Constant Thoughts

I’ve been thinking about making a “Buffy Episode Guide” type of section – sort of like the Xena guide at Whoosh! – with commentary and other information. So, to perhaps start things moving that way, here’s a little something about feminism in the buffy/firefly-verse.

With inspiration from The Hathor Legacy.

First of all, I must admit that I’m a huge Buffy/Angel/Firefly fan. Note, thought, that I only think Whedon is okay. Honestly, I’m not really sure what exactly he thinks, except that he says he’s a feminist, and that he creates TV shows with strong female characters.

Here’s the thing, and this is important: A TV show is not a novel.

When you read a novel, you are reading the work of one, or maybe two, authors and an editor. When you watch a TV show, you are watching the work of dozens of people. The exec. producer (Joss’s job), may be in charge, but ultimately they can only influence the show so much. Every episode has a couple of writers, a director, and an editor. The exec. producer only writes or directs a tiny number of the episodes. The actors interpret the characters in every episode – they are responsible for the long-term portrayal of the characters. And etc., etc., etc., through the DP and wardrobe and makeup and lighting and music and casting, and last but not least, the studio executives.

In other words, no matter how good the producer’s intentions are, the sheer enormity of a TV production can cause almost anything to happen without the producer noticing until it’s too late. As long at the culture is sexist, racist, etc., you are going to hire many, many sexist and racist people, who will influence the show both intentionally and not.

For example, much has been made about the clothes that Buffy and friends wear. Buffy’s clothes, especially, seem to undercut the image of a strong character. There is a simple explanation for this: Marketing. The clothes Buffy wore were (are?) being sold – and this, I’m sure, is out of the control of Joss, and the writers too.

Casting is a similar situation. While the producer has a hand in the main actors’ casting, other actors will almost certainly be cast by someone else – thus revealing bias in the industry at large.

One last general observation, and I’ll move on to specific buffyverse-related comments: With regard to fantasy shows, you must keep in mind that they are not meant to be realistic! While they may apply to real life in many ways, the absence of traditional power structures, conditioned cultural responses, and so on, are not valid grounds for criticism.

So, with regard to Buffy, there are some critics who disagree the Spike attempted rape scene – they say that Buffy did not respond correctly, that it made light of the rape issue by having her shrug it off so easily, and later, nearly blame it on herself. If Buffy had been a realistic person, I would agree. But Buffy is not. She is, apparently, quite immune to the common female fear of rape. This was made clear in Helpless, where Buffy loses her power temporarily. She is whistled at by some men hanging out by a car, and it is obvious that Buffy is never even the least bit concerned about that kind of situation. So, Buffy’s reaction to Spike was different than any other woman would have had. Essentially, she had the same reaction that most men would have had – it was just scary – not the fulfillment of deep-seated cultural fear.

Another example: Inara in Firefly. Her character is a prostitute. Now some people have a serious problem with that. From the quoted article:

The women who ‘choose’ to be ‘Companions’ are shown as being intelligent, accomplished, educated, well-respected and presumably from good families. If a woman had all of these qualities and opportunities then why the fuck would she ‘choose’ to be a man’s fuck toy?

Now if this had been a realistic show, this criticism would be valid. Not irrefutable, but valid. The trouble is, the show takes place hundreds of years into the future. It is fantasy. Joss could posit flying kittens that emit purple rainbows if he wanted to. Saying that women who sleep with men for money are powerful and respected is not much of a stretch of the imagination. In fact, the above critic answers her own question:

In Joss Whedon’s future world prostituted women are powerful and respectable.

So, if they are powerful and respected, they are not really prostituted, are they.

Unless, that is, you believe that women are always ‘fuck toys’ when they sleep with men, not by culture, but by biology!

Kaylee’s introduction – having sex with a guy in the engine room is part of the same concept. Firefly is obviously a world where women are sexually as free as men. And that brings me to the worst episode in Firefly – Heart of Gold. If these this episode was in a series that had a more modern sex culture, it would have been wonderful. The trouble is, that the presence of a ‘normal’ brothel, supported by a misogynistic local culture. This undermines the normalized female sexuality of the rest of the series. (There are a few other instances, mostly directed at Kaylee, but most of these can be put down to writer oversight.)

At the risk of arguing with an immovable force, I’d like to address some other criticisms given in the above linked article. First, when Mal says ’shut up’ in the first episode, it is NOT directed at Zoe, but rather at both Jayne and Zoe, and Jayne was the one who spoke last. Zoe also tells Mal off several time throughout the series.

The primary criticism of Whedon’s work is that it is racist. I think that this is an overstatement. I am curious that people are so concerned about this; it is not as if there are no people of color at all. Certainly, it would be nice if there were more, but they do exist, and often as main characters. (In other words, Whedon is not anti-racist, but is not racist, either) Now, if someone would only make a show that focuses on not being racist, as Buffy does on being feminist. (Any year, now!)

There is one serious exception in this regard. In last episode of Firefly, Objects in Space, the main villain is an incredibly sociopathic black man. I really don’t understand why they would do this – it reinforces all kinds of stereotypes, and is generally terrible.

Back to Buffy – I think that having Buffy and Willow portrayed as more emotionally weak than Giles or Xander is caused primarily by their having a more important role in the show. In addition, by the end of the series, Buffy is shown to be more emotionally mature than Giles – in fact, he is ridiculed rather often. (especially in the gotta-kill-the-ensouled-Spike storyline.) Angel also has more emotional problems than all of the women in the show put together.

In conclusion, I think one of the most interesting aspects of analyzing the Whedonverse, is to see where the problems are caused by real bias or oversight, and where they are only products of the viewers’ bias, due to the fantasy setting.

Side note:

I think that it is interesting that people claim Xena as being more race-inclusive than Buffy. This is simply NOT the case. Buffy had a few main characters, many reoccurring characters, and many one-shot characters. Xena had two main characters, only a handful of reoccurring characters, and tons of one-shot characters. A few POC in one-shot roles on Xena have caused a biased perception. A quick look at IMDB:

Buffy, POC characters reoccurring in 3 or more were in: 14,13,12,8,7,5,3 episodes each.

Xena, POC characters reoccurring in 3 or more were in: just one character, who was in 4 episodes. (Even Marcus was only in 2 episodes!)

Counting characters or any race, Xena has only a total of 9 characters who occur in 10 or more episodes each. Buffy has 27 in 10 or more.

You notice the random one-shot POC more when there is no competition from reoccurring characters.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 12:44 am, filed under essays, and tagged buffy, feminism, media, tv. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.