The Feminist Filter: Dead Man's Party

[gabrielleabelle]

I'm done with my final and, thus, done with my undergrad! *dances*

I'm celebrating by having a beer and slapping up the feminist filter post for Dead Man's Party. What? My way of celebrating is UNIQUE!

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

Comments

[itsnotmymind]

It's interesting that Buffy compares attending a girls' school to foot-binding, a misogynistic Chinese tradition. Buffy's no doubt referencing the restrictiveness of the environment, but the analogy doesn't work very well.

Sounds like teenage overdramaticness to me: not being allowed to be a full adult yet = being oppressed. Not an unheard of attitude.

Re: points to consider 2: The very fact that it is described as "primitive" carries some implicit racism. Ancient art from Europe is less likely to be called "primitive". It gives the impression that art created by black people is inherently less civilized than art created by white people.

Point to consider 3: There's definitely a sort of slut-shaming of Buffy going on here--not so much that she had sex, but that she had sex with the wrong guy. That if you date bad boys, and bad things happen, you share some of the blame. The (admittedly inconsistent) metaphorical nature of the show is such that it sort of makes sense for Xander to talk about Angel in terms of Buffy making a dating mistake rather than Buffy making a mistake as a slayer, but that doesn't make his dismissal of her trauma (or Cordy's victim blaming) any better.

[gabrielleabelle]

Sounds like teenage overdramaticness to me: not being allowed to be a full adult yet = being oppressed. Not an unheard of attitude.

Good point.

Re: points to consider 2: The very fact that it is described as "primitive" carries some implicit racism. Ancient art from Europe is less likely to be called "primitive". It gives the impression that art created by black people is inherently less civilized than art created by white people.

Definitely. Old art from Europe usually just gets called "ancient" or is specified by what time period it's from (whereas, of course, that doesn't matter in Africa because it's all the same, I suppose).

Point 3: *nods*

[mcjulie]

As I get all squee-full about the King Tut exhibit opening here in Seattle, the notion of African art as "primitive" seems particularly absurd.