The Feminist Filter: Some Assembly Required

[gabrielleabelle]

Let's get our feminist on! Some Assembly Required actually provides a lot of interesting material to analyze from a feminist perspective. This one is a long one, so let's fix up some tea and hunker down for some awesome discussion. :)

Mission Statement:This series is intended to outline the feminist text of each episode so as to provoke and

Comments

[local_max]

Yay! This was a big one

[local_max]

Two more thoughts:

1) The Cordelia/Daryl parallel is strengthened by the fact that Buffy feels more at home with Angel as a result of her own death and resurrection.

2) The episode obviously references Bride of Frankenstein. Anyway, one of the major reads of the whole of Frankenstein literature/films is that part of the disaster is not just of playing God, but of the specific gender issues wrought by *men* trying to bring life. In Bride of Frankenstein in particular, Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius are a little bit coded as a gay couple as they create their offspring as a mate for Frankenstein's lonely monster. The setup is similar, by the way: Frankenstein is, like Chris, sympathetic; Pretorius is, like Eric, sort of a sociopath. I haven't read too deeply into these myself but there is a lot of discussion of them in these terms, which I think is interesting. That Buffy mentions childbearing as woman's work indicates that this theme might be on the writers' minds. But I don't really know where to go from here.

[gabrielleabelle]

2. Huh. I don't know where to take that, either, as I'm not familiar with Bride of Frankenstein. I'm gonna sit and wait for someone more knowledgeable than me to pontificate.

*waits*

[gabrielleabelle]

Very very interesting thoughts. I have nothing to add, actually. :)

The end of the episode has Cordelia nearly offering to date Xander in exchange for saving her life, which is kind of creepy. Xander rejects it out of hand, or possibly doesn't even notice it.

*nods* I probably should have put that in the notes, as Cordelia does kinda sound like she's "offering herself up" in return for Xander rescuing her (which echoes Buffy's line in WSWB about "thanking" him for resuscitating her). I thought Cordelia sounded less suggestive and more, "You scratched my back, I'm gonna help you someday" non-sexualized in her offer. But that's down to interpretation, obviously.

[frelling_tralk]

I saw the difference there was that in his Teacher's Pet fantasy Xander was this very suave guy who saved the day in a more obvious fashion, and thus fantasied about women throwing themselves at him for it. Whereas PG was more quiet heroism of bringing Buffy back to life so that she could go be the "real hero", and Some Assembly Required was more hapless rescue. Not to downplay Xander's role there, just that's how I feel that he saw it if he wasn't the one actually wielding the stake and being more obviously bad-ass. I feel like he was dismissive of his own role as sidekick if you like, and didn't feel it was manly enough to make him come across as a stud in the way he would have liked during the Teacher's Pet fantasy