Thoughts on Season Seven of Buffy The Vampire Slayer

 

It was a long journey, but I have finally come to the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I am going to miss sharing this experience with my twitter family and your often challenging remarks.  Out of all seven seasons, I would have to say that this was among my least favourite.  I believe that the show peaked between seasons  4-6.  I loved the character development of Willow and Spike, but as for Buffy herself, her selfish irritating ways, were only surpassed by Dawn.

Okay, I was not enthused with Spike having cognitive difficulties throughout most of the season.  I know that Whedon thought he was covering his ass blaming it on the woo woo, but really enough already.  When we consider that almost every second word coming out of Buffy's mouth is the word lame, it was just another sign of the disableism that has plagued the show from the very beginning. Also, can we possibly be more trope filled than neurologically atypical equals violent?

This episode also brought us the dueling mothers.  Spike was triggered by a song his mother sang to him and Principal Wood, was desperate to get revenge for the murder of his mother.  They ended squaring off in a battle and Spike declared that his mother loved him, and that Wood's mother chose the job over him.  So much for the supposed feminist slant of Buffy.  The treatment of Wood's mother suggests that one cannot possibly be a good mother and have a job. It is further problematic that the White mother was cast as ultimately loving, though she is the one who said hateful things to Spike after he changed her.

Thoughts on Season 6 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer

 

When I first started watching Buffy, fans promised me that I would adore the series given my love for urban fantasy.  The first five seasons were hard for me to watch and quite honestly if I didn't have a project which required me to watch Buffy, I would have stopped.  Season 6 however was a game changer.  Buffy left behind much of the teen angst with the exception of Dawn (can we drop a house on her?) and was much darker and far more adult.

Since season five, I desperately wanted Spike and Buffy to get together and that desire was met by an abusive relationship that culminated in rape. I know that some fans don't see the abuse in the relationship prior to the rape, and that is why I think a discussion is absolutely necessary.  Even though Buffy was more than capable of defending herself against Spike's physical assaults against her, he continually hit her to provoke sex.  He prayed upon her vulnerabilities using shame, and then systematically attempted to isolate her from her friends.  These are the hallmarks of abuse and should never be seen as some sort of romantic interlude. 

As much as season six was adult, it was also more problematic.  After waiting for Tara and Willow to finally kiss and share the same sort of romantic screen time as heterosexual couples, viewers were rewarded with watching them break up due to Willow's abuse of magic (more on that later) and finally Tara's death.  Really Whedon?  It's bad enough that Tara died, but to kill her after she and Willow had sex, makes it seem as though death is the penalty for same sex love. How many times have we seen this trope carried out in the media?  After witnessing Tara's death, I don't understand how this show could be seen in any way as a positive representation of the GLBT community.  I know that some will defend Tara's death behind Whedon's nasty habit of breaking up couples, but when it comes to gay/lesbian relationships, the fact remains that violent death is often how they are ended in the media. Tara's death is an absolute reflection of lesbophobia and can be seen as nothing else.

Thoughts on Season Four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

As I have previously mentioned, for a project that I am working on, I have to watch all seven seasons of Buffy.  I have written a review for each season that I have watched thus far:  one, two and three respectively. In previous seasons, the teen angst has certainly been an issue for me.  I know that it is to be expected with a teenage protagonist; however, that does not mean that I have any real tolerance for it.  With Buffy and the Scooby gang in college, and Angel across the country, the angst level finally began to tone down, and I began enjoying it somewhat. 

From a social justice perspective, by far the most troubling episode that I have viewed to date was episode 8 of season four entitled Pangs.  It begins with Willow quite matter of factly stating why she and her mother have a problem with celebrating Thanksgiving.  All of the guilt however, is quickly overshadowed when the Chumash warrior Hus runs amok in Sunnydale -- after their grave site is disturbed, because of an attempt to build a Cultural Center at UC Sunnydale.  The Chumash warrior Hus rightfully want revenge for what was done to their people, but all Buffy can do is respond with White guilt and angst.  When she finally gets her slayer on, they sit down at a table to have Thanksgiving dinner, thus proving that they didn't learn a damn thing.  Whedon made a point of having Willow explain why Thanksgiving is a problematic holiday at the beginning, but dismissing that, after once again letting the White people defeat the supposedly bad Native people, and then eat a meal in celebration, was disgusting to say the least.

After being unable to control himself around a female werewolf, Oz leaves Sunnydale.  During his absence, we begin to see a budding romance between Willow and Tara.  Of course, it is all rather chaste and other than some hand holding, the audience is left to assume there is more going on.  If Whedon can film Buffy making out and having sex with both Angel and Riley, why is a kiss between Tara and Willow forbidden?  It hardly feels progressive when straight characters are highly visible and LGBT characters are not.  I know this was made in the 90's, but I am not going to give it a pass on that basis.  Whedon had a chance to be progressive and he blew it big time.

Thoughts On Season Three of Buffy The Vampire Slayer

 

As I mentioned earlier, for the purposes of a project that I am working on, I have been compelled to watch all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I didn’t watch Buffy when it was on the air, so my impressions are completely fresh.

I had hoped by season three that Whedon would have given up on the teen angst however, he intensified it.  I don’t understand how people could find the whole Buffy and Angel love each other, but can never be together theme in the least bit compelling. When Angel finally walked away at the end of the season, I was filled with a huge sense of relief. Even Spike the so-called bad calculating vampire returned to whine because Drusilla left him. For a show that seems highly dependent on relationships, there is little growth and a triple helping of angst.

The good girl/bad girl binary that was a theme for much of the season and it was highly anti-woman.  Though both Buffy and Faith are both White women, Buffy the blonde (the typical manifestation of the girl next door) was cast as good to Faith’s darker bad. We also had two different Willows.  The Willow from the second dimension was a power hungry, sadistic vampire, who was brimming with self confidence. It would seem that to be respected, liked or even loved, a woman dare not step out of the sickeningly sweet good girl paradigm. When Oz and Cassandra found Xander and Willow kissing, Willow’s solution was to offer Oz her virginity. This of course was to prove her true love for him for daring to sexually experiment. 

Thoughts On Season Two of Buffy The Vampire Slayer

 

As I mentioned last week, I am watching all seven seasons of Buffy for a project that I am currently engaged in.  Yesterday afternoon I finished season two.  First, let me say that this season they gave Whedon a budget to work with and the special effects are much better than the first season, though I seriously doubt that Buffy hit anyone with a single punch or her over used roundhouse kick. I seriously do not buy Sarah Michelle Gellar as the ass kicking type, though she is supposed to inspire shivers of girl power.

This season I learned that going to a frat house with older boys will lead to trouble.  See that girls, if you are attacked, it is all your fault for putting yourself in that position in the first place.  Good girls never date or are attracted to older men.  This is once again played out in Buffy’s relationship with the ever so musty Angel.  It is no accident that the moment that she decides to sleep with him, that he lost his soul.  Are you paying attention kids, there is a cost to teenage sex, no matter how much you lurve him. The very fact that Angel’s first act as a non feeling vampire is to slut shame the hell out of Buffy is telling.

Angel would then go on to stalk Buffy for the rest of the season.  The fact that he had lost his soul was enough for Buffy to empathize with him for much of the season, though he was clearly violent and a threat to her friends. This screamed of the old, he just can’t help himself mode that we often see attached to violent male behaviour in this genre. Excusing it in no way makes it healthy. I know that some believe that Buffy was redeemed because she finally got the guts to knife him at the end of the season, but from what I have heard, her pinning for him continues into the next season.  Stalking is illegal for a reason, and to justify this with the claim that he is just not himself, belies the fact that in many of these cases, real harm and even death occurs.  A more pro woman attitude would have been for Buffy to reject him outright, than to continue to express feelings of love for an entire season.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season One

Okay, because of the project that I am currently engaged in, I have been forced to watch all seven seasons of Buffy.  Since I know that there are plenty of urban fantasy fans reading this blog, I thought that I would share my impressions of each season with you.

While I was into vampires when Buffy originally aired, it was something that I never got around to watching.  Now that I have seen the first season, I am convinced that I didn’t miss a thing.  The original Star Trek had better special effects than Buffy. For all the punches and kicks that Buffy threw, it didn’t look look like she actually connected with a single one. Filming the fight scenes in bad lighting certainly did not fool me.  The title of the first season should have been shoestring budget.

What I find interesting about the series is that Buffy truly is the archetype for unlikeable female protagonist, who is filled to the brim with spunky agency. I get that she is the chosen one — the slayer— but really, is caution really such a bad thing?  Gotta vampire to kill, why not bring your date along? Then there is Angel. Mmmm Angel, the archetype for the musty vampire.  He denies who is, drinks blood from bags and so he is one of the rare good ones.  I know that Anne Rice started this trend in 1976 when she wrote the character of Louis de Pointe du Lac, In Interview With the Vampire,  but I am convinced that had Whedon just left the mustiness alone, it might have died the slow painful death that it deserved.  For me, the musty vampire, (see Louis, True Blood’s Bill etc) just needs to be gone for good.