Urge to keysmash rising...
Dark Horse introduces "Billy the Vampire Slayer".
And I am, yet again, so very glad I'm sticking with my nice, reasonably sane Angel and Faith. Because this? This makes me angry.
First of all, it's possible to draw some unfortunate implications between the usual "one girl in all the world" and their decision to make Billy a gay man. I'm just saying - this show does not have the best track record, in that regard.
But since Billy doesn't have any powers, fine. Maybe he's not co-opting that.
Actually, no, not fine.Just not fine for a completely different issue. Because of this:
“Batman doesn’t have super powers. He wasn’t gifted with an exotic foreign birth,” Espenson told Out. “So we take the Batman route; Billy is earning the Slayer mantle.”
Is it just me, or does this sound like Billy is going to be better than Buffy and the others, because oh, he works hard, not like those silly wimminz who get everything handed to them on a plate! Sorry, not like those silly foreign wimminz. Because Satsu is just so exotic. It's not like she didn't have an entire issue in Predators and Prey making fun of traditional Japanese values to place on women.
Oh, and: “Greenberg says that Billy is about a young man who finds strength by standing up to vampires (a metaphor for bullies?) and defining who he is going to be rather than letting others tell him who he should be.”
Who does that remind me of? It sounds so very familiar. On the tip of my tongue...
Normal, ordinary guy who gets bullied...discovers the existence of vampires and wants to do some good...angsts over being without the special powers...now who does that remind me of?
Oh. Yeah.
Xander Harris.
What? He's in a happy relationship with Dawn, has a good career that lets them afford a comfortable life and support Buffy's freeloading behind, so he's not interesting anymore? Are you writing out another of the Core Four? Who am I kidding? They probably are. At least this lowers the chances of Dawn dying horribly for more Xander angst. I like Dawn.
And finally, issue number three of probably many more to come on my plate, their reasoning for this particular shenanigan. “For very good reason, we’ve focused on the female empowerment part of Buffy,” she said, “but I wondered, Did we leave something out? What if someone in high school is looking up to Buffy as a role model, and we’re saying: ‘You can’t be a Slayer.’”
No, see...this is one case where you don't get to make it all about you.
Guys? Guys have plenty of shows where they're told "You can be the Slayer". And in those shows, girls and women are the ones told "You can't". We're the wives and girlfriends the secrets get kept from, we're the drama stuffed in the fridge, we're the set pieces to make the male lead seem more "human". For all it's problems, this show looked at each and every one of us and said that we had within us the chance to be strong, the chance to fight the evil things in the dark. Maybe we'd die doing it, but our death would not be in vain, and we would not have to be the victims anymore.
It told us that our best gal pals were people to treasure, not be jealous of. It told us that we don't have to date a guy just because he's interested in us, or put up with a guy we'd loved if he turned out to be awful and abuse us. In other words, it told us that we are more than what men decide we are. It told us that our feelings matter, and that a strong relationship with family could see us through the hard times. It told us that even if first love stings, you can get over it, even if school is hard, life gets better. It said that we as girls could be strong.
For all its problems, Season 7 ended on a fantastically high note:
"So I say we change the rule. I say my power... should be our power. Tomorrow, Willow will use the essence of the Scythe to change our destiny. From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer. Every girl who could have the power, will have the power, can stand up, will stand up. Slayers... every one of us. Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?"
We don't get that, in other shows.
And any guy who couldn't look at Xander, Oz, Giles, or Buffy, and see a role model? That's their problem. It's still a show where guys can be great. But it's also a show where women take the lead.
This entry was originally posted at http://hickumu.dreamwidth.org/96892.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
And I am, yet again, so very glad I'm sticking with my nice, reasonably sane Angel and Faith. Because this? This makes me angry.
First of all, it's possible to draw some unfortunate implications between the usual "one girl in all the world" and their decision to make Billy a gay man. I'm just saying - this show does not have the best track record, in that regard.
But since Billy doesn't have any powers, fine. Maybe he's not co-opting that.
Actually, no, not fine.Just not fine for a completely different issue. Because of this:
“Batman doesn’t have super powers. He wasn’t gifted with an exotic foreign birth,” Espenson told Out. “So we take the Batman route; Billy is earning the Slayer mantle.”
Is it just me, or does this sound like Billy is going to be better than Buffy and the others, because oh, he works hard, not like those silly wimminz who get everything handed to them on a plate! Sorry, not like those silly foreign wimminz. Because Satsu is just so exotic. It's not like she didn't have an entire issue in Predators and Prey making fun of traditional Japanese values to place on women.
Oh, and: “Greenberg says that Billy is about a young man who finds strength by standing up to vampires (a metaphor for bullies?) and defining who he is going to be rather than letting others tell him who he should be.”
Who does that remind me of? It sounds so very familiar. On the tip of my tongue...
Normal, ordinary guy who gets bullied...discovers the existence of vampires and wants to do some good...angsts over being without the special powers...now who does that remind me of?
Oh. Yeah.
Xander Harris.
What? He's in a happy relationship with Dawn, has a good career that lets them afford a comfortable life and support Buffy's freeloading behind, so he's not interesting anymore? Are you writing out another of the Core Four? Who am I kidding? They probably are. At least this lowers the chances of Dawn dying horribly for more Xander angst. I like Dawn.
And finally, issue number three of probably many more to come on my plate, their reasoning for this particular shenanigan. “For very good reason, we’ve focused on the female empowerment part of Buffy,” she said, “but I wondered, Did we leave something out? What if someone in high school is looking up to Buffy as a role model, and we’re saying: ‘You can’t be a Slayer.’”
No, see...this is one case where you don't get to make it all about you.
Guys? Guys have plenty of shows where they're told "You can be the Slayer". And in those shows, girls and women are the ones told "You can't". We're the wives and girlfriends the secrets get kept from, we're the drama stuffed in the fridge, we're the set pieces to make the male lead seem more "human". For all it's problems, this show looked at each and every one of us and said that we had within us the chance to be strong, the chance to fight the evil things in the dark. Maybe we'd die doing it, but our death would not be in vain, and we would not have to be the victims anymore.
It told us that our best gal pals were people to treasure, not be jealous of. It told us that we don't have to date a guy just because he's interested in us, or put up with a guy we'd loved if he turned out to be awful and abuse us. In other words, it told us that we are more than what men decide we are. It told us that our feelings matter, and that a strong relationship with family could see us through the hard times. It told us that even if first love stings, you can get over it, even if school is hard, life gets better. It said that we as girls could be strong.
For all its problems, Season 7 ended on a fantastically high note:
"So I say we change the rule. I say my power... should be our power. Tomorrow, Willow will use the essence of the Scythe to change our destiny. From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer. Every girl who could have the power, will have the power, can stand up, will stand up. Slayers... every one of us. Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?"
We don't get that, in other shows.
And any guy who couldn't look at Xander, Oz, Giles, or Buffy, and see a role model? That's their problem. It's still a show where guys can be great. But it's also a show where women take the lead.
This entry was originally posted at http://hickumu.dreamwidth.org/96892.html. Please comment there using OpenID.