In regards to authorial intent? I really don't think we'll ever truly know what was in their heads, anymore than we know what is in the heads of the writers of our favorite novels. In most cases the writers themselves don't know.
A TV show is not the same as an academic essay or meta, with endnotes and footnotes, and clear arguments. (Any more than my essays are like those, actually...I tend to do stream of consciousness and am bound to offend people.) It's a story that the writer is telling first and foremost. The themes - they aren't always aware of.
Also, I think what a lot of people forget when they are arguing this online, including myself, is that we don't necessarily share the same perspective. I.e - you may see a pipe, and I may see an aqueduct. Or you see a pipe and I see a stick of metal. A better one may be a cigar - you see a cigar and I see a phallic symbol. Or an instrument of torture.
So how to know what the artist intended? Seems impossible when you consider the audience doesn't even see the image the same way. And it is bewildering - when someone sees say a cigar as a penis, when you know it is a cigar. How can they see it that way? Are they an idiot? Sometimes a cigar is just that a cigar. BUT...it's possible that it was also meant to be a penis. And no, not an idiot, they just well saw it differently is all.
For me, I look for consistencies - things from prior episodes. Similar bits of dialogue, or action, to see if they fit a pattern - that tells me what they may have intended. I look for the pattern. Example - Faith's position, dialogue, and reaction after pummeling Buffy in Who Are You is almost identical to Buffy's position, dialogue, and reaction in the alley - this is the psychological metaphor of the shadow self. That's how I analyzed it. Another way to analyze it would be the more literal interpretation, which is to compare Buffy's reactions to Spike to Spike's treatment of Harmony in Harsh Light of Day - Crush. To see similarities. There are a few, possibly enough to get across the theme of domestic violence. One is a metaphorical interpretation and one an literal one.
I think, from what I've seen of the author's other works and the tv landscape in general - that they possibly intended both interpretations. Attempting, perhaps clumsily depending again on your perspective, to demonstrate that anyone can do these crimes, hero or villian, that the world is far from simple, and we have to be careful not to demonize people who are granted troubled, violent, nasty at times. A rapist can also be a hero, a gentleman or lady, and kind. A man and/or woman who beats their spouse, could also be wonderful to the homeless shelter folks - she helps each day. In the early seasons - it's pure metaphor. The domestic violence and rape is still there, but it is comforting because you see it through layers of metaphor. Faith's actions towards Xander, Xander's actions towards Buffy in the Pack, Spike's attack on Willow in the Initiative, Lover's Walk, and his attack's on Buffy in School Hard and Halloween (clearly metaphors for rape, but hidden behind the vampire metaphor.) Or even Faith's beating of Buffy in Who are You. Or Spike's treatment of Harmony.
In the later seasons, the metaphor for rape or domestic violence is stripped away...we can't as easily rationalize or justify it. It's brutal and painful to watch. It's not dressed up in gothic horror metaphors. In other words, the cigar is a penis. A rubber penis. It is obviously not just a cigar.
no subject
In regards to authorial intent? I really don't think we'll ever truly know what was in their heads, anymore than we know what is in the heads of the writers of our favorite novels. In most cases the writers themselves don't know.
A TV show is not the same as an academic essay or meta, with endnotes and footnotes, and clear arguments. (Any more than my essays are like those, actually...I tend to do stream of consciousness and am bound to offend people.) It's a story that the writer is telling first and foremost. The themes - they aren't always aware of.
Also, I think what a lot of people forget when they are arguing this online, including myself, is that we don't necessarily share the same perspective. I.e - you may see a pipe, and I may see an aqueduct. Or you see a pipe and I see a stick of metal.
A better one may be a cigar - you see a cigar and I see a phallic symbol. Or an instrument of torture.
So how to know what the artist intended? Seems impossible when you consider the audience doesn't even see the image the same way. And it is bewildering - when someone sees say a cigar as a penis, when you know it is a cigar. How can they see it that way? Are they an idiot? Sometimes a cigar is just that a cigar.
BUT...it's possible that it was also meant to be a penis. And no, not an idiot, they just well saw it differently is all.
For me, I look for consistencies - things from prior episodes.
Similar bits of dialogue, or action, to see if they fit a pattern - that tells me what they may have intended. I look for the pattern. Example - Faith's position, dialogue, and reaction after pummeling Buffy in Who Are You is almost identical to Buffy's position, dialogue, and reaction in the alley - this is the psychological metaphor of the shadow self. That's how I analyzed it. Another way to analyze it would be the more literal interpretation, which is to compare Buffy's reactions to Spike to Spike's treatment of Harmony in Harsh Light of Day - Crush. To see similarities. There are a few, possibly enough to get across the theme of domestic violence. One is a metaphorical interpretation and one an literal one.
I think, from what I've seen of the author's other works and the tv landscape in general - that they possibly intended both interpretations. Attempting, perhaps clumsily depending again on your perspective, to demonstrate that anyone can do these crimes, hero or villian, that the world is far from simple, and
we have to be careful not to demonize people who are granted troubled, violent, nasty at times. A rapist can also be a hero, a gentleman or lady, and kind. A man and/or woman who beats their spouse, could also be wonderful to the homeless shelter folks - she helps each day. In the early seasons - it's pure metaphor. The domestic violence and rape is still there, but it is comforting because you see it through layers of metaphor. Faith's actions towards Xander, Xander's actions towards Buffy in the Pack, Spike's attack on Willow in the Initiative, Lover's Walk, and his attack's on Buffy in School Hard and Halloween (clearly metaphors for rape, but hidden behind the vampire metaphor.) Or even Faith's beating of Buffy in Who are You. Or Spike's treatment of Harmony.
In the later seasons, the metaphor for rape or domestic violence is stripped away...we can't as easily rationalize or justify it. It's brutal and painful to watch. It's not dressed up in gothic horror metaphors. In other words, the cigar is a penis. A rubber penis. It is obviously not just a cigar.