The Feminist Filter: Halloween
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 ( Read more... )
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 ( Read more... )
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 meat, etc. I'm not sure how well the show deals with it, but I kinda like the idea of the danger and short lifespan of the Slayer being connected to her adoption of masculine traits.
I dunno. There's something about this episode that makes me feel uncomfortable with how masculine and feminine labels are used in the show. Is the show deconstructing the binary or reinforcing it? There's a lot of messy overlap here on Doylist/Watsonian levels.
Yeah, I'm not too sure, either. I'm interested to see what other people make of it, to be honest.
So it's like Buffy was there underneath the costume and the hair and the desire to just ~be married~ and ~look pretty~ and ~make babies~. In a way, it's like Buffy was reduced to a ~stereotype~. The gender performance itself.
Excellent point. 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.
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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.
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Tangent: the imagery itself feels... almost cliched? Like, to take this to a romance novel level (my life experience :P), there's A LOT of women's fantasies based around historical romance novels where the dashing pirate sweeps a damsel off her feet. And the sexual assault is again romanticized.
This scene in the alley between Lady Buffy and Pirate Larry, it's interesting how the script plays out the ~reality of cliched romantic version that comes to mind when I envision these characters removed from the BtVS fictional world. Hmm. Oh, also worth noting how Larry's gender performance which he dials up to the nth degree to overcompensate for his insecurities in everyday life is then dialed up even ~further by this spell. We have Buffy, extremely insecure in her femininity, reduced to the helpless damsel, and Larry, extremely insecure in his masculinity (because he's gay), reduced to a neanderthal "pretty, pretty!" rapist. Both gender roles in their ~ideal~ forms are debilitating.
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In hindsight, I do wonder when the writers decided Larry was gay, because it gives some interesting subtext to his anxious masculinity in this episode.
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YES, AGREED. Haha, that's what I was getting at, but I ~failed at expressing myself clearly. It's very much a criticism of the masculine -- most especially, I think, in how Buffy's isolationist behavior in Season 7 leads to her downfall. Lone hero? Ain't gonna get it done.
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 meat, etc. I'm not sure how well the show deals with it, but I kinda like the idea of the danger and short lifespan of the Slayer being connected to her adoption of masculine traits.
That's a fascinating connection. While reading this, the question kept circling in the back of my mind: why did the Shadowmen choose a woman to be the Slayer? And when considering in conjunction with your point about the dangers of masculinity and the framing of the Slayer as a sacrifice -- it's like the woman becomes both ~sacrificial virgin and fallen soldier. She takes on ALL THE PAIN. The men get to yuck it up in England while she dies young after all that dangerous masculinity is heaped upon her (almost like the men are saved from this demonic masculine by dumping it on the woman).
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.
Yeah, I get really uncomfortable with how the feminine is disparaged here. I think BtVS fails pretty hard in this area in the early seasons. For example, the slut!shaming never gets called out sufficiently. It seems to re-affirm that value judgment of women's sexuality.
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She takes on ALL THE PAIN. The men get to yuck it up in England while she dies young after all that dangerous masculinity is heaped upon her (almost like the men are saved from this demonic masculine by dumping it on the woman).
*nods*
Yeah, I get really uncomfortable with how the feminine is disparaged here. I think BtVS fails pretty hard in this area in the early seasons. For example, the slut!shaming never gets called out sufficiently. It seems to re-affirm that value judgment of women's sexuality.
OH GOD THE SLUT-SHAMING! So much of it! So much!
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The Shadowmen make the whole thing extremely problematic. Or maybe it already was problematic (the sacrificial-virgin part was implicit all along, in a way). I think the writers realized this and tried to address it in S7, but not with complete success -- or at least, they did so in a way that created other problems. Gabs has already dissected those really well, and it's a bit OT here anyway.
Short version: Yes.
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