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More Buffy thoughts:
Jun. 17th, 2003 01:14 amThree things:
1) Everyone on Buffy and Angel is searching, but all of them are searching for different things.
Buffy: She wants choice. To be who she wants to be without being hemmed down by the world. This is why she's our pure feminist, even if Buffy herself might not say that. She was 'destiny-free' and then suddenly was The One Girl in All the World. And while she fought against the rules that were placed on her, she didn't fight her own strength. And she never gave up her femininity to do it. She could kick ass and be as girly-girl as she wanted and that was shown as perfectly fine (just as Kennedy can be as non-girly-girl as she wants and that's just as wonderful).
Xander: Xander's main quest has always been for equality. He doesn't need credit. He doesn't need to be the only. He's happy with being the guy who "has logged field time" (Checkpoint). He wants to be part of the team. Equal. He's a man who is both unthreatened by a strong woman and who has accepted his own primary nature as nuturing (I'm a comfortador).
Both of these things are actually pointed out in Restless. Or rather, they point out that they feel like they lack these things. For Buffy, she points out that "It's not really up to me", but then she counteracts that by searching for her friends, by taking the choice into her own hands. And Xander is told, over and over, that he isn't good enough and isn't with his friends, but he never stops looking for a way out of the basement of his own self-disrespect. As TWoP put it, it was the Basement of Debasement, which is a very appropriate name for it. But by dint of his own persistence, he breaks out of the basement and gets an apartment. And he becomes a fixer. That's who/what Xander is: a fixer. And Buffy is an enabler, she helps people reach their potential. Always has.
Willow and Giles' are tickling at the back of my mind, but I can't quite articulate them (Acceptance of self for Willow perhaps?).
Spike just wanted to be loved and Angel's spent all this time longing for approval. Which is why he gets TPTP and Spike doesn't. Spike doesn't need them or want them. Angel does. Spike doesn't have anyone yattering to him about prophecies about vampires with souls because he doesn't give a rip about anyone's approval. (as an aside: Connor was searching for... as Cordy put it, something real. He wanted something so true that nothing could tear it away.)
2) I seem to be writing something of an essay about the use of demons as the Other in Buffy and how, over time, they blurred and broke the line. I'm thinking that it'll be longish, though.
3) I love all the different types of people that we've had on the show. And also that most people are more than one type. But I love that we have a wide variety of women and men on the show, all of whom are very different personality types. Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles, Tara, Spike, Dawn, Wood, Faith, Andrew, Anya, and all the rest: they're all such... individuals. And all of them are shown as correct paths. They can all be who they are and that's just the way they should be. Which is a great message, really.
1) Everyone on Buffy and Angel is searching, but all of them are searching for different things.
Buffy: She wants choice. To be who she wants to be without being hemmed down by the world. This is why she's our pure feminist, even if Buffy herself might not say that. She was 'destiny-free' and then suddenly was The One Girl in All the World. And while she fought against the rules that were placed on her, she didn't fight her own strength. And she never gave up her femininity to do it. She could kick ass and be as girly-girl as she wanted and that was shown as perfectly fine (just as Kennedy can be as non-girly-girl as she wants and that's just as wonderful).
Xander: Xander's main quest has always been for equality. He doesn't need credit. He doesn't need to be the only. He's happy with being the guy who "has logged field time" (Checkpoint). He wants to be part of the team. Equal. He's a man who is both unthreatened by a strong woman and who has accepted his own primary nature as nuturing (I'm a comfortador).
Both of these things are actually pointed out in Restless. Or rather, they point out that they feel like they lack these things. For Buffy, she points out that "It's not really up to me", but then she counteracts that by searching for her friends, by taking the choice into her own hands. And Xander is told, over and over, that he isn't good enough and isn't with his friends, but he never stops looking for a way out of the basement of his own self-disrespect. As TWoP put it, it was the Basement of Debasement, which is a very appropriate name for it. But by dint of his own persistence, he breaks out of the basement and gets an apartment. And he becomes a fixer. That's who/what Xander is: a fixer. And Buffy is an enabler, she helps people reach their potential. Always has.
Willow and Giles' are tickling at the back of my mind, but I can't quite articulate them (Acceptance of self for Willow perhaps?).
Spike just wanted to be loved and Angel's spent all this time longing for approval. Which is why he gets TPTP and Spike doesn't. Spike doesn't need them or want them. Angel does. Spike doesn't have anyone yattering to him about prophecies about vampires with souls because he doesn't give a rip about anyone's approval. (as an aside: Connor was searching for... as Cordy put it, something real. He wanted something so true that nothing could tear it away.)
2) I seem to be writing something of an essay about the use of demons as the Other in Buffy and how, over time, they blurred and broke the line. I'm thinking that it'll be longish, though.
3) I love all the different types of people that we've had on the show. And also that most people are more than one type. But I love that we have a wide variety of women and men on the show, all of whom are very different personality types. Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles, Tara, Spike, Dawn, Wood, Faith, Andrew, Anya, and all the rest: they're all such... individuals. And all of them are shown as correct paths. They can all be who they are and that's just the way they should be. Which is a great message, really.