Behold! I have discovered where the idea for s8 came from!

[elisi]

Via this page of Joss Whedon quotes:

It’s better to be a spy in the house of love, you know ? . . . If I made ‘Buffy the Lesbian Separatist,’ a series of lectures on PBS on why there should be feminism, no one would be coming to the party, and it would be boring. The idea of changing culture is important to me, and it can only be done in a popular

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[rm]

I don't really have a lot of bandwidth for the dude telling us how to do feminism.

[elisi]

Me neither. Buffy the show, on the whole, does pretty well (and hurrah for having a female hero), but otherwise he's not doing that great. And the comics? Don't get me started.

[rm]

I'm not that far yet (we've not finished the series, Petty gets home tonight, so soon), but I find it all very troubling. The show does good, especially for when it was created, but it's not perfect (talking about rape: good; obsessing about rape: creepy, fetishizing and reductive) and Whedon spends too much time wanting a cookie.

[elisi]

That's a pretty good summary, to be honest. I find that the positives outweigh the negatives (and you know, adore Buffy to tiny pieces), but Joss' issues certainly make themselves known.

[rm]

I'm not sure if I've said this to you, but Whedon's work always makes me think of an ex of mine who once said to me in passing, "you know, you're the only woman I've ever slept with who's never been raped" and in one moment it was both very aware of sexual assault, which was awesome and completely creepy and about my inadequateness.

[elisi]

That's... pretty disturbing.

To pull out one of the quotes from the page I linked to:

Well, it does, and it doesn’t because, ultimately, stories come from violence, they come from sex. They come from death. They come from the dark places that everybody has to go to, kind of wants to, or doesn’t, but needs to deal with. If you raise a kid to think everything is sunshine and flowers, they’re going to get into the real world and die. And ultimately, to access these base emotions, to go to these strange places, to deal with sexuality, to deal with horror and death, is what people need and it’s the reason that we tell these stories. That’s the reason fairy tales are so creepy, because we need to encapsulate these things, to inoculate ourselves against them, so that when we’re confronted by the genuine horror that is day-to-day life we don’t go insane.

[rm]

Right about the fairytales, but the rest of it is the EXACT same feeling of discomfort for me. Which is really sketchy. And I say this as someone who writes stories about death and sex and violence, pretty much exclusively. And studies them. It's like Whedon doesn't notice the hard on he gets, not from social justice, but from what he's trying to do social justice about. Or, he does, and he's having his guilt in public, I can never figure it out.

[elisi]

It's like Whedon doesn't notice the hard on he gets, not from social justice, but from what he's trying to do social justice about. Or, he does, and he's having his guilt in public, I can never figure it out.
Same here. Although even if he is showcasing his guilt in public, does that make it OK to keep coming back to the same thing(s)? Really I ought to watch Dollhouse, but the mere concept squicks me, so... dunno.

(Someone made a vid about it - well, about how he has these 'strong' broken women, and what does that say about him etc. Will see if I can hunt it down.)

[rm]

Oh, seen that vid. I think someone linked to it in kalichan's journal because she was looking for it.

The fundamental concept of Dollhouse doesn't squick me out, and in fact really itnerests me, but since it was made largely all about women, it turned squicky in a not useful way to my mind. That said, I haven't watched it either ;)

[elisi]

Oooh thank you! I (foolishly) didn't bookmark it.

The fundamental concept of Dollhouse doesn't squick me out, and in fact really itnerests me
Actually, the same here. You can do a lot about what makes people who they are, playing with memory etc. But yeah, it's the way it was spun, and how (so I understand) the show shows the evils of objectification whilst objectifying...

ETA: Just wanted to mention that the vid reminded me of why I love S6 ('Dead Things' in particular) so much. One of Joss's stock characters is the nerd in power, controlling the [broken] women - but the Trio, aspiring to this, are shown for what they are: Not smooth 'super villains', but sad boys refusing to grow up, and their attempt at control is exposed as quite simply rape dressed up in fancy words.

(Sorry about that random tangent, but sometimes my show gets things very right.)

[goldenusagi]

But yeah, it's the way it was spun, and how (so I understand) the show shows the evils of objectification whilst objectifying...

Yeah, I was saying this the other day. I don't really care about what the show is trying to say, because it seems to be unaware of how skeevy it is itself at times.

[elisi]

*nods* And the same goes for s8...

[angearia]

YES. "obessing about rape: creepy, fetishizing and reductive" is exactly it.

Whedon spends too much time wanting a cookie.

Ha!

[penny_lane_42]

Barging in to say that I love you for this comment. And, honestly, for all your comments in this thread. I completely agree with you about Joss's portrayal of rape.

If you're interested, and you don't mind me self-pimping, I once compiled a list of every instance of questionable consent that my friends and I could think of in the Buffyverse. But it's got lots of spoilers for AtS and for BtVS S8, so you might not want to look at it if you intend to check those out.