"No Future for You" or my review of issue one of the Faith arc

[shadowkat]

Just grabbed issue one of the Faith arc - written by Brian K. Vaughan (of Lost, Y - The Last Man, Ex-Machina, [edited:DMZ - is actually by Brian Wood - thanks londonkds], and Runaways fame) and art by Georges Jeanty ( who has gotten a tad better in this issue or maybe I've just gotten used to him?).

Killed my feet getting the issue. Own fault - decided to wear new sneaks with low ankle socks, so as a result they rubbed pretty horridly against the back of my ankles - bad enough to have burst the blisters and gotten spots of blood on them. Gnarly to say the least. Not to mention stupid, since it's an oven outside and I should have just worn sandles - but I was trying to protect the soles my heel which have been giving me all sorts of problems lately. One of the prices of getting older is the body starts complaining about things it used to do as a matter of routine - such as walking long distances on hard hot concrete in sandles.

At any rate - when reading these comics it is important to keep in mind that they are written, produced, edited, drawn, and overseen by men. Narley (not) a female in the bunch unless you count Jane Espenson - who is slated to write, not plot mind you, write, possibly one or two comics and knowing Jane they'll probably focus on some supporting or subsidiary character and have little to do with the main arc or for that matter Jo Chen who does the paintings for the alternate covers - paintings I believe are approved and selected primarily by Whedon - so that hardly counts. This is not by the way a fault of the comic - it just happens to be the nature of the biz, and not just the comic book business but a good portion of the entertainment industry, not to mention the world at large. Heck - I work in a games company that makes games targeted at 30 something women, but is run by men. Like it or not, ladies and gents, we live in a patriarchial society, and being such, it is bound to be a bit on the authoritarian and violent side of the fence, it has been that way since well before Jesus Christ started preaching in the Middle East and I seriously doubt it's going to change in my lifetime. We can either scream and shout and throw a hissy fit over it, or we can accept it, and enjoy the parts that don't make us too crazy. I seriously doubt if the roles were flipped, ie. we were a matriarchial society with women running and doing everything - life would be much better. I keep hoping for a society of equals...but I don't see it happening any time soon. We are getting there, but it is taking a very long time - since people tend to be extremists by nature and really hate change.



So...it is not at all surprising to me that comic reads a bit like a male fantasy of Pgymallion** starring every little boy's favorite bad girl - Faith. Brian K. Vaughan feels much the same way about Faith that I do about Spike. The two characters are a lot a like in some respects - both represent the archetypal misunderstood, all narly on the outside bad girl/bad boy with a heart of gold. And I'll give Vaughan loads of credit - he writes Faith amazingly well - not to mention Giles, Xander, and Buffy - far better in my opinion than Whedon.

There's something to be said for a writer who happens to be a fan of a character - they tend to be more well-versed on the character's background that the writer who created them is - weird I know, but very common when it comes to comics and tv shows. I think part of the problem is the narrative structure of the two art forms - they take place over a long period of time, have multiple stories and installments and you'd need an encyclopedia to remember everything. Continuity? Pshaw. You try overseeing the writing of 155 episodes of a network tv series or a major comic book with mulitple writers, actors, artists, producers, and editors and see how well you do. Having worked with or watched online collaborative writing projects and watched people on fanboards disagree - somewhat vehmently- on what has occurred on-screen regarding something as simple as whether or not Xander over-heard Anya tell Buffy where Willow had gone in the last episode of S6, entitled Grave. Apparently it all depended on how quickly your affliate cut to commerical on whether or not you saw it. So I don't worry that much about continuity in regards to tv shows or comics - as long as it is on target about 75% or even 65% of the time? I'm happy. More than that? They've got superhuman powers and I'm in awe or a wickedly good filing system. (Which is why Whedon's response to the letter writer who wanted to know how the First could pretend to be Warren if he wasn't really did, made me giggle. "I forgot, okay!?" - LOL! I could have told her that. I honestly think he forgot most of what he wrote - people hate to break your bubble, but Whedon didn't have a plan when he wrote that series, he made it up as he went, like most tv writers have to do. TV is too fast, too furious, too grueling and too unpredictable to make a plan - sort of like life come to think of it. Those who try often get screwed.

At any rate - I liked this issue a lot better than The Long Way Home. Brian K Vauhan's dialogue and story-writing skills remind me of Brian Lynch's - and cements my opinion that maybe we need new blood? Also maybe, Whedon, works better as a producer/diretor, script-doctor, than actual hands on writer? OR maybe I just find the story more interesting than Whedon's? Whedon has a tendency to get on a soap box and preach, while some of the other writers appear to just want to have some fun exploring the characters. And Whedon's over-arching message is still visible within the pages of the comic. It's pretty much an echo of what I said above - we live in an authoritarian society where men rule and fear to an extent powerful women. It's an amusing message considering the book is written, edited, drawn, and produced by men. Makes me almost want to go up to the guy and say - look if you are so keen on this whole female empowerment/feminist bit - why not employ a few women on your comic books? Hire a female artist? Or a female editor? Or maybe, cough, get a few female writers involved - I know there's a couple out there who would kill to write a Buffy comic. Maybe even have one of them help you plot one? Hello!
In short - he's basically writing a male feminist fantasy piece about powerful and beautiful girls who are lusted after by geeky guys yet ultimately controlled and threatened by men (often the geeky guys grown up) - feels a bit like an oxymoron, and incredibly amusing - that is if you happen to have my ironic sense of humor.

Ignoring all of that - the story was quite entertaining. Faith has apparently parted ways with Robin Wood. Not surprising. Wood was a smug and somewhat patronizing ass. (And no, I don't think that because of how he felt about vampires or Spike, I felt that way about Wood before he ever met Spike or we found out his back story.) At any rate, knowing Faith's background - her tolerance of Wood wouldn't have lasted long. He'd have tried to control her, she'd have come close to strangling him for it - and that would have been it. (By the way - a Faith/Spike/Wood tv series would have been interesting if just for the on-going conflict between the three main characters. Those are three people I would not want to put in a room together for an extended period of time. Keeping Spike a ghost for a bit would have at least kept the fisticuffs down.) In short - Wood represents the very authority that makes Faith want to scream bloody murder. The fact that she sleeps with Xander, Riley and Wood - is interesting. Xander - the boy virgin - the weakling. Riley - the solider - the guy who protects the little woman with his big gun. And Wood - Mr. Prinicipal - the guy who would have suspended her. All would have had power over her if she was not a slayer.

The fact Wood sends her off to kill kiddy vampires is fitting and does do a good job of nailing the coffin on their relationship or what little was left of it. Vaughan in nifty short-hand tells us all we need to know about it - in that one key stroke. While it is possible Wood didn't know the kids were vamps, it is unlikely knowing Wood's own background and expertise. The fact he does not want his slayers in training to deal with it, or himself, and asks Faith - re-emphasizes Faith's retort to Giles - you come after me whenever you need your dirty work done. Gile's rejoinder? You're not the only one who hurt an innocent or the only one to pay for your past. We're a lot a like you and I. We both have to pay. Giles remains one my favorite characters - and still underutilized. I started watching the show for him, gave up briefly when I realized he wasn't going to be used much, and came back when I found other things to like in it. The character has facets that have never been completely explored. His dark side for one. The feeling that he misses the old world - the one in which he and his brethren controlled the slayer and sat on the sidelines while she took on the monsters and ultimately got killed. A role - we see echoed by Roden - the villian of the piece. Note - the villian isn't really the Slayer Gigi, but in reality her co-hort, Warlock, who is egging her on. Continuing the thematic arc of men attempting to run the show - using women, here, slayers as weapons. Giles using Faith, Roden using Gigi. When in reality the two who should be duking it out so to speak are Giles and Roden.

Meanwhile - back in Scotland - we get a little interlude with shirtless Xander - who looks much better in the comics than he did on the screen in the later seasons, I can see why Xander fans were not fans of Seasons 6-7, those seasons were not kind to Nicholas Brendan who was playing the role. Anywho - Xander and Buffy discuss the big mysterious baddie entitled Twilight. Xander's book anthology confused me at first - I kept linking it to the book with the twilight symbol that Roden was holding. Then realized the misplaced book he said that Giles wasn't focused on was Buffy, while the new books Giles was shelving were all the other slayers. Another reference to the male/female dynamic. Women are books to be placed on the shelf - to be pulled out only when needed. An analogy, Xander, quickly back-peddles out of.

Then we are back to Giles and Faith - whom Giles has convinced to learn the nicieties of the British class system which he insists are far harder to navigate than the American one - he may be right. (By the way - for anyone who is remotely curious - the Yanks, us Americans - are as obsessed with class as the Brits, just in a different way. Trust me - if you weren't raised knowing which fork to pick up, who to sit where, and the proper titles - it stands out in the States as well. True you can get up to the top of the ladder from dirt poor roots, but you'll never get into the inner circle without knowing the proper etiguette. In short? People can be unbelievably snooty/snobby regardless of what corner of the planet they happen to originate from - it's a human quality not a cultural one.)
Faith dresses up as a proper lady, complete with prom dress ballgown designed to make men swoon - due to the low cut clevage. And Giles decides upon one look at it - she's a success.

Again - with the male/female dynamic. The female power is in cunning/subterfuge and well being pretty. When Faith says she knows wet-works better than Giles and doesn't need the lessons. HE states - if it just required that, he'd go with his rifle and take her out. No, we require, cunning, subterfuge, getting you in the inner circle - hence the Pygmallion routine.

Like I said at the get-go, if you read the book as a male fantasy piece it's actually quite enjoyable. If you try to see it as furthering whatever message Whedon thinks he's conveying about female empowerment? You may find yourself rolling your eyes and chuckling a bit.
Either way, worth the two bucks. And I'll buy the next one.



* Added: Don't know how many people have read the original Pygmallion play by George Bernard Shaw? Shaw for those who haven't read the playwrite was a biting political and social satirist and wrote interesting plays about the male/female dynamic, politics, and the class system such as Major Barbara. His most famous play may be Pgymallion which was later turned into the sucessful if less biting musical My Fair Lady, (after his death - since he hated musicalizations of his works and prohibited them, once dead they became public domain and he lost control) - which loses some of the satire of the original in translation as do all the fantasy pieces that follow including the Julia Roberts vehical Pretty Woman - which was originally intended to be far darker and more biting in nature before Disney acquired the property. The original title - For $2,000 Dollars or something along those lines.

At any rate in the original play - Eliza is turned from a hard working and happy street seller - with a hard working family, she's part of the lower class. Higgins, on a bet, turns her into a "lady" - but she has no money and no real social standing. So she marries a man, who is weak but pretty with no real ability to get a job and since she isn't from money and he's not the eldest - she ends up supporting him off of a small stipend at a flower shop - that she's gotten a job at. Sure she can speak beautifully and has wonderful manners - but she is never accepted. And her husband is not the hard working man that she may have met if she'd never met Higgins. Is she happier? Did Higgins do her any favors? Or was it just to stroke Higgins own pride? In Shaw's play - Higgins is a bit of a monster. Yet, Eliza chooses to do it. She believes she'd be better off in that flower shop.

What is fascinating to me regarding it - is Shaw satirizes the fantasy - both male and female. The idea of changing your exterior to get the better life. Is it possible?
If I change what I look like, how I behave, how I talk, how I walk, how I dress - will I get ahead? I become what you want - will I have the better life? To me - this is a nightmare, because somewhere along the way you lose yourself much as poor Eliza does under Higgins care. Yet, part of me fantasizes about it - wonders if I can get the makeover. If I looked like this or cut my hair like that or changed my accent...
In an era of plastic surgery and other medical procedures - Shaw's Pygmallion may be worth a second look.

Comments

[liliaeth]

This is probably the least bad of the Buffy s8 comics so far, (mostly cause I can't think of a positive thing to say about the previous issues).

But I still think that this series lacks the heart of the show.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

The Pygmalion thing is such a cliche I couldn't think of anything to say about it in my post but this is all interesting. You may be disappointed to hear that there's an online interview (http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=11765) with Whedon and Vaughan which sounds as if Vaughan isn't going to be doing anything further after this arc - he says this is the last time he intends to work on a series where he isn't the creator.

Small thing - Vaughan doesn't write DMZ, that's Brian Wood.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. They sort of just breeze by that bit, don't they? This is your swansong ...let's move on. I can see why though - he's currently working on Lost and not the creator of that, doing both can be hard. I don't write well under someone else's dictates or demands - remember trying it once and it was NOT fun. So can't fault Vauhan for having the same problems. Wondering how Lynch is handling it? Probably not as hard - from what I've read, Whedon seems content to let Lynch handle most of the heavy lifting over on Angel S6 - After the Fall - Whedon was never as invested in the Angel series - that was more Greenwalt and Minear's baby than it really was Whedon's. Not saying he didn't care about it - just that he seems to be less invested in it and content to let others play with it without too much direction.

Also thanks for the DMZ correction. My comic book store confused me - they put the DMZ books in with the Brian K Vaughan. ;-)

Agreed - Pgymallion is a cliche. But I can see why they went there. It's a great metaphor and ...part of the reason it's become a cliche is well,
for reasons that escape me - people seem to think that's what young girls want in a movie or fantasy piece. Every girl movie is about "makeover" or being "made over" into a princess or some popular girl that a guy dreams over. Very few jump outside of that - like Heathers or Mean Girls or Buffy or Freaks and Geeks, Square Pegs, Dead Like Me, My So Called Life and Tru Calling. And the over-arching theme of this series is about how men can't handle strong powerful women - how they keep trying to control them or put them in their place. Note how Faith tells Giles that she's more knowledgable than he is about wetworks? Causing him to respond somewhat snappishly that he could have taken the girl out with his rifle?
She's basically reminded him that she's better at a typical male task than he is. So what does he do? Insist that he can teach her how to be a lady? LOL! Going back the old princess fantasy - that has become a Hollywood cliche - based on a biting social commentary by George Bernard Shaw. (The original script is no My Fair Lady - it's quite dark actually and says some nasty things about the class system.)

[kiwikatipo.livejournal.com]

That is a fascinating insight into what is basically wrong with BtVs. It's a male geeks dream of what women should be.

Onto comic, it puzzles me that Faith is still in the United States in the first place, why not Canada or Mexico.

Giles says it would be illegal for her to get a fake passport and leave but why isn't she in jail? Has the council been sending her an allowance to live hiding in Cleveland?

There are a lot of questions still to be answered.

I hope Faith screws Giles both figuratively and literally. Completes her mission, makes him fall in love with her and then walks out the door, walks out on him and starts her new life.

It was mostly Giles fault Faith fell off the rails in the first place, alone and isolated in her vile motel unit. If she was under eighteen by Californian law Faith should have had a legal guardian and been forced to attend High School.

If she was over eighteen at the time 1999 (which I personally believe she was) she was being dicked around by the Council and she knew it.

Giles has never been blamed and held accountable for Faith's failure and he should have been.

[(Anonymous)]

That is a fascinating insight into what is basically wrong with BtVs. It's a male geeks dream of what women should be.

I'm not sure I'd go that far. Unlike the comic books - BTVS did have female writers, producers, actors, and head-writers involved. Marti Noxon came on board in S2 and took over as co-head-writer with Fury in S6 and 7.

Also, I like the idea of women taking on the "protector" role as opposed to the "maternal" role which so many female fanfic writers insist on putting them in. Buffy has to get married and have babies, as if there are no other options. At least Whedon didn't do that - he let her be the fighter. And for some of us, myself included, that's a breath of fresh air.
And one of the reasons I stopped reading romance novels - no longer could identify with the characters.

Buffy? I could identify with. She wanted to protect. To save. To fight.
To strategize. Not be the support system, the researcher, the mom.

That said, you can see a distinct difference between the male take and female just in how the work appeared on screen and how it appears in the comics.

Onto comic, it puzzles me that Faith is still in the United States in the first place, why not Canada or Mexico.

Giles says it would be illegal for her to get a fake passport and leave but why isn't she in jail? Has the council been sending her an allowance to live hiding in Cleveland?

Didn't make a lot of sense to me either. Why didn't Faith just sneak across the border? It's not like she's not sneaking around already, right?
Felt a bit contrived to me. Sort of like Warren popping up again.
I'm letting it go though...when it comes to comics and tv serials - it's best not to worry too much about the details. These art forms are notoriously off when it comes to such things.

I could fanwank it of course, but I let someone else who cares worry about that. ;-)

Giles has never been blamed and held accountable for Faith's failure and he should have been.

Ah. Giles. Well, Wes was her Watcher, technically speaking. But...you are right Giles should have taken responsibility. One of the most interesting things about Giles is how reluctant he is to be the father figure and/or Watcher. From the very beginning of the series you get the feeling he's going through the motions, he does not want this job. It's what he and Buffy have in common - neither asked for it, and neither want it. They both resist. And it is in a way why they bond, it's also why Buffy is not like any other slayer out there - because Giles tended to go to sleep so to speak on the job. Something the council does, if you recall, take him to task for - going so far as to actually fire him for his inability to be a WATCHER and control his slayers, as opposed to bumbling assistant.

Way back in 2002, the first character essay I ever wrote for the series was Giles - the Reluctant Watcher/Father. I've since lost it and have no clue what happened to it. But the gist of the essay was what I said above - Giles doesn't want to be the father or mentor here. He resists it. As a result - Willow goes wonky on him and almost kills him. Xander summons a demon and stands Anya up. He literally takes off when they need him the most and it's not out of character for him to do so, he's on the verge of doing just that all through S4 and S5. But he keeps getting pulled back almost against his will.

Giles, you see, never wanted to be a Watcher. He's a watcher because of the mistakes he made way back when. He says as much to Faith. And He keeps paying for them. It's one of the things that makes Giles interesting to me.
Very complex character Giles. And very flawed.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Ugh. This is me. I hate responding to this via email.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I remember Pygmalion a little differently, My Fair Lady actually follows it quite slavishly apart from the hint at a romantic Eliza/Higgins resolution in the final scene. Eliza is hard working but desperately poor, her father is a self-proclaimed member of the undeserving poor, a fast-talking chancer who prefers sponging drink money off his friends and relatives to working (by the end of the play he was reduced to respectability though being giving a substantial legacy by an American philanthropist on the basis of Higgin’s recommendation of him as “the most original moralist in England”).

Shaw famously published an essay on how he thought things would go after the play ended. Eliza would choose to marry Freddy because he was weak, handsome and adored her - Shaw’s theory was that as a strong person she would prefer a weak toy boy to the entertaining but childish and egotistical Higgins. The two of them (Freddy and Eliza) would struggle to set up a flower business initially but would eventually be successful and remain on good terms with Higgins, It’s no Cinderella story and astutely satirizes members of all classes but although Eliza does suffer some fish out of water problems she’s a strong character and does eventually rises above them. Overall she’s probably better off for her transformation than she would have been without it, albeit not in quite the way she might have thought.

So far I think the Buffy comic is alluding to the play (there’s a neat shoutout to Eliza’s first public appearance in the way Faith mostly seems to have learnt how to swear in RP British) but it’s hardly the standard Hollywood bowdlerisation. Those tend to focus on the transformation process and the then inevitable romance between Galatea and Pygmalion figures but I don’t see a Faith/Giles romance in the cards for “No Future” and the transformation process has all happened off page.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

It's admittedly been a VERY long time since I read the play and the essay.
So my memory may be foggy on it. (I think I read it in the 80's somewhere around 1984 or 1985.)

At any rate - I remember reading the myth, the play, the essay, and seeing the musical and thinking much along the lines as I wrote above. My Fair Lady does reference the essay in a song sung by Higgins towards the end of the musical if I recall - about how he forsees her future without him not to mention his own without her. (Which is the departure from Shaw's script that I was thinking about.)

What hit me about the story - and part of the reason, Pretty Woman and the kid film She's All That both disturbed me - is the arrogance of Higgins and the upper class. A view that is to some degree referred to in the musical in the song "Get Me to the Chapel on Time" and Eliza's father's discussion with Eliza. Sure we were poor, but we didn't know anything else and to a degree were happier. It's an interesting notion - brought up again in a Psychology Today article I recently read - are we better off not knowing about all those options that lie forever out of reach? Eliza goes to the Society Ball, but can never go back. She skips the life fantastic with Higgins, but with Freddy, she'll just be living above the store - always aware of where she'd been and what she can't have.

How does this compare to Buffy? Well, Faith and Buffy aspire to take on the traditional male role. They aren't the support squad, they are the soliders, the defenders, the protectors - Giles and Xander are the mother's staying behind, doing the research, teaching the etiquette. And both are dissatisfied with that. I find it interesting that Giles is teaching Faith to be "the traditional lady" right out of a cheap harlequin or Barbrara Taylor Bradford or Barbara Cartland novel. Similar to Hector Elionzo's (sp?) character in Pretty Woman (at least I think that character was played by him - the hotel clerk who helps her change herself). There's no romance between Faith and Giles, any more than there was between the ladies in those books and Pretty Woman and their male helper, but there's still that odd fantasy of the make-over. You are too male - in order to fit in, we have to girl you up a bit. The interesting thing is usually women write this trope, not men. So are they commenting on it? I think they are in a way, considering the overall thematic arc. But at the same time it's the fantasy - how would blue-collar, wrong side of the tracks Faith handle herself in Paris Hilton's world?

[atpo-onm.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, almost every review of #6 I've read to date has commented on the Pygmalion aspects of the story and seems to be assuming that the follow thru will be the same or similar. There are several issues remaining in the story arc; isn't it possible that the writer(s) may subvert the material?

Suppose you place Faith in the same position as Nikita in La Femme Nikita, and Giles is Section One? Is it still merely a male fantasy, or would Faith become a more versatile soldier in the war against evil if she could learn to adopt other "personalities" as part of undercover work? Or in a more recent TV series, would one consider Sydney Bristow in Alias to be a Pygmalion archetype?

BTW, I'm betting at the moment that Faith will ultimately refuse to kill Genevieve-- she'll force Giles (or even Buffy) to do the job.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

It's not just the male fantasy but also appears to be the female one - or one wouldn't see it in so many female fanfics and novels, which may explain why it's been used so often - including shows like Nikita and Alias, which in a way subvert it, by becoming the creator's worste nightmare/nemesis.

BTW, I'm betting at the moment that Faith will ultimately refuse to kill Genevieve-- she'll force Giles (or even Buffy) to do the job.

Since Roden's the true villian not Genevieve, it's more than likely it will be Roden she'll kill. Genevieve is in a way Faith's mirror image - complete with tutor/father figure urging her on. Roden=Mayor. Roden=Giles.
Roden=Wood. Roden=Wesely. Roden=Angel.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

My parents saw the original stage production of My Fair Lady and we grew up with the sound track LP. There is a section immediately after the ball in which Eliza which highlight her fears of having become neither one thing or the other, that she might have been better off staying in the gutter but in the next part of the play she recovers from her despair and shows Higgins that that she can adapt to her new situation to the point of beginning to play him at his own game. Not until then does he begin to see her as a person (although even in the musical it only goes as far as “I’ve grown accustomed to her face”). The choice of ending may be quite revealing of some differences between the American and British class systems. Stereotypically the former offers the dream of making it, of breaking out of your original class, in which context the Dorothy epiphany (that you might be better off as you were) is a radical statement. The British system, certainly at the time Shaw was writing was far more predicated on everyone being satisfied with their station in life, an ending celebrating the folly of anyone believing that they might be able to better themselves would have been very reactionary.

Back to Buffy I suspect that the Pygmalionisation of Faith is just one more cultural reference (something Vaughan seems a little over fond of, it almost gets to the point where every other line seems to be a lyric from some rock classic or other) but mentor/pupil relationships in a more general sense seems to be a theme. Faith and Giles are bonding, moving towards working as equals, Buffy and Xander are already friends and Buffy seems to be the mentor figure in that interaction. Gigi/Roden looks completely hierarchical one way or the other but I think it’s dangerous to assume that the man is necessarily in charge.