS can be said as a whole to succeed as a feminist text, it has places of both strength and weakness in the narrative arc and perspectives of Xander, who transitions from sexist Everyboy to (somewhat) enlightened Everyman between seasons one and seven. Moments in "The Pack" and "Consequences", particularly, undermine the reimagining of gender roles that the rest of the text undertakes.
If masculinity is defined in a heteronormative world as 'not gay' then this reductive masculinity is insufficiently challenged in BtVS. From what we know about the relationship of the show to the network, it is clear that BtVS was produced at an interesting time for the portrayal of explicitly LGBT characters. Like early Friends finds humour in the assumption of his colleagues that Chandler might be gay, early BtVS finds awkward humour in the notion that Xander might be gay, or thought to be gay. We the audience are not meant to be laughing at Xander's homophobia, but meant to share the anxiety that underpins his interactions with Larry Blaisdell. (Current shows aimed at twenty-somethings and teens respectively, How I Met Your Mother and Glee, have no such difficulty in securing network support for a slightly more nuanced and positive portrayal of LGBT characters.)
Others have written about the hypersexualisation of working class boys/men, but Xander's relentless heterosexuality also strikes me as a counterpoint to his friendship with, and support of, high school girls his own age. It is explicit in the text in Season 1 that Xander does not want to be 'one of the girls', but over-identification with the causes and concerns of young women is problematised for young men under patriarchy.
It might be possible to see the episodes relating to the catastrophic failure of Xander to pursue a sexual relationship as undermining this method of asserting his own masculinity, were it not for "The Pack". This episode explicitly explores male adolescent sexuality, among other themes. This point is hammered home when Giles, in response to Buffy's delineation of the changes that being possessed by a hyena has wrought in Xander, says, "It's devastating. He's turned into a sixteen-year-old boy." That hyena!Xander is an unpleasant would-be rapist is understandably repulsive to Willow and Buffy, but other characters are more ambivalent. At the end of the episode, it becomes apparent that Xander, contrary to information he has previously provided, remembers the acts of violence and cruelty he perpetuated. Giles, mature adult male, agrees to keep his secret, in an unpleasant moment redolent of 'boys will be boys' tolerance for rapacious sexuality.
Rape is one of the lightning rods of inequality; a cause and a consequence of women's oppression. However, because of the way strength and power function within BtVS, this is turned on its head. Xander adopts something of a stereotypically female place within his peer group. He is physically weaker, less technologically minded, a victim of violence (although there's a lot of that to go around in BtVS), a provider of food (although he seems to go on less doughnut runs than are talked about), and a doer of scutwork. The moment when this is most savagely described is in "Consequences", when Faith's rape (and murder?) of him is interrupted by Angel. It's obvious that any show that isn't structured like Waiting for Godot is going to need to operate at a pace that makes it impossible for everything that happens to be discussed by all of the available characters. It is striking, though, that this is never mentioned again, to our knowledge, although the attempted rape in "Seeing Red" is the subject of several threads of discussion involving (at different times) Spike, Buffy, Xander and Dawn.
Through seven seasons, Xander moves from an immature, borderline sexually harrassive dynamic with his female friends to a position as something of a pro-feminist ally. He is knowledgeable about gender as it relates to his context ("'Cause witches they were persecuted, Wicca good and love the earth and woman power" - Once More With Feeling) and is able to challenge the kind of casually sexist demotic that lards our culture ("See now, I think it's the daddy thing that's throwing her. 'Cause incest --not that sexy." - Seeing Red). He is secure in his position as support staff, as one who helps. For women to be able to be in the spotlight, men have to get out of it, and Xander's reimagining and reworking of his masculinity enables that to happen. Xander: fascinating as all get out.
Tl;dr: Xander's characterisation is both the awkward spanner in the works of BtVS's feminist text, and one of its most significant developments. For me.
Firstly, and obviously, it's a good thing that we're all interested in different things. Buffy fandom is incredibly rich precisely because we all have different views on a multiplicity of things, and the huge variety of opinions translates into an amazing bounty of fic that explains, amplifies, critiques and comments on canon. There is something truly awesome about knowing that you can read new fic every day in Buffy fandom that will make you think about something you've never thought about before.
One of the thing that interests me about Buffy canon is its representation of sex and gender. A large number of commentators and writers, many rooted in the traditions and culture of fandom, have positioned BtVS as a (third-wave) feminist text. From its opening scene, the show undermines existing tropes about who is and is not a hero(ine), monster, warrior, or victim. This undermining is frequently done along gender lines.
Whether BtVS can be said as a whole to succeed as a feminist text, it has places of both strength and weakness in the narrative arc and perspectives of Xander, who transitions from sexist Everyboy to (somewhat) enlightened Everyman between seasons one and seven. Moments in "The Pack" and "Consequences", particularly, undermine the reimagining of gender roles that the rest of the text undertakes.
If masculinity is defined in a heteronormative world as 'not gay' then this reductive masculinity is insufficiently challenged in BtVS. From what we know about the relationship of the show to the network, it is clear that BtVS was produced at an interesting time for the portrayal of explicitly LGBT characters. Like early Friends finds humour in the assumption of his colleagues that Chandler might be gay, early BtVS finds awkward humour in the notion that Xander might be gay, or thought to be gay. We the audience are not meant to be laughing at Xander's homophobia, but meant to share the anxiety that underpins his interactions with Larry Blaisdell. (Current shows aimed at twenty-somethings and teens respectively, How I Met Your Mother and Glee, have no such difficulty in securing network support for a slightly more nuanced and positive portrayal of LGBT characters.)
Others have written about the hypersexualisation of working class boys/men, but Xander's relentless heterosexuality also strikes me as a counterpoint to his friendship with, and support of, high school girls his own age. It is explicit in the text in Season 1 that Xander does not want to be 'one of the girls', but over-identification with the causes and concerns of young women is problematised for young men under patriarchy.
It might be possible to see the episodes relating to the catastrophic failure of Xander to pursue a sexual relationship as undermining this method of asserting his own masculinity, were it not for "The Pack". This episode explicitly explores male adolescent sexuality, among other themes. This point is hammered home when Giles, in response to Buffy's delineation of the changes that being possessed by a hyena has wrought in Xander, says, "It's devastating. He's turned into a sixteen-year-old boy." That hyena!Xander is an unpleasant would-be rapist is understandably repulsive to Willow and Buffy, but other characters are more ambivalent. At the end of the episode, it becomes apparent that Xander, contrary to information he has previously provided, remembers the acts of violence and cruelty he perpetuated. Giles, mature adult male, agrees to keep his secret, in an unpleasant moment redolent of 'boys will be boys' tolerance for rapacious sexuality.
Rape is one of the lightning rods of inequality; a cause and a consequence of women's oppression. However, because of the way strength and power function within BtVS, this is turned on its head. Xander adopts something of a stereotypically female place within his peer group. He is physically weaker, less technologically minded, a victim of violence (although there's a lot of that to go around in BtVS), a provider of food (although he seems to go on less doughnut runs than are talked about), and a doer of scutwork. The moment when this is most savagely described is in "Consequences", when Faith's rape (and murder?) of him is interrupted by Angel. It's obvious that any show that isn't structured like Waiting for Godot is going to need to operate at a pace that makes it impossible for everything that happens to be discussed by all of the available characters. It is striking, though, that this is never mentioned again, to our knowledge, although the attempted rape in "Seeing Red" is the subject of several threads of discussion involving (at different times) Spike, Buffy, Xander and Dawn.
Through seven seasons, Xander moves from an immature, borderline sexually harrassive dynamic with his female friends to a position as something of a pro-feminist ally. He is knowledgeable about gender as it relates to his context ("'Cause witches they were persecuted, Wicca good and love the earth and woman power" - Once More With Feeling) and is able to challenge the kind of casually sexist demotic that lards our culture ("See now, I think it's the daddy thing that's throwing her. 'Cause incest --not that sexy." - Seeing Red). He is secure in his position as support staff, as one who helps. For women to be able to be in the spotlight, men have to get out of it, and Xander's reimagining and reworking of his masculinity enables that to happen. Xander: fascinating as all get out.
Tl;dr: Xander's characterisation is both the awkward spanner in the works of BtVS's feminist text, and one of its most significant developments. For me.