Agent Carter, BtVS, Joss and feminism etc etc
Some rather incoherent thoughts on the above, some of which I should probably have waited and posted on the BtVS rewatch, but whatever.
I'm still enjoying the hell out of Agent Carter, though...
Spoilers behind cut
...I am left wondering, at the end of the penultimate episode, why Carter didn't tell Jack and Daniel who Dottie was right away. Okay, she was a bit out of it, but surely still capable of speech? Anyway, my own theory is that Carter said nothing because she thought if she did say anything, Dottie would probably kill both of them right in front of her.
Speaking of Agent Carter, I saw someone on Whedonesque (this was a while back when they were still talking about the show on that site, which they don't seem to be doing any more) saying that they thought it was the best show in terms of being centred around a great female character since BtVS. I made a comment agreeing with them.
And I still think so, with the following proviso: I haven't seen all shows and some of the ones I haven't seen could be about great female characters for all I know. Also, I think The Good Wife could more than give Agent Carter a run for its money.
However, I suspect that where genre shows are concerned I think it probably is true.
Yesterday, there was a link on the su_herald to a piece on Tumblr taking issue with Joss's claims to be a feminist because of the repeated trope in BtVS where every time Buffy has sex she gets punished for it. Not the first time in the last ten years or so that this subject has come up, of course, but I guess lots of people on Tumblr are watching the show for the first time and consequently think they're the first people to discover it.
Anyway, I thought, yes, this is true, Joss does seem to punish Buffy (and not just Buffy) for having sex.
I thought, it is of course true that you could rip Joss's feminist credentials to shreds, should you so choose. But I also thought that, despite some horrible mistakes (the aforementioned sex+Buffy=badness thing, the fridging of both Cordelia and Fred in AtS, pretty much everything in Dollhouse, the execrable Buffy comics) ultimately Joss's heart is in the right place, and if you want evidence of that you need look no further than his (and SMG's because it's a joint thing, IMO) creation of Buffy Summers.
That's what keeps coming back to me over and over while I'm re-watching the show. Buffy's an absolutely remarkable character. There was nothing like her before BtVS, and there's not been anything like her since, though yes, Peggy Carter comes close.
Hmm. Maybe that disgruntled fanboy on Buzzfeed was right about Agent Carter. It is about 'feminism, pure and simple' after all.
I'm still enjoying the hell out of Agent Carter, though...
Spoilers behind cut
...I am left wondering, at the end of the penultimate episode, why Carter didn't tell Jack and Daniel who Dottie was right away. Okay, she was a bit out of it, but surely still capable of speech? Anyway, my own theory is that Carter said nothing because she thought if she did say anything, Dottie would probably kill both of them right in front of her.
Speaking of Agent Carter, I saw someone on Whedonesque (this was a while back when they were still talking about the show on that site, which they don't seem to be doing any more) saying that they thought it was the best show in terms of being centred around a great female character since BtVS. I made a comment agreeing with them.
And I still think so, with the following proviso: I haven't seen all shows and some of the ones I haven't seen could be about great female characters for all I know. Also, I think The Good Wife could more than give Agent Carter a run for its money.
However, I suspect that where genre shows are concerned I think it probably is true.
Yesterday, there was a link on the su_herald to a piece on Tumblr taking issue with Joss's claims to be a feminist because of the repeated trope in BtVS where every time Buffy has sex she gets punished for it. Not the first time in the last ten years or so that this subject has come up, of course, but I guess lots of people on Tumblr are watching the show for the first time and consequently think they're the first people to discover it.
Anyway, I thought, yes, this is true, Joss does seem to punish Buffy (and not just Buffy) for having sex.
I thought, it is of course true that you could rip Joss's feminist credentials to shreds, should you so choose. But I also thought that, despite some horrible mistakes (the aforementioned sex+Buffy=badness thing, the fridging of both Cordelia and Fred in AtS, pretty much everything in Dollhouse, the execrable Buffy comics) ultimately Joss's heart is in the right place, and if you want evidence of that you need look no further than his (and SMG's because it's a joint thing, IMO) creation of Buffy Summers.
That's what keeps coming back to me over and over while I'm re-watching the show. Buffy's an absolutely remarkable character. There was nothing like her before BtVS, and there's not been anything like her since, though yes, Peggy Carter comes close.
Hmm. Maybe that disgruntled fanboy on Buzzfeed was right about Agent Carter. It is about 'feminism, pure and simple' after all.