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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Part II..
Date: 2005-07-06 04:52 pm (UTC)ME had constructed a violent sexual relationship between Spike and Buffy that was based on one or the other coercing sex or initiating violent sex.
Since Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a horror series, Whedon often went to the dark side regarding sex, coupling it with violence, at times emphasizing the violence or dangerous sides of it - nothing new if you've read any adult graphic novels or seen adult horror movies or Japanese anime. Slasher movies are filled with men stabbing, raping and dismembering helpless and quite busty girls. The vampire genre - the vampire is always seducing and in effect raping the girl, using a vampiric thrall as the date-rape drug of choice. Whedon subverts the metaphor somewhat by having the girl wield a phallic stake. Each time a man attempts to violate her - she has the upper hand. This works throughout the series, until Seeing Red.
Why? I think the reason is what came before Seeing Red. We have Buffy in Smashed initiating violent sex with Spike, literally throwing him against a wall and unzipping him. Then again in Gone, throwing Spike against another wall and molesting him when he doesn't know who she is, etc. They switch roles in Doublemeat Palace and Dead Things - where we see Spike initiating violent sex with Buffy or coercing Buffy to have sex - the balcony scene, the handcuffs, and the sex scene against the wall of the fast food place. In each case - one party says no, the other forces them or manages in some way to convince them to change their mind. Gone is interesting since they take turns telling each other off, yet in Gone like all the other episodes up to and including As You Were, it's a tease.
Most people argue - but Buffy definitely broke up with him in As You Were. The problem with that argument is Spike has a point when he tells Buffy, "yeah, yeah, I've heard this tune before. I own the sheet music." He doesn't quite believe her. And she does a crappy job of convincing him. Her friends don't help - because they don't know. Next episode, Hell's Bells, she acts all jealous when he's with another girl. Episode after that? Normal Again. She takes time to talk to him, only pushing him aside when her friends show up - which indicates to Spike that her friends are the problem. It's the secret that is keeping them apart. Next episode, Entropy - she gets upset when he sleeps with Anya and acts like he cheated on her. Not only that, but she goes out of her way to prevent Xander from killing him. Then to make matters worse, Dawn shows up on his doorstep in the beginning of Seeing Red to tell him how much his sleeping with Anya hurt Buffy. Okay...from Spike's perspective, Buffy is clearly playing mind-games. The girl doesn't know what she wants. All he needs to do is reinact what happened in Smashed and things will be fine. That and the fact that Spike isn't exactly operating on all cylinders - he seems a little crazy when he enters her bathroom in Seeing Red, suicidial even. Spike probably sees the whole thing as a win-win operation, I either get her back or she stakes me. While this is not bad in of itself - I mean if the relationship were between Spike and a Chaos demon, I might have been okay with it. But - in a patriarchial society where a rapist often uses a victim's previous sexual history or worse, their sexual relationship as a defense, ie the whole "no means yes" scenario used as the defense in more than one date-rape, and gets away with it as a result. I have serious problems with ME playing around with the storyline.
It would have worked better, I think, if they stuck with the metaphor - and had Spike bite her. Avoided the rape-cliche that they fell into that disturbed both of us. And avoided confusing their audience by dropping all their metaphors then turning around and picking them up again.
Re: Part II..
Date: 2005-07-06 05:42 pm (UTC)I go back and forth on this. If they stick with the metaphor, and Spike bites her with the intent to turn (at least prior to having the example where he tried this with his mother and it failed to work in his favor) its largely instructive about the nature of monstrosity. If Spike goes and gets a soul after that act, there's pretty limited opportunity to go forward. He's got a soul, and things are good up to the point Buffy can disconnect the old hands that tried to kill her, from the new "man" he presents himself to be.
On the positive side, you get a story which really is about the heroine - about Buffy dealing with the course of action which put her in the position to be attacked as she is, and reconsidering how she can trust herself, and how she needs to act. And you get that clearn case - Spike gets a soul means Spike is fixed.
But the rape, which I think is certainly in character, is the act of a man, and not an act of a monster. And as such, gives us a chance to learn more about the man Spike is or wishes to be, than the Biting would. It's, to me, a more ambitious and challenging choice, so I do like that. Though I don't know that ME was really thinking that way at the time.
Because, as we know, as confusing as Buffy's behavior may have been to him, Spike makes a choice to follow her into that bathroom. Knowing she's confused, he looks to force issues rather than give space. Which, gives us a chance to tell us something about him as a person, specifically, that biting wouldn't. It gives him an agency in the act beyond the old standby of "Devil made me do it" and it gives him the opportunity to grow as a man rather than merely flicking an on/off monster switch.
I do think there's a certain dimunition of what we saw him as during S6. If on the one hand, he's just an animal ruled by passions, it's hard and unfair to really judge him too harshly. If he's a thinking individual who makes a choice between alternatives, or if he's a thinking individual who surrenders to his emotions as a way to avoid unpleasant thoughts... that gives him something personal to work on that is unique to him rather than general to any old vampire. And, to me that ultimately raises his ceiling as a character and makes him more interesting, simply because it means he's now got things he has the choice to work on.
But the ambitiousness of that, for me, makes his S7 treatment more critical - and I just never saw the flaws as a man thing addressed nearly as well as I'd hoped until he hit AtS. Where the writing focus was genrally more directed toward how Angel's flaws as a man, more than just his flaws due to vampire nature, were the issues to be conscious of.
Again, because that's just how my brain ticks, and what works for me. Which, doesn't work for others, so MMV and such. It's a case where, I think ME's overall story is richer for making that choice. Whereas the close of BtVS6 and S7 is poorer for it because they biffed the follow through.
Re: Part II..
Date: 2005-07-06 07:52 pm (UTC)Women, for the coping reasons again, want to make it the act of the monster. If we can separate the act from the person, see it as a violent monstrous one, we can cope with it and take the subway at night. (Case in point - before you guys came to NYC, there had been at least two violent rapes on the F subway line to Queens in the early morning hours. Suffice it to say, I did not feel comfortable taking the subway home from Queens late at night, hence my reasons for leaving early. ) So every time someone mentioned this was the act of a man not a monster - I felt myself want to scream. Why? Because it's easier to cope with the idea of rape if we see it as the act of a monster, it makes it possible for us to be around men.
While Seeing Red was written by Stephan DeKnight, the rape sequence was written by Marti Noxon and she wrote it deliberately from the point of view of the attacker taking her own experience - in which she attacked her male lover. This is interesting to note - because it goes to what I was saying above about how women make rape the act of the monster. I can't help but wonder if the writer didn't think of it in the same vein.
Whedon didn't however. Which is why he planned on bringing Spike back and wanted him on Angel - he couldn't deal with the issue the way he wanted to on Buffy's show - because your point of view is Buffy's.
The woman's pov is to see the act as that of a monster. The man's pov is to see it as the act of a man. Which is why Lies My Parents Told Me and Never Leave Me feel jarring. In both - Spike makes the point that he did rape women. That he knows, as Angel knew in Amends, that his actions are not those of the monster, that they are in effect his own. "There's no one else," he tells her. Just as Angel tells her, "its the man who needs killing."
I agree with you - the choice to do the rape actually does make the character more interesting and with the possible exception of Lessons through Never Leave Me and Lies My Parents Told Me - we don't get much exploration of what that means, but again we are largely inside Buffy's pov and we wouldn't. What drove Spike to attempt to rape Buffy may in some respects be the same thing that turned him into a vampire in the first place and caused him to kill his mother - but Buffy won't see that so we don't. It's not really until Destiny and Damage that we get a glimspe of it. What was it? I think it was the desperate need to be loved - and the view that love was something to be taken not necessarily given. He doesn't learn what love is until he meets Buffy. Until then he sees love more as possession, something one owns. The people he loves are things of beauty that he writes poetry about, adores, possesses - much in the same way men in the Victorian age believed they possessed/owned women in all those penny dreadfuls. It's the child's view of love or rather the adolescent male's. I must possess my beloved. The adult realizes that it is not the case. When he meets Buffy and gets that soul, he grows up a bit and begins to recognize that - but we don't really see much of that recongition or the exploration of what drove him there until he shows up on Angel. (Which is why I sort of wish we got a Season 6. )
Re: Part II..
Date: 2005-07-06 07:56 pm (UTC)Re: Part II..
Date: 2005-07-06 08:32 pm (UTC)the rape sequence was written by Marti Noxon and she wrote it deliberately from the point of view of the attacker taking her own experience - in which she attacked her male lover. This is interesting to note - because it goes to what I was saying above about how women make rape the act of the monster. I can't help but wonder if the writer didn't think of it in the same vein.
I can understand the man/moster disassociation. The guy who carjacked me, I'm sure had inner demons. And if I wanted to have further interaction with him, I'd want to be able to see these "inner demons" as something that could be seperated and defeated leaving behind someone who possesed positive traits, but absent that negative component that jacked me.
But while I'm sympathetic to all that... he's the man who couldn't manage those "inner demons" such that he jacked me. And I'd rather not have to be responsible for fixing his demons on my time. That's for him to do.
I also wonder how it's a different thing to disassociate the act of someone else then it is to disassociate your own act from yourself, but I'm not sure what it means. And inasmuch as MN was writing this based upon her own prior actions, it sort of leads me to look down the path of psychoanalyzing MN but it's probably best that I not.
Re: Part II..
Date: 2005-07-07 05:00 pm (UTC)The problem is partly a societal one - society still blames the victim for the rape. The girl lead the guy on, she teased him, she wore a certain type of clothing, etc. So she blames herself - sees herself as the cause of the act. Truth is, she's not responsible, any more than Buffy was responsible for Spike's actions in the bathroom. What motivated Spike to attack Buffy had very little to do with Buffy herself - Lies My Parents Told Me as well as Fool for Love speak to that, demonstrating it's his inner demon that drives him to it. His desire to possess the beloved in a physical way even if it requires force, thinking that if he makes her, he'll have her, connect - not understanding that ironically doing this costs him any chance to truly connect to her.
The other problem with rape is the attacker isn't a stranger. In most cases it's someone the victim knows, may even be in a close relationship with - the instances of spousal rape/date rape are alarmingly high. So the victim often stays silent. Believes it is their responsibility to fix the other party. That they are responsible for the behavior.
You see a little of that going on with Buffy in Conversations with Dead People - she feels responsible for what is going on with Spike. But she isn't, not really. It's not Buffy's fault that Spike looked to her for his own self-worth. That he used her as a sort of internal mirror, if you will. Buffy did use Spike, true. But he also let her do it. Granted he had no moral compass at the time and she did, ie. she's the adult, he's the child. But - by the same token, not all vampires sleep with the slayer, not all vampires want the slayers approval, or worry over the approval of others. I think becoming a vampire in the Whedon universe exaggerates all the human beings insecurities and weaknesses - which are the weaknesses that lead people to do horrible things to one another. It's our own inner demons that cause us to lash out and hurt someone else, I think, not necessarily something the other person has done. Although, their actions can certainly trigger ours.
I also wonder how it's a different thing to disassociate the act of someone else then it is to disassociate your own act from yourself, but I'm not sure what it means.
What makes it even more complicated is when you have to disassociate the act of someone else from yourself - which is the case with Buffy and Spike. OR even Angel and Buffy. Buffy blames herself for Angel becoming Angelus. But it had nothing to do with Buffy - Buffy didn't cause Angel to become crazy, that was all Angel. But she can't disassociate the two. The same thing with Buffy and Spike, when Spike attempts to rape her, gets a soul, goes nuts, is manipulated by the first - Buffy is once again tempted to blame herself. Take responsibility.
But it has nothing to do with her. These two vampires came to Buffy with a 100 years worth of baggage, some of it familial. Their attraction to her, their pursuit of her, and how they deal with her - has a lot to do with that baggage. For Angel/Angelus - his dealings with Buffy have a heck of a lot to do with Darla and how Darla treated him, as well as Dru, and his own family. Same thing with Spike - Spike's relationship with Buffy has a lot to do with his relationship with Dru, Angel, his mother and other unknown factors. What people forget is whenever you meet someone they bring along baggage.
By the same token, Spike and Angel aren't responsible for how Buffy relates to them. The reasons why she pursues or gets involved with them have a lot to do with her own relationship with the demons inside her not to mention her relationship with the father who abandoned her. If you watch Nightmares, you'll note that Buffy's father says a very similar speech to the one Angelus gives her in Innocence. That's just one example. "Why do men always leave?" She askes - more to the point, "why did one man leave?"