Thoughts being thinky.

[gillo]

First of all, a link to a funny list of Every Argument About Buffy on the Internet. An example:

Spuffy Is Problematic

Bangel Is A Child’s Delusion Of What Love Is
Spuffy Is Literally Assault
Okay But He Felt Really Bad About It And Didn’t Have A Soul

Second, I do hope you are following the rewatch we are doing at fantas_magoria - yesterday we

Comments

[rebcake]

Hmm, maybe it's just me, but I find Sheila completely shame-free, so if she was supposed to be a case of slut-shaming by the writers, they failed utterly with me. I find her delightful, in part because she's unapologetic about her choices. I am also on her side because she doesn't give Buffy a hard time. Usually, when Bad Girls(™) are depicted, they are also Mean Girls(™), which in my experience they aren't so much. Sheila doesn't sneer at Buffy for being a goody-good, which is something Faith does all the time. She doesn't pull the "I'm badder than you" card. Good point about them using similar methods to get by. It makes Buffy's comment about her mom seeing her as "a Sheila" a little uncharitable

[gillo]

I'm not sure about Sheila being shame-free. She strikes me as quite needy with Meat Pie and the two Cadillac guys. Perhaps she goes back to collect their Cadillac later, after leaving the parent-teacher evening?

Veal is a pale meat here - not very fashionable because of animal cruelty issues. The colour of the meat is the first thing I would think of. There are at least a few PoCs in this episode, if only in the background.

Sheila seems genuinely grateful to Buffy for covering for her and impressed by the school-burning. That's one of the things that makes me think she is working very hard to create a tough persona. Just as Spike is, of course, though it takes a long while before we realise that fully.

[rebcake]

Chicken is more likely to be used a for color/race purposes; the breast area is called "white meat" and is supposedly more healthful, but is also common slang for white sexual partners. Then the Pork Board started an ad campaign selling people on "The Other White Meat". So that immediately got, um, piggybacked onto the slang, as well.

Even when I was young and people didn't care so much about the ethical treatment of animals, veal was not common, and would more likely be used to refer to something being "classy" and out-of-reach than have anything to do with race.

[rebcake]

Sheila of course has her issues, I just don't think that she's being pointed at by the writers as primarily "slutty". She's presented as a whole person, even though she's only got a few minutes of screen time.

[rahirah]

Given that Spike is an Englishman born in the 1850s, I would be stunned if he didn't have attitudes which would today be called racist, sexist, imperialist, etc. even with a soul. However, I rather doubt that particular scene is evidence of them.

(I am reminded suddenly of a story Gabrielleabelle wrote once where she portrayed Spike as a pedophile who constantly struggled with his desire to rape Dawn, even when he had a soul. Not, she said, because she thought that was really truly the case in canon, but because vampires are BAD, mmm'kay? and Spike fans should constantly rub their own noses in that fact in order to... um... I dunno, I was rolling my eyes too hard to keep following the argument by that point. Spike did so many actual bad things that inventing them seems rather excessive.)

[velvetwhip]

A pedophile? Really?

Gabrielle

[rahirah]

Yep. I dunno. Gabs wrote some interesting meta, but that story didn't work for me.

[gillo]

Her meta on S6 was very good, but I don't quite see how she got there.

[slaymesoftly]

I'm sure the veal comment referred to age. Veal is, after all, a particularly cruelly raised calf. To assume Spike would have all the prejudices of his youth (and would express them in his dialogue) is, I think, to give the writers way more credit for adding layers than they deserve. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar (and a veal cutlet is just a veal cutlet).

Spike really is quite evil in many ways during this episode, and even the humerous running off in disgust when Joyce whacks him with the axe muttering about women doesn't really redeem him. I'm feeling a need to rewatch it now and remind myself of what he was really like when he first came to town.

[gillo]

You're probably right - I don't think Spike ever comments on colour, actually.

It's always worth rewatching S2 Spike. Or any season Spike, for that matter.

[tx_cronopio]

JUST SHUT UP ABOUT KENNEDY.

LOL. Couldn't have said it better myself :)

[gillo]

Agreed.

[velvetwhip]

As someone who lived in California for most of her life, I have one question on the topic of race: WHERE ARE THE HISPANIC STUDENTS? Seriously. This is California.

Gabrielle

[rahirah]

YES, THIS!

(Not Californian, but also southwestern US-ian)

[gillo]

Their fumbling attempts to use bits of Spanish seem odd to me - especially in Inca Mummy Girl when Cordelia uses odd Spanish-ish words to Sven. Buffy's French is spectacularly crap too - wouldn't she be more likely to earn Spanish in SoCal? I blame Joss's upbringing.

[gillo]

How would you identify them? (Apart from language, that is.) I'm watching a documentary about a road trip through Mexico at the moment, as it happens, and to me many of them look not that different to the Irish presenters. Some look Indian (as in South Asian) by contrast. They don't really code as "black" to me.

Sunnydale is definitely a white enclave in the main, however, though I am spotting rather more darker faces in the background than I noticed before.