Mouse rant blog vent mouse.

Monday, December 20, 2004

Dammit, now I want this

Season 7 of Buffy is out on DVD. I wasn't going to buy it. Season 7 was a real snore at times, and I just don't feel that I'll go back to it again and again like I've been known to do with earlier seasons of the show, particularly seasons 2 and 3. But reading this review, well damn the extras sound great!

Listening to the DVD audio commentaries for Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Seventh Season is much like watching the show with a room full of Buffy addicts you met on the Internet. That is: fun, obsessive, and something you hope no one ever finds out about. Buffy's writers and directors are clearly some of the show's biggest fans, alternately falling silent to catch their favorite lines and camera angles and gushing about their favorite actors, scenes, and episodes.

It's true. I've gotten a huge kick out of the commentaries on the first five discs, and they get better all the time as Joss Whedon gets more into it.

"The Last Sundown" shows clips of Whedon's 10 favorite episodes, as he explains that when he created Buffy, the concept of a female action star was still "revolutionary." He wanted to explore the idea of a young woman as "a hero, not just a heroine, but a hero."

Badass! I am already compiling a nerdy list of my own to compare to his. My hands-down favorite episode is still the last one of season, where Angel tries to kill Buffy by running her through with a sword and she catches it with her hands. I still tear up thinking about how cool that shot was and the subsequent fight. When I first started watching the show, I loathed Angel and all his mopiness. But by the end, when she had to kill him, well, *sniff*.

Season 7 was controversial, mostly because it was boring and it sucked to see Buffy so cowed and unfunny. Also, it made a lot of people really uncomfortable, I think, to discover that the Slayer was viewed from the very beginning as nothing more than a tool by the men who control her, that despite her intelligence and great personal power she was still being objectified like all women are on one level or another. (Though I always thought one of the strengths of the show was how in convincingly portrayed how men can choose to reject this fate as users, through the characters of Giles and Buffy.)

The ending of the series was also confusing--if it was wrong for the Watchers to force the demonic powers on the First Slayer in a scene that was designed to look very much like a rape, then how was it empowering for Buffy to turn around and push those powers on all the girls in the world who had potential to be slayers? But I think the answer lies, in part, in the process of objectification. The Watchers deliberately chose a girl to put the powers on because of her Otherness (see, the concept is incredibly useful). The saw her as an object, a tool that would house the necessary powers. This concept was bolstered by how the Watchers treated Slayers since then by paternalistically doling out information, training, and even discipline.

Buffy's choice to spread the power out was empowering because it was handed over freely from one woman to many with no strings attached regarding control. In fact, the power was released in a chaotic manner, imbuing girls with it whether they saw it coming or not. And we saw a montage of girls then turning around and using that power for their own means--one girl beats off a bully, another hits a ball out of the park.

This is the lesson Buffy has learned: as Espenson comments in "Buffy: Full Circle," "The way you protect your power is not to hoard it, but to pass it on."

Buffy was both the most powerful person in the world and a victim of that power, because of her unique status. She was never free to be her own person, because her Slayer status overruled any of her normal concerns. But now there are others to share her load and she can probably go out and do some more of the stuff that she's always wanted to do. In the end, I thought that the last episode of the series was wonderful and made some really great points about the importance of spreading power around and the benefits of community. Anyway, now I feel more inclined to buy it, though I know I probably won't spend much time watching some of the middle of the season episodes.

13 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Since you're a Buffy fan, I'll recommend Jet Wolf's Buffy page. (http://www.jetwolf.com/buffy/)

Her top 100 moments might be fun to check against your ten (http://www.jetwolf.com/hof/hitlist/buffy/)

And she's written some fanfic that's been widely praised (her Season 8). It's here: http://btvschosen.com/s8/ep_free.php

Enjoy!
-- ScottM

12/20/2004

 
Blogger activistgradgal said...

I'm a huge Buffy fan too, so I thought I'd respond. My roommate actually bought all 7 seasons of Buffy from ebay a few months ago before they were all available in the U.S., so I spent part of the fall re-watching the 7th season. The first time around I wasn't all that impressed (maybe because I had been a Spike/Buffy fan and the whole attempted rape and then insanity thing wasn't exactly what I was hoping for).

Great analysis of the spreading of power, and the difference between the slayers-in-training choosing to share in Buffy's power, and the first slayer being chained down by men and being forcibly entered by demonic spirits.

I might just have to blog some of my own on this topic...who can resist Buffy! Thanks for the inspiration.

12/20/2004

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I actually really liked season 7 for what it had to say about power (well, the last half of the season--the first half was pretty boring).

I saw it as a warning to people, women in particular, to be aware of the source of their power. As you talked about earlier, women (me included) often use male authority to back up their opinions, rather than relying on their own authority to have thoughts and opinions. Power that is dependant on others isn't real power at all, even though it may feel like you have power. Buffy spent 7 years feeling powerful, but she wasn't the source of her power, it was given to her by a patriarchal institution, and much of her life was defined by that institution.

When she finds that sword thingy, and meets that woman in the cave, she finds her real power, the power that is her birthright. This isn't power that comes from the Watchers. This is secret power that has been held and protected, waiting for her to claim it. This is her own power.

What she does with this power is also important. She doesn't keep it for herself. She empowers girls all over the world. Feminine (in the best sense of the word) power isn't selfish power, it's distributed power. Masculine power (the power from the Watchers) was only for one Chosen One. It was limited and could only be wielded by one person at a time. In order for one girl to gain power, another had to lose it. Buffy's new power grew as it was shared. This is a reminder to girls and women that gaining power isn't enough if other women don't have the chance to gain power as well. Getting to be a Fortune 500 CEO, or a U.S. Senator, or a great athlete isn't the end of gaining or wielding power. Individual women are more powerful when all women have power.

I like your comment about Giles representing an abdication of controlling power over women. Never thought of their relationship that way before.

Sorry for the long rant. Just love the show....

Burrito

12/21/2004

 
Blogger Jeff Pollet said...

If you like the badassness of Buffy, you might also like Firefly, which has several badass women (and a few badass men, too) of slightly different stripes than Buffy does...

12/21/2004

 
Blogger Roberto Iza Valdés said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

12/09/2005

 
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2/14/2007

 
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Later

Peterism 

2/15/2007

 

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