It's Nikki Wood's Fucking Coat: An Essay About Race In the Buffyverse

[saeva]

So, for my Film In American Society term paper I wrote on the subject of race in the Buffyverse. It's long, topping out at just over 7,000 words, and contains spoilers for the entirity of Buffy, Angel, and some of the supplemental canon material from the post-series comics. It's also, as of yet, un-betaed so any typos, misplaced words, or factual

Comments

[glishara]

It's an interesting essay! I do agree that Jasmine would add more power to your argument, and I would probably have touched on her rather than on Faith. The section on Faith had me scratching my head a bit: the concept of dark clothes and makeup versus light is significantly more metaphorical than most of your arguments, and I felt like that part was a stretch. The concept of black hat/white hat has always been shorthand for good/evil, and while that's tied into racial issues, I think it either needs more treatment than it gets here or to be saved for a different piece. The Wood and Gunn arcs are much more interesting in this context, and had me going, "Wow, that's true" a lot.

On a much shallower note, I don't think Spike's accent is actually Cockney. It's lower-class English, but Drusilla's is closer to Cockney, with its distinctive substitution of "f" or "v" for the "th" sound.

I agree that the conclusion feels a little bit weak. I think that you might strengthen it by stressing more that while the white characters do falter (ie, Willow season 6, Wesley, Cordelia), they almost inevitably get a real solid redemption moment. Even the white villains get more of a balanced treatment: think of the Mayor, Darla, Drusilla, Lindsey, or Lilah versus Gavin Price, Mr. Trick, Jasmine. They tend to be presented as more 3-dimensional and interesting.

Hope this is helpful. It was an interesting read! Thanks for sharing. :)

[saeva]

I feel that Jasmine is a weaker argument than Faith because the vivid visual imagery of Faith -- where her make-up accents her dark features when she's evil and her light features when she's good (or the way in which Buffy's do the reverse, including Faith's choice of clothing while possessing Buffy) is so visually impacting. It's impossible to miss while you're watching the show and, yes, I think that it has a heavy subconscious impact on the viewer.

I decided to include Faith for three reasons -- one, the fact that all her relationships with white men are shown as perversions of what relationships "should be", two, in all other situations "urban" is associated with "non-white" and, three, a particular section of Origin Stories where Faith, having just returned to Sunnydale, sees Spike sulking about a graveyard and assumes -- not knowing differently -- he's up to no good. She attacks him, he fights back, goes down, and then Buffy hits her from off-screen. The shot pans from Faith staggering to Buffy standing there tall, her blonde hair and light features shining in the low light as she smiles.

ETA: Wait, no, four reasons: The fact that she kills the first black villain on the show in a textual, literal bid to replace him. She steps into Mr. Trick's place.

That sort of imagery, which is rife throughout Faith's presence on the show, may be "metaphorical" but I don't think it's any less significant. In fact, I think that because Faith does resemble Cordelia so much in terms of features (which led, in part, to the mistake of Cordelia for Faith during the homecoming episode) but the treatment of her is so significantly different it's more significant. Bringing Jasmine would make the same points that Wood and Gunn do. Bringing in Faith shows a more systemic issue with the coding of race within Buffy -- you say it yourself that black hat/white hat has racial significance and it goes beyond that if you look at the early horror films, for example.

I think part of the issue is that this essay isn't intended solely, or even primarily, for fans. It's intended for a professor who, while awesome, has never seen any of the Buffyverse. So, for each character I introduce I have to give background and reasoning to. That's the reason I didn't introduce Willow's S6 arc or Wesley's conflict with Angel.

If you could explain why, exactly, you felt that the Faith argument was a stretch then perhaps I could clarify it within the text itself. As is, what I'm getting -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- is "She isn't a minority. She isn't dark-skinned. Or her being coded as dark and urban, in the same sense that many of the dark-skinned characters are (Gunn, Wood, etc) is a stretch." And, I'll admit, that confuses me.

[glishara]

I feel that it is a stretch because the central issue of the essay is a portrayal of race specifically in the Buffyverse, not a treatment on the imagery of good and evil in the series, or of social class and urban vs suburban. You make really strong cases for Wood and Gunn, in particular, but for me, at least, when you talked about Faith, it felt as though you didn't have enough examples of actual minority characters to support your case, so you found a way to make Faith work into it, with the issues of dark clothing and dark hair.

I agree that Faith's character gets a very different treatment than Buffy's, and I do think that the fact that she's of a lower social class plays into that. I think that the Buffyverse is very classist in places, and that Faith is a really strong example of that. However, for a discussion of race specifically, it felt like stretching to include Faith based on clothing and makeup. Although her looks do contrast strongly with Buffy's blondness, and they do use the dark vs. light imagery there, Faith IS a white character, and therefore not as firmly tied into your thesis as the others.

[esmeraldus_neo]

I have to agree that although the light/dark coding is there, Faith is white, and is a better example of class issues than race. It's the weakest part of a strong essay--but there's always a weakest bit.

I like BtVS so much that it's very uncomfortable for me to face this kind of criticism of the show. It's impossible to ignore the overwhelming whiteness of most of the characters, but it's also easy to think "well, that's not what it was addressing."

So, thanks for the essay. You made your case to a resistant audience. I especially agree with your endnote about Jasmine. I never liked any of the Connor arc, and I think you're right that there is not enough skeevy in the world to deal with that particular couple of episodes.

You mention being a student... Have you ever heard of the International Assoc. for the Fantastic in the Arts? There's a yearly conference in March, and this would be an excellent paper to present there. If you think you might be interested, check out iafa.org. (Please forgive me if you're a past attendee and I just don't recognize you.)

[saeva]

This is a partial repeat from another comment: When I turned in the paper, I attached picture links to it in response to the comments I had garnered here (since he hadn't seen the source). When you compare shots of Navi Rawat (who is undeniably of color, being biracial with a first generation Indian-American -- as in, from India -- mother) to shots of Eliza Dushku, I find the objection honestly questionable.

First, Rawat:
http://niralimagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/navi-rawat-2.jpg
http://niralimagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-upload/prepic/navi-rawat-head.jpg
Second, Dushku:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Eliza_Dushku_May_2004_holding_coffee.jpg/411px-Eliza_Dushku_May_2004_holding_coffee.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y172/lightsoutprints/8_X_10_LV/E_LV/Eliza_Dushku_10LV.jpg

Because the fact that Dushku is not white in the sense that Gellar, Hannigan, Brendan, Marsters, Stewart Head, OR Green are white AND she's coded as urban street rather than the upper, privileged class of Cordelia, I don't question my inclusion of Dushku's character Faith in this discussion. The fact that Faith is not black is undebatable -- the fact that she is not representing minority in the Buffyverse is debatable.

I think I made a good argument here that between the coding's involved and how those coding's relate to Wood and Gunn (who are both urban and black), Faith's identification as not white is fairly firmly entrenched in the Buffy mythos. I also agree with another commenter that if they had cast Faith as of a dark color, rather than a borderline one, the outrage would have been there.

Part of my inclusion of Faith also has to do with Origin Stories, which did feature Faith in a not insignificant capacity. Namely a particular section of Origin Stories where Faith, having just returned to Sunnydale, sees Spike sulking about a graveyard and assumes -- not knowing differently -- he's up to no good. She attacks him, he fights back, goes down, and then Buffy hits her from off-screen. The shot pans from Faith staggering to Buffy standing there tall, her blonde hair and light features shining in the low light as she smiles.

[esmeraldus_neo]

A couple of notes:

I'm (so far) limited to the television series, and not able to judge the strength of your argument with respect to the other materials. EDIT: sorry, I hadn't re-read the top of the essay, and thought "Origin Stories" was one of the comics.

I didn't say that you were completely wrong, I said I was less convinced by that than by the other elements of your paper--mainly because I see Faith more as a component of a class argument.

Yes, I agree too that if Faith had been cast as "of a dark color, rather than a borderline one" fans would have been outraged. That goes a long way toward making your argument.

Anyway, I thought it was insightful. FWIW.

[tabaquis]

Here from Metafandom, and have to agree... I felt it was a little strange that your essay was based on race in the Buffyverse... but you divert for such a large amount of time to describing the arc of a white girl. In fact, it felt a little like letting the white girl "stand in" or substitute for a character of color was a little... well, ironic.

I also found it odd that you titled the essay after the "Origin Stories" essay and vid ("It's Nikki Wood's Fucking Coat") and yet there was very little discussion of Nikki herself, or the ramifications of Spike wearing basically her "flayed skin" until it becomes his own (white, male, conquering) identity and not her own.

[saeva]

When I turned in the paper, I attached picture links to it in response to the comments I had garnered here (since he hadn't seen the source). When you compare shots of Navi Rawat (who is undeniably of color, being biracial with a first generation Indian-American -- as in, from India -- mother) to shots of Eliza Dushku, I find the objection honestly questionable.

First, Rawat:
http://niralimagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/navi-rawat-2.jpg
http://niralimagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-upload/prepic/navi-rawat-head.jpg
Second, Dushku:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Eliza_Dushku_May_2004_holding_coffee.jpg/411px-Eliza_Dushku_May_2004_holding_coffee.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y172/lightsoutprints/8_X_10_LV/E_LV/Eliza_Dushku_10LV.jpg

Because the fact that Dushku is not white in the sense that Gellar, Hannigan, Brendan, Marsters, Stewart Head, OR Green are white AND she's coded as urban street rather than the upper, privileged class of Cordelia, I don't question my inclusion of Dushku's character Faith in this discussion. The fact that Faith is not black is undebatable -- the fact that she is not representing minority in the Buffyverse is.

The significance of coding her, in make-up and clothing -- giving her direct parallels to Kendra, rather than Buffy, is, in my eyes, undeniable. I think I m,ade a good case for that here. I don't feel that I'm telling a white girl's story to subplant a character of color story because of the coding and because of the fact that Faith is the closest thing we get to color in a major role on Buffy until Robin Wood. That, itself, is indicative of the race problems on Buffy.

As for less discussion of Nikki Wood, I'm not sure what there was to further discuss, to be honest. She had so little screentime and I covered most of it -- the only part I didn't cover was The First Evil's stand-in as her to Robin and that would have required a great many pages to explain to someone who has not seen the source (as this paper was written for). I also discussed the significance of the coat in regards of Spike's identity and, later, how he had stolen it from Nikki and the ramifications of that in Robin's actions (and how Robin was justified).

[tabaquis]

I don't question the inclusion, I simply question the amount of space and time dedicated to her, while so many other "actual" characters of color just got a footnote at the end.

In the end, it's your paper, of course, and a good read. :)

[saeva]

I dedicated so much time to her because the show dedicated so much time to her and her inclusion was intricately linked to the other characters I discussed. Buffy's privileged position, along with Spike's, are, respectively, reflected in Faith and Robin -- and in both cases, it's a question of dark against light, urban against upper class. I don't think the case of Robin would be as strong without the inclusion of Faith. There are many, many white characters who were significant to the show but not to the race issues -- except in the sense of perpetuating them -- that I didn't devote any time to because they didn't say anything about race. Faith does.

I'm glad you found it a good read though.

[qob]

This actually brings up an aspect of William/Spike that tends to be lost. At his core as a human, William was as "white bread" as could be imagined. He reflected the pale insipid culture that he was born to and spent his entire unlife running from his whiteness. He had to kill his bourgeois mother and deny his roots, even down to his follicle roots. His lower class accent was adopted, his punk appearance and "urban" dress was put on. He is the self-hating white man who needs to clothe himself in the "other" to find meaning.

[scw1842]

Rona's survival at the end of "Chosen" is questionable . . .

Rona survived. She was featured or mentioned in a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" comic book following the series' end.