Issues with Dollhouse, but mostly? With Buffy, last two seasons.
So, um, this post started out as being a "Dollhouse" review, but it's now actually about the last two seasons of Buffy, gender issues in them, and what went wrong. For me, anyway.
I watched Dollhouse once this week with my sisters, and then again with meganbmoore. During the second viewing, for the most part, I had the window minimized while listening to the episode and then tuning in and out of it. For all that I would often read certain kinds of text just for the gender politics in them (not always women positive ones, either), I'm really made uncomfortable with the following: 1). Imagery with blood, especially when it involves women also being sexualized . 2). Dealing with sexism and gender issues indirectly but without metaphor.
1). I'm a horror fan. There's no genre I love better, possibly, and a good ghost story can make me happier than anything else. However, note that I HATE slasher movies. I hate anything with gore, and I hate women getting hacked to pieces. So, there goes half the horror genre there. I wouldn't watch any of them, but I do love a good gore-free gothic exploration of the female entrapment symbolized by the haunted castle or whatever. I hate blood. Like, I was pre-med in college? And then realized this and had an early mid-life crisis that led to me switching majors one year away from graduating. It was all very traumatic. It's not really the grossness of the blood as much as my mind really gets focused on the PAIN. So 'hot' girls running around in torn clothes with blood on them? A world of no. And I never want to see that imagery again. I hate it. I just...hate the eroticization of violence in that way. I really can't focus on plot when that's going on, and usually just close my eyes and listen if it happens to be unavoidable.
2). I can take a story about rape that's well written, in theory. Focusing on rape as a direct thing, not a plot device. I would probably never read a story like that on purpose, though. Because I would anticipate with dread that moment the entire time. I also really hate that any time I'm faced with women being violated in a movie, I'm completely incapable of focusing because I keep fearing the possibility of rape. People getting raped shouldn't be part of any entertainment. (It's another thing if it's going to be socially aware entertainment that's making a point, but it should never be arbitrary.) And, well, the first problem I remember having with Buffy in that regard? Season six premiere (let's pretend for a second that Buffy did, in fact, go on after Season Five.) When the motor cycle demon gang threatened to rape Anya and Tara. And that was totally unexpected and shocking. I mean, Buffy could always possibly be read as a feminist metaphor and was meant as one. But I liked knowing that the girls could take care of themselves, and while the demons were evil, they weren't RAPISTS. I didn't have to worry about that on Buffy. And I didn't have to think about the misogyny in the real world or other fiction, because Buffy was awesome and kicked ass and pretty much won every time. And while she did fail, it was never on that level. And, I think, that the last two seasons? Took the metaphor away and made all the implied themes text, and it really, really bugged me. Take Caleb for example. Oh, I hated his misogyny. I hated that I had to have a character who dared say things like that on my fucking female-positive fantasy show. Yet, it didn't deal with it in a responsible way. (And really, on Buffy, where so many of the real issues are disguised as metaphor, even dealing with it responsibly wouldn't have redeemed that plot because it would've still been a change in tone). It did it just to drive home the point that it was, in fact, 'feminist.' Um, it seemed a lot more feminist to me, Joss, when women weren't being threatened with fucking rape and being told that they were dirty and whorish for existing.
And "Dollhouse?" Is like that. I don't know what Joss is trying to do with the story, but I suspect there is a metaphor there. But instead of leaving that at a subtext level, we're being hit over the head with it. And it really, really disturbs me. Echo running around the woods for her life? Some asshole asking her to prove she exists? So many of the real world violence against women issues there that I really can't focus. And none of them dealt with responsibly. This show, oh wow, this SHOW.
But mostly, this just made me think about my issues with the last two seasons of Buffy, and why I have rejected them so completely.
There was the whole Buffy sharing her power with all the potentials around the world thing, and how Joss tried to make it sound feminist. After, you know, they compared the getting of power itself to rape. And this is exactly why I can't ever accept the last two seasons of Buffy as part of the show I fell in love with. Because besides the bad writing, lack of layers and subtlety, it actually went against themes and ideas established by the earlier seasons.
If you've known me for a while, you probably already know that Buffy is not the type of character I go for. But I liked Buffy more than I have ever liked a character of her type. I liked that her powers came from a mythic place and not because she was abused by her mother or raped by her stepfather some time in her past. And then season seven took that and made the power itself seem like a curse, that Buffy herself saw as an invasion of the First Slayer's body. And then she went ahead and did this to every potential slayer around the world.
I think, for me, the last two seasons (and season 8, especially) fail because Buffy sort of becomes what she was always fighting. She defied the council and its rigid rules and was able to get them to work for her because she realized the power that a Slayer had. (And, really, it's not just about a girl challenging patriarchy, but also an individual challenging the system, but it works either way). And then she turned around and became the Council. She turned into someone who would go out and get girls to pretend to be her so they can die in her name while she hides from people trying to kill her. She would go on to become the new council that can force a whole generation of new Slayers into doing what she so hated the Council doing. And it just...feels like such a failure on a narrative level and on a character level.
ETA: Oh, god. I really wish I hadn't doubted my memory and decided to look up the actual rape reference in "Bargaining" (Buffy, S6), but the exact quote was this, "Now let me tell you something, children. We're not gonna fight you. We're just gonna hold you down and enjoy ourselves for a few hours. You might even live through it. Except that certain of my boys got some... anatomical incompatibilities that, uh, tend to tear up little girls. So, who wants to go first?"
That emphasis on children and little girls? I have no words! Except: a world of no, and a universe of "fuck you."
I watched Dollhouse once this week with my sisters, and then again with meganbmoore. During the second viewing, for the most part, I had the window minimized while listening to the episode and then tuning in and out of it. For all that I would often read certain kinds of text just for the gender politics in them (not always women positive ones, either), I'm really made uncomfortable with the following: 1). Imagery with blood, especially when it involves women also being sexualized . 2). Dealing with sexism and gender issues indirectly but without metaphor.
1). I'm a horror fan. There's no genre I love better, possibly, and a good ghost story can make me happier than anything else. However, note that I HATE slasher movies. I hate anything with gore, and I hate women getting hacked to pieces. So, there goes half the horror genre there. I wouldn't watch any of them, but I do love a good gore-free gothic exploration of the female entrapment symbolized by the haunted castle or whatever. I hate blood. Like, I was pre-med in college? And then realized this and had an early mid-life crisis that led to me switching majors one year away from graduating. It was all very traumatic. It's not really the grossness of the blood as much as my mind really gets focused on the PAIN. So 'hot' girls running around in torn clothes with blood on them? A world of no. And I never want to see that imagery again. I hate it. I just...hate the eroticization of violence in that way. I really can't focus on plot when that's going on, and usually just close my eyes and listen if it happens to be unavoidable.
2). I can take a story about rape that's well written, in theory. Focusing on rape as a direct thing, not a plot device. I would probably never read a story like that on purpose, though. Because I would anticipate with dread that moment the entire time. I also really hate that any time I'm faced with women being violated in a movie, I'm completely incapable of focusing because I keep fearing the possibility of rape. People getting raped shouldn't be part of any entertainment. (It's another thing if it's going to be socially aware entertainment that's making a point, but it should never be arbitrary.) And, well, the first problem I remember having with Buffy in that regard? Season six premiere (let's pretend for a second that Buffy did, in fact, go on after Season Five.) When the motor cycle demon gang threatened to rape Anya and Tara. And that was totally unexpected and shocking. I mean, Buffy could always possibly be read as a feminist metaphor and was meant as one. But I liked knowing that the girls could take care of themselves, and while the demons were evil, they weren't RAPISTS. I didn't have to worry about that on Buffy. And I didn't have to think about the misogyny in the real world or other fiction, because Buffy was awesome and kicked ass and pretty much won every time. And while she did fail, it was never on that level. And, I think, that the last two seasons? Took the metaphor away and made all the implied themes text, and it really, really bugged me. Take Caleb for example. Oh, I hated his misogyny. I hated that I had to have a character who dared say things like that on my fucking female-positive fantasy show. Yet, it didn't deal with it in a responsible way. (And really, on Buffy, where so many of the real issues are disguised as metaphor, even dealing with it responsibly wouldn't have redeemed that plot because it would've still been a change in tone). It did it just to drive home the point that it was, in fact, 'feminist.' Um, it seemed a lot more feminist to me, Joss, when women weren't being threatened with fucking rape and being told that they were dirty and whorish for existing.
And "Dollhouse?" Is like that. I don't know what Joss is trying to do with the story, but I suspect there is a metaphor there. But instead of leaving that at a subtext level, we're being hit over the head with it. And it really, really disturbs me. Echo running around the woods for her life? Some asshole asking her to prove she exists? So many of the real world violence against women issues there that I really can't focus. And none of them dealt with responsibly. This show, oh wow, this SHOW.
But mostly, this just made me think about my issues with the last two seasons of Buffy, and why I have rejected them so completely.
There was the whole Buffy sharing her power with all the potentials around the world thing, and how Joss tried to make it sound feminist. After, you know, they compared the getting of power itself to rape. And this is exactly why I can't ever accept the last two seasons of Buffy as part of the show I fell in love with. Because besides the bad writing, lack of layers and subtlety, it actually went against themes and ideas established by the earlier seasons.
If you've known me for a while, you probably already know that Buffy is not the type of character I go for. But I liked Buffy more than I have ever liked a character of her type. I liked that her powers came from a mythic place and not because she was abused by her mother or raped by her stepfather some time in her past. And then season seven took that and made the power itself seem like a curse, that Buffy herself saw as an invasion of the First Slayer's body. And then she went ahead and did this to every potential slayer around the world.
I think, for me, the last two seasons (and season 8, especially) fail because Buffy sort of becomes what she was always fighting. She defied the council and its rigid rules and was able to get them to work for her because she realized the power that a Slayer had. (And, really, it's not just about a girl challenging patriarchy, but also an individual challenging the system, but it works either way). And then she turned around and became the Council. She turned into someone who would go out and get girls to pretend to be her so they can die in her name while she hides from people trying to kill her. She would go on to become the new council that can force a whole generation of new Slayers into doing what she so hated the Council doing. And it just...feels like such a failure on a narrative level and on a character level.
ETA: Oh, god. I really wish I hadn't doubted my memory and decided to look up the actual rape reference in "Bargaining" (Buffy, S6), but the exact quote was this, "Now let me tell you something, children. We're not gonna fight you. We're just gonna hold you down and enjoy ourselves for a few hours. You might even live through it. Except that certain of my boys got some... anatomical incompatibilities that, uh, tend to tear up little girls. So, who wants to go first?"
That emphasis on children and little girls? I have no words! Except: a world of no, and a universe of "fuck you."