BTVS/ATS Redux - the mother/son angle

[shadowkat]

Every once and a while someone out there posts a little gem that explains exactly why something I watched, read, or heard captivated me.

Here's the latest - and it's about a series that one would think after all this time would have lost its allure for me, it hasn't and partly for the reasons discussed in selenak's essay on The Fanged Four.

In an essay regarding the Fanged Four or Angel/Spike/Drusilla/Darla of the Buffy and Angel series, selenak discusses how Whedon and his writers ultimately flipped previous television and book models regarding the vampire/gothic genre on their heads. Normally it's the guy who sired everyone. Hence the word "sire" as in patriach or father-figure. Look up the word in the dictionary - according to the American Heritage Dictionary - the first definition is "a father", the next: "form of address for a male superior esp. a king." Whedon in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series uses the word for men and women. Spike to Angel in School Hard: "You were my sire, my yoda" - possibly meaning "father" "king" and "teacher" all wrapped into one. Yet late in the episode "Fool For Love" it was Dru, a female, who "sired" him. Just as in "Angel" it is revealed that it was Darla that sired Angel.

Previously in the gothic tradition - Dracula through Ann Rice and even Forever Knight, the guy does all of the siring, only in a few instances is it a woman. And as selenak points out in his/her essay the most interesting bit is how we regard the incestuous relationships - while our society seems to half accept, even embrace the older male/younger female dynamic, we struggle with the older female/younger male. Marilyn Monroe's song - "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" is considered a sexual turn-on and hot. But how about a guy singing "My Heart Belongs to Mommy?" You never hear it. It squicks us.

Yet, and this is one of the things I adored about the later years of BTVS and ATS and why both series fascinate me - Whedon did something few writers attempt, he paralleled the Daddy/Little Girl and the Mommy/Little Boy relationships. Buffy is shown aching for her missing father in the first three seasons of Buffy, Dru talks all about Daddy - referencing Angel who in some regards takes Buffy's father's place in her heart - he takes her ice skating on her birthday, he visits her at night and tucks her in bed, he acts as a protector, he remains mysterious about his background, etc. On Buffy's seventeenth birthday - when she comes of age, she sleeps with Angel - who up until now has been doing the things her father did. That's when she loses him - the moment they sleep together - which in reality would be what would happen if a girl slept with her father or father-figure. See Lolita, which is heavily referenced in the latter half of the season specifically in the flashback sequences of Becoming - when Angel looks upon Buffy for the first time, in pigtails sucking on a lollipop much as James Mason's Professor looks upon Lolita in the Stanley Kubrick adaptation of the famous novel - where the girl is slightly older than she is in the book, around 16 as opposed to 14.

This bit would not be interesting to me, because I've seen it done before in gothic novels most recently Ann Rice, if it weren't for the fact that the writers decide to do the same thing with the boys in the later half of Angel and Buffy. In S4 Angel Apocalypse Nowish and S7 Buffy Lies My Parents Told Me - Connor, Spike, and Wood clearly have a thing for Mommy. And in effect ache to do the same thing Buffy did with Angel, with dire consequences. Connor sleeps with Cordelia - who is to Connor in some respects what Angel was to Buffy, she's about five years older than him in the scene - 22 to Connor's 17. Angel has the aspect of a 26 year old (even if he is 240 in actuality), she has acted as a mother figure, yet is not his mother physically. She has protected him. And he, like Buffy did with Angel, in some ways sees her as a subsitute but knows deep down she can't be, so like Buffy, the sex does not feel wrong to him even though like Buffy the sex results in dire consequences. The fans at the time this was shown were squicked, none more so than, and this is highly ironic, the B/A shippers. The fact that the writers went there and more to the point underlined the similarities, even to the extent that they mentioned them offhand in interviews and commentary fascinated and intrigued me. Hah! I thought, at last, a television show that does not cater to its fan base, who respects its fan base enough to pull back the curtain and examine something we may not want to see regarding our own attitudes towards gender politics.

Meanwhile over on Buffy, we are told that Spike has repressed feelings for his own mother, which Drusilla, then finally Buffy act as substitutes. He transfers what he felt for her to Buffy, much as Buffy transfers her feelings for her own father to Angel, Riley and finally Spike. Giles and Joyce - the real parental figures on the show remain at a distance, disappearing when the sex crops up. And when the relationship gets too intense or serious, pop up to attempt to break it apart, the voice of reason as it were - first Joyce in Season 3, telling Angel to leave before he destroys Buffy - she is more upfront and less violent in her approach. Trusting Angel to see reason. Giles on the other hand, is under-handed and secretive, he enlists the aid of Wood in an attempt to remove Spike permanently from the scene. But unlike Joyce, Giles fails and Spike stays with Buffy through the end.

With Connor/Cordy and Spike/Buffy we see two different results - both end in death, one the mother/daughter's and one the son/father's. Connor is both father and son in the Cordy/Connor storyline - giving birth to Jasmine who is both his daughter yet also his Queen or sire.
Spike is both father and son in the Buffy/Spike storyline - the older man who guides her, knight to Buffy's Queen, yet also her child, her creation in how he obtains the soul and sacrifices himself finding redeemption ultimately in her eyes. Both Cordy and Buffy look at their men and encourage them to do what they wish with the simple words - I believe in you.
Both to a degree worship at their alter. And both are sacrificed, only to live in a different way. Connor to live the life of a human, Spike as a ghost.

The writers explore within these relationships all the variables of the male love for mommy and the mother love for son. So much has been written about father/son regarding Angel, but what fascinated me most about the series was the mother/son dynamic and how that dynamic contrasted and paralleled what was being shown in the parent show it was spun off from.
By the same token while Angel can be seen as Buffy's father figure, Buffy can be seen as Angel's mother figure - the mother to his knighthood. Up until he meets Buffy, Angel is shown as a miscreant, a failure, a gutter dweller - it is not until he sees her that he begins his journey towards champion. Darla may have given birth to Angelus, but Buffy gave birth to Angel. Even his soul is given to him by a woman - a gypsey. It's why he can't be with either, for the same reason a mother cannot live forever with her son, or a daughter with her father, yet by the same token clearly aches to be. The Freudian knot untangled and revisited in a new and intriguing way.

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, given the commentary track by Fury for LMPTM the mother issues (and naming her Anne) were something Joss wanted to make explicit in that episode. I think you're right that there were definitely maternal Oedipal issues in the two series that get discussed less often than the father issues both the titular characters have. In fact outside of discussions of Spike and the LMPTM episode they rarely seem to be raised, so I enjoyed reading your discussion.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It's the reason selenak's post hit me the way it did. I've read so many essays regarding Angel and his authority/paternal issues - heck even wrote a few, that I've grown bored of it. And lost interest in the series, seeing it to be yet another take on an old topic. Most noir and detective serials are ultimately about Daddy issues - which has its roots in Judeo-Christian doctrine. Honoring the paternal god. While it's definitely in the series - to the point you'd have to be blind death and dumb not to see it, I think there was an underlying maternal theme as well that I think to a degree squicked and bothered most viewers. We certainly see it in Season 4 with Jasmine, and in Season 3 with both Darla and Cordelia.

And I can't help but wonder if part of Darla's appeal to Liam - who sees her as a way out of his hum-drum life - is that he may in effect be motherless, aching for the strong female. Yet even with Darla he competes with the father/authority figure for her attentions. Very Oedipal. And note his lurking outside the Master's lair in S1 Buffy, never quite courageous enough to take the Master down himself - the closest he gets is slaying his mother-lover - Darla, which he also struggles with.

[yourlibrarian]

Some shows seem to hammer on the theme as if it passes for character development. My SO and I are currently watching DVDs of Brisco County Jr. which he enjoyed when it first aired. They seem to use the subject of his daddy issues like a hammer -- it almost seems a requirement to state them outright in each episode. (Luckily the series has a few other redeeming qualities)

Poor character development aside, I always found the Connor/Cordelia reaction curious. I thought S4 in general had problems, but the Cordelia and Connor in it were so far from the infant and woman in the early part of S3 (and really, how could Connor be expected to see her as a mother figure when he hardly knew the real her as an adolescent) that I really didn't see what the big deal was. I thought her treatment of Connor post-sex was far more troubling given what a damaged individual he was.

And note his lurking outside the Master's lair in S1 Buffy, never quite courageous enough to take the Master down himself

That's an interesting point. Of course Darla never really broke away from her father figure -- she left with Angelus but he had to fight for her. And he never liked her visits to him (given his "Master's pet" line in "Destiny"). Perhaps it was Buffy's very defiance of everything she should have done in relation to him that made her so irresistible.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Some shows seem to hammer on the theme as if it passes for character development.

Exactly. Supernatural has gone overboard. Smallville. Star Gate.
BattleStar Galatica - Adama/Lee. Rarely do we get the mother bit looked at it. I don't know if this is because of who is writing, if it is a side-effect of cultural/religious influences, or the fact that we do, like it or not, live in a partriarchial society. Bring up mom and people reacte oddly. She should be relegated to the background, the woman who waits, who watchs, who grieves but is not a direct participant except in a supporting role. What I found interesting about BTVS and ATS and to an extent Firefly, was how Whedon did not fall into that formulae. He's one of the few writers who hasn't and his refusal to do so has influences others - amongst them Jim Butcher (whose Harry keeps trying to treat women that way and keeps getting corrected), Ron Moore (creation of Starbuck as female and the President - the head of the government, also female),
Shondra Rhimes - whose Grey's Anatomy focuses on a female surgeon's relationship with her surgeon mother.

Poor character development aside, I always found the Connor/Cordelia reaction curious.

I remember getting into trouble on one of the posting boards I was on at the time for pointing out that the relationship really was no different than Angel and Buffy boinking. They had the same gap in age, after all. And Connor looked at Cordy in much the same way as Buffy looked at Angel. Also Angel turned evil after sex with Buffy just as Cordy appears to become evil after sex with Connor (we get no indication she is before that although she could be.) Connor is 17/Cordy 22-26. Buffy is 17 and Angel 22-26.

Part of the problem was the actress - Charisma was squicked by the idea because she was pregnant in reality and closer to 30 and VK was in reality closer to 17. But when Boreanze got it on with Gellar - Gellar was in reality 17 and Boreanze was 26 or 27 and married. Sooo..
why the problem?

Tim Minear really got into trouble for making a snarky comment about in an interview - stating that well, it's really no different than B/A and just as bad as B/A. Having to back-pedal, of course.

Of course Darla never really broke away from her father figure -- she left with Angelus but he had to fight for her. And he never liked her visits to him (given his "Master's pet" line in "Destiny"). Perhaps it was Buffy's very defiance of everything she should have done in relation to him that made her so irresistible.

This bit has always fascinated me. Why can't he defeat the Master?
Is it and I really wonder if this might be the case - tied into the same reason that he as Angelus would never seek out a soul, that Angelus was obsessed with being the most evil thing out there? And as Angel the best Champion in the world? He's less interested in "helping" or "saving" the world then he really is in being recognized for it. Getting the ever elusive thing - "approval". Buffy on the other hand manages to exist without it. She does not expect approval for her actions. And will often go against the authority figure. It's why she beats the first evil, caleb, glory, the master, and all the others - she finds the acceptance inside - she unlike Angel is not looking towards an external source. She doesn't ask for the award - like Jonathan does. And is surprised when they give it to her, touched even. But never seeking it. This is something Angel does not understand.

[yourlibrarian]

Well given that most of the writers are men it seems to me this:
She should be relegated to the background, the woman who waits, who watchs, who grieves but is not a direct participant except in a supporting role
is not only a way of avoiding her altogether but of also avoiding the one characterization you didn't include which was shrewish/annoying. The gender power issues are indeed hard to avoid when you bring a real mother into the mix as opposed to a shadow character and nothing makes a man's posturing of manliness less convincing than to have it done in the presence of his mother.

Gellar was in reality 17 and Boreanze was 26 or 27 and married
Actually she was 19 when the series started and Kartheiser was 22 that season, so it was a 9 yr difference in both cases. Far more striking is Gellar and Marsters which is something that is also rarely raised.

He's less interested in "helping" or "saving" the world then he really is in being recognized for it. Getting the ever elusive thing - "approval". Buffy on the other hand manages to exist without it.

That's an interesting point, yes. The whole issue of "duty" is very different between them.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Sure she was 19? I remember reading she'd had her 18th or 17th birthday around the time it began. I know she was barely 16 on All My Children - which was somewhat controversial considering the storyline (sleeping with her step-brother and accusing her step-father of rape).
Could be wrong.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, because she had to be of age for filming purposes since anyone under 18 has to work restricted hours, and the show began filming in 1996. In fact the casting director once discussed how Katie Holmes had been a candidate for the series but they couldn't use her because she was underage and the filming conditions for the series would make it impossible to work around her restrictions.