Beauty and the Beasts and Mark Watches Redux

[shadowkat]

Thanks for the funnies last night, folks. Laughter truly is the best medicine.
Much cheerier mood today. And while work is amusing me, I can't really discuss it online that much. [Except to say - write your congressman and tell him/her not to pass the House Bill that does away with federal funding for mass transit. Unless you want to see me poverty stricken and gloomy for the rest of my working life? They take tax revenues from fossile fuels and gas and supply toward public transportation - which saves the environment and helps with global warming. Okay end of PSA. ]

I know I keep saying I'm not going to read Mark Watches Buffy, but I'm weak and I find weirdly entertaining. Also at different points, I feel compelled to chat about it - I have no clue why. I find some of his comments bewildering.
Other's completely agree with. And I can't comment directly on his posts - because I'd spoil everyone. Too much work to avoid it. And I'm lazy.

Today's "Mark Watches Buffy" post is on the S3 episode "Beauty and The Beasts" - which I realized upon re-watching several years back was in reality all about the Buffy/Angel relationship and Domestic Violence (not misogyny).

Once I'd gotten past my emotional attachment to the Buffy/Angel relationship and seen the entire series, both series actually, I realized - whoa, her relationship with Angel was abusive. Both Oz/Willow and Pete/Debbie are set up as metaphors for Buffy/Angel or variations. With Scott, the non-aggressive male, being the one she's actually dating...albeit awkwardly, the fairly normal non-abusive one. Xander/Cordy are another variation on abusive relationships - which will be revisited later with Anya/Xander. The whole episode examines the complexity of the domestic violence/abusive relationship, which is revisited in S6 - "Dead Things" with Willow/Tara and Katrina/Warren the abusive relationships, Xander/Anya being the awkward yet "seemingly" good relationship or one people think they want to aspire to - and the relationship being examined through each? Buffy/Spike, just as Buffy/Angel was examined through each relationship in Beauty and the Beasts. Except in S6 they do something rather interesting, they demonstrate how "gender" has zip to do with it. So instead of doing the mislead "misogyny", it's really about power dynamics in relationship's. In S6 Dead Things? Willow has the monster inside her, power. While in S3 Beauty and the Beasts - Oz had the monster inside of him. In S6 - Buffy is beating Spike to a pulp, while in S3 Buffy fears Angel will beat her up in his rage. In S6 we see Warren/Katrina are the Pete/Debbie relationship. Except they are an older and in some respects more horrific version.

So it's hard for me to relate to Mark's take, because I can't see Beauty and the Beasts without seeing Dead Things in the back of my mind.

This statement bewilders me.

There was an episode of a popular television that showed us the perils of domestic violence, a metaphor for alcoholism, and made parallels to a violent system of misogyny that exists in our culture. IN 1998.

Sigh. Seriously, dude, did you not watch anything but the X-Files in the 1990s? And if so, you are validating my opinion that there wasn't much ground-breaking or memorable about that series. You'd have been better off watching Buffy, The West Wing, NYPD Blue, and LA Law. Heck even Dawson's Creek did an episode like that. Not to mention quite a few other tv shows and movies.
And in the 1970s, no less. I know, shocking! This boy makes me feel very old.
Does he make anyone else feel old?

Actually, vampires are used often as a metaphor for marginalized groups, and it’s one of my least favorite things? Because, like, I can’t count how many times vampirism was a metaphor for homosexuality, and that analogy doesn’t work because I don’t suck the life out of other people. I think there’s something inherently dangerous about vampires that doesn’t exist for people who are gay or queer.

So very true. Yes, we are looking at you "True Blood" and Anne Rice. I'm sorry but vampires or demons representing disenfranchized minorities doesn't work.
Personally, I think it would work better if they represented the white ruling class - which is what Whedon started out with in the Buffy and Angel series, then took a weird left turn around Alberqueue in the latter seasons of both series, and they began to represent the outsider or disenfranchised minority.
Which was sort of worse in a way, muddling the metaphor - never a good idea.

I mean, I remember when I first got online in the 90s (I AM SO F***CKING OLD WTF)

Yet clearly too young to know there wasn't an online until the 1990s unless you were a major computer geek and even then..

Note - the internet didn't really take off until the LATE 1990s..so not much of an online. Oh there was "something" there, but it was mostly Lexis/Nexus, ACIN News websites, email listserves, aol chat rooms, and email and very rudimentary. Crashed all the time. This is before internet explorer popped up or ...what was the predecessor to internet explorer, I forget, we had it at evil library company, drove me nuts. So discussion boards, im chat, etc didn't really pop up until 1995/1996. Also this poor boy never had to deal with MS DOS or mircofiche. He makes me feel relatively acient. I finally understand how my grandparents felt when we discussed cars, telephones and indoor plumbing.



Gotta go and get my walk in. Bye.

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yes, as critical as I am about Whedon, I do realize that he's a product of his environment and really doesn't have that much control. Fans assume just because Whedon had creative control that extended to casting choices, contracts with cast, etc. But it didn't. He wanted for example Bianca Lawson who portrayed Kendra to be Buffy, but the network either shot him down wanting a Kristie Swanson type or Lawson was otherwise engaged. Buffy when it was originally shot in 1996/1997 was not a hot property. People in the biz made fun of it. They were surprised it didn't get canceled. I remember worrying about it getting canceled every year it was on. I think the only year they felt safe was S3-4.

So Whedon really isn't the racist jerk people think he is. The institution in which he works, however, is. Or Fox. Same deal with the comics...how much control Whedon has...is negotiable. I don't believe for a minute he has as much control as people think. I know enough about that industry - to know his hands are tied in some of the same ways they were for Buffy. It's a white male dictated industry - which markets itself to a young white male audience. It's gotten a whole lot better...but that has not changed. (shrugs)

It's what Mark Watches is both aware and unaware of...the historical context.
He hasn't watched enough series from the 1990s or before that to understand what was happening in Buffy. The West Wing - was slamned by the NCAA for it's token racial casting choices. Judd Apatow states on the DVD to The TV Set that he was told to hire either one woman or one minority character for Freaks and Geeks to fulfill a quota.

True Blood to be fair makes worse mistakes in this regard than Buffy ever did. Alan Ball makes Whedon look like a Saint in comparison and a genius. Buffy was a lot better than True Blood - which is just too silly to be taken seriously most of the time. To date it's killed off most of its minority characters, and its main metaphor for vampires is as the disenfranchised minority or other. In True Blood - the vampires really are a metaphor for homosexuality and disenfranchized minorities. They even do a joke about civil rights that is beyond offensive. I wanted to kick Alan Ball when I saw it.