I'm still working on my VVC posts, but today I'm having the urge to start clearing out my giant pre-VVC backlog of Stuff To Post. Let's start with Buffy
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Found this post on my Friends' Friends page somehow. Anyhow, I love the spazzy enthusiasm. And...
I'm not sure they ever did a more explicit anatomy of the workings of patriarchy than they did in the first scene of this ep.
Big word. I never caught that on Choices before. Helpless and Checkpoint, for me, were the two episodes that dealt fully with the patriarchy (Buffy's struggle with the Council).
And yay for the Riley-love. I'm not a huge fan of the guy, but I honestly liked him in season 4. And I get tired of all the Riley-bashing that goes on.
Yeah, all the eps featuring the Council (including the elements of Graduation Day that deal with the Council) explicate patriarchal structures and institutions to some degree, which I love. Choices is less institutional, more personal -- more about the ways in which particular relationships are structured by patriarchy or the rejection of patriarchy. Helpless explores this territory a bit too, of course; the ep is, among other things, Giles' realization of the difference between being a patriarch and being a father, and choosing to try to be the latter. And the start of Choices, for me, encapsulates that issue with laserlike precision: this is what it looks like when a patriarch uses fatherly affection as the cover story for straight-up patriarchy. The affection is genuine, but wow, check out what else is going on
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Well, S3, in general, has a lot to do with Buffy facing off against authority figures, one of which being the patriarchy. I'm gonna have to rewatch Choices now with your thoughts in mind.
I adored Riley at first. He was just a goofy, strangely charming guy. But, as they got deeper into his character in late S4 and S5, I started to like him less and less until Into the Woods when I was actually glad he left. I think I like the dorkish grad student more than the soldier side of him.
truepenny has a whole theory about what goes wrong for Riley, the short version of which is that he's a romantic comedy boyfriend trapped in a show that refuses to allow its characters to live in one genre. So Riley's Initiative-solider training is good at first because it allows him to knock down all the standard romantic comedy obstacles, but then the show insists on actually examining what it means that Riley's a soldier -- which is a considerably more complicated matter.
Which may be too condensed an account to be interesting! I will probably ramble on it about it at more length when I get a little further along in the rewatch.
I actually found myself thinking that Wesley had a point in Choices...Oh, he does. He absolutely does. Buffy's choice isn't necessarily sensible. What I love is that it's still a choice that makes perfect emotional sense to me -- both in general and for Buffy at that moment in particular
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Sure. Such a relationship would bother me (and in fact has bothered me) in real life, which is why I register a passing concern about it in my notes on 4x07 in the original post. And it would probably bother me in a realistic workplace drama about the lives of graduate students (...except that I wouldn't be watching such a show because OMG so boring). But in a show whose representation of graduate students and graduate study, not to mention professors and academia, is entirely divorced from reality from the details on up (no offices! grad students eating in a cafeteria with undergrads!), I can handwave it, no problem. I mean, at this point in the show I've spent three years handwaving the details of high school; why stop there?
This is why I'm so excited about our project! Not speedy, but excited!
And yeah, there's definitely a group of us who do love and appreciate Riley; I've had many long talks with fan_eunice about this very issue. And I also understand why so many people don't feel that way. But personally? Lots of love here.
So much love for this show. Seriously. Even before the current rewatch, I would have described it as still my favorite TV show ever, but rewatching is bringing all the emotion up to the surface all over again.
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I'm not sure they ever did a more explicit anatomy of the workings of patriarchy than they did in the first scene of this ep.
Big word. I never caught that on Choices before. Helpless and Checkpoint, for me, were the two episodes that dealt fully with the patriarchy (Buffy's struggle with the Council).
And yay for the Riley-love. I'm not a huge fan of the guy, but I honestly liked him in season 4. And I get tired of all the Riley-bashing that goes on.
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I adored Riley at first. He was just a goofy, strangely charming guy. But, as they got deeper into his character in late S4 and S5, I started to like him less and less until Into the Woods when I was actually glad he left. I think I like the dorkish grad student more than the soldier side of him.
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Which may be too condensed an account to be interesting! I will probably ramble on it about it at more length when I get a little further along in the rewatch.
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Sure. Such a relationship would bother me (and in fact has bothered me) in real life, which is why I register a passing concern about it in my notes on 4x07 in the original post. And it would probably bother me in a realistic workplace drama about the lives of graduate students (...except that I wouldn't be watching such a show because OMG so boring). But in a show whose representation of graduate students and graduate study, not to mention professors and academia, is entirely divorced from reality from the details on up (no offices! grad students eating in a cafeteria with undergrads!), I can handwave it, no problem. I mean, at this point in the show I've spent three years handwaving the details of high school; why stop there?
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BTW, I adore Riley, too.
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And yeah, there's definitely a group of us who do love and appreciate Riley; I've had many long talks with fan_eunice about this very issue. And I also understand why so many people don't feel that way. But personally? Lots of love here.
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My love for Riley is pure and bright. I wish I had any vid ideas for him. He deserves a vid or two.
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