(no subject)

[shadowkat]

We're having what one of my cubicle neighbors likes to call "air conditioning/air circulation wars" at work. It is freezing in the morning and hot in the afternoon. Yesterday, I was boiling at 79 degrees and in a sweater shirt (couldn't take it off, nothing under it except the bra) and today I'm freezing with the air on full blast.

Currently eating soup, which I made over the weekend and is quite tasty.
While I'm getting better - didn't feel like braving the cold to go out to lunch with my colleagues who were taking one of the secretaries out for her birthday. I did contribute two bucks to her lunch though.

Everyone at work has the dreaded it. They either have a sinus infection they can't get rid of or bronchitis...which has lingered and become a sinus infection. We're all taking some brand of antibotic. Never knew there were so many brands...

Oh, in regards to Buffy - there are six characters I despised on that show, luckily for me they were all peripherial characters or guest characters, and rarely on it. Unfortunately for me, about four of them have popped up in the comic regardless of whether or not they were killed.
They are in no particular order - Harmony, Andrew, Warren, Amy, Robin Wood, and Sam Finn (Riley's wife). Of the six, the only actor I liked was the one who played Warren - he was great in it and in everything else he's been in. I don't expect I was supposed to like him in Buffy, much.

Comments

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Harmony annoys me because she represents the girly girls that so many people stereotype women or believe women should be like. ... She's such, if you will excuse the term, a bimbo.

Girls who exist for another reason but to titilate the male viewer and make him feel all manly and protective.

Harmony didn't exist to "titilate the male viewer". She existed for viewers to feel superior to. She's the trope the show was attacking, and a strawman to beat down.

The problem for me, though, is that she's an actual character within the show with some genuine depth and the strawman treatment eventually stops looking justified and starts looking like elitism.

Our Heroic storyline could have been better than keeping her as a punchline when her existence raises genuine questions about the vampires you try to help and those you just have to stake, or the free pass given to people just because we know them.

Beyond the fact that plenty of "girly girls" grow up, something Harm isn't allowed to do. You may not like her, which is fine, because characters don't exist to be liked. But I do think there are some problematic elements raised by her role in the story.

Hmmm...interesting, didn't really think of it that way.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. This is actually an interesting point - that I must confess I haven't thought much about, although it may explain in part my own difficulty with how the character is written in the show. I admit that I'm not entirely sure why Harmony bugs me so much. Or for that matter why Andrew does. Or Warren. Or Amy. Or even Jonathan.

I'm thinking your comment here may be hitting the nail on the head:

She existed for viewers to feel superior to. She's the trope the show was attacking, and a strawman to beat down.

The problem for me, though, is that she's an actual character within the show with some genuine depth and the strawman treatment eventually stops looking justified and starts looking like elitism.

I think that may be what is causing dissonance for me. And may be why I have so much difficulty with the character and in particular this issue.
Coupled with a few other things.

Our Heroic storyline could have been better than keeping her as a punchline when her existence raises genuine questions about the vampires you try to help and those you just have to stake, or the free pass given to people just because we know them.

Hmmm, I agree. While I understand why Buffy did not stake Spike in S5-S7, I did not understand why she didn't do it in S4 or up until Intervention in S5. Neither did Spike for that matter. But why she never killed Harmony - that has never made much sense.

And..

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You may not like her, which is fine, because characters don't exist to be liked. But I do think there are some problematic elements raised by her role in the story.

Quite a few problematic elements actually. If you analyze the series from a social-political pov, it is disturbing and leaves a decidedly bad taste in your mouth. But then, I'd argue about 85% of the tv shows on right now do - specifically the science-fiction/fantasy adventure ones. I'm not completely certain the writers are responsible for this - well not until I started reading the comics. Now, I'm just wondering if they may think they are conveying one set of messages while in actuality conveying another? Or perhaps I'm reading things into it based on my own experiences and "buttons"??

It is hard to know how someone else will interpret what you write or create, after all. And we aren't always aware of the extent that we project our own issues on that which we are watching or reading.

It is more than possible that the reason Harmony bugs me, particularly in this issue, is not for the reasons I suggest in my post above but rather your point - that I sense there are some problematic elements raised by her role in the story, which are creating a dissonance. Particularly as seen in this comic - where once again, a young minority slayer is cruelly slain - in front of Buffy and the world. This time by Harmony, and on reality tv, to humongous ratings and applause - and she, the minority woman slayer, is portrayed by the media as the villian. It bugged me. Or created dissonance - making me feel guilty for reading and even enjoying the story. This may or may not have been Espenson's intent -I'm guessing Espenson sees Harmony as a metaphor for the vampiric nature of celebrity and fame here? (Not sure if you read the comic or not. But in it Harmony is the star of a reality tv series entitled Reality Bites on MTV - where she is followed about and bites and eats people in front of the camera.)

But that doesn't excuse the fact that in a hero story about female empowerment, a white, blond, blue-eyed, pretty girl, with a lot of money - Harmony - appears to constantly get away with murder in the series. Much like Paris Hilton - she even looks and sounds like Paris, just with a better figure. She never pays for her sins. She always gets away intact. Even in Angel this was the case. They never staked her - or punished her. Sure you can say the same thing about Angel and Spike - but we actually see both suffer - Spike in his quest for the soul and burning alive at the mouth of the hellmouth, plus his months in hellLA etc. Same deal with Angel. But Harmony - considered a joke - well - the worst thing that appears to happen to her is Spike slaps her around a bit and breaks up with her?? (Which brings up a separate problem - the male vampires are able to seek redemption or be redeemed or live to seek it, while the female, not so much. Darla, you could argue does - but only because she has a male child that she stakes herself to give birth to and it is his soul, not her own that redeems her. And Harmony appears to seek it in Disharmony, but it is dismissed as a joke.)

Meanwhile in this issue - we see a Hispanic slayer, lower class, street girl, struggling to find her own way, do the right thing - get killed by Harmony in her rich spread, to much fanfair. This would be fine, if it weren't so repetitive of earlier killings of minority slayers - we have Renee, Nikki, and Kendra, just to name three. Here - it is told in the framework of a joke - but the joke isn't funny. It leaves a bitter after-taste. And once again Buffy is looking on, unable to help or even offer comfort. Buffy - the petite, pretty, privileged blond girl - who survives no matter what.

I'm not sure if this was intentional on the writer's parts or not? And I'm not entirely sure if I'm reading more into that than there is.

Nor am I sure if that is what you are getting at, or something else entirely? It's late and I'm trying to write this while listening to the new Beriut CD that I got for Xmas from my brother - so hopefully it is coherent.