BTVS redux
Jun. 26th, 2005 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatHaven't written about this in a long time but something I was reading on livejournal late last night started rolling about in my brain. And I realized a few things this morning, which granted may seem obvious to the objective outsider, but not so obvious to me.
It was something said offhand in a recent fanfic discussion on livejournal - about how kinky it was to subvert the canonical Buffy/Spike relationship so that Spike was in control and Buffy was submissive. This threw me for a loop. How is this kinky, I thought? First off in about 99% of the romances and novels published in our entire history, the male is the one in control and the female is the submissive party - he's stronger than she is. We live in a patriarchial society, our presidents, leaders, rulers are men, with a few exceptions here and there. The accepted position for sex is the missionary pose - ie. the guy on top and the girl on the bottom. Also men are supposed to be the ones to initiate sex, it's considered kinky when they don't. And it is an accepted fact that a man can force a woman not the other way around. Men beat women into submission. The old cliche is the guy who will sleep with a girl then leave her the next morning, wondering if he'll ever call. In most S&M scenarios that have been written, the girl is the masochist or the submissive in the relationship. It's rarely the other way around. That's the traditional/conservative approach. It's certainly the way the romance writers write it and how you'll see it in erotica. It is rare to see the opposite. The kink is when we switch the two roles. Kinky is when the guy is being whipped by the girl and likes it.
What was interesting about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and one of the reasons I became obsessed with it in the later seasons, was how it tried to subvert this traditional view. Note I mention in later seasons, because to start out with, BTVS was pretty conventional in certain ways. The Buffy/Angel relationship certainly was. Nothing kinky or subversive about that. Angel was in control most of the time - he'd leave Buffy wanting more. He'd die, leaving Buffy to grieve his loss, if they had sex, which they did once, he was always on top, you never saw a woman riding old Angel. And he'd decide when to leave. Leaving her the next morning with not much more than a note. In fact all of Buffy's boyfriends, outside of Spike, were more or less written in the classic conventional mode. Riley - again always on top, in fact the reason Riley left Buffy was that he couldn't stay on top, when he became weaker than Buffy and their roles switched he lost interest and went off with the military. His relationship with the vamp whores shows that aspect of him - letting them take a bit, then pushing them roughly away, leaving them for his true girl friend. When the girl-friend calls him on it, he doesn't give her the chance to dump him, he dumps her instead and takes off with his military pals. Parker - again, the guy leaves the girl wanting more, he dumps her for his next conquest, seeing her as little more than a distraction.
But there's a subversion here, isn't there? Didn't the writers make Buffy stronger than the guys? Riley and Angel were the damsels not Buffy? Buffy had to save them, true. But it's not that subversive - since in traditional gothic romances and fairy tales - we often have a woman on a quest to save a man from the dark side of himself or from some woman who will entrap him. The misunderstood guy under the curse of the wicked witch. Everything from the Snow Queen to Rebecca explores this theme. Most gothic romances usually do. Actually I can't think of many that don't. So not very subversive or kinky.
Even Angel's curse isn't that kinky. It's a traditional device that keeps him and the heroine from ever being together. He makes love to her and experiences happiness in her arms, and whammo he's evil and leaves her miserable. (In other words he leaves satisfied, while she's wanting more and grieving his loss.) It's not until Angel left to do his own series that curse became somewhat interesting, up until that point it was more or less a plot device.
No, they didn't start getting a little kinky and subversive until they introduced Spike. At first Spike was written conventionally. Hot, seductive, a sexual predator. He was clearly in control - the lovely Drusilla who hung on his arm childlike. A doll that he supported. Spike was the brawn and the brains of this outfit. Dru could barely stand upright or speak in anything outside of rhymes and couplets. He was also the type who women fell over themselves to get close to. Bad girl Sheila went to him like a magnet. He seduced you, took his fill, then left you the next morning wanting more. And if the girl didn't succumb, he'd rape her. Even slayers feared Spike, since no woman could out-fight him. Always going home to his mother or the one woman in the world he'd protect. Very conventional character - to start.
Then they subverted it - each time Spike tried to fight Buffy, she won, she out-fought him, out-maneuvered him, out-quipped him. He'd met a woman who was not only his equal but possibly his better. The man who was used to loving and leaving them wanting more - got kicked in the balls. And then there was Dru who did the same thing to him, left him, so he grabbed control back and did the truce with Buffy. Got her back. For a while the writers and the audience believed that was how the story would go - the conventional route, Spike and Dru - Spike in control of Dru and Dru fighting him. But Juliet Landau couldn't do Lover's Walk and Juliet Landau wasn't available to reprise the character in Season 4, only Marsters was. So...the writers did something unconventional, kinky even. Buffy got to be on top and Spike got to be on the bottom. The guy who was used to controlling women since becoming a vampire, who was on top, who was the seducer - got seduced, fell for his enemy, got manipulated into helping the cause. Instead of Spike leaving Buffy wanting more, Buffy left Spike wanting more. Instead of Spike controlling their relationship, Buffy did. Instead of the guy dumping the girl, the girl dumped the guy. Instead of the guy leaving the girl in the dank-womblike cavern and walking up into the sunlight, the girl left the guy in the dank-like cavern. Instead of the guy beating the girl into submission, the girl beat the guy into submission. Instead of the guy initiating sex - the girl did. Instead of the guy leaping on the girl and riding her, the girl launched herself at him and rid him. Smashed was the first time a woman initiated violent sex on network TV. A woman rode on top. In most shows, we see the girl's skin, her heaving chest, and naked limbs - here it was all Spike. The invisibility fantasy is usually the male's - usually the guy becomes invisible and goes and has his way with the girl, rapes her even (see Hollow Man, or any number of other comedies and dramas playing with the idea). Here Buffy becomes invisible and goes and takes advantage of Spike - being naughty with the boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Leaving him feeling used. Rumor has it that the writers played with the idea of taking this a step further and have Buffy try to rape Spike, humilate him, but they couldn't make it work and realized it may be too subversive for the viewer to buy it. Also it was unlikely the audience would believe Spike needed the soul after this happened. (They were right. I have however, seen people play with the idea in fanfic. Herself did in Spike and the Ambiguities, as did two other writers in Hard Candy. They all did stop short though, didn't go all the way - allowed it to still have that conventional twinge. Spike would get control in the next chapter.)
Complete role reversial and it enthralled me. I'd never seen anyone do this.
What fascinated me even more was people's reactions to it. There were folks out there who despised it, thought it was horrid, wanted to go back to the Angel/Buffy or Buffy/Riley relationships. Others wanted Spike to go back to being evil, to being the guy in control. While still others wanted more of Buffy keeping Spike on the leash. What was going in the show was a unique gender role reversial and what was going on in the minds of the audience was a struggle with how to deal with that reversial, which happened on screen sexually, emotionally, and physically.
Seeing Red - the episode in which Spike loses all control and attempts to rape Buffy threw people - wait, they thought, isn't this a role reversial? Why go back to convention? I thought Buffy was the one physically in charge here? Well, she still is - if you watch the scene carefully - Spike doesn't get anything, except humilated and shown a reflection of himself that literally sends him careening off the edge of sanity. Because only an insane vampire would seek a soul. Buffy wins in Seeing Red. She not only is the physical victor pushing him off her, but also the emotional one - telling him why they can't be together, why it doesn't work - because there is no trust, their relationship is all about fighting for control, who gets to be on top and the reason he is so obsessed is time and again, she wins. She's better than he is. Her victory is that he goes to get a soul, which he does not so much out of love for her, although that is definitely part of it, but to show her up, to prove that he is as good as she is. Instead of the woman trying to prove herself to the man, showing the man she has balls, that she can drive the company, that she is as good if not better than he is, we have the man doing it. The man showing her that he can get and have a soul. In some religious societies - people believed woman were beneath men, because only men had souls. Here we have the reversal.
What fascinates me about many of the fanfics I've read regarding the relationship, is how many writers have attempted to switch it back to the status quo. Often putting Spike in control of the relationship. They can't handle him in the submissive role - yet that in a nutshell was what made the show and the character so fascinating. He didn't want to be the pawn of women, he didn't see himself as their pawn, yet that in effect was what he always became. Drusilla turns him into a demon, Drusilla then dumps him after 120 years, then Professor Walsh neuters him, Harmony leaves him (note it is Harmony who up and leaves Spike and kicks Spike out, not the other way around), then Buffy beats him up and makes him her follower. She's the one who outthinks him. When he gets his soul - the First takes the form of Buffy and Dru to whip him into shape, not Angelus or the Master. Using a song his sick mother used to sing to control him. From Drusilla to the First Evil, with Buffy in between, what was most interesting about the Spike character was how controlled and beaten into submission he was by the women in his life. That is the subversion, the kink, the weird twist in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And what makes the show in my humble opinion stand out from all the other tv shows I've seen. What is equally interesting is how that subversion continues to haunt and irritate the fanbase that adored the show and the relationship.
It was something said offhand in a recent fanfic discussion on livejournal - about how kinky it was to subvert the canonical Buffy/Spike relationship so that Spike was in control and Buffy was submissive. This threw me for a loop. How is this kinky, I thought? First off in about 99% of the romances and novels published in our entire history, the male is the one in control and the female is the submissive party - he's stronger than she is. We live in a patriarchial society, our presidents, leaders, rulers are men, with a few exceptions here and there. The accepted position for sex is the missionary pose - ie. the guy on top and the girl on the bottom. Also men are supposed to be the ones to initiate sex, it's considered kinky when they don't. And it is an accepted fact that a man can force a woman not the other way around. Men beat women into submission. The old cliche is the guy who will sleep with a girl then leave her the next morning, wondering if he'll ever call. In most S&M scenarios that have been written, the girl is the masochist or the submissive in the relationship. It's rarely the other way around. That's the traditional/conservative approach. It's certainly the way the romance writers write it and how you'll see it in erotica. It is rare to see the opposite. The kink is when we switch the two roles. Kinky is when the guy is being whipped by the girl and likes it.
What was interesting about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and one of the reasons I became obsessed with it in the later seasons, was how it tried to subvert this traditional view. Note I mention in later seasons, because to start out with, BTVS was pretty conventional in certain ways. The Buffy/Angel relationship certainly was. Nothing kinky or subversive about that. Angel was in control most of the time - he'd leave Buffy wanting more. He'd die, leaving Buffy to grieve his loss, if they had sex, which they did once, he was always on top, you never saw a woman riding old Angel. And he'd decide when to leave. Leaving her the next morning with not much more than a note. In fact all of Buffy's boyfriends, outside of Spike, were more or less written in the classic conventional mode. Riley - again always on top, in fact the reason Riley left Buffy was that he couldn't stay on top, when he became weaker than Buffy and their roles switched he lost interest and went off with the military. His relationship with the vamp whores shows that aspect of him - letting them take a bit, then pushing them roughly away, leaving them for his true girl friend. When the girl-friend calls him on it, he doesn't give her the chance to dump him, he dumps her instead and takes off with his military pals. Parker - again, the guy leaves the girl wanting more, he dumps her for his next conquest, seeing her as little more than a distraction.
But there's a subversion here, isn't there? Didn't the writers make Buffy stronger than the guys? Riley and Angel were the damsels not Buffy? Buffy had to save them, true. But it's not that subversive - since in traditional gothic romances and fairy tales - we often have a woman on a quest to save a man from the dark side of himself or from some woman who will entrap him. The misunderstood guy under the curse of the wicked witch. Everything from the Snow Queen to Rebecca explores this theme. Most gothic romances usually do. Actually I can't think of many that don't. So not very subversive or kinky.
Even Angel's curse isn't that kinky. It's a traditional device that keeps him and the heroine from ever being together. He makes love to her and experiences happiness in her arms, and whammo he's evil and leaves her miserable. (In other words he leaves satisfied, while she's wanting more and grieving his loss.) It's not until Angel left to do his own series that curse became somewhat interesting, up until that point it was more or less a plot device.
No, they didn't start getting a little kinky and subversive until they introduced Spike. At first Spike was written conventionally. Hot, seductive, a sexual predator. He was clearly in control - the lovely Drusilla who hung on his arm childlike. A doll that he supported. Spike was the brawn and the brains of this outfit. Dru could barely stand upright or speak in anything outside of rhymes and couplets. He was also the type who women fell over themselves to get close to. Bad girl Sheila went to him like a magnet. He seduced you, took his fill, then left you the next morning wanting more. And if the girl didn't succumb, he'd rape her. Even slayers feared Spike, since no woman could out-fight him. Always going home to his mother or the one woman in the world he'd protect. Very conventional character - to start.
Then they subverted it - each time Spike tried to fight Buffy, she won, she out-fought him, out-maneuvered him, out-quipped him. He'd met a woman who was not only his equal but possibly his better. The man who was used to loving and leaving them wanting more - got kicked in the balls. And then there was Dru who did the same thing to him, left him, so he grabbed control back and did the truce with Buffy. Got her back. For a while the writers and the audience believed that was how the story would go - the conventional route, Spike and Dru - Spike in control of Dru and Dru fighting him. But Juliet Landau couldn't do Lover's Walk and Juliet Landau wasn't available to reprise the character in Season 4, only Marsters was. So...the writers did something unconventional, kinky even. Buffy got to be on top and Spike got to be on the bottom. The guy who was used to controlling women since becoming a vampire, who was on top, who was the seducer - got seduced, fell for his enemy, got manipulated into helping the cause. Instead of Spike leaving Buffy wanting more, Buffy left Spike wanting more. Instead of Spike controlling their relationship, Buffy did. Instead of the guy dumping the girl, the girl dumped the guy. Instead of the guy leaving the girl in the dank-womblike cavern and walking up into the sunlight, the girl left the guy in the dank-like cavern. Instead of the guy beating the girl into submission, the girl beat the guy into submission. Instead of the guy initiating sex - the girl did. Instead of the guy leaping on the girl and riding her, the girl launched herself at him and rid him. Smashed was the first time a woman initiated violent sex on network TV. A woman rode on top. In most shows, we see the girl's skin, her heaving chest, and naked limbs - here it was all Spike. The invisibility fantasy is usually the male's - usually the guy becomes invisible and goes and has his way with the girl, rapes her even (see Hollow Man, or any number of other comedies and dramas playing with the idea). Here Buffy becomes invisible and goes and takes advantage of Spike - being naughty with the boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Leaving him feeling used. Rumor has it that the writers played with the idea of taking this a step further and have Buffy try to rape Spike, humilate him, but they couldn't make it work and realized it may be too subversive for the viewer to buy it. Also it was unlikely the audience would believe Spike needed the soul after this happened. (They were right. I have however, seen people play with the idea in fanfic. Herself did in Spike and the Ambiguities, as did two other writers in Hard Candy. They all did stop short though, didn't go all the way - allowed it to still have that conventional twinge. Spike would get control in the next chapter.)
Complete role reversial and it enthralled me. I'd never seen anyone do this.
What fascinated me even more was people's reactions to it. There were folks out there who despised it, thought it was horrid, wanted to go back to the Angel/Buffy or Buffy/Riley relationships. Others wanted Spike to go back to being evil, to being the guy in control. While still others wanted more of Buffy keeping Spike on the leash. What was going in the show was a unique gender role reversial and what was going on in the minds of the audience was a struggle with how to deal with that reversial, which happened on screen sexually, emotionally, and physically.
Seeing Red - the episode in which Spike loses all control and attempts to rape Buffy threw people - wait, they thought, isn't this a role reversial? Why go back to convention? I thought Buffy was the one physically in charge here? Well, she still is - if you watch the scene carefully - Spike doesn't get anything, except humilated and shown a reflection of himself that literally sends him careening off the edge of sanity. Because only an insane vampire would seek a soul. Buffy wins in Seeing Red. She not only is the physical victor pushing him off her, but also the emotional one - telling him why they can't be together, why it doesn't work - because there is no trust, their relationship is all about fighting for control, who gets to be on top and the reason he is so obsessed is time and again, she wins. She's better than he is. Her victory is that he goes to get a soul, which he does not so much out of love for her, although that is definitely part of it, but to show her up, to prove that he is as good as she is. Instead of the woman trying to prove herself to the man, showing the man she has balls, that she can drive the company, that she is as good if not better than he is, we have the man doing it. The man showing her that he can get and have a soul. In some religious societies - people believed woman were beneath men, because only men had souls. Here we have the reversal.
What fascinates me about many of the fanfics I've read regarding the relationship, is how many writers have attempted to switch it back to the status quo. Often putting Spike in control of the relationship. They can't handle him in the submissive role - yet that in a nutshell was what made the show and the character so fascinating. He didn't want to be the pawn of women, he didn't see himself as their pawn, yet that in effect was what he always became. Drusilla turns him into a demon, Drusilla then dumps him after 120 years, then Professor Walsh neuters him, Harmony leaves him (note it is Harmony who up and leaves Spike and kicks Spike out, not the other way around), then Buffy beats him up and makes him her follower. She's the one who outthinks him. When he gets his soul - the First takes the form of Buffy and Dru to whip him into shape, not Angelus or the Master. Using a song his sick mother used to sing to control him. From Drusilla to the First Evil, with Buffy in between, what was most interesting about the Spike character was how controlled and beaten into submission he was by the women in his life. That is the subversion, the kink, the weird twist in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And what makes the show in my humble opinion stand out from all the other tv shows I've seen. What is equally interesting is how that subversion continues to haunt and irritate the fanbase that adored the show and the relationship.
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-28 03:26 pm (UTC)I don't add you. Can't too many listings to keep up with as is.
Thank you. Yes, that was what was bugging me - the number of stories and essays I've seen online that
attempt to turn Buffy into less than a hero.
It would be one thing if we had a lot of female heros on television or the movies. Female action heros or even role models. But we don't. The movies that center on women tend to be - 1) she's hunting a man, 2) she wants to save a man. Very few go outside of that. Even Fantastic Four - Sue Storm will be the sidekick to Mr. Fantastic. Or the Incredibles, the female hero? Sidekick. She's marginalized.
On TV? It's even worse. Buffy was that rarity. Which is why I find it so disturbing that the fan base wants to remove her power and turn her into the good little wife or good little trooper. If she keeps her power? She's portrayed as a nasty bitch.