The Feminist Filter: Halloween

[gabrielleabelle]

Alright! Let's do Halloween! This one is particularly rich in the feminist text, so make yourself some tea. :)

Mission Statement:This series is intended to outline the feminist text of each episode so as to provoke and encourage open discussion. It's not so much about making value judgments about events and/or characters but about analyzing the

Comments

[samsom]

I completely renounce spander!"

I haven't read all the way through this but Freudian slip much? *g*

[angearia]

WELL-PLAYED

[fenchurche]

ROFL!

[gabrielleabelle]

ROFL! I thought I'd fixed that!

*iz gonna keep it in for the lulz*

[angearia]

I'm pondering. First, reading this has prompted/furthered my thoughts on this need to redefine and recontextualize masculinity and femininity. Maybe by specifically tagging them as stereotypes or tropes? Because I've begun to feel like I'm tacitly supporting the gender binary by identifying things simply as masculine/feminine. (Disclaimer: This is more a musing for myself on how I can more clearly express what I believe

[angearia]

Oh, we might also consider the relation between "just a girl" being called as the Slayer by the Shadowmen (a girl invaded/imbued with power by the "masculine") vs. Ethan using the Janus statue to push the costumes inward to alter people's identities (a girl empowered by stereotypical masculine abilities who not only loses the Slayer side of herself, but is also reduced to the stereotypical feminine).

[gabrielleabelle]

Because I've begun to feel like I'm tacitly supporting the gender binary by identifying things simply as masculine/feminine.

I often get myself into a word-tangle in trying to specify that I'm referring to "things that are associated with masculinity" or "things that are associated with femininity", because I don't want to come across as implying that these traits are intrinsic. It can be difficult to convey, though depending on who I'm talking to, it may just be understood.

Contrast this with the later seasons when the violent nature of the Slayer power has become severely detrimental, how the isolationist lone-hero model becomes Buffy's Achilles' hell, and how ultimately her solution for saving the world is to share power and (attempt to) dismantle the system.

I think it can also be interesting to take it as a criticism of masculinity. Masculinity in the real world, frankly, is dangerous. Men have a shorter lifespan because of the masculine traits they're encouraged to adopt: violence, recklessness, not visiting doctors, eating

[gabrielleabelle]

My only concern with the episode is that it may go too far in disparaging anything connected with the feminine. It's a thin line to walk.

Well, actually, I also really dislike how an attempted sexual assault is used as a way to RAMP UP THE DANGER and bolster Xander's character arc for the episode. Not cool.

[samsom]

"It's come as you aren't night. The perfect chance for a girl to get sexy and wild with no repercussions."

This reminds me of the chagrin I feel every year when picking out a costume - first for myself, now for my daughter - and I go to a store and see rows and rows of 'costumes' for women that sexualize the hell out of different professions. Cop, fire(wo)man, zombies. Short, short skirts, cleavage and fishnet stockings. It's almost like Halloween has become an opportunity to, God help me for phrasing it this way, slutting up instead of becoming someone else for a night. /rant

So in this way, I think Buffy is sort of enforcing some horrible gender roles, probably without realizing it.

"She's tricky. Baby likes to play."It's very sexual, the way he says this, but I like that he's watching her fight (being a slayer) when he's saying it. It shows that Spike is drawn to every part of her, including, and maybe especially, the masculine (slayer) part. Which shows the traditional inverse of genders that permutate their later

[gabrielleabelle]

Word on the Halloween costumes. Hell, I've bought sexy Halloween costumes before. It's the thing to do. Just for curiosity, I went to Costume Express - the first website to pop up when I google 'Halloween costumes'. The front page has an Optimus Prime costume. The male costume is bulky and all, like you'd expect a Tranformers outfit to be. The female costume? Skin-tight and sexy. *rollseyes*

I'm gonna be a ninja this year. Probably gonna have to buy my costume from the men's section because female ninjas inevitably look like this. *sighs*

[doublemeat]

It's very sexual, the way he says this, but I like that he's watching her fight (being a slayer) when he's saying it. It shows that Spike is drawn to every part of her, including, and maybe especially, the masculine (slayer) part. Which shows the traditional inverse of genders that permutate their later relationship.

I love that scene. It's sort of the opposite of the only Spike/Buffy scene I absolutely hate, which is the one in Something Blue when he says "I don't know if I'll be able to protect you!" Ugh. Things Spike Would Never Ever Say To Buffy, Exhibit A.

I'm not sure that their gender roles are inverted, exactly. I think it's more that Spike never underestimates or condescends to Buffy because she's a woman. Since other characters often do, and since we're culturally primed to expect them to, it seems like an inversion.

[boot_the_grime]

It's very sexual, the way he says this, but I like that he's watching her fight (being a slayer) when he's saying it. It shows that Spike is drawn to every part of her, including, and maybe especially, the masculine (slayer) part. Which shows the traditional inverse of genders that permutate their later relationship.

Like Doublemeat, I don't think that it's an inversion. Spike is drawn to Buffy as a fighter/Slayer, but for it to be an inversion, Spike would have to be weak, completely damselish, unable to match Buffy in fight, and generally not a fighter, which is obviously not true at all. He isn't drawn to her as a fighter because he's helpless and in need of a protector, he's drawn to her because he himself loves the fight, it's at the core of his being.

[lynnenne]

Angel: I hated the girls back then. Especially the noble women.

Buffy: (nods) You did.

Angel: They were just incredibly dull. Simpering morons, the lot of them.

This dialogue always irks me, because it implies that the women of Angel's day had a choice in the matter. It's not as if they were allowed access to money or education or political power, as Willow so aptly notes. Buffy has many more choices, it's true; but she conforms to societal expectations in this episode as readily as the women of Angel's day did back then, and for the same reasons: because it seems like the most socially attractive option. The lesson in the final scene seems to be, "Be who you are and your boyfriend will like you," not "Be who you are because you will like yourself better."

It's telling that the "exciting" woman Angel eventually did meet - Darla - was a prostitute before she became a vampire. It illustrates the lack of choices that women faced (and still face, in many countries) when trying to gain access to economic or political power.

[gabrielleabelle]

Fantastic point and YES.

[doublemeat]

I always thought it was interesting that Darla was a prostitute and Drusilla was a nun. I'm not quite sure how to interpret it, but I think the writers were making a subtle point there.

[lynnenne]

It's pretty blatant stereotyping. Drusilla was Angel's greatest sin, someone he terrorized and destroyed, so she had to be pure, innocent and chaste. Darla, by contrast, made Angelus who he is, so she was shown as a "fallen woman" from the beginning.

I know the writers were going for symbolism, but from a feminist perspective, it's highly problematic. It reinforces the madonna/whore dichotomy: good girl = sexually untouched, bad girl = slut.

[pocochina]

We get another example of Buffy's liminal status between masculine and feminine. With this comment, she's lamenting her lack of femininity due to her involvement with Slaying, the masculine.

It's some interesting positioning, because that set of traits/actions that make up "the feminine" is usually construed as Other, and activities that code masculine are considered normal. Buffy connecting normalcy to femininity does offer a little bit of complexity to that, though I don't know if I can evaluate it as positive or negative.

This series is making me really appreciate how much Xander was used (particularly during the early seasons) to highlight a lot of issues around anxious masculinity. People can be generally decent, even good, and still have absorbed a lot of these attitudes. It's shown as normal without being excused most of the time, and Xander in S7 is a pretty strong example of someone who has worked through and discarded a lot of those attitudes.

being beautiful is sort of her job

I really like this line - femininity is

[gabrielleabelle]

It's some interesting positioning, because that set of traits/actions that make up "the feminine" is usually construed as Other, and activities that code masculine are considered normal. Buffy connecting normalcy to femininity does offer a little bit of complexity to that, though I don't know if I can evaluate it as positive or negative.

Good point.

This series is making me really appreciate how much Xander was used (particularly during the early seasons) to highlight a lot of issues around anxious masculinity.

Very much so. It appears to be a common theme for Xander at this point.

Willow pointedly doesn't say Buffy should have dressed up like Superman or whoever. I don't know if that's an essentialist statement that male superheroes would be completely inaccessible to a young woman, or if it's deliberately claiming a powerful woman as the best thing to be.I'd never thought of that. I think, going Doylist, part of it was just a shout-out to the other big "girl power" show of the time. Watsonian-wise, it carries some interesting

[boot_the_grime]

This is one of those places where B/A is uncomfortable if it's straightforward, but so awesomely feminist if it's read subversively. Because - is that woman in the picture one of Angel's victims? or is she Darla? Either way, his trivialization of historical femininity is really about his attempt to keep his long past as a victimzer just under the surface.The woman in the picture was supposed to be someone he was involved with when he was an 18-year old human, or at least Buffy and Willow thought so. It's really not quite clear. But since the shows were so inconsistent with Angel's year of birth, from Watsonian perspective I would have to conclude that the Watchers had no clue about his life and that their books were full of errors

[local_max]

Agreed on B/A.

Agreed on Xander (perhaps obviously) :).

There's something interesting that Willow didn't suggest Buffy should have dressed like Superman. On the one hand, Xena is female and so Willow is not assuming that all strength is automatically male. But then, there's still some cis-sexuality assumption there, that women *can't* dress as men for Halloween. I mean, that's not that damning.