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beccaelizabethI know I intended to speak about the back half of season 5, but now the only thing I can remember needing to comment on was Xander and Spike and feeling like a man.
Xander talking to Anya when Riley is leaving, he says there's something he hasn't made clear, and tells her he's in love with her. She makes him feel like he's never felt in his life, like a man.
Spike in the doorway as they get ready to face Glory, I know that I'm a monster, but you treat me like a man.
For Spike that feels like a grand declaration, but from Xander it just bothers me. For both of them there's something about masculinity in there, and it is about romantic love and how their beloved can make them feel, but... but but. Something. Like, I know Xander just gave a list of things about Anya he loves, but what we've actually seen is him correcting her and telling her how to human. So when he says she makes him feel like a man, it bothers me, like maybe he's just propping up how he feels about himself. Not truly valuing her for herself. But then Spike... actually a lot of it is not holding him to much of a standard. He starts out thinking 'torture her til she likes me' is a viable plan for his true love. Any and every little step up from that is yaay. But still it feels different because it's not 'you make me feel' it's 'you treat me like'. Like something she's actually choosing, like when she lets him in the house again and trusts him with Dawn. But also, Xander's issue is teenager or man, Spike's is monster or man. Kind of a difference, though many years of metaphor on this show suggests its a thin one. Spike is really very good at being a monster, and he spent season 4 actively rejecting their attempts to treat him like a man, like someone who might make choices and choose to be on their side. Now he values that chance. To be offered the chance to prove himself is the gift.
So he becomes a very different man than any vampire else we've seen. Given choices, given a chance, he makes connections that don't involve food or sex or fighting. He values Joyce, brought flowers, helped Dawn on condition no one ever knew, because he liked the lady. He values Dawn, treats her well by his standards, even if that does involve threats and calling her food items. And he's willing to die for someone else. Not just for Buffy, he keeps risking his life for her friends. Which is all baseline stuff about humans, the ability to make a connection, but for him, kind of new. Given the chance he comes to value it. Like a way out.
Just in this universe his wiring will only get him so far in being able to take it.
I look at Xander and forget to count in every single time he values humans and puts his life on the line. I get grumpy at the other stuff. Pretty sure heroism doesn't give a pass on other stuff though.
I noticed with Willow, she doesn't have faith, not in the sense of a framework of religious belief, not in the sense of believing in some abstract system that can in fact work out well in the end. She thinks Buffy is in hell even though on the whole good people don't go there. It's kind of rude saying someone might be in hell. But to Willow it makes sense because hells are a system of dimensions and stuff just happens.
With the writers, I don't know if they had a system and a plan, or what they were trying to say with Spike. I mean I know Marsters brings beautiful layers of nuance to the role and just does so much with a look... even though sometimes I don't know what those looks mean because those are complicated faces and I'm not awesome at that. He's telling stories, they just leave me as confused as humans tend to. But the whole thing with Spike and his soul, I don't know if the ways I read it and the ways they write it really match up. It seems to me a useless thing to tell a story about someone who needs some arbitrary shiny thing before he can be an actual person. Someone who lived with violence so long he forgot other things, and then got restrained long enough he relearned it, that's an interesting story that has resonance outside of vampire stuff. Needing to put your soul back in? Not so much. But, they also wrote a guy who could go get it, so maybe it's a shiny metaphor for deciding you need to put the work in and the old ways aren't sufficient.
But I'm only up to Flooded and that's waaaaay ahead.
Spike of these first few episodes is such a different man than Spike in Crush though.
I mean again Marsters slayed it with the facial expressions, especially when Drusilla feeds him. That's a whole lot of complicated going on there. And vampires were not in this verse previously renowned for complexity.
Buffy just shutting him down, telling him he's got no chance, is a relief. I mean, how many worse ways were there to write that scene? They'd even been having a chat with her about leading him on, which, ew, no, he's stalker boy, he's just all twisted up because of his own issues.
And offering to stake Drusilla to prove his love? Ew, no, nope, that's not love, that's an all alarms get out of there.
The guy that would do that, would treat Harm like that, and would stalk and attack and chain up Buffy, that's a wrong guy.
And yet the guy that nearly died to protect Dawn from Glory? Who went through torture and fingers where fingers should not be? That's a guy who understands just a bit better what's important.
Riley got trusted with Dawn and then went off to have his own issues. Spike got trusted with Dawn and, okay, failed, but failed due to getting stabbed and thrown from a height, which would for anyone else be a died trying. And Riley's supposed to be teh good guy that got away? No. Not on that axis.
But still, the first time Spike stops being comedy vampire stalker and starts being... the guy we can see Buffy actually loving? He does that with a look. A long, speechless moment, in the hall, when he realises that's really Buffy. They start to form a connection when he realises what happened to her hands, says he went through the same, later punches a wall so he's got the same wounds. They're alike, now. And Buffy starts to treat him different, let him in, tell him things.
It could be like she says at first, that she can be alone when he's around. Not great for him.
But he's also the first person to ask if she's okay without that subtext of desperation and needing her to be okay. The first to ask like he'd listen to the answer. The first to ask without having already told her the acceptable answer.
And it's not cause he's enjoying her pain. That stopped working way back, when he found her crying about her mum, and just stopped and sat with her.
It's because he's reaching out and wants to know.
If season six Spike was supposed to be the bad rebound boyfriend they had a hell of a funny way of showing it. I know what happens in the end, but right here? He's listening, being there for her, trying to get out of the way if that's what she wants even if sunlight, looking after Dawn when she needs it, and just... being what she needs. When her friends, with the best intentions, are acting like she's there to be what they need.
I like this Spike. And James Marsters is amazing. There's days I see him and get the giggles because he's a theatre geek and a properly nice guy and there he is being all big bad, and it's kind of like knowing William the poet is under there somewhere only funnier. But then there's other days I just rewind a few times to watch some particular reaction. He reminds me why I want to write, cause I want to give people a chance to do that.
... there's no neat segue from that much fangirling to any other topic. Onwards...
Willow crosses the line to outright creepy. Not when she kills an animal to try and bring Buffy back, that probably seems medical helpful, and she's only borderline when she's lying about it and being so controlling and, even when she notices its not cool, waiting to be thanked. The line gets crossed when Giles is trying to get her to acknowledge the consequences she risked, far worse ones than what actually happened, which, hey, was not okay just because temporary. He says the magics were powerful, she says yeah, she's powerful, and he shouldn't piss her off.
That, right there. Problem.
Source of the problem in same conversation: acknowledges there are others that can do what she did and you wouldn't want to meet them, but that's because they're bad guys. She's not a bad guy.
She thinks good or bad is a thing you are, not a thing you do.
And the incoherence is that with the whole Spike soul thing there's elements of the 'verse that seem to agree. Which, problem. What argument is it making? Whatever's most dramatic this week? Frustrating.
I want to compare this to Lit lessons when we studied Faustus and the theological subtleties underlying different versions of the text, but we studied that in 2009 and I'm a little rusty on the details. But there's some versions of religion that reckon that you are good or evil and what you do reveals that, whilst there's other versions that reckon you only do good or evil, it's not set. Willow has some wonky idea of her own invulnerability to consequences because she thinks she's good. It's like she knows she's a protagonist or something. That leaves her not watching her own actions well enough, or considering consequences.
But Spike, he's the one yelling about consequences. And he's sort of going the other way. He starts out believing he's a monster, then that he can do good and get rewarded for it, and then that he's screwed that chance up but he'll just keep doing good anyway. From where I'm standing that should work. But I know how it works out instead.
The other comparison of course is the evil geek Trio. But we've only just met them, and their personalities are still developing. Still, they want the rewards without the costs, they want the shiny without thinking of the consequences, and they aren't much concerned with other people's opinions cause they don't seem to think they count. There's some dark mirror stuff going on there and it's going to get interesting.
Flooded is another episode that makes me go off on one about the devaluing of women's work under capitalism. And, okay, Buffy's slaying isn't stereotypically feminine, but there's evidence that the devaluing goes with the women doing it, not the particular work. The more women do it, the more the discourse surrounding a thing will suggest it's normal and natural and women should do it, usually for free.
Anya's right. Buffy is providing a valuable service and should be paid for it. She saves innocent people's lives, and exactly like a police officer or paramedic, she damn well should get paid for it.
... I can get very worked up about this.
Of course in a system set up by an evil Mayor for demons to feed on, it's difficult to imagine a taxpayer funded Slayer. ... except Faith kind of was one. He just aimed her in ways advantageous to him. So, difficult to imagine an actually helpful taxpayer funded Slayer.
The private security model leaves something to be desired as well, kind of like fire engines insuring one house but not the neighbour. Either you only save select innocents or they have no incentive to pay their premiums. And then what about apocalypse level events, when you save everyone at once?
You'd need an actual legit loop of taxpayers rewarding a Slayer for helping keep their town habitable. And they should have that. Keeping her identity secret ceased to be much of a concern around the time 'class protector' was a thing. And Sunnydale amnesia doesn't make sense. She should get official support for what she does.
Setting it up so she doesn't involves cutting her off from a wider community or any model of training and support that isn't a secret society of English public school types who inherit their position from their parents.
Using that to tell a story about patriarchy, fine, but I can then get annoyed about that patriarchy.
The idea that a Watcher's pay is meant to financially support his Slayer is reasonable, just unsupported by the text. Never mentioned.
So, here's Giles, back. Here's Buffy, in need of finance. And while he will eventually give her some money, there's no hint that it's something owed or earned by her.
The Watchers call it a calling, so they can avoid paying her?
Even priests get paid. A calling doesn't put bread on the table or a roof over your head.
But this is one topic where I might get annoyed at Giles. Not in a parental role like I've seen argued. Just, if he's paid to support the Slayer, where's her paycheck? Where's her percentage?
I am annoyed about it for the exact women's work care work unsupported necessities reasons that the metaphor is talking about. Everyone should get paid for work. All the work.
The thing that bothers me is the text seems to come down on the side of 'action is his reward'. Like, if this is a metaphor for unpaid work women always get lumbered with, the text doesn't seem very pro actually paying them.
Not cool.
So, that's todays thoughts. Big ramble. Many more episodes ahead.
Xander talking to Anya when Riley is leaving, he says there's something he hasn't made clear, and tells her he's in love with her. She makes him feel like he's never felt in his life, like a man.
Spike in the doorway as they get ready to face Glory, I know that I'm a monster, but you treat me like a man.
For Spike that feels like a grand declaration, but from Xander it just bothers me. For both of them there's something about masculinity in there, and it is about romantic love and how their beloved can make them feel, but... but but. Something. Like, I know Xander just gave a list of things about Anya he loves, but what we've actually seen is him correcting her and telling her how to human. So when he says she makes him feel like a man, it bothers me, like maybe he's just propping up how he feels about himself. Not truly valuing her for herself. But then Spike... actually a lot of it is not holding him to much of a standard. He starts out thinking 'torture her til she likes me' is a viable plan for his true love. Any and every little step up from that is yaay. But still it feels different because it's not 'you make me feel' it's 'you treat me like'. Like something she's actually choosing, like when she lets him in the house again and trusts him with Dawn. But also, Xander's issue is teenager or man, Spike's is monster or man. Kind of a difference, though many years of metaphor on this show suggests its a thin one. Spike is really very good at being a monster, and he spent season 4 actively rejecting their attempts to treat him like a man, like someone who might make choices and choose to be on their side. Now he values that chance. To be offered the chance to prove himself is the gift.
So he becomes a very different man than any vampire else we've seen. Given choices, given a chance, he makes connections that don't involve food or sex or fighting. He values Joyce, brought flowers, helped Dawn on condition no one ever knew, because he liked the lady. He values Dawn, treats her well by his standards, even if that does involve threats and calling her food items. And he's willing to die for someone else. Not just for Buffy, he keeps risking his life for her friends. Which is all baseline stuff about humans, the ability to make a connection, but for him, kind of new. Given the chance he comes to value it. Like a way out.
Just in this universe his wiring will only get him so far in being able to take it.
I look at Xander and forget to count in every single time he values humans and puts his life on the line. I get grumpy at the other stuff. Pretty sure heroism doesn't give a pass on other stuff though.
I noticed with Willow, she doesn't have faith, not in the sense of a framework of religious belief, not in the sense of believing in some abstract system that can in fact work out well in the end. She thinks Buffy is in hell even though on the whole good people don't go there. It's kind of rude saying someone might be in hell. But to Willow it makes sense because hells are a system of dimensions and stuff just happens.
With the writers, I don't know if they had a system and a plan, or what they were trying to say with Spike. I mean I know Marsters brings beautiful layers of nuance to the role and just does so much with a look... even though sometimes I don't know what those looks mean because those are complicated faces and I'm not awesome at that. He's telling stories, they just leave me as confused as humans tend to. But the whole thing with Spike and his soul, I don't know if the ways I read it and the ways they write it really match up. It seems to me a useless thing to tell a story about someone who needs some arbitrary shiny thing before he can be an actual person. Someone who lived with violence so long he forgot other things, and then got restrained long enough he relearned it, that's an interesting story that has resonance outside of vampire stuff. Needing to put your soul back in? Not so much. But, they also wrote a guy who could go get it, so maybe it's a shiny metaphor for deciding you need to put the work in and the old ways aren't sufficient.
But I'm only up to Flooded and that's waaaaay ahead.
Spike of these first few episodes is such a different man than Spike in Crush though.
I mean again Marsters slayed it with the facial expressions, especially when Drusilla feeds him. That's a whole lot of complicated going on there. And vampires were not in this verse previously renowned for complexity.
Buffy just shutting him down, telling him he's got no chance, is a relief. I mean, how many worse ways were there to write that scene? They'd even been having a chat with her about leading him on, which, ew, no, he's stalker boy, he's just all twisted up because of his own issues.
And offering to stake Drusilla to prove his love? Ew, no, nope, that's not love, that's an all alarms get out of there.
The guy that would do that, would treat Harm like that, and would stalk and attack and chain up Buffy, that's a wrong guy.
And yet the guy that nearly died to protect Dawn from Glory? Who went through torture and fingers where fingers should not be? That's a guy who understands just a bit better what's important.
Riley got trusted with Dawn and then went off to have his own issues. Spike got trusted with Dawn and, okay, failed, but failed due to getting stabbed and thrown from a height, which would for anyone else be a died trying. And Riley's supposed to be teh good guy that got away? No. Not on that axis.
But still, the first time Spike stops being comedy vampire stalker and starts being... the guy we can see Buffy actually loving? He does that with a look. A long, speechless moment, in the hall, when he realises that's really Buffy. They start to form a connection when he realises what happened to her hands, says he went through the same, later punches a wall so he's got the same wounds. They're alike, now. And Buffy starts to treat him different, let him in, tell him things.
It could be like she says at first, that she can be alone when he's around. Not great for him.
But he's also the first person to ask if she's okay without that subtext of desperation and needing her to be okay. The first to ask like he'd listen to the answer. The first to ask without having already told her the acceptable answer.
And it's not cause he's enjoying her pain. That stopped working way back, when he found her crying about her mum, and just stopped and sat with her.
It's because he's reaching out and wants to know.
If season six Spike was supposed to be the bad rebound boyfriend they had a hell of a funny way of showing it. I know what happens in the end, but right here? He's listening, being there for her, trying to get out of the way if that's what she wants even if sunlight, looking after Dawn when she needs it, and just... being what she needs. When her friends, with the best intentions, are acting like she's there to be what they need.
I like this Spike. And James Marsters is amazing. There's days I see him and get the giggles because he's a theatre geek and a properly nice guy and there he is being all big bad, and it's kind of like knowing William the poet is under there somewhere only funnier. But then there's other days I just rewind a few times to watch some particular reaction. He reminds me why I want to write, cause I want to give people a chance to do that.
... there's no neat segue from that much fangirling to any other topic. Onwards...
Willow crosses the line to outright creepy. Not when she kills an animal to try and bring Buffy back, that probably seems medical helpful, and she's only borderline when she's lying about it and being so controlling and, even when she notices its not cool, waiting to be thanked. The line gets crossed when Giles is trying to get her to acknowledge the consequences she risked, far worse ones than what actually happened, which, hey, was not okay just because temporary. He says the magics were powerful, she says yeah, she's powerful, and he shouldn't piss her off.
That, right there. Problem.
Source of the problem in same conversation: acknowledges there are others that can do what she did and you wouldn't want to meet them, but that's because they're bad guys. She's not a bad guy.
She thinks good or bad is a thing you are, not a thing you do.
And the incoherence is that with the whole Spike soul thing there's elements of the 'verse that seem to agree. Which, problem. What argument is it making? Whatever's most dramatic this week? Frustrating.
I want to compare this to Lit lessons when we studied Faustus and the theological subtleties underlying different versions of the text, but we studied that in 2009 and I'm a little rusty on the details. But there's some versions of religion that reckon that you are good or evil and what you do reveals that, whilst there's other versions that reckon you only do good or evil, it's not set. Willow has some wonky idea of her own invulnerability to consequences because she thinks she's good. It's like she knows she's a protagonist or something. That leaves her not watching her own actions well enough, or considering consequences.
But Spike, he's the one yelling about consequences. And he's sort of going the other way. He starts out believing he's a monster, then that he can do good and get rewarded for it, and then that he's screwed that chance up but he'll just keep doing good anyway. From where I'm standing that should work. But I know how it works out instead.
The other comparison of course is the evil geek Trio. But we've only just met them, and their personalities are still developing. Still, they want the rewards without the costs, they want the shiny without thinking of the consequences, and they aren't much concerned with other people's opinions cause they don't seem to think they count. There's some dark mirror stuff going on there and it's going to get interesting.
Flooded is another episode that makes me go off on one about the devaluing of women's work under capitalism. And, okay, Buffy's slaying isn't stereotypically feminine, but there's evidence that the devaluing goes with the women doing it, not the particular work. The more women do it, the more the discourse surrounding a thing will suggest it's normal and natural and women should do it, usually for free.
Anya's right. Buffy is providing a valuable service and should be paid for it. She saves innocent people's lives, and exactly like a police officer or paramedic, she damn well should get paid for it.
... I can get very worked up about this.
Of course in a system set up by an evil Mayor for demons to feed on, it's difficult to imagine a taxpayer funded Slayer. ... except Faith kind of was one. He just aimed her in ways advantageous to him. So, difficult to imagine an actually helpful taxpayer funded Slayer.
The private security model leaves something to be desired as well, kind of like fire engines insuring one house but not the neighbour. Either you only save select innocents or they have no incentive to pay their premiums. And then what about apocalypse level events, when you save everyone at once?
You'd need an actual legit loop of taxpayers rewarding a Slayer for helping keep their town habitable. And they should have that. Keeping her identity secret ceased to be much of a concern around the time 'class protector' was a thing. And Sunnydale amnesia doesn't make sense. She should get official support for what she does.
Setting it up so she doesn't involves cutting her off from a wider community or any model of training and support that isn't a secret society of English public school types who inherit their position from their parents.
Using that to tell a story about patriarchy, fine, but I can then get annoyed about that patriarchy.
The idea that a Watcher's pay is meant to financially support his Slayer is reasonable, just unsupported by the text. Never mentioned.
So, here's Giles, back. Here's Buffy, in need of finance. And while he will eventually give her some money, there's no hint that it's something owed or earned by her.
The Watchers call it a calling, so they can avoid paying her?
Even priests get paid. A calling doesn't put bread on the table or a roof over your head.
But this is one topic where I might get annoyed at Giles. Not in a parental role like I've seen argued. Just, if he's paid to support the Slayer, where's her paycheck? Where's her percentage?
I am annoyed about it for the exact women's work care work unsupported necessities reasons that the metaphor is talking about. Everyone should get paid for work. All the work.
The thing that bothers me is the text seems to come down on the side of 'action is his reward'. Like, if this is a metaphor for unpaid work women always get lumbered with, the text doesn't seem very pro actually paying them.
Not cool.
So, that's todays thoughts. Big ramble. Many more episodes ahead.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-16 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-23 08:22 am (UTC)I mean, I'm sure the Serenity movie makes that explicit in some detail but I only saw it once, years ago, when I was tired, and from what I remember there were a lot of places that left me going "But WHY are you doing that? No, seriously. WHY?" So leaving that aside and just looking at the series which I saw somewhat more recently...
There's this big government that won a war. They've legalized prostitution, instituted mandatory STD testing, and given protections to the girls. Awesome. There's no slavery in their parts of the galaxy. Pirates are bad. And the government's troops actually get out there and try to help people - guarding medical transports, taking on damaged Reaver victims, punishing the hell out of space pirates. There are still wealth issues - Simon says that he worked in the equivalent of an inner city hospital, which seems to mean that although everyone gets universal health care the rich have somewhat better stuff, more drugs, and fewer people taking advantage of their allotted resources. Maybe they have private doctors, I don't know.
And then we've got the protagonists. They're bitter that their side lost the war. Fair enough. They think everywhere should be like the galaxy's rim, where the government isn't really in control, because it's an awesome place where it's a viable idea that some old man gave a young woman to the captain as a wife as payment for services rendered. This is hardly the only world that they visit where women are regularly treated like chattel and companions/prostitutes are treated worse. (I'm thinking about that awful ballgown episode and the siege of the whorehouse episodes, but I'm sure there are others.) The crew is regularly hired to steal shit. (They have an attack of conscious when they get to see the effects of stealing those medical supplies off of that train, but that's hardly the first or only time that they steal struggling settlers' stuff/rations/medicines.)
And although this is ostensibly a found family thing, the crew won't just help Simon get his sister's tests. There's got to be something in it for them, so he pays them in the (relatively) scant drugs that are supplied to his inner city hospital. They then distribute them in the outer rim worlds - for a price. (And the narrative frames that as them being good rather than examining why the government has difficulty getting those drugs there - specifically them, and people like them, steal the supplies that the government probably doesn't have to send, what with the rim worlds not actually belonging to the central government. That, in turn, means they aren't citizens and the central government doesn't owe them anything - including the pirate protection and drugs that they apparently try to dole out anyway.)
It's treated like an ongoing social fail/romantic gaff that Simon isn't interested in wandering the universe and being a pirate with Kaylee. The narrative frames it as wrong for him to be honest about what he wants in life and supports Kaylee's wounded (and overly proprietary) feelings regarding his disinterest in wasting his life's ambitions/achievements to stay with her. And of course, it's super charming the way that Mal treats Inara. What girl wouldn't swoon for that?
My point here, I guess, is that the evil government isn't shown to be particularly evil in the t.v. series. They want taxes. They don't want people to be killed, cheated, or sold into marriage. They provide medical care and try to provide protection. They're so big that I doubt they manage any of the inner worlds with any particular care as to planetary details/governance. And women seem too have way better standing and treatment on their worlds. The protagonists are bad dudes who lie, cheat, steal, and kill people fairly regularly. And they hang out with equally bad or sometimes even worse dudes. What Whedon was showing in Firefly wasn't the story that he was telling.
Which, I think, is where Buffy falls down a lot. The story that he shows there - the one that made my teenage self so uncomfortable that I dropped it several times - isn't the one that he thinks he's telling. But he does a hell of a job selling the narrative that he wants to be writing. And I actually really admire him for that, even if I love the idea of Buffy as a character/archtype more than I love her for her... or her series.
(And yeah, I have so many questions about the whole Uber thing starting with: Do they even do background checks on their drivers? And ending with: and how much do they think cabbies make anyway? I mean, there are other questions in there too, and I'm all for market competition but...)
no subject
Date: 2015-08-23 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-23 11:03 am (UTC)