The Feminist Filter: What's My Line? Part One

[gabrielleabelle]

How's your Saturday? Good? Good!

Let's do some feminism-type stuff!

Mission Statement:This series is intended to outline the feminist text of each episode so as to provoke and encourage open discussion. It's not so much about making value judgments about events and/or characters but about analyzing the series from a feminist framework so as to

Comments

[angearia]

As in this case, Buffy uses her nails against Kendra.WHOA. I just realized this connects to how Kendra will die -- her neck slashed by Drusilla's nail. Drusilla using her ~chick fighting style totally annihilates Kendra (which contrasts Kendra's lack of female social graces since she doesn't know how to talk to boys and doesn't even know the word "chick fight?"). And, I mean, c'mon --there's a reason claws are dangerous. It's nature's way of slashing

[boot_the_grime]

But Kendra isn't just about taking a masculine style. She is taken from her family, has no social life, no friends, no sexual or romantic relationships.

And I don't know if it even is a masculine style. Male soldiers usually aren't taught to do their duty in a cold and detached way; when it comes to the enemy, especially during wars, they're taught to give vent to their feelings of anger and hate and be aggressive. And there are not many societies in which men are taught to not have friends or girlfriends if they're going to be good warriors.

[boot_the_grime]

Ha, I've thought the exact same thing about Kendra's clothes and makeup and how they don't make sense in the context of her characterization. Obviously it was done just so we could see another hot chick with superpowers. But what about thein-universe explanation? Either she believes she's tempt more vampires that way - or her Watcher is a total perv. ;)