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itsnotmymind) wrote2016-03-06 02:07 pm
itsnotmymind) wrote2016-03-06 02:07 pm
Entry tags:
Some Thoughts on Gender Double Standards and Violence (BtVS)
I've seen many Spike fans argue over the years that there are gender double standards in how Buffy treats Spike in S6.
For example, that the writers and fans would have handled it differently if a male character shoved a female character into a wall and started having sex with her, or if a male character beat his lover as badly as Buffy beat Spike in Dead Things.
I agree with some of these arguments, and not with others. Here are my current thoughts about gender double standards and violence on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A lot of this is about Buffy/Spike, but also some other characters and situations. Sometimes Spike fan criticisms are on the nose. But sometimes, as I'll show you below, the gender double standard actually seems to be the opposite of the one that the Spike fan is arguing. And even when they are accurate, when there is an undeniable gender double standard where female violence against men is more acceptable, I can't help but notice that these criticisms seem to only come up when the victim is Spike. When a less sympathetic character is the victim of gender double standards about violence, you can dance in the silence.
My first exposure to fannish criticism of gender double standards about violence in Buffy was before I saw a single episode of the show. A feminist comic blogger I used to read argued that Mutant Enemy had double standards because Buffy giving Spike a blow job over his objections was treated humorously, while his attempt to rape her in Seeing Red was portrayed as horrible. Having not seen the show, I had no opinion at the time.
However, I somehow managed to stumble upon some Spike fans who had linked to the post and were engaging in the nastiest commentary on Buffy, bile to such a level that I decided that even if Buffy were the most horrible person on earth, she couldn't possibly deserve that. It didn't help that it was coupled with comments praising Spike and his virtues to the sky. After all, the blog post I had just read told me he was also an attempted rapist.
Having watched Buffy season 6, I strongly disagree with the idea that the blow job in Gone was a sign of gender double-standards. Yes, Buffy jumps on Spike mid-fight in Smashed and initiates sex with him. Yes, Buffy takes him unawares while invisible in Gone and initiates sex with him. Yes Buffy starts a blow job later the same episode in hopes of appeasing Spike into not kicking out, after he has told her to leave. But from the other side, Spike pulls Buffy into his lap and fondles her in Wrecked, even though she initially verbally and physically resists. Spike initiates sex with Buffy in Dead Things against her objections, and despite her obvious unhappiness and discomfort.
None of these examples are exactly the same as the others. You could compare and argue for months, and maybe reach the ultimate conclusion that Buffy is worse than Spike, or Spike is worse Buffy. But it's hard for me to look at the relationship over all and think that the way sexual consent is handled in Buffy and Spike's relationship demonstrates gender double standards on ME's part.
(If you care, this post about consent in S6 Buffy/Spike has been very influential to my thoughts on that matter.)
When it comes to fandom's reaction to these sort of scenes, the gender double standard seems to be the reverse of what these Spike fans argue. As I said, I saw complaints about Buffy's behavior in Gone being raped before I saw a single episode of the show. Since watching the show and delving into the fandom, I have seen the balcony scene in Dead Things characterized as rape on one or two occasions. But in addition to the many complaints about Gone, I've heard many complaints about how the fannish reaction to Buffy violently initiating sex with Spike in Smashed would be viewed very differently if the genders were reversed.
And yet when Angel hit Darla through glass doors in Reprise while initiating sex with her, I don't remember hearing a peep. Admittedly, I never delved as deeply into AtS fandom as BtVS fandom, but I've still had many encounters with it. I heard many peeps about Gone when I wasn't following Buffyverse fandom, or any other Whedon show fandom for that matter. Yet nothing about Angel/Darla?
I was actually a bit bothered about consent issues myself while first watching the Angel/Darla sex scene in Reprise. However, I concluded from Darla's eventual reaction that it was fine. Yet it seems that the overall fannish reaction signifies a double standard on the part of fandom--a double standard that favors sexually aggressive men, while a sexually aggressive woman in a similar situation is violating her partner's consent.
There is another major criticism about Buffy/Spike and violence against men being treated less seriously than violence against women, and this is a criticism I have to agree with. Specifically, the alley beating scene in Dead Things that leaves Spike with bruises the next episode. On his commentary for Smashed, during the scene where Buffy and Spike were hitting each other, Drew Greenberg comments that it's okay to hit Buffy because she's not like other girls. As far as I can tell, the folks at ME did not seriously ask themselves whether it was okay for Buffy to hit Spike. I cannot imagine they would have written a male protagonist beating his female lover that badly, much less never mention the incident again. And while many fans were completely pissed off about the lack of follow-up to the alley beating scene, I imagine if a male protagonist had done that to a female character, the fall-out among fans would have been even more intense.
That said, it's pretty telling how some examples of gender double standards about violence get outrage, while others are ignored. The first time I watched Beer Bad, I thought the scene where cave Buffy knocks Parker unconscious to be highly unfunny. I had no idea then how fandom had reacted, because I wasn't doing much exploring in Buffy fandom at that time. All I knew is that if a male super-powered character had knocked out a female civilian, it would never have been played for laughs.
Now that I am more familiar with BtVS fandom, I have heard no peeps. None. Zero. Parker's an asshole, I guess, and Buffy wasn't fully herself, so since it's not relevant to any argument over the morality of our favorite characters, we can move on.
Faith and Xander is something that does get talked about. Faith tried to rape Xander. It's never mentioned again. When Spike, a male character, tries to rape Buffy, he has to go on a quest to fundamentally change himself in a way no real person can. Only then does he get his redemption. And even then, the would-be rape remains a huge issue. Faith gets to have a redemption arc and crack jokes about having had sex with Xander before Anya did and the attempted rape is never addressed.
My last example of gender double standards and violence is Anya. Anya is a very gendered character. She grants the--usually vengeful--wishes of scorned women (a pretty gendered descriptor). The men she goes after can be anything from teenage boys who are too immature to be monogamous to abusive adult men. The metaphorical nature of the show makes her power, granting wishes, seem less harmful than that of a vampire who kills people directly. Even still, I have a hard time ignoring the strong contrast between her and Spike. From S4-S6, they are both mostly unrepentant murderers restrained by some force that renders them powerless. Spike tries to rape Buffy after they break up--but an episode earlier, Anya tried to trick Xander's friends, one of whom is underage, into helping her torture Xander to death. One of these crimes is treated much more seriously than the other, and of course it is Spike's. In Never Leave Me, Spike and Buffy are in the basement talking seriously about the horrible things he's done to teenage girls. Xander and Andrew are upstairs discussing Anya's past. Despite the references to torture and death, the tone is light and humorous. Xander's example of Anya's bad deeds is to describe the way she broke his heart.
The Scoobies have a very different attitude towards Anya than towards Spike. During the period when Anya is dating Xander, they don't seem to be particularly concerned about her past and whether she's trustworthy. Her death count is treated as a joke. Even in episodes like Triangle, where Willow does express concerns, it's not treated with the seriousness you would expect. Compare that to their attitude towards Spike.
It's part of why I've always had a hard time liking Anya--she's funny, sure, but I have trouble taking her seriously as a character when the show itself doesn't seem to take her seriously.
In terms of how fandom views her: Well, is there a way to measure how much louder and more intense the reaction I've seen to Xander's verbal abuse of Anya in Entropy is than the reaction I've seen to Anya's attempt to torture Xander to death that very same episode? It's not pretty, that much I can say.
Here's a thought game: What would Anya be like gender swapped? A male demon who grants vengeance for men scorned by women? What would be the implications of that? How would male Anya be different?
For example, that the writers and fans would have handled it differently if a male character shoved a female character into a wall and started having sex with her, or if a male character beat his lover as badly as Buffy beat Spike in Dead Things.
I agree with some of these arguments, and not with others. Here are my current thoughts about gender double standards and violence on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A lot of this is about Buffy/Spike, but also some other characters and situations. Sometimes Spike fan criticisms are on the nose. But sometimes, as I'll show you below, the gender double standard actually seems to be the opposite of the one that the Spike fan is arguing. And even when they are accurate, when there is an undeniable gender double standard where female violence against men is more acceptable, I can't help but notice that these criticisms seem to only come up when the victim is Spike. When a less sympathetic character is the victim of gender double standards about violence, you can dance in the silence.
My first exposure to fannish criticism of gender double standards about violence in Buffy was before I saw a single episode of the show. A feminist comic blogger I used to read argued that Mutant Enemy had double standards because Buffy giving Spike a blow job over his objections was treated humorously, while his attempt to rape her in Seeing Red was portrayed as horrible. Having not seen the show, I had no opinion at the time.
However, I somehow managed to stumble upon some Spike fans who had linked to the post and were engaging in the nastiest commentary on Buffy, bile to such a level that I decided that even if Buffy were the most horrible person on earth, she couldn't possibly deserve that. It didn't help that it was coupled with comments praising Spike and his virtues to the sky. After all, the blog post I had just read told me he was also an attempted rapist.
Having watched Buffy season 6, I strongly disagree with the idea that the blow job in Gone was a sign of gender double-standards. Yes, Buffy jumps on Spike mid-fight in Smashed and initiates sex with him. Yes, Buffy takes him unawares while invisible in Gone and initiates sex with him. Yes Buffy starts a blow job later the same episode in hopes of appeasing Spike into not kicking out, after he has told her to leave. But from the other side, Spike pulls Buffy into his lap and fondles her in Wrecked, even though she initially verbally and physically resists. Spike initiates sex with Buffy in Dead Things against her objections, and despite her obvious unhappiness and discomfort.
None of these examples are exactly the same as the others. You could compare and argue for months, and maybe reach the ultimate conclusion that Buffy is worse than Spike, or Spike is worse Buffy. But it's hard for me to look at the relationship over all and think that the way sexual consent is handled in Buffy and Spike's relationship demonstrates gender double standards on ME's part.
(If you care, this post about consent in S6 Buffy/Spike has been very influential to my thoughts on that matter.)
When it comes to fandom's reaction to these sort of scenes, the gender double standard seems to be the reverse of what these Spike fans argue. As I said, I saw complaints about Buffy's behavior in Gone being raped before I saw a single episode of the show. Since watching the show and delving into the fandom, I have seen the balcony scene in Dead Things characterized as rape on one or two occasions. But in addition to the many complaints about Gone, I've heard many complaints about how the fannish reaction to Buffy violently initiating sex with Spike in Smashed would be viewed very differently if the genders were reversed.
And yet when Angel hit Darla through glass doors in Reprise while initiating sex with her, I don't remember hearing a peep. Admittedly, I never delved as deeply into AtS fandom as BtVS fandom, but I've still had many encounters with it. I heard many peeps about Gone when I wasn't following Buffyverse fandom, or any other Whedon show fandom for that matter. Yet nothing about Angel/Darla?
I was actually a bit bothered about consent issues myself while first watching the Angel/Darla sex scene in Reprise. However, I concluded from Darla's eventual reaction that it was fine. Yet it seems that the overall fannish reaction signifies a double standard on the part of fandom--a double standard that favors sexually aggressive men, while a sexually aggressive woman in a similar situation is violating her partner's consent.
There is another major criticism about Buffy/Spike and violence against men being treated less seriously than violence against women, and this is a criticism I have to agree with. Specifically, the alley beating scene in Dead Things that leaves Spike with bruises the next episode. On his commentary for Smashed, during the scene where Buffy and Spike were hitting each other, Drew Greenberg comments that it's okay to hit Buffy because she's not like other girls. As far as I can tell, the folks at ME did not seriously ask themselves whether it was okay for Buffy to hit Spike. I cannot imagine they would have written a male protagonist beating his female lover that badly, much less never mention the incident again. And while many fans were completely pissed off about the lack of follow-up to the alley beating scene, I imagine if a male protagonist had done that to a female character, the fall-out among fans would have been even more intense.
That said, it's pretty telling how some examples of gender double standards about violence get outrage, while others are ignored. The first time I watched Beer Bad, I thought the scene where cave Buffy knocks Parker unconscious to be highly unfunny. I had no idea then how fandom had reacted, because I wasn't doing much exploring in Buffy fandom at that time. All I knew is that if a male super-powered character had knocked out a female civilian, it would never have been played for laughs.
Now that I am more familiar with BtVS fandom, I have heard no peeps. None. Zero. Parker's an asshole, I guess, and Buffy wasn't fully herself, so since it's not relevant to any argument over the morality of our favorite characters, we can move on.
Faith and Xander is something that does get talked about. Faith tried to rape Xander. It's never mentioned again. When Spike, a male character, tries to rape Buffy, he has to go on a quest to fundamentally change himself in a way no real person can. Only then does he get his redemption. And even then, the would-be rape remains a huge issue. Faith gets to have a redemption arc and crack jokes about having had sex with Xander before Anya did and the attempted rape is never addressed.
My last example of gender double standards and violence is Anya. Anya is a very gendered character. She grants the--usually vengeful--wishes of scorned women (a pretty gendered descriptor). The men she goes after can be anything from teenage boys who are too immature to be monogamous to abusive adult men. The metaphorical nature of the show makes her power, granting wishes, seem less harmful than that of a vampire who kills people directly. Even still, I have a hard time ignoring the strong contrast between her and Spike. From S4-S6, they are both mostly unrepentant murderers restrained by some force that renders them powerless. Spike tries to rape Buffy after they break up--but an episode earlier, Anya tried to trick Xander's friends, one of whom is underage, into helping her torture Xander to death. One of these crimes is treated much more seriously than the other, and of course it is Spike's. In Never Leave Me, Spike and Buffy are in the basement talking seriously about the horrible things he's done to teenage girls. Xander and Andrew are upstairs discussing Anya's past. Despite the references to torture and death, the tone is light and humorous. Xander's example of Anya's bad deeds is to describe the way she broke his heart.
The Scoobies have a very different attitude towards Anya than towards Spike. During the period when Anya is dating Xander, they don't seem to be particularly concerned about her past and whether she's trustworthy. Her death count is treated as a joke. Even in episodes like Triangle, where Willow does express concerns, it's not treated with the seriousness you would expect. Compare that to their attitude towards Spike.
It's part of why I've always had a hard time liking Anya--she's funny, sure, but I have trouble taking her seriously as a character when the show itself doesn't seem to take her seriously.
In terms of how fandom views her: Well, is there a way to measure how much louder and more intense the reaction I've seen to Xander's verbal abuse of Anya in Entropy is than the reaction I've seen to Anya's attempt to torture Xander to death that very same episode? It's not pretty, that much I can say.
Here's a thought game: What would Anya be like gender swapped? A male demon who grants vengeance for men scorned by women? What would be the implications of that? How would male Anya be different?
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But within the show, Anya actually did those things and they actually happened to actual people.
Agree about Xander. As other people have pointed out, it's ironic that Anya came to Sunnydale in order to punish Xander, and then she ends up getting dumped by him. That she came because of him and Cordelia, that was something he knew, right? I can't remember when/how he found out.
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It is true that the real life analogues to Anya are a bit vaguer than those for Angelus e.g. I love the interpretation of Halfrek in OAFA et al as a frankly venomous child services bureaucrat, who sees it as her duty to punish bad parents and lets that eclipse her concern for the child, and I think this "social worker who uses their power for ill rather than good" is one way to interpret Anyanka in a down to earth way... but that doesn't get at the scale of her crimes.
Certainly the gang learned some of the outline of Anya's origins in "Doppelgangland," but I'm not positive if they found out the specifics of Anya coming because of Cordelia/Xander(/Willow). It is possible that if Willow knew she would have gotten angry at the idea of Anya lecturing *Willow* on Willow's kissing breaking X/C up given that that occasion led to Anya creating an evil parallel universe, but it's hardly conclusive and playing on Willow's guilt, while sometimes putting her more on the offensive, sometimes does make her mostly clam up. (I mean, in story, Willow and Anya's conversation in "Triangle" is "you have your 'a thousand years of hurting men' gold watch" vs. "you kissed Xander and broke up him and Cordelia" and they are almost treated as equivalently bad things to do by the two characters.)
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There are gender double standards in every show and not just BtVS. When a female has sex with a male without his consent, it's never seen or considered rape.
If we look at it from RL standards, men by nature are physically stronger than women and for sex to happen, the male has to enter the female and release inside of her, so it's understandable why the subject of men being raped by women isn't taken seriously.
However, for a supernatural show, male characters were subjected to rape and yet it was never dealt with: Faith attempting to rape Xander and later raping Riley while in Buffy's body.
I agree with you regarding the Xander/Anya issue in Entropy. Anya didn't just intend to hurt Xander, she went for it. She wished he never existed - if Anya could grant her own wishes, her wish would have come true. Anya went to Xander's friends to get them to wish him harm. And if she wasn't caught having sex with Spike, she would have welcomed Spike's wish with open arms.
I honestly wish one of those wishes was granted just to see how a cursed Xander would be received by the audience, would they feel bad for him or think he deserved it?
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I would hope that if Anya actually cursed Xander seriously, most fans would sympathize with him. But then again, in Beneath You when Anya says her cursing of men is happening because Xander leaving her at the altar, Xander says, "And sooner or later, Anya, that excuse just stops working." And I've seen at least one fan point to this as an example of Xander not taking responsibility for his actions. And I don't think anyone commented to disagree with them.
So I guess I really don't know how fans would react to a Xander actually cursed by Anya.
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Anya cursing people and endangering others is Anya's fault. Blaming Xander is nothing but a feeble excuse. She chose to be a demon again. I don't see anyone blaming Cordelia for Xander's spell in BB&B. So, why blame him for Anya's actions?
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It is strange how you get these fans who side with Anya during the break-up to the point where they paper over some pretty horrifying actions on her part. I mean, don't get me wrong, Xander behaved very, very badly. But he didn't try to torture Anya to death. So, yeah, if I have to pick a side, it's gonna be his.
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Whether intention weighs more or less heavily than action is often at the heart of these kinds of discussions. The attempted rape in "Seeing Red", for instance, was probably not intended as an attack, but that's what it was in the end. Does the intention mitigate the action? Not for many (most?) people, but perhaps for some. Faith clearly intended to rape Xander — and kill him, let's not forget — so I can never figure out how it's dismissed, except for gender reasons. (There's a fic over at EF, Thursday's Child, that examines Xander reaction to this incident a couple of years later, FYI. Yay, fic!)
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In terms of how the show presents her, that's exactly my points. Anya can make an attempt to torture Xander to death and it's shrugged off, because her horrific history is a joke.
Fannish reaction is more complicated, and I'm having a hard time thinking of a situation where a male character tried to something horrifically violent and absolutely nothing bad ended up happening. But then, that's the problem with a lot of these situations: There is no exact equivalent.
That said, I strongly disagree that I am "giving equal weight to intention and action". Absolutely I am considering intention important, but that doesn't mean I'm treating intention and action as equal.
The morality behind Xander's attempt to kill Spike is complicated, but for the moment I'm going to ignore all that, and just focus on the fact that it was wrong. If Xander attempting to murder Spike is much harder to dismiss that Anya attempting to murder Xander...well, why? Because Spike was aware of it? That makes a difference, I agree, but not much of one.
And I don't want to defend Xander's verbal abuse of Anya. But one doesn't have to way intention and action as equal in order to think that seriously attempting to have someone's intestines tied in knots and ripped apart or making their penis would explode, to name two examples, is far worse than verbal abuse.
As I said in the original post, I do think that nature of Anya's power (a manifestation of the useless wishes of powerless women) probably plays a role both in how she's presented and how fans react to her. But that doesn't mean that I'm giving equal weight to intention and action. If I gave equal weight to intention and action my argument would be something much harsher than that treating Xander's actions as more significant than Anya's is an example of gender double standards, trust me.
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Anyway, that's why I don't get too upset with Anya's attempt. She's in the situation millions of scorned lovers have been in: they want the one who scorned them feel just as awful as they do. She doesn't throw acid in his face, she doesn't post embarrassing photos on the internet, she doesn't put sugar in his gas tank: she complains to everybody she knows. It's a time-honored way of dealing with heartbreak.
I agree that her past is not taken very seriously by the other characters, and probably not even the viewers. Because they (and we) don't see it first-hand, probably. You have to think it through to understand the horror of it, and the Scoobies and casual viewers are more likely to react to what's right in front of them, rather than looking carefully at the squirmy things hidden from view.
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But within the context of the show she was trying to torture someone to death by using the same power that she had (very successfully!) used to torture untold numbers of people to death in the past. That's...not typical break-up behavior. Thankfully.
There's no real world equivalent to Anya's powers, but how about this: If a king orders an executioner to kill someone, that's not "just words". Not even if some reason the executioner doesn't carry out the order.
I don't want to control your emotional reaction to the show, but if someone makes a serious attempt on someone else's life, one that could have well succeeded, and no one takes it seriously...well, something's going on here.
And, in fact, while Anya does stop trying to kill Xander, she goes on to kill other people. I guess everyone should have taken her more seriously.
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Well, not precisely, but any vindictive person with a gun, a can of acid, or, say, superior upper body strength, is capable of wreaking serious bodily harm upon their ex-beloved. We see it all the freaking time, alas. I don't think we really have to reach very far for a metaphor OR for a real life equivalent to the situation, myself.
If I take your example of the king ordering an execution, I see it very differently. I see a king who was wronged and angry, who wants to order the execution and feels perfectly justified in ordering it. She talks to all of her advisors and the family of the person who "wronged the crown". None of them feel the crime was sufficient to justify an execution and eventually the king...calms down and doesn't take any action.
As you say, there's no controlling how other people react to a particular situation on the show. But if you really are curious about how people can be so blasé about Anya's actions (or non-actions) in this situation, just consider that it's because nothing bad actually happens to Xander. In fact, she is only successful in making him feel worse when she stops trying to. Which is also how it usually happens in real life.
The other things gong on in the episode have much more impact for the characters (including Xander) than Anya's wish powers, so it's no wonder that viewers ignore them at this juncture. Everybody else does.
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I was responding to your statement that what Anya did was "just words". I have no idea what your point is here.
Anya didn't just "want" to kill Xander. She tried to. Repeatedly. The fact that, after repeatedly failing to harm him, she decided she was wrong to do so (but at that time just wrong to hurt him, apparently, not to other people in similar situations) is good, but not really much to write home about. If you want a real-life example: If Anya had pointed what she thought was a loaded gun at Xander, pulled the trigger, discovered it was empty, when out to get bullets, and then decided not to kill Xander after all...she's still guilty of attempted murder. And if she then goes on to kill a bunch of other guys who did stuff that's similar to Xander?
I do think that part of the problem is that Anya's killing spree was always portrayed as humorous, and Entropy is clearly supposed to make you laugh (and it makes me laugh!). But as I've said repeatedly, within the context of the fantasy world that we accept as real for purposes of enjoyment while and for much of fannish analysis, Anya tried to trick Xander's friends into helping her torture him to death. In the same way as she had killed people like Xander in the past, and would kill them in the near future.
When you give me your thoughts on why viewers are blasé about Anya's attempt to get revenge on Xander in Entropy, what are you basing that on, exactly? Observations of fandom?
No one in fandom is special. No one in fandom has emotional reactions that are so righteous and good that they are above criticism. Assumptions about gender are a very real thing in our culture, and they affect everyone.
If you want to convince me that gender double standards don't play a role in how fans reaction to Xander vs. Anya, you're going to have to give me more than a few weak reasons that may or may not apply to some percentage of fans. I find it highly unlikely that every single fan who reacts more negatively to Xander and Anya does it primarily out of gender. But if you are trying to convince me that gender isn't a huge issue, you are going to much better.
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I'm sure I'm way off your original post, but I do enjoy these kinds of close looks at the characters.
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One of the odd things about analyzing Buffy is the whole issue of metaphor. With most of my fantasy/sci-fi shows, I primarily take them literally. But Buffy uses metaphors a lot--and sometimes things happen that make no sense if you just look at them literally. But the opposite is also true: Sometimes you have to take it literally. And then there's the inconsistency of the metaphors. Slayerification is male abuse of power and violation of women. Slayerification is female empowerment. Magic is lesbian sex. Magic is an addictive drug. Vampires and demons represent evil. Vampires and demons represent oppressed minorities.
I'm trying to look at Anya on a metaphorical level, and I thought I had something solid to say but I think this is just going to be thinking out loud.
Anya empowers women who are angry at their exes. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but just look at the news and we see how much worse scorned men are. But women are angry, and Anya grants their wishes--and the women are the victims, too, aren't they? They don't expect their wishes to be real. They don't want it. They're just venting. And Anya tricks them and makes that venting real. Anya is a joke, because a venting woman is a joke. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" is a joke, because a woman is not supposed have the fury of Hell. If she does, it's a surprise.
For three seasons, Anya is a joke, and even after Selfless, we have scenes like the conversation between Andrew and Xander in Never Leave Me that I referenced in the post, which treats Anya's past fairly lightly. If Anya is, in some way, a metaphor for women's anger and revenge--then women's anger and revenge is a joke. A joke to be subverted briefly and then reinstated.
And how does the fact that Anya is victimizing the women, too, factor into this?
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It was disturbing though how even the show seemed to find humour in her tales of her past ~glory days~ and never seemed interested in exploring the moral implications of what she had done, I agree that it definitely wouldn't have been seen as a joke if it was male character punishing unfaithful women. It's why I always blink a bit at how self-righteous Xander gets about Buffy's choice of partners and how they've slaughtered half of Europe, even though it's never once brought up as reflecting badly on Xander when Anya is proudly reminiscing on how much pain and death she once brought to unfaithful men
And I agree on the gender double standards being overblown when it comes to Buffy and Spike, honestly it always felt to me like fans were seizing on the Gone blowjob and making a bigger deal of it because they wanted to make the Seeing Red incident more equal somehow in their minds, even though as you say there was never the same focus given to similar moments of dubious consent towards Buffy in Wrecked or Dead Things. But Gone became something convienient to point to in the argument that Buffy and Spike were mutually abusive, and Spike had no choice but to misunderstand the boundries that Buffy had failed to set
And yet when Angel hit Darla through glass doors in Reprise while initiating sex with her, I don't remember hearing a peep
From what I remember the writers said that the network had some concerns with a moment where Angel slaps Darla, they insisted that that be cut out because for fears that it made the scene look sexually dubious, and the writers were marvelling at the fact that the network had no issue with Darla being thrown through a glass door though and were completely fine with the scene after the slap was cut out. And I don't remember that particular scene being discussed or debated much by fandom either, it seemed like more of an issue with the writers room worrying about the implications of it and being surprised that the glass door part wasn't a bigger deal to anyone else. Maybe that was partly a case of the network being concerned because of the real world implications of a man slapping a woman, whereas the rest of that scene was more acceptable because it could be viewed through a strictly fantasy lens when it came to two vampires capable of throwing one another around? (Just as Seeing Red caused such a reaction in fandom partly because of the way that the director chose to film it as equivalent to an attempted rape between two humans in the real world, and so it hit much closer to home)
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I've always felt the of all the characters in Buffyverse, Faith's darkness was dealt with most honestly. The lack of follow-up to her assault of Xander is a glaring exception.
Word on Xander and Buffy's vampiric partners. I have on more than one watch literally sworn at the screen during his first scene with Buffy in Seeing Red. One thing I love about that scene is how completely ugly Xander is capable of being, and yet still maintain my sympathy and affection.
I think he learned his lesson in Selfless, even though it wasn't made explicit.
I didn't know that about Darla/Angel and the network. That raises an interesting question: To what extent does the fantasy world of Buffy make it acceptable to portray and condone behavior that would be horrible in the real world?
I have a lot of issues with the way Seeing Red was filmed. It was...strange.
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Yeah I think that was the biggest part of it, it was easier to put her nameless and faceless victims out of their mind, whereas Angelus, Spike, and Faith were all characters with dark sides that the Scoobies had been directly exposed too, and so the writers took more care with giving them a redemption arc. It seemed like everyone was predisposed to treating Anya as a joke because she did come across as so harmless when she was human, but it does raise an interesting question when it came to how little her words and intent were taken seriously, even though Anya was always stressing that she would love to go back to her demon days if she could, and she clearly was remembering her past behaviour fondly. Somehow none of that mattered as long as she was trapped in human form though. Whereas when Spike was chipped there was a lot more emphasis on how the chip was just holding him back, and motives did matter when it came to how he was being forced to behave
I think he learned his lesson in Selfless, even though it wasn't made explicit.
I think so, I remember quite a few people picking up on Xander being unusually silent when it came to Spike after Selfless and his asking Buffy to give Anya another chance.
I'd love to friend you if that's okay by the way, I'm always looking for more Buffy fans to discuss the show with on LJ? :)
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I'd love to friend you if that's okay by the way, I'm always looking for more Buffy fans to discuss the show with on LJ? :)
Absolutely! I would love you to friend me.