#It's like they define woman as 'ability to be raped' which is all kinds of fucked up

[kyliaquilor]

Really should probably get that Shinigami Eyes thing, shouldn't I?

[celaenaeiln]

(Cracks fingers)

Okay now it’s time for a relatively big question. Between these two, who would say defined Dick’s true persona the best?

Marv Wolfman (New Teen Titans) or Chuck Dixon (Robin Year One, Nightwing solo book)?

noooooooo how can you be so cruel as to ask me 😭😭😭😭 I love them both so muchhh

Okay you might hate me for this but I'm the type of person who accepts everything written about a character unless that comic has glaring inconsistencies that completely contradict what other writers have written.

So for me these two are some of the absolute best writers and you're making me choose! 😭

Robin Year One is one of my all time favorite comics but at the same time Marv Wolfman wrote Silver Age: Teen Titans and I loved that comic.

However I'm more interested in Chuck Dixon's work because he retained Dick's psychotic quality that he was known for from his robin days. He writes Dick as a happy, intelligent child with extraordinary abilities and accomplishing daring feats. He writes Dick with all the daring and brilliance that the world's greatest acrobat and genius prodigy of Batman should have.

Dixon's portrayal of Bruce and robin Dick is heartwarming is the most accurate representation of their relationship.

Furthermore he gives Alfred's perspective on how Dick made Bruce's life so much better. Some which I talked about in my previous post.

The little things he does like juggling with batarangs

Being popular in school

Being an ace basketball player

Being so overly competent that he can kock out people and guns three at a time with pool balls-

All of this is the essence of Dick Grayson. While Marv Wolfman does a good job, he doesn't quite emulate who Dick Grayson is a person, more specifically robin.

I like Chuck Dixon's Nightwing better.

Chuck Dixon's Nightwing run IS the BEST Nightwing run ever written. For one, he makes Dick come alive as a person.

"I've only been here two minutes. And already I want to shower with clorox and sandpaper."

He's the one responsible for bringing back Dick's jokes and laughter in Nightwing that Dick's robin is iconic for.

He's made Dick the caring, lovable person that Dick was as robin but with the maturity of an adult.

He saves a woman, protects her from being raped, gives her his money and ticket, and sends her on her way to a safer place with no questions asked, just kindness in his soul.

He writes Dick to be the brilliant detective and extraordinary fighter he is.

Best of all, his craziness!!

DICK!! CRAZY ALERT?!

Chuck Dixon's Dick Grayson is funny, brilliant, wild, and loving. That's why I like him so much and this is who I believe Dick Grayson is.

But Marv Wolfman did a fantastic job writing Dick's maturity and his relationships with other people. He focuses on Dick's detective side and how Dick interacts and engages with other titans.

While not as funny, his Dick is also extremely intelligent and loving. He created Dick to love with his full heart and upright morals.

He invests in people, he's loyal, loving, and faithful. It's just another part of him.

So I can't say one person wrote him better than the other. Wolfman and Dixon combined create the whole picture of Dick Grayson. But I can say I prefer Dixon as a personal choice because I just happen to like those particular traits of Dick's he emphasized more even though all of them are equally important and make Dick who he is.

[ventbloglite]

GC's, TERF's and other such transphobes claiming to be feminists like haleysaphicorner really baffle me in how incidentally sexist and just downright strange and unusual they are about women. And by women I mean cis women, and the concept of being a woman, womanhood etc (as well as the no-brainer hatred of trans women.) whilst claiming to defend them!

In their attempts to 'save' women and the concept of womanhood, they say things which actively degender women (including cis women), reduce women and womanhood down to sex only and place suffering whilst being born with a vagina as the only thing which truly shows womanhood outside of sex. All whilst judging the body types of other cis women, based on attractiveness and stereotypical femininity as well as choice of lifestyle, dress and personality traits. All of this which is done by the patriarchy. All of this which is done by the worst kinds of misogynistic cishet men you can think of. These things they are saying to 'protect womanhood' are exactly what has been used to oppress women for centuries. And they don't see it.

In your race to be 'critical' of gender 'theory' and destroy trans peoples ability to identify as they feel instead of what others tell them to be, you are directly contributing to the lines of misogynistic thinking that oppress all women.

The Patriarchy wants to see you as just some female, fit for your biological purposes and inherently defined by them! (Periods, having female reproductive organs and genitalia, being able to conceive and give birth, having large or at least noticable breasts). There is a huge difference between refusing to be seen as 'weaker' because of these body parts, which you may or may not view as special/valuable and insisting that they are the only or main thing of importance about being a woman at all.

The Patriarchy wants you to value yourself based on your level of conventional attractiveness (having the 'right kind' of 'female' body).

The Patriarchy causes you suffering and tells you it's 'because you are a woman/what makes you a woman'.

And TERF's etc believe it and promote it themselves because they hate trans people. Literally their hatred of trans people actually seems higher than their love for women and hatred of misogyny. It's a total misdirection that misogynists are laughing at. Fight the trans 'enemy' instead of the patriarchy and the Big Man laughs.

They would rather decide that animals have evolved these techniques because of a fear of rape* and the hatred of the bogies they make out of men in order to 'prove' that being female/a woman is based on suffering (ignoring the high rates of rape for trans women ofc). They would rather decide that they (and all cis women) are more of just a female and less of an actual woman, actively degendering women down to their base state, a less human state (and not in a fun therian way), a less of a person if you will, than share a gender with a trans person. Or in the case of trans men and AFAB nonbinary people (they are not ready to learn about intersex people), share a sex with someone who is not a woman.

If that's the hill they want to die on, then theyc an die on it. But they clearly have no respect for or understanding of women, womanhood or themselves which isn't dripping in misogyny as well as transphobia. Astounding how you can belong to a gender and so vastly misunderstand that you are more than 'just a female' and that womanhood looks different and is valid for every woman who should never be reduced to just genitalia or made to believe in 'divine suffering' instead of trying to actively change things for women so they don't have to suffer.

By the way; * I don't know about the spiders, but female ducks evolved that way not because 'all' duck sex is rape because Duck Patriarchy or some shit you believe to have in common with ducks (again in terms of actual human on human rape and sexual violence you do directly share that with trans women), but because it gives them active control over who does and doesn't get to impregnate them. They will relax their vaginas to allow a drake they like to actually ejaculate where he needs to, and keep it contracted and difficult to navigate for those she doesn't no matter how hard they try. Ducks are not walking away with trauma from 'being raped' and considering it 'part of what makes them a female'. They're walking away confident that this idiot just shot his load into an random pocket whilst her beau gets to make eggs with her. Have a source I guess.

[frecklenog]

transandrophobia is a weird thing to think about for me as a transmasc because i’ve never once met a transfem who has openly considered me lesser or as a bad person or a freak for pursuing medical transition like hrt and top surgery, or even just for being a guy. in my experience, that kind of hatred and prejudice has only ever come from cis people. the same men who tell tgirls they’ll “never be real women” are the same ones telling tguys we’ll “never be real men.” the same women who tell tgirls they’re inherently dangerous and disgusting because they’re amab tell tguys that we’re “mutilating” our “beautiful female bodies” and that we just hate women. and yet a lot of people who are against transmascs having a label for their experiences seem to point to hatred of transfems and trans women.

i’m not going to make the argument that transmisogyny isn’t real, because it absolutely is. and it should be discussed and resisted. transfems are not just women/fems, but human beings with bodily autonomy, and are deserving of respect — regardless of how they present themselves. i don’t care how long her beard is, what her hairline looks like, or anything else. she told you her name is sarah, and i will fistfight you over it.

but the same is also true of transmascs. there are those of us who have been raped or otherwise assaulted because “a real man would be able to fight back” (a bullshit argument in the first place — assault is never the fault of the victim, and cis men are also often victims). transmascs are not just men/mascs, we are human beings with bodily autonomy, and are deserving of respect, regardless of how we present ourselves. i don’t care how big his boobs are, that he’s wearing a dress, or anything else. he told you his name is oliver, and i will fistfight you over it.

if i’m honest, i think my issue with transandrophobia is mostly as a term.

“transmisogyny” is described as the intersection of transphobia and misogyny — that is, a bigotry towards transfems in part for not fitting the platonic ideal of femininity.

“transandrophobia” in turn implies the intersect of transphobia and androphobia. but “androphobia” is defined as the fear of men — which, if i may be frank, i don’t think cis men have — certainly not on a large enough scale for it to be considered systemic.

to be glib — and this is just my opinion as one (1) transmasc — i think that what’s often defined as transandrophobia is an intersection of transphobia and either terfdom or misdirected misogyny. i’ve been very lucky in that my own experiences with it are limited, but much of the bigotry that i’ve faced specifically for being transmasculine has been born of people perceiving me as a woman (or rather, as a girl, since i haven’t really “passed” as feminine since i started my transition in high school).

as i stated before, afab bodies are viewed as commodities. how will anyone ever love you if you hack your boobs off? what about your potential to be a mother — the highest, most divine honor that can be bestowed upon a woman, and clearly the most important matter at hand — regardless of what you want? do you really want a disgusting scar on your arm?

(that last one is usually accompanied by images of phalloplasty skin graft sources in the early stages of healing, or that have become infected (as any surgical scar can), completely disregarding that 1. the donor skin can come from other places, 2. it normally does nothing to impede one’s ability to use their hand in the long run if the arm is chosen as the donor site, 3. phalloplasty isn’t the only type of bottom surgery available to transmascs, 4. the scar will fade with time, as all scars do, and 5. scars are absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in the first place. if you are self conscious about it, you’re allowed to tell people not to concern themselves with your medical history unless they’re providing you with medical care. otherwise, it’s straight up none of their fucking business.)

i don’t really know what question i’m asking, much less the answer to it. but ultimately, i do feel that the divide centered around transandrophobia — whether you want to call it that or something else — does more harm than good to the trans community as a whole. arguing that transmascs don’t face unique forms of bigotry is stupid, just like arguing the same about bisexuals/pansexuals/asexuals is. but we have more in common with our transfem sisters than we do differences from them, and we should focus primarily on fighting for each other and uplifting the other members of our community regardless of our perceived differences. sorry you forgot that this is supposed to be a place where people are accepted for who they are and diversity is celebrated, and not the fucking oppression olympics.

[ginmo]

How do you think the Bran and Jaime’s meeting will go in the books? I’ve read theories guessing he might end up as King Bran’s Hand, meta where the writers want him to become a mentor or father figure to the Starks in a full circle of his redemption arc, while others don’t want or think he should be involved with the Starks long-term either because of his and his family’s sins against the Starks or because they view his arc as reclamation rather than redemption or atonement. 1/2

This is what GRRM said about Bran and exploring time. 

“It's an obscenity to go into somebody's mind. So Bran may be responsible for Hodor's simplicity, due to going into his mind so powerfully that it rippled back through time. The explanation of Bran's powers, the whole questions of time and causality - can we affect the past? Is time a river you can only sail one way or an ocean that can be affected wherever you drop into it? These are issues I want to explore in the book, but it's harder to explain in a show.” - Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon

Hodor’s name reveal is neat and all, but Bran’s power to manipulate the past doesn't exist just so we can randomly learn Hodor’s pointless name origin. That would be ridiculous unless the scene was used to introduce that ability. Hodor’s name reveal is important to the narrative, and I believe its purpose is to set up a much bigger event/reveal involved around Bran interfering with the past, not just observing it. I’m pretty sure GRRM was hint-hinting to D&D about this, which is why he told them about the random ass Hodor scene that was already written, thinking it would be obvious what that means for the overall plot and letting them run with it but………………..

Because of this, I think it’s possible Bran brought himself to where he is. 

IF Bran isn’t involved in The Push, then he could have been involved with Jaime killing the Mad King. I kinda like the idea of Bran playing into Aerys’ madness, causing him to stock up on wildfire around the city, because then the wildfire would be an essential future plot element for a bigger purpose towards the end of the series and it would be a question of time, “a river you can only sail one way, or an ocean that can be affected wherever you drop it,” but for the entire series. (And, as someone with a passion in astrophysics, I’m a sucker for discussions around time. BUTTHAT’SJUSTME) 

Do I totally subscribe to this theory? Eh. I’m still not convinced Bran is King of All of Westeros for reasons, but I’m open-minded. I DO think Jaime is surviving the series, for reasonsssss, so I’m putting that disclaimer out there right now. I will never claim with absolute confidence that he is surviving though because, I mean, nobody fucking knows, and there’s an argument for death. I’m just going off of narrative clues that I perceive to be clues, and taking other character arcs into consideration. After literally drawing up a table because I’m weird, the column for Survive has more evidence and justification than the column for Dies, so that’s why I lean the way I lean. SO with that being said, I think it’s possible he has more of a political future.

IF this is what GRRM is writing, Jaime would still be responsible for pushing him, of course, but future Bran would want to be pushed. He'd be setting everything in motion to create the butterfly effect that makes it happen. 

Even if that isn’t what GRRM had intended with exploring time, it’s highly likely Bran’s character development is taking him down a path of apathy over it, meaning he wouldn’t be needing Jaime to do something for the purpose of redemption for him. 

Speaking of Redemption…

-deep breath-

I’m going to go off on this a bit because it IS relevant, I swear. 

“Limits of redemption” is probably the biggest wtf interpretation fandom has when it comes to what GRRM actually said. I’ll try not to go off on it too much here but -

Interviewer: Both Jaime and Cersei are clearly despicable in those moments. Later, though, we see a more humane side of Jaime when he rescues a woman, who had been an enemy, from rape. All of a sudden we don’t know what to feel about Jaime.

GRRM: One of the things I wanted to explore with Jaime, and with so many of the characters, is the whole issue of redemption. When can we be redeemed? Is redemption even possible? I don’t have an answer. But when do we forgive people? [...]  I want there to be a possibility of redemption for us, because we all do terrible things. We should be able to be forgiven. Because if there is no possibility of redemption, what’s the answer then?  [x]

I bolded “we” from the interviewer, because it gives context to GRRM’s answer with “we” being the readers, not the characters or Jaime himself. (I think there’s another interview where he says “limits of redemption” but it’s in the same context. I could be wrong but I SWEAR I heard it. Anyway…) 

“I kind of tried to ask, ‘do you think he’s changed?’ to get him to talk about Jaime’s redemption arc, so he said something like he wanted to explore the concept of forgiveness and whether it’s possible to be forgiven for doing such horrible things, and that his goal was to ask the question, not give an answer.” [x]

Fandom thinks this is the characters giving Jaime forgiveness, and maybe there will be a small element of that in the books, but the question is for the readers. No, Jaime is not actively seeking redemption from people. His redemption is for himself, through living his best life, by rediscovering the person he used to be. Yes He Will Be Redeemed and No He Will Fail assume redemption is some arbitrary checklist determined by One Big Act, and they’re answers to a question GRRM doesn’t want to give an answer to. 

The purpose of Jaime’s POVs is to ask the readers, and the most obvious moment of this was the bath scene. GRRM smacks us over the head with the Aerys confession, and then as we’re introduced to more and more of his POV chapters, he slowly chips away at the Jaime illusion that was intentionally established the moment he pushed one of the perceived child protagonists out of a window. It’s brilliant, and I’m sorry GRRM that a large chunk of your fandom is too dense to get it. How frustrating lol. I’ll be insulted for him. (I’m legit wondering if his recent angsty tweets about grey and redemption about real life stem from a concern that his fandom won’t understand the point of the series.) 

To give you an idea of where these people are coming from, at least one BNF idiot on Twitter believes redemption hasn’t been explored with Jaime yet. 

But uh… 

GRRM mentioned his intent is to “explore redemption” after delivering Jaime POVs, because... it’s... not a spoiler… he’s already exploring redemption, because the question is being asked TO US. We were supposed to have an “oh shit” moment, realizing this is more complex than the surface level, biased perspective we were delivered at the beginning of the story. “Maybe Westeros and my protagonist have it wrong.” -cough- the people in the village in BatB -cough- 

No matter how much fandom likes to pretend they love GRRM for pushing the boundaries of fantasy, they secretly fucking hate it. They love to be comfortable, dude. That’s why they read this series as if it’s a clear cut Good vs. Evil, because a) ego and b) that’s easy. If GRRM was writing Jaime as doing everything with ill intent then…. his… question isn’t being asked. They think everything he does right now is selfish and Bad, so they’re waiting. They want it spoon fed to them. They want classic fantasy. They want Starks = Good, Lannisters = Bad. 

But… if the author sees Jaime’s actions as grey and complex, enough to ask the question to the readers if he’s redeemed in their eyes or not, then he’s not going to write an endgame that punishes the character for narrative payoff, because he doesn’t see his actions as “sins” or “crimes” in the same way that these people are. Once upon a time, a person on tumblr reblogged one of my posts and said that Jaime will rape Cersei before he kills himself and that will be his endgame. But GRRM doesn’t view Jaime as a rapist, so he’s not going to write Jaime as a rapist. I’m bringing that up, because it’s the same phenomenon. People can ignore authorial intent all they want, but NOT when it comes to predicting narrative trajectory. The general fandom is terrible at that lol. 

The exploration of redemption for Jaime comes in the form of confronting his disillusioned self and everything attached to it. Before someone thinks, “lolllll he isn’t disillusioned” 

 “he actually was a very idealistic young man who was disillusioned by life” [x]

Jaime’s redemption is the path of returning to that idealistic man for himself. It’s by feeling ashamed of the things he’s done to hide his love for Cersei. It’s by gaining independence and detaching from the toxic relationship that caused a mess outside of them. It’s by wanting to be like the knights he admired in his youth, and like the woman warrior that inspired him. 

So when I think about narrative payoff for Jaime, I don’t see it framed as him being “punished” for actions viewed as “crimes,” when GRRM clearly established those “crimes” as complicated and grey with a character already going through some positive development, and especially when the characters judging are written to be flawed as well.

On the other side, having him be “punished” by succumbing to hatred and anger is for sure giving an answer (this just… -sits on hands- don’t even get me started on THIS fucking hot take). That answer would be a clear, solid, “No, no matter how hard he tries to turn his life around, he can’t be redeemed, because he’s a hateful, angry, fucked up person.” I’ve legit seen people think “limits of redemption” is a boundary of redemption drawn in the sand that Jaime is walking towards but he won’t be able to cross it. I-......................... 

And what’s even the point of his handchop if scenario number 2 happens?  

“And Jaime, losing a hand, losing the very thing he defined himself on is crucial to where I think I want to go with the character. And he questions what do you make of yourself if you’ve lost that.” - GRRM [x]

(I’m going to put this quote in every post sorry not sorry) 

So he’s going to take Jaime on this big identity journey just for him to be like “lol nah he isn’t that” …?? That makes the loss of his hand meaningless, not “crucial.” Is it really crucial for him to lose his hand if he’s bringing him back to the beginning? Is it really crucial for him to lose his hand to make himself realize he’s hateful and a failure and murder Cersei and then himself? No. He could have still met Brienne and been inspired by her knightly ways, attempted to live a better life, found out about Cersei’s affairs, etc. He doesn’t need to lose his hand to reach a point of fucking murder/suicide lmao fuck (not saying he’ll do that but I KNOW people are thinking it). 

The loss of his hand is “crucial,” because GRRM has bigger endgame plans for him in the form of politics, and the journey to believably get there requires the forced loss of his warrior identity and everything that the hand symbolized. 

AS FOR THE ACTUAL HAND THEORY...

Even though I’m undecided on it, I CAN see it IF Bran is King. I get it. Jaime’s missing his right Hand, he becomes the Hand to the kid he pushed out the window. Hardy har har. I understand how that would be pleasing.

And we all know GRRM said something about how the best ones for power are the ones who don’t want it…  

And… this suspicious scene at the very beginning of the series… 

“You should be the Hand.” 

“Gods forbid,” a man’s voice replied lazily. “It’s not an honor I’d want. There’s far too much work involved.” 

Bran hung, listening, suddenly afraid to go on. -AGOT

BUT IF that happens, it wouldn’t be there as some sort of #atonement #forredemption. It would be there because of Jaime’s growth as a character after developing into a political player, after asking himself, “what do you make of yourself if you’ve lost [the swordhand]?” He’s no longer the warrior he once was. He dislikes any sort of political position, because he feels most alive with a sword in his hand. But that was Warrior Jaime, and the point of “what do you make of yourself after you’ve lost that” is Jaime going down a different path after discovering that Warrior Jaime has died. I mean, he’d never be actively seeking power and thinking it’s the best career ever, like he’d probably be all -sighhhhhhh- about it, but he’d be doing the responsible thing and what’s necessary. He’d make himself useful in a new way. 

“The Warrior had been Jaime’s god since he was old enough to hold a sword. Other men might be fathers, sons, husbands, but never Jaime Lannister, whose sword was as golden as his hair. He was a warrior, and that was all he would ever be.” - AFFC (Do I really need to make a post about how GRRM foreshadows? Mr. Bran: “I never fall”...?)

Jaime losing his hand was the narrative consequence for The Push, making all of his development post handchop -ALL OF HIS POVS- the redemption theme. It was the hand that pushed Bran, fucked his twin, killed his king, swung the sword against fandom’s Precious Protagonists… 

“You ought to be pleased. I’ve lost the hand I killed the king with. The hand that flung the Stark boy from that tower. The hand I’d slide between my sister’s thighs to make her wet.” - AFFC

So if Jaime becomes his Hand, it would be the two characters meeting in the middle, not Jaime groveling at his feet, begging for forgiveness, framed as a punishment for sins - “sins” that fandom views as “sins” that need narrative payoff, because they don’t understand intent. 

[paceypeternathanslawyer]

Another Top 10 Female TV Characters (In no particular order)

I posted something like this before but I added some favorite characters and I had to get my feelings down in writing :) You can read my other post, but in summation, the characters I mentioned before were: El Hopper, Anne Shirley, Lorelai Gilmore, Annie Edison, Joyce Byers, Paris Geller, Lois Lane, Jess Day, Midge Maisel, and Millie Helper.

Joey Potter (Dawson’s Creek):

Joey is one of the best characters in Dawson’s Creek. In my opinion the show should have been called “Joey’s Creek” :) She was a far more interesting character than Dawson. I haven’t finished the show yet so I don’t have too much to say about her, but from what i’ve heard she finally achieves her dreams and ends the series in a happy place, which makes me happy. What I do know is that Joey is extremely driven, creative, and smart. She’s also a character who has been through so much and has made it to the other side to be a very strong and kind person. 

Rory Gilmore (Gilmore Girls):

Alexis doesn’t get enough love for her portrayal of Rory. You gotta figure that this was Alexis’ first role ever and she was able to show a lot of emotion in this part, while also being extremely adept at the comedy as well. Rory had her ups and downs but i’ve always been a Rory defender. She’s not perfect, but I also would say that makes her a well rounded character. She’s smart, kind, and an amazing friend. 

Robin Buckley (Stranger Things):

Robin was such an important and fun addition to Stranger Things. She immediately brought such a new and dynamic atmosphere to the show. She’s a genuis... I mean, she fucking cracked a professional Russian code in a day. She’s hilarious and Maya is a tremendous actress. How she can go into a really serious and emotional scene and then go straight into a hilarious scene where she’s high with Steve is just simply amazing.

Veronica Mars (Veronica Mars):

Veronica Mars is my favorite character in the original  3 seasons of Veronica Mars. She’s talented, badass, and snarky/really funny. Veronica is a character who could benefit from therapy, but she’s very stubborn and in the 4th season seems to be adverse to the idea of going to therapy. She has been through more than any high schooler should go through. Even before the events of the 1st season. Her parents divorce, she is raped at a high school party, her best friend is murdered, her father, who was the sheriff at the time, accused her boyfriend’s father of killing her friend/her boyfriend’s sister. Because of that event, her and her boyfriend broke up and she lost her group of friends. Hopefully you followed with that last one cause it’s pretty complicated lol. And that’s just the events before the 1st season. Despite that or possibly because of that, Veronica has become a very strong and tenacious girl with a strong love of justice. She is also a loyal friend. 

Jeannie Nelson (I Dream Of Jeannie):

Jeannie is so sweet and loyal. She is my favorite character in I Dream Of Jeannie. There is truly never a dull moment with Jeannie around. She’s brings the crazy into any situation and I mean that in the best way possible. No, but seriously she is such a positive and sweet character until you cross her and then as a magical genie you will wish you had never been born ;) Also what fun Barbara must have had playing that character, not only because of all the crazy situations she got to play, but also Jeannie had the best wardrobe ever!

Laura Petrie (The Dick Van Dyke Show):

Laura was such a unique TV character for the time. In the early days of Television there were usually two types of women characters. You had the June Cleaver, stay at home, always dressed immaculately in a dress and apron, always there for some sage advice for her children type of character. And then you had the nagging wife/magnet for trouble like Lucy Ricardo. I don’t want to do too much of a disservice to Lucy cause she is a very beloved TV character and in some ways was very ahead of her time. Yet Laura was very different than those two types of characters. She was supremely real in every way. She wore pants a lot, she had breakdowns because at times being a stay at home mom was difficult and thankless, she talked like a real person would not like a June Cleaver or a Donna Stone. She was funny, talented. At one point, Sally was taking a leave of absence from Rob’s TV show that he was a head writer for and Laura asked to help out in any way. Rob agreed for her to be a typist for them, to at least fill some of the void of Sally’s absence. During that time, Laura actually comes up with some jokes and helps with the writing of the show as well.  She was a dancer, she is proficient in self defense. She was truly an amazing character and so unique for an early 1960s TV show.

Olivia Dunham (Fringe):

Anna was an actress who took me completely by surprise. The first few episodes of Fringe, I didn’t feel like she was such an amazing actress, yet as the show went on, Anna really showed herself to be an Emmy worthy actor. She got to play so many different versions of this character as well. She played the original Olivia and then we meet Olivia from an alternate universe and there are some big ways and some subtle ways that those two versions of Olivia are different. There’s a character named William Bell and he is played by Leonard Nimoy. For a stretch of like three episodes, Olivia gets inhabited by William Bell. So it’s Anna Torv doing a hilarious and really well done impression of Leonard Nimoy/his character in Fringe, her mannerisms are so funny in those episodes!! Yes, this show probably sounds crazy.... it is but in the best possible way, everyone should go watch it :) I remember when I became endeared to her character. It was when I saw her interact with her niece, Ella. It showed such a soft and real side of her. She’s a protector, she’s badass, she’s an incredible mother, wife, sister, friend, and aunt.

Astrid Farnsworth (Fringe):

Astrid is such a fun character in Fringe. She’s very endearing and real and funny. I’m sad that during the run of the show, we didn’t get to see more of her, but all that we did get was so much fun. The lab scenes are some of my favorites. The dynamic of Astrid, Walter, and Peter is just the best! Also the alternate universe Astrid is the purest and sweetest angel and must be protected at all costs :)

Sookie St James (Gilmore Girls):

The character of Sookie was really important in my opinion she is a beautiful plus size woman where her size did not define her, she was not the butt of the joke. She is a well respected chef, a loving mother, friend, and wife. When people think of Melissa McCarthy, they don’t typically first think of this role, but in my opinion it’s the best role of her career. She’s very funny in this part, but it’s a different and more low key kind of comedy than some people are used to seeing her in. BTW Drunk Sookie is iconic!! LOL

Lane Kim (Gilmore Girls):

Another character in Gilmore Girls that is underappreciated. She an incredibly talented drummer and she largely taught herself to play the drums. I can’t remember if the music store owner ever taught her but I feel like didn’t. I think she just let her use the display drums until Lane could buy them. Lane is funny and cool and a supportive friend. All the actors in Gilmore Girls were great at the dramatic bits as well, and Keiko was no different, some of those scenes between Lane and Mrs Kim really broke my heart which is credit to Emily and Keiko’s acting ability.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Wicked City (1987)

I'm giving Wicked City a zero star rating. The question is “Why?”. It isn't entirely without merits. I certainly wasn’t bored. I nonetheless can't recommend it to anyone.

Our world co-exists with that of demons. For centuries, a pact between the “Black World” and ours has maintained peace. When a group of radicals threatens to ignite a war, Black Guard agents Renzaburō Taki (Greg Snegoff voices the human) and Makie (Gaye Kruger as the female demon) are dispatched to protect the lecherous, 200-year-old demon signatory Giuseppi Mayart (voiced by Mike Reynolds). Sinister forces begin assembling to take the elderly council member down, no matter the cost.

When people who've never seen any anime imagine what it's like, they think of this film. It’s badly dubbed, the animation ranges from ok to cheap, the story is juvenile, the female characters over-sexualized, the lead is wooden and devoid of any charisma, and the tone all over the place as it flashes quickly between scenes of rape (including the tentacles variety) to what passes for romance. I assumed movies like this didn’t actually exist, that they were exaggerations compiled from clips taken out of context or weird pornographic films.

It's unclear whether this story is simply juvenile and trying to be edgy or genuine misogynist. Every single woman we see gets naked and winds up in some kind of sexual situation. Though Makie is a trained demon agent with superhuman strength, agility, and any number of other powers, she relies entirely on the men around her. Adding insult to injury is a complete lack of personality. She's merely there to titillate the audience as she is repeatedly undressed and/or sexually assaulted. This wouldn't necessarily be wrong, but in "Wicked City", rape is not used to develop characters, create drama, make you think, or advance the story. It’s included because the author knows that rape is a bad thing and that if a character is subjected to it, they will be uncomfortable. The execution is so poor, you'd think gang-rape torture is as unpleasant as discovering your co-worker didn't flush the toilet.

Wicked City pretends to be about a badass pair of superagents that have to protect a lecherous old man who can’t behave from demons. Actually, it's a pornographic too afraid to commit to an adult audience. It wants to be edgy with its violence and with its nudity so that excitable male teenagers will think it’s hardcore, daring, provocative, and "cool".

Let’s pretend your DVD skips over all of the scenes with questionable material in them, or you’re just not offended by that kind of stuff. I can’t speak for the original Japanese dialogue, but the English dub I found on the “Special Edition” is simply awful. You'll have difficulty understanding whether characters are human or not because the dialogue contradicts itself. Several plot elements are never explained or introduced quickly and then dropped entirely. Can you guess which character has a prosthetic arm? Maybe if you pay very close attention and realize the character who receives what should be a devastating injury isn’t bothered by it at all. Characters’ motivations make no sense, people’s abilities in terms of strength and supernatural powers vary wildly from scene to scene. In terms of animation, there are animation errors present throughout, including a character disappearing when behind a chain-link fence. How do you make that mistake?

All this in a story so linear it becomes as predictable as a re-run of Pokemon. Even the characters you’ve seen a thousand times. Giuseppe is the randy old man. Doesn’t matter how many times people tell him to shut up or threaten him with violence, he still pesters every attractive woman (like there was any other kind in this picture) for sex. Our lead is never defined except for the fact that he gets angry when bad things happen and likes to see naked women. Makie is a weak-willed individual sold as being strong but quickly devolves into eye candy when she's not a hostage to be saved.

I didn’t come into the film hating it. In fact, I’m more disappointed with it than angry. Someone should have known better. Wicked City has been called a classic, right along with Akira, and Ghost in the Shell. Somewhere, someone dismissed all of anime because their first interaction with the genre was Wicked City. Don’t even be tempted to watch it out of curiosity, or as something so shocking that it will be exciting. It’s neither artistic nor profound. Only immature, hateful, sadistic, misogynist, ugly, and ultimately, cheap. (English Dub on DVD, April 17, 2015)

[lianabrooks]

Strong Women - GOT Edition

This is written post-8.03 so HERE BE SPOILERS. 

Strong women... so many times writers trip over the idea of strong women. People think Strong = Manly and you wind up with characters that are forced into the mold of traditional masculinity (as defined by Victorian England) instead of women who are strong.

What I’ve really loved about the last few season of GAME OF THRONES is that we see enough women on screen that we get a full range of Strong Women. 

ARYA STARK .... the strength of a fighter Arya follows the classic fantasy mold for a Strong Woman. She’s dressed as a boy, trained to fight, and gets all the classic story beats of a male hero. She isn’t being rescued. She’s fighting on her own. And her sexuality and femininity are often pushed aside to focus on being Strong.

People love this and support this (which is good and fine). She’s been widely supported since Season One as a Strong Woman. And she is very strong. She’s amazing and I adore her arc. But it’s only one kind of strength.

It’s an obvious sort of strength at that. 

Alone, this kind of cheat makes me angry. It works only because we see Arya with other women who are equally strong. Like...

DAENERYS TARGARYEN... the strength of a strong soul I don’t always love the Mother of Dragons but there’s no denying watching Dany live her best life is very cathartic. I too would like to burn down my enemies and destroy everyone who mocks me then fly away on a dragon. No doubt, this is the best life.

Dany’s strength has, for most the show, relied on her family name, her connections, and her dragons. Take those away and what do you have?

It turns out you have a woman who is strong enough to stand and fight for the people she loves no matter what. A women strong enough to face death even when she is at her weakest. 

Dany’s strength is in her emotions more than anything else. 

Part of me, being old enough to have faced some of the emotional hurdles Dany has, wonders how she’s holding it all together. I honestly expect Dany to fall apart at any moment because of the emotional strain she’s been under. I half expected seeing her dead child in the Battle of Winterfell to do it (more than half expected, tbh). Dany is still standing.

That might be poor writing (PTSD does not get addressed in GOT) but it is also her strength. Dany’s ability to survive these things and fight makes her strong. She doesn’t need her dragons. 

For the first time in several seasons I have hope that Dany will have a happy ending. Maybe, just maybe, this will all work out. Or maybe I’m just an optimist.

BRIENNE OF TARTH... the strength of acceptance One of the things I love about Brienne’s strength is how she is physically strong, tall like a man, but this isn’t exactly what she wanted. Unlike Arya who always wanted to be a fighter like her brothers Brienne always had a piece of her that wanted to be a beautiful Lady. Arya is comfortable in her own skin (and anyone else’s) and Brienne wasn’t. It’s only in the last few seasons that we’ve seen Brienne grow into herself and accept her strength. She’s learned to love her strengths and height and who she is. And as she’s come to accept herself we’ve seen her rise from being mocked to becoming the beloved leader adored and trusted by so many. 

Brienne is sometimes the most relatable character because we’ve all felt like outcasts before. We have an entire beauty industry focused on telling women how to change to be acceptable and beautiful. Little girls grow up being told they need to change themselves to be okay. Not great, not the best, just okay.

Brienne is an amazing lesson in how you are perfect the way you are. 

LYANNA MORMONT... the strength of bravery The little bear, the fierce northern sass queen who faced down the Boltons knowing full well she’d be raped and killed if Ramsey won. When her people went to war she stood beside them. She took out a giant on her way out. 

Lyanna is a beautifully balanced character, part Lady and part warrior. She’s fierce. She’s opinionated. She was a child growing up in the middle of a war zone and did what she had to do to survive. Outnumbered, overwhelmed, and facing death she charged right in. 

CERSEI LANNISTER... the strength of focus I know, Cersei is a villain and her days are numbered, but we’re talking about strong women here and Cersei is part of the wide array of strong women in this series. 

Cersei survived a hideous start to life. She was sold to a loveless marriage for politics. She was emotionally abused if not physically. She was starved for affection. And some how she held on to her sanity to fight for her children. That’s all she ever wanted. She didn’t go looking for her own happiness. She didn’t ever feel safe. She focused on her children. And when she lost them she focused on destroying the people who hurt her. 

She’s the major antagonist and - as a professional author - let me say I am SUPER jealous I didn’t think up Cersei first. She’s such a complex and believable villain. She is bitter and vicious and I hope one day I have a reason to write a character like her. 

It’s so refreshing to have a female protagonist too. It’s so nice to see a strong woman who isn’t a good person, because a lot of times the Strong Woman Who Is Manly is praised for being strong while the traditionally feminine women are despised and shown to be too weak to be strong. Cersei is very feminine, especially in the early seasons. She’s the beautiful, golden haired queen, and she uses sex and sexuality as a weapon and she is strong and evil and the same time. I love it. 

SANSA STARK...the strength of a woman This is going to get hate because, let’s face it, Sansa is the most traditional woman on GAME OF THRONES. She wants a family and love. Her go-to activity is sewing. She hasn’t used a weapon (except other people) in the series. She’s never trained to kill. Sansa Stark is everything misogynists hate in women and everything women are taught to hate in themselves.

Since season one Sansa has been vilified. Absolutely destroyed for being weak, whiny, ect ect ect. 

Sansa is actually the one who made me pay attention to GAME OF THRONES because I saw how much people hated her and all I could conclude is they hated her for being a woman. For doing what women were historically expected to do. For being there and human while female.

If Arya is the typical fantasy Strong Woman than Sansa is the typical fantasy Weak Women trope, the one that’s supposed to be rescued or killed and forgotten. Women like her usually wind up dead to further some man’s plot. 

For me it’s been interesting to see Sansa change over the seasons. To use the prejudices against women, and especially against young women, to her advantage to survive. 

Sansa is also one of the more relatable characters on the show. We will never ride dragons. Most of us will never learn to fight. We won’t have magic. We won’t be given control of armies and explosives. And most of us will never be towering women strong enough to physically take down our attackers. 

Sansa’s reaction in 8.03 is exactly what you’d expect from someone not used to war. But you see strength anyway. She’s never been in the middle of a battle. She’s never been trained to attack. But she was taught to love and protect her people so she does. She has a knife and a friend and nothing more and she goes to battle in the crypts. 

And I know how people reacted. 

I knew without looking up the tags that people were complaining that Sansa was useless and weak and they hoped she died.

Those people are missing the point.

THE POINT: alone, all of these women are okay, together they are great. 

They can all do some things well but none of them can do everything. No one can do everything. It’s not humanely possible. 

Without Dany there was no distraction to get Bran in position. 

Without Sansa there wouldn’t have been armor, food, or a future for the survivors.

Without Brienne there wouldn’t have been a leader on the front line. 

Without Lyanna there wouldn’t have been the support of the north. 

Without Arya there wouldn’t have been an ending for the threat from beyond the wall. 

They worked together and all brought their strengths to the table. 

And now they’re all going after Cersei who, frankly, deserves it even if she is an interesting character. 

Wherever we go from here, we have been lucky to have this many women with this many different strengths leading a dynamic show. It’s amazing. 

[lastsonlost]

A step-by-step handbook for destroying a man's life with lie.

INTRODUCTION

A s women, we have been oppressed by men's physical advantages over us since the beginning of humankind.

But now, in today's modern societies, the tables are finally turning.

Especially with the advent of the Internet and social media, and the economy's transition from

manufacturing to information, women are leveraging their natural advantages (e.g., social skills, emotional intelligence, and communication) to gain power.

You've probably utilized these advantages to some degree already, in one form or another. For example, as a child in school, I recall the boys using physical strength and aggression (e.g., punching) to bully girls. That was their power. Girls, on the other hand, used communication and accusation (e.g., spreading rumors) to undermine boys. This is our power!

The purpose of this handbook is to be a resource:

a collection of tools and techniques that have proven

powerful in women's struggle against patriarchy. I did not invent these methods; I only describe them. Be advised, however, that the methods outlined in this handbook were chosen for their utility, or their ability to achieve results, rather than for their legal or ethical merit. In other words, the information presented herein does not purport to be legally or ethically sound. What is considered to be "right" or "legal" often changes with time, tl1e prevailing culture, and the evolution of law.

This handbook is a work of free speech. How the content is used, misused, or not used is at the sole discretion of the reader, and I (as the author) retain no responsibility. Similarly, I'm publishing this book under the pseudonym of Angela Confidential to protect from backlash.

Enjoy!

Just a little sample of what's in this book.........

CHAPTER 1

THE DAMN FUNDAMENTALS

Let's begin with some introductions. We have three key friends, or fundamentals, that make it possible to destroy a man now (DAMN). To DAMN well, it's important to know them well.

Our first ally is Allison Allegation. Allegation an be so simple, effective, and easy to employ that it's elegant. An allegation is a claim, usually without proof, that someone has done something illegal or wrong. A claim, at minimum, requires nothing more than an assertion.

For example, if I yell from a roof top that the world is flat, I have successfully made a claim. Similarly, identifying wrongdoing requires only observation, recollection, or a minimal amount of imagination. From lying to murder, any behavior that you've heard of, seen, experienced, or can think of that violates an ethical or a legal standard can suffice for an allegation.

However, it's the last part of what constitutes an allegation that makes it uniquely useful: no evidence is required.

This independence from proof allows you to make an allegation about any man doing anything without being encumbered by a need for facts.

But how can something as intangible as the spoken word, without evidence, have enough merit or power to DAMN? Admittedly, if left completely on her own, Allison Allegation has relatively little power.

That's where our other two friends, Mary Media and Arthur Authority, assist.

Mary Media, our second ally, encompasses just about any means of communication. Media can be as elementary as whispers of gossip, although nowadays the term most often refers to mass communication platforms such as television, the Internet, or mainstream media networks. Of course, it also includes social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, which you will soon see are especially well suited to DAMN.

So how does Mary Media help Allison Allegation?

Well, interestingly, they help each other. You've probably heard the philosophical question, "If a tree falls in the woods, and no one hears it, did it make a sound?"

Although the answer to that question is still debated, it's certain that if an allegation is made and no one knows about it, it has no power. Fortunately, however, the opposite is also true:

the more people who know about an allegation, the more powerful it becomes.

Thankfully for Allison Allegation and for our purposes, the modern mainstream media excel at spreading information far and wide. They do it to make money-lots of money-from advertisers. Yet advertisers need more than just a way to reach people; they also need a way to get people to pay attention to their advertisements (and ultimately buy products).

This is where media content comes in. Media content can be videos, website posts, "breaking news," and so on anything that garners interest. And it's no secret that scandal attracts people's interest especially well. "Sex sells," as the saying goes, and so does violence, injustice, misconduct, and anything else outrageous. That's why scandalous content in mainstream media has increased over the years. That's also why Mary Media helps Allison Allegation: scandalous allegations attract people's interest, interested people watch advertisements, advertisements sell products, and it all makes Mary Media money.

However, fascinatingly, while the mainstream media profit from proliferating allegations, they bear little responsibility for doing it! Apparently, as long as the media mention that the scandal is an "allegation," they are relatively safe from legal repercussions.

This is because, in free-speech societies, people can voice opinions and unsubstantiated claims. Further, the media can always attest that they are not making the allegation; rather, they are just reporting it.

But, in truth, the media actually do help "make" the allegation by how they report it. You probably know that how you say something can convey greater meaning than what you say. For example, I could say, "I'm happy," but ifl scream it angrily, people are much more likely to believe I'm upset. With that in mind, try listening carefully to how mainstream media say the word "allegation" when reporting a story. Either they say it in a positive tone, as though it's something good, or they say it quickly, as though it's insignificant. They also use the word "allegation" or "alleged" instead of using terms such as "unsubstantiated claim" or "accusation without proof" to deemphasize that evidence is lacking. Even more cleverly, after the media make an allegation popular by broadcasting it far and wide, they then circle back later and broadcast how "so many" people are talking about it.

Further, they support people who make allegations by promoting them as courageous for "coming forward." These tactics get even more people interested and encourage others to make similar claims. Finally, the media then cite the increasing number of allegations and growing public outrage (that they helped create) as being "too numerous to be ignored" or as "evidence" of truth.

In a court of law, a man is considered innocent until proven guilty, but in the court of media-managed public opinion, a man "serially accused" of a scandal is guilty until proven innocent. In this way, an allegation does not require evidence to DAMN because, through media manipulation, it becomes its own evidence.

Thousands-even millions-of people can become organized against one man.

Likewise, the "evidence" and public perception of guilt created by Allison Allegation and Mary Media's synergy can become so prominent and powerful that our third ally, Arthur Authority, has a duty to step in.

And it's authority that really helps us put the "destroy" in DAMN!

Authority is defined as any person or organization that has the power to control, direct, punish, and so on, which is exactly the kind of power we need to DAMN. Examples include police, judges, bosses, human resource departments, boards of directors, teachers, professors, university councils, licensing and regulatory agencies, and so on. Ultimately, it's authority that plays the final role in condemning a man.

So what do we need to know about authority to DAMN? Well, to begin, it's important to understand that Arthur Authority is an artifact of patriarchy and chivalry. As "Daddy Knight," he takes pride in his role as guardian and savior, especially of the weak, mistreated, violated, and so on.

He strives to be the hero who saves the damsel in distress. In other words, authority caters to victims, and nothing gets Arthur Authority's attention more than a call to action to save victims.

To be considered a victim, or a damsel in distress, authority first needs to perceive you as weak. Surprisingly, a great illustration of this is how authorities usually relate to men in distress. Can you imagine what typically happens when a man walks into a police precinct and requests a restraining order against a woman?

Officers roll their eyes, and immediate dis-

belief ensues. T his is because they simply do not perceive a man to be weaker than a woman, and for that reason, they are unwilling to provide assistance. In contrast, in patriarchal societies, women are perceived as weak by default, and therefore deserving of help and protection in the eyes of authorities.

Second, for the weak to attain victim status, authorities also need to perceive them as harmed or violated.

In other words, authorities require a credible claim that a legal or an ethical standard has been broken in order to take action (because it's their duty to enforce standards).

As we now know, we can look to Allison Allegation to make the claim and to Mary Media to make it credible. Nevertheless, it's still important to emphasize that authority is most likely to help us DAMN in instances that entail an apparent violation of specific laws or codes of conduct-the more egregious, the better.

Examples are numerous, including rape, sexual harassment, discrimination, physical assault, child abuse, substance abuse, and dishonesty in its many forms (e.g., lying, cheating, fraud, etc.).

Also-and this works surprisingly well-keep in mind that with the media's help, allegations against authorities can be used to motivate authority to take action!

Just about any widespread allegation about an authority being remiss, ineffectual, or negligent in its "guardian and savior" role will suffice. For instance, a televised allegation about a company ignoring sexual harassment in the workplace is enough to motivate the company's human resources department to hunt the accused man and anyone who failed to report his scandalous behavior to HR!

Once authorities decree that there is a victim of a violation, they can take punitive actions against the perpetrator (i.e., "destroy" a man).

Punitive actions usually entail substantial loss, such as termination of employment/loss of income, loss of education or certification (e.g., dismissal from school or revocation of credentials), loss of social status or good reputation (e.g., public shame and humiliation), loss of financial savings (e.g., payment for legal settlements), and loss of freedom (e.g., imprisonment). In addition, the combined actions of Allison Allegation, Mary Media, and Arthur Authority generally result in ongoing loss or the loss of future opportunities. In this way, a man is truly damned.

With a smeared reputation or record of alleged misconduct, no one will want to be associated with him, no one will want to employ him, no one will want to help him, and no one will even believe him.

Further, the subsequent long-term stress frequently results in loss of physical and mental health.

When I say these methods can destroy a man, I genuinely mean it.

Moreover, these methods actually do destroy men, even powerful ones. There is no better testimony to how effective Allison Allegation, Mary Media, and Arthur Authority can be than the growing number of men they've destroyed (regardless of allegations being true or false).

Complete source

[bookfreaky]

THE TRINITY OF WOMEN: The Archetypes of The Virgin, The Whore and The Mother.

Men wrote the rules, men should read them. We, woman, we’ve been fighting all this time to not much at all, or that’s my impression sometimes. Fighting simply for the basic right of being human, of being liberated. Liberation implies that a beforehand incarceration, and that could be a summary of women’s history. We’ve always been property, objects to somebody, to some man. First, we are properties of our fathers, then we either become the pleasure of the soldiers, worth of our flesh, or if we are lucky, we become the mothers of our husbands’ heirs, worth of your uterus.

Women CEOs, independent women, sexual revolution, divorce, none of these accomplishments in fact broke off with these three simple, sub-people, categories, if you are a woman you are either a Virgin, a Whore or a Mother. These three archetypes define woman in the male gaze, and they are susceptible to nuance, a well-married adult woman could fall into the slot of either of the three.

Having a transsexual experience, and now transitioning in my mid-twenties, I could be aware of the category I’ve been put into, I wasn’t an innocent twelve-year-old girl menstruating for the first time and having the male gaze soar over her just-formed breast like animals of prey. I lived as a boy, and grew into a woman. I have never been a girl, I had schooled my features and my behaviour to appeal to man in the most advantageous ways, how to control my voice tone, how not to be disagreeable, how to behave amongst men, straight men more so. I would have been categorized as “wife material”, if I wasn’t categorized as a tranny. Better yet, it makes me a perfect “trap material”.

As I’ve noticed in many aspects of my life, I am lucky. I like being the Mother. To me, the idea of womanhood and motherhood have always been inseparable hands, completing each other. I know that’s a very Judeo-Christian archaic concept, which builds the lives of women around their reproductive ability, therefore, their capacity to pass through family wealth to male heirs. But there’s also something instinctive about it, women – I guess some women – are wired in a way to protect their children above all interests. The Mother is always loving, ever-forgiving, she is just, she is always present, always caring, she is the harvest, she is the ocean, she is Gaia and Danu, she’s Mary crying over her son’s body, she’s sacrifice, she is death. I remember my own mother saying once that becoming a mother is like dying: your dreams, your desires, your well-being become your children’s. Some see horror in it, some see beauty. I see a little a lot of both.

The Virgin, even if being a grown woman, she is an infant. She doesn’t need to be an actual virgin in the religious connotation, her lack of interest for sex, or her lack of knowledge about her own sexuality makes her a virgin to the eyes of the world. She is pure, he is untouched by men so in a way she is an unclaimed property, she is respected not for who she is, nor for her virginity, but for her being undefined potential of becoming either a whore or a mother herself. Men only respect two types of women, Virgins and Mothers, and the most respected of all was both. Rape culture is in itself the men’s pattern of behaviour to turn virgins into whores. In a way, you can use the allegory of land to understand the male view of women. You are your father’s land, fertile and ready to sow, until you are sold to another man through marriage who shall cultivate you to his next spawn, or you are invaded, camped on and exploited. Girls without fathers are vulnerable to be hunt. Mothers create, Fathers own.

At last, the rebels, the unruly, the ones who have had no care or respect for themselves, neither deserve it. Every single time a woman had sought for an act of freedom in history she had been called a whore. It doesn’t matter your status, your sexual behaviour even, not even if you are married or not. Act outside the lines, you are a whore, a witch, a lover to kiss the devil’s tail. Feminism has been first described as a group of “sluts marching down the street”, until the March of the Sluts reclaimed the title; Queen Elizabeth I was called a whore by the Spanish King for refusing to marry; married women unable to produce children were considered whores and were switched for more suitable wives. The whore is the upmost simple of women’s resistance to the male dominance. Woman who proudly fit in this archetype, the free form women, they are the ones who through history have been killed, raped, burnt. The largest genocide in history, it would be the genocide of women if only we were considered people.

Although the male gaze is the oppressive eye of man over woman, we cannot present here the idea that men are free-form human beings while women are put into categories forever, that idea would be untrue. Men, boys, they are just as shaped by this gaze as woman. The main difference is that women are put into categories, like objects, like property, while men are put into characters, human façades they are supposed to fulfil in order to be a man. Boys must grow to be tough, violent but wise about their violence, they are supposed to own a woman, love if possible, pride her with a family, sow the land, fight against nature, find God. Women are the nature forces many times men fear and have to fight against: the tempest, the ocean, the wilderness, they are all phenomena of feminine connotations.

Still, growing up as a boy who then became a woman, I see the advantages of educating children, all children, in the more “masculine” modes. Boys are taught to have a voice and to be listened, boys are taught to stand-up by themselves, boys are taught to enjoy life, boys are taught to put reason first, boys are taught to be free. All which I consider to be advantages for life. Of course, you could argue that the “feminine” counterpart of these behaviours is just as important to survival, but in the sexist world, they are just not. Though I am fit for the Mother archetype, sexism and the cruel reality of being a girl under the male gaze, makes me feel uneasy and anxious about the idea of raising a daughter. In a way, I fear that if I bring her up as I was brought up, she’d end being too free, too opiniated, too strong, and where would the world put her? Would they break her? But what kind of word is “too free” anyways?

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Yes, once.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Seven (30.43% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Sixteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

Significantly flawed, and well-known in fandom for it. Unpopular opinion? I still think it’s better than the first Avengers film.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Natasha and Laura pass in a single-line trade. It’s sooo close to not counting.

Female characters:

Natasha Romanoff.

Wanda Maximoff.

Maria Hill.

Helen Cho.

Peggy Carter.

Laura Barton.

FRIDAY.

Male characters:

Tony Stark.

Steve Rogers.

JARVIS.

Thor.

Clint Barton.

Strucker.

Pietro Maximoff.

Bruce Banner.

Ultron.

Sam Wilson.

James Rhodes.

Ulysses Klaue.

Heimdall.

Nick Fury.

Erik Selvig.

Vision.

OTHER NOTES:

Everyone talking about Strucker like we already know who he is...

The “Shit!”/”Language!” gag was funnier before they hung a lantern on it. Not least because it takes almost a full minute before Tony harks back to it (fifty seconds, actually. I checked). If you’re gonna make a Thing out of it, you gotta follow up immediately, not after fifty seconds of cutting around to different character intros and action shots and a whole lot of other dialogue. 

Urrgghh, ok, I’m going to break my standing rule about not discussing source material, because we gotta acknowledge the colossal wrongness of re-writing the Maximoff twins - canonically Jewish Romani - as willing volunteers in a Nazi science experiment. It gets worse the more you think about it. There are a few things about this movie which generated significant negative outcry, and this incredibly offensive decision is one of them.

Tony and Thor fighting over who has a better girlfriend does have a certain charm to it. If you’re gonna have a testosterone-off, it might as well be about how great your partner is.

I got a zero out of ten on this out-of-nowhere forced romance crap with Natasha and Bruce. We’ll come back to this later.

“I will be reinstituting Prima Nocta,” Tony declares, as he prepares to lift Thor’s hammer and thereby theoretically take charge of the Nine Realms. Primae noctis (believed to in fact be a myth) refers to a supposed Dark-Ages law that granted lords the ‘right’ to take the virginity of any newlywed peasant woman who lived on their land. So, this is a wonderful little rape joke from Tony (or, y’know, not so little, since primae noctis in reality would make Tony a serial rapist). Ha ha ha ha. Hilarious. Good one.

I’m really mad about the parts here that are total garbage, because mostly, the revels sequence has a nice low-key quality to it, good solid team dynamics. 

I can’t fucking believe that they played the ‘and then Bruce falls with his face in Natasha’s cleavage!’ gag. I cannot believe it. Is this a disgusting frat-boy comedy from the nineties?

Honestly, Tony, just shut up and admit that you KNEW from the get-go that it was wrong to try and make Ultron happen (that is why you kept it secret from everyone else to begin with); don’t try to defend the decision now that you’ve got a ‘murderbot’ on your hands. Take responsibility for a bad choice instead of talking shit about how you had to and everyone else is just too short-sighted, damn it! 

Andy Serkis is delightful.

The Iron Man/Hulk fight absolutely KILLS the momentum of this film. It goes for way the fuck too long (eight minutes) and has no narrative significance at all. Pro tip for action scenes: they should always be driving the story somewhere. You can pull off eighty minutes of action so long as your plot is advancing alongside/within it.

Also, Iron Man causes a huge amount of additional damage during this fight, in the service of the aforementioned pointless action. His efforts to minimise Hulk’s effects are extremely poor, and calling in his relief organisation to clean up after the fact does not negate that. 

Gotta love that throwing a wife and kids at Hawkeye at the same time as we suddenly start pushing this Natasha/Bruce thing. That’s not transparent at all. I also understand this to be a major deviation from Clint’s identity in the comics, and very unpopular with fans for that reason, but regardless; reinventing him as a family man to reset the romantic blather after baiting fans with the possibility of Clint/Natasha in the first Avengers movie is such a shitty move. I was not invested in the ship myself and would have loved to have them reinforce the just-friends relationship between Hawkeye and Black Widow, because there are not enough platonic friendships between compatible men and women in fiction, but 'they’re not interested in each other because they’re busy with someone else!’ is a weak reinforcement indeed. Less forced romances, and definitely less token wifey who exists for no other Goddamn reason at all. This comes out of nowhere, and not in a clever-surprise kind of way.

“You still think you’re the only monster on the team?” Natasha says, after telling Bruce about her sterilisation. This earned a HUGE backlash, and for good reason - despite all arguments about how what Natasha meant was that her being raised to be an assassin makes her a monster, the direct implication of her words as they are phrased and as the discussion is structured is that her inability to have children makes her monstrous, and that’s deeply offensive. It’s also completely in keeping with a narrative which is often played out against women, in which their value as people is attributed directly to their ability to produce offspring, so it’s not even like this outrageous implication of monstrosity - the corruption of what it means to be female! - is that unusual. It’s awful, but not unusual. Add on the fact that 1) Natasha’s nightmare-flashes specifically foregrounded her sterilisation over all other details of her training, supporting the idea that she believes that it’s what makes her irredeemable (instead of, y’know, all the murdering and stuff), and 2) this is Joss Whedon’s work and he is OBSESSED with highlighting the womanhood of his female characters and treating it like their defining trait while also variously punishing them for it, and you’ve got every reason to interpret this terrible fucking line as exactly the heinous thing it (presumably, unwittingly) seems to be. 

Steve ripping a log in half with his bare hands is the funniest thing in this whole movie.

Thor’s brief side-adventure with Erik Selvig is pretty out-of-place. He just...goes for a swim in a convenient magic pond that Selvig chances to know about. Seems normal.

Ultron is full of such boring, empty rhetoric. Reminds me of Loki in The Avengers, with all that sound-and-fury. 

I love Paul Bettany.

Man, they sure do find Natasha instantly. It’s almost like making a damsel-in-distress of her who needs to be rescued by the team was completely meaningless...

Breaking my no-BTS rule (since I already have done for this movie at this point) because it’s well-known how Joss Whedon ordered Elizabeth Olsen not to show exertion or ‘ugly emotion’ on her face in this film, because God forbid she compromise her attractiveness by being human. Joss Whedon is not human; he’s fucking trash. 

The final fight sure does just, y’know, get to a point where it ends. They really did not ratchet up the tension over the course of the Sokovia conflict, it just goes along until it stops (also, they say Sokovia is a country, but then they never call the city anything else, it’s just Sokovia. Is the city conveniently named after the country (very confusing), or is it a city-country, like The Vatican? I kinda assume it’s option three, which is that no one bothered to care because it’s just some fake European placeholder anyway and we’re not supposed to notice such a dumb oversight).

“I was born yesterday.” This is the best quip in this whole thinks-it-is-way-wittier-than-it-is movie.

Helen Cho deserved better than to be a prop rapidly dismissed and then just trotted past at the end for an ‘oh, she survived, btw’. 

Back when I reviewed the first Avengers movie, I said that I considered that film to be heavily overrated, so maybe it’s not such a surprise that I actually like this one better. The two primary problems I had with that first film were the overly simplistic plot, and the fact that most of the characters were OOC compared to previous films, and this movie does do better on both scores, so I feel more engaged by it, and less annoyed. That said...this movie has still got a lot of problems, and those include iffy characterisation and a plot with various holes, nonsensical complications, and conveniently ignored or smoothed-down dynamics. When I say I like this movie better than the first one, I mean just that: I like this better. That does not mean I am here to sing its praises. 

The tacked-on romance is part of the problem - for Clint as well as Natasha (but especially for Natasha). After Hawkeye was so heavily under-used in the first film (and his slightly-ambiguous relationship with Black Widow was the only human element that made him a character instead of a prop), Age of Ultron attempts to compensate by giving Clint a personal life, in the form of a magically-appearing heavily-pregnant wife and a pair of nameless children. The function of this family appears to be 1) to give Clint a reason to not be interested in Natasha, and 2) to ‘humanise’ him by giving him something to fight for and get home to, because we all know nothing legitimises a character quite like some otherwise-irrelevant dependents. Want a man to seem lovable and important? Give him a pregnant wife. That’s what women are for, anyway, right? To enhance a man’s story? In this case, to provide a man whose purpose in the story has been contested with insta-personality, because ‘he’s secretly a family man, ooh, twist!’ is way better than having to spend time on giving him something to do in the plot that is actually meaningful in some way. Great logic. Makes Hawkeye super dynamic, right? 

Natasha, unsurprisingly, is hit much, much harder. As the only female avenger and one of only two prominent female characters in a cast which has seven-to-nine male characters of equal or greater importance/screen time (YMMV on whether or not you think Fury and Vision count for that list), the pressure is already on for Natasha to be served up a quality narrative, because if she doesn’t get one, well...she doesn’t have six-to-eight alternative characters to pull the weight for her gender. The best solve for this problem would be to avoid the ‘Token Woman’ cliche in the first place, but since we missed that boat...not having the personal story of your only primary female character revolve completely around her womanhood and her catering to heteronormative expectations of a love interest would have been a good choice. This weird, forced, chemistry-free thing with Bruce Banner? Was the worst thing they could have used to define Natasha’s presence in the film. It sticks out like a sore thumb every time they have an awkward interaction, and it leads in to that atrocious ‘monstrous infertility’ element (though that particular egregious mistake could have been included with or without a romantic blunder, it...probably wouldn’t be, and we’d all be the better off). Even the Hulk-whisperer part of the relationship - while not awful on its own with all the unnecessary romance and Unresolved Sexual Not-Tension removed - serves to highlight Natasha’s female-ness by making her the soft maternal figure for the team, because God forbid one of the other male members of the team be asked to ASMR-speak to the Hulk while delicately caressing his hand. If Natasha’s presence in the first Avengers film leaned too heavily on her gender identity as a defining trait (and it did), this movie doesn’t fix that problem at all: it doubles down on it. 

The good news for most of the excess of male characters is, they by-and-large don’t feel as OOC as they did in the first film. The boorish romantic entanglement aside, Bruce Banner is still a naturalistic character highlight (all credit to Mark Ruffalo, who probably doesn’t know how to turn in a bad performance in the first place), and Thor’s dialogue is way less ridiculous this time ‘round, so he lands a lot closer to his personality from previous films simply by virtue of sounding like the same guy (unfortunately, the plot does not have the faintest idea what it wants to do with him as a character). Steve Rogers is still being written as if being Captain America is his character, which is a fundamental misunderstanding of his identity, albeit one which conveniently allows him to behave in a stereotypical self-righteously bland manner, thus avoiding the need for any nuance in his perspective or actions. This borderline fanfic-flamer ‘Captain America is my least favourite character so I’m going to write him as a boring stick-in-the-mud and then hopefully no one else will like him either!’ approach doesn’t grate quite as badly as it did in the first Avengers, and it can’t cancel out the innate level-headed charm of Chris Evans, so as disappointing as the bias is, it’s still a better balance here than it was last time. The one character who is not so flatteringly handled, however? Also happens to be the one who was arguably handled best last time, and unfortunately, he’s the one who is essentially treated as the ‘lead’. 

The big problem for Tony Stark is that this movie is not interested in digging in to the pathos of any character, it’s all-flash-no-substance on that front, and Tony really, really needed a less heavy-handed slathering of ‘afraid of what might come (feat. messiah complex)’ to motivate his actions and reactions in this film, because without any exploration he’s basically just a billionaire kid playing with matches. If this were an Iron Man film (either the first or third one, anyway), we’d get into some tasty deconstruction of Tony’s mental state and confront his hubris, etc, and - crucially, most crucial of all, it’s a mainstay of all his past stories in the MCU - Tony would own up to his mistakes, listen to the advice of those around him, and take contrite steps toward fixing the problem not just in the direct sense of ‘beating the bad guy’, but also in the personal and emotional sense of working on his own flaws and making amends with the people he hurt along the way. This movie offers none of that. To begin with, Tony’s ‘I know best and I will not be taking any questions’ approach to creating Ultron feels like a significant step backwards in his character development so far (Iron Man 3 was specifically about addressing his PTSD and associated tumultuous emotions surrounding the fear of imminent alien invasion, so his reactionary and secretive behaviour in this film feels particularly out-of-touch with a mental reality Tony has been explicitly working on for the past couple of years); Tony is actively aware that it’s a bad call and thus hides it from the other Avengers until it’s too late, and then he’s bizarrely unrepentant about his mistake. Worst of all, he actually attempts to repeat that mistake, only worse, late in the film (the fact that his idiotic ‘mad scientist’ pep talk actually convinces Bruce to help him again is the weakest character moment for Bruce outside of the aforementioned romance crap). The plot rewards Tony’s second, far worse mistake, in the creation of Vision, who turns out to be ‘worthy of wielding Thor’s Hammer’ and whatnot and conveniently provides every necessary skill to defeat Ultron in a deus ex machina so overt you could use it as a textbook example, so even though Tony had absolutely no way of knowing that he’d get a good result this time and almost every reason to believe he’d just compound the existing problem, his reckless disregard for the literal safety of the planet is treated like a good thing because it happens to work out this time, and they just kinda sweep under the rug the fact that Tony is playing God (and being uncharacteristically stupid and selfish about it - in other films, Tony is normally only reckless with his own safety, and it’s when his actions spill out into unintended consequences for others that he realises the error of his ways and cues up a positive learning curve; it’s what makes him palatable). At the end of the film, once Ultron is gone and Tony has thrown some dispassionate wads of cash into ‘relief efforts’, he strolls and quips and eventually drives off into the sunset in his expensive car, with nary a mention of, I dunno, maybe a little guilty conscience? Maybe a hint of having learned a valuable lesson? The closest he gets is just suggesting that it might be time he retires from Avenging, but neither he nor anyone else lets on that there’s a need for serious self-reflection. The Tony Stark in this movie is the nightmarish male-fantasy version of the character, the playboy with the cool tech and no limits who does whatever he wants and then...literally rides off into the sunset in the end, no muss, no fuss. He’s kinda like a complete reversion to his original self, pre-Iron Man, frittering money around and designing weapons of mass destruction while convincing himself he’s bringing peace to the world one explosion at a time, but that Tony has no business here, seven years of character development down the track.

While we’re talking iffy characterisation, we should also segue into plot, and that’s something we can do easily enough by looking at our villain, Ultron. Calling Ultron an actual character feels...ambitious. He’s a CGI robot full of empty rhetoric and, you guessed it, more of those quips that this movie has in place of any meaningful dialogue. I’d call him self-fellating, but he ain’t got nothing to fellate, so instead he just blathers a lot in a manner that sounds vaguely poetically intelligent but is, upon a moment’s consideration, just vapid nonsense (much like Loki in the first Avengers, as noted above, but at least Loki had the benefit of a flesh-and-blood actor delivering his lines with conviction; James Spader does solid work as the voice of Ultron, but trying to make a CGI robot who spouts a school-kid’s attempt at edgy philosophy sound like a genuine menace is an uphill battle). Speaking of genuine menace, I assume the reason the film is called Age of Ultron is because A Couple of Days of Ultron Causing Disturbances in a Handful of Specific Locations was too much. For all the big talk (and there is..so much), Ultron doesn’t get up to all that much trouble, most notably in the sense that he apparently has his code all over the internet and yet he doesn’t bother stirring up a single ounce of chaos with that ungodly power. Why bother including this as an element of the character if it achieves zero story? Is it purely to make Ultron seem ~unstoppable~ because he keeps downloading into new robots? Because it didn’t really land, y’all. They try to play it like a big victory for the good guys when Vision burns Ultron out of the ‘net, but in context it’s meaningless because he didn’t do anything while he was there. Pretty much everything about Ultron was all talk, little to no action - even a whole bunch of the trouble he did cause happened off-screen, with Maria Hill just popping in to let us know that ‘there are reports of metal men stealing shit’. Cheers, cool. And you know, Ultron makes a song and dance about how he’s going to save the world by ‘ending the Avengers’, but then he...does not pursue that at all. He tries to make himself a pretty body, the Avengers thwart him, and then he enacts a doomsday machine to destroy all life on Earth. Like every other aspect of the character, the whole ‘end the Avengers’ schtick is just white noise, there’s no meaning in it. Ultron is just a same-old-same ‘What if Artificial Intelligence wants to WIPE US OUT?!’ cliche, and maybe that’s what he was in the comics too, I don’t know, but it’s the job of the film to tell that story in a dynamic way, and they had two and a half hours to do it. And yet.

There should be more to this than a nondescript placeholder villain concept and a series of action set pieces that just kinda happen until they stop. At least the first Avengers had some variety in each of its action sequences, using the location and the different skills and weapons of its antagonists, whereas this one is just ‘there are robots and the good guys punched and shot them until they were all broken, the end’. Even making the city fly in the end doesn’t actually make it interesting, not least because the characters spend most of their time running around the (weirdly, perfectly stable) streets not having to deal with any consequences of being up in the air anyway, and the doomsday device is too nebulous to ratchet up any real tension about figuring out how to deal with it. The conflicts with the Maximoff twins have at least some spark of life in them, but the characters themselves are treated to an over-simplified and very contrived narrative arc that uses what they do and what they know more as plot devices than as details of actual people’s lives, leading to a cheap death for Pietro so that Wanda will be distracted enough to abandon the big ol’ doomsday button, and it’s just all so convenient. There’s no heart in any of it, and it makes the moments that try to have heart all the more embarrassing and out-of-place (don’t even get me started on what a prescribed attempt at tugging the heart-strings it is to have Hawkeye name his magnificently well-timed newborn after Pietro, because DAMN). When I said I liked this movie better than the first Avengers, I meant just that: I like this better. That’s not to suggest that it is significantly better in any sense, because it isn’t, and I can’t even argue that this one has a better story, because honestly, it doesn’t. The first film made more sense, it was just less interesting to watch, and the things about it that were contrived were contrived in different ways. The first film was weaker and more irritating on character, and character is always the most important part of a story for me, so as annoyed as I am by the major character blunders in Age of Ultron, I’m still not as annoyed as I was after The Avengers. That is damning with the faintest of praise; this is just not a particularly good movie, it makes a poor use of its cast at the best of times, delivers a sub-par action extravaganza, and the script is not half as witty as it gleefully convinces itself that it is. It comes as no surprise, I’m sure, that I am very glad a certain writer/director departed the franchise after disappointing everyone with this outing. I say I like this better than the first Avengers, but gee, it’s a close call.

[qqueenofhades]

Medieval Magic Week: Witchcraft in Early Medieval Europe

Apologies for not getting to this last week, but I will try to be at least semi-reliable about posting these. If you missed it: I’m teaching a class on magic and the supernatural in the Middle Ages this semester, and since the Tumblr people also wanted to be learned, I am here attempting to learn them by giving a sort of virtual seminar.

Last week was the introduction, where we covered overall concepts like the difference between magic, religion, and science (is there one?), who did magic benefit (depends on who you ask), was magic a good or a bad thing in the medieval world (once again, It’s All Relative) and who was practicing it. We also brought in ideas like the gendering of supernatural power (is magic a feminine or a masculine practice, and does this play into larger gendered concepts in society?) and did some basic myth-busting about the medieval era. No, not everybody was super religious and mind-controlled by the church. No, they were not all poor farmers. No, not every woman was Silent, Raped, and Repressed. Magic was a common and folkloric practice on some level, but it was also the concern of educated and literate ‘worldly’ observers. We can’t write magic off as the medieval era simply ‘not knowing any better,’ or having no more sophisticated epistemology than rudimentary superstition. These people navigated thousands of miles without any kind of modern technology, built amazing cathedrals requiring hugely complex mathematical and engineering skill, wrote and translated books, treatises, and texts, and engaged with many different fields of knowledge and areas of interest. They subjected their miracle stories to critical vetting and were concerned with proving the evidentiary truth of their claims. We cannot dismiss magic as them having no alternative explanation or way of thinking about the world, or being sheltered naïve rustics.

This week, we looked at some primary sources discussing ‘witchcraft’ beliefs in early medieval Europe, which for our purposes is about 500—eh we’ll say 1000 C.E. We also thought about some questions to pose to these texts. Where did belief in witchcraft – best known for early modern witch hunts – come from? How did it survive through centuries of cultural Christianisation? Why was it viewed as useful or as threatening? Scholars have tended to argue for a generic mystical ‘shamanism’ in pre-Christian Europe, which isn’t very helpful (basically, it means ‘we don’t have enough evidence, so fuck if we know!’). They have also assumed that these were ‘superstitions’ or ‘relics’ of pagan belief in an otherwise Christian culture, which is likewise not helpful. We don’t have time to get into the whole debate, but yes, you can imagine the kind of narratives and assumptions that Western historiography has produced around this.

At this point, Europe was slowly, but by no means monolithically, becoming Christian, which meant a vast remaking of traditional culture. There was never a point where beliefs and practices stopped point-blank being pagan and became Christian instead; they were always hybrid, and they were always subject to discussion and debate. Obviously, people don’t stop doing things they have done a particular way for centuries overnight. (Once again, this is where we remind people that the medieval church was not the Borg and had absolutely no power to automatically assimilate anyone.) Our first text, the ‘Corrector sive medicus,’ which is the nineteenth chapter of Burchard of Worms’ Decretum, demonstrates this. The Decretum is a collection of ecclesiastical law, dating from early eleventh-century Germany. This is well after Germany was officially ‘Christianised,’ and after the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire as an explicitly Christian polity (usually dated from Charlemagne’s coronation on 25 December 800; this was the major organising political unit for medieval Germany and the Carolingians were intensely obsessed with divine approval). And yet! Burchard is still extremely concerned with the prevalence of ‘magical’ or ‘pagan’ beliefs in his diocese, which means people were still doing them.

The Corrector is a handbook setting out the proper length of penances to do (by fasting on bread and water) for a variety of transgressions. It can seem ridiculously nitpicky and overbearing in its determination to prescribe lengthy penances for magical offenses, which are mixed in among punishments for real crimes: robbery, theft, arson, adultery, etc. This might seem to lend legitimacy to the ‘killjoy medieval church oppressing the people’ narrative, except the punishments for sexual sins are actually much lighter than in earlier Celtic law codes. If you ‘shame a woman’ with your thoughts, it’s five days of penance if you’re married, two if you aren’t, but if you consult an oracle or take part in element worship or use charms or incantations, it could be up to two years.

Overall, the Corrector gives us the impression that eleventh-century German society was a lot more worried about whether you were secretly cursing your neighbour with pagan sorcery, rather than who you’re bonking, even though sexual morality is obviously still a concern, and this reflected the effort of trying to explicitly and completely Christianise a society that remained deeply attached to its traditional beliefs and practices. (There’s also a section about women going out at night and running naked with ‘Diana, Goddess of the Pagans’, which sounds awesome sign me up.) Thus there is here, as there will certainly be later, a gendered element to magic. Women could be witches, enchantresses, sorceresses, or other possible threats, and have to be closely watched. Nonetheless, there’s no organised societal persecution of them. Formal witch hunts and witch trials are decidedly a post-Renaissance phenomenon (cue rant about how terrible the Renaissance was for women). So as much as we stereotype the medieval world as supposedly being intolerant and repressive of women, witch hunts weren’t yet a thing, and many educated women, such as Trota of Salerno, had professional careers in medicine.

The solution to this problem of magical misuse is not to stop or destroy magic, since everyone believes in it, but to change who is legitimately allowed to access it. Valerie Flint’s article, ‘The Early Medieval Medicus, the Saint – and the Enchanter’ discusses the renegotiation of this ability. Essentially, there were three categories of ‘healer’ figure in the early Middle Ages: 1) the saint, whose miraculous power was explicitly Christian; 2) the ‘medicus’ or doctor, who used herbal or medical treatment, and 3) the ‘enchanter’, who used pagan magical power. According to the ecclesiastical authors, the saint is obviously the best option, and believing in/appealing to this figure will give you cures beyond the medicus’ ability, as a reward for your faith. The medicus tries his best and has good intentions, but is limited in his effectiveness and serves in some way as the saint’s ‘fall guy’. Or: Anything the Doctor Can (Or Can’t) Do, The Saint Can Do Better. But the doctor has enough social authority and respected knowledge to make it a significant victory when the saint’s power supersedes him.

On the other hand, the ‘enchanter’ is basically all bad. He (or often, she) makes the same claim to supernatural power as the saint, but the power is misused at best and actively malicious and uncontrollably destructive at worst. You are likely to be far worse off after having consulted the enchanter than if you did nothing at all. Both the saint and the enchanter are purveyors of ‘magical’ power, but only the saint has any legitimate claim (again, according to our church authors, whose views are different from those of the people) to using it. The saint’s power comes from God and Jesus Christ, the privileged or ‘true’ source of supernatural ability, while the enchanter is drawing on destructive and incorrect pagan beliefs and making the situation worse. The medicus is a benign and well-intentioned, if not always effective, option for healing, but the enchanter is No Good Very Bad Terrible.

The fact that ecclesiastical authors have to go so hard against magic, however, is proof of the long-running popularity of its practitioners. The general public is apparently still too prone to consult an enchanter rather than turn to the church to solve their problems. The church doesn’t want to eradicate these practices entirely, but insists that people call upon God/Christ as the authority in doing them, rather than whatever local or folkloric belief has been the case until now. It’s not destroying magic, but repurposing and redefining it. What has previously been the unholy domain of the pagan is now proof of the ultimate authority of Christianity. If you’re doing it right, it’s no longer pagan sorcery, but religious miracles or devotion.

Overall: what role does witchcraft play in early medieval Europe? The answer, of course, is ‘it’s complicated.’ We’re talking about a dynamic, large-scale transformation and hybridising of culture and society, as Christian religion and society became more prevalent over long-rooted pagan or traditional beliefs. However, these beliefs arguably never fully vanished, and were remade, renamed, and allowed to stay, without any apparent sense of contradiction on the part of the people practicing them. Ecclesiastical authorities were extremely concerned to identify and remove these ‘pagan’ elements, of course, but the general public’s relationship with them was always more nuanced. When dealing with medieval texts about magic, we have a tendency to prioritise those that deal with a definably historical person, event, or place, whereas clearly mythological stories referring to supernatural creatures or encounters are viewed as ‘less important’ or as the realm of historical fiction or legend. This is a mistake, since these texts are still encoding and transmitting important cultural referents, depictions of the role of magic in society, and the way in which medieval people saw it as a helpful or hurtful force. We have to work with the sources we have, of course, but we also have to be especially aware of our critical assumptions and prejudices in doing so.

It should be noted that medieval authors were very concerned with proving the veracity of their miracle narratives; they did not expect their audiences to believe them just because they said so. This is displayed for example in the work of two famous early medieval historians, Gregory of Tours (c.538—594) and the Venerable Bede (672/3—735). Both Gregory’s History of the Franks and Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People contain a high proportion of miracle stories, and both of them are at pains to explain to the reader why they have found these narratives reliable: they knew the individual in question personally, or they heard the story from a sober man of good character, or several trusted witnesses attested to it, or so forth. Trying to recover the actual historicity of reported ‘miracle’ healings is close to impossible, and we should resist the cynical modern impulse to say that none of them happened and Gregory and Bede are just exaggerating for religious effect. We’re talking about some kind of experienced or believed-in phenomena, of whatever type, and obviously in a pre-modern society, your options for healthcare are fairly limited. It might be worth appealing to your local saint to do you a solid. So to just dismiss this experience from our modern perspective, with who knows how much evidence lost, in an entirely different cultural context, is not helpful either. There’s a lot of sneering ‘look at these unenlightened religious zealots’ under-and-overtones in popular conceptions of the medieval era, and smugly feeling ourselves intellectually superior to them isn’t going to get us very far.

Next week: Ideas about the afterlife, heaven, hell, the development of purgatory, the kind of creatures that lived in these realms, and their representation in art, culture, and literature.

Further Reading:

Alver, B.G., and T. Selberg, ‘Folk Medicine As Part of a Larger Complex Concept,’ Arv, 43 (1987), 21–44.

Barry, J., and O. Davies, eds., Witchcraft Historiography (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007)

Collins, D., ‘Magic in the Middle Ages: History and Historiography’, History Compass, 9 (2011), 410–22.

Flint, V.I.J, ‘A Magical Universe,’ in A Social History of England, 1200-1500, ed. by R. Horrox and W. Mark Ormrod (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 340–55.

Hall, A., ‘The Contemporary Evidence for Early Medieval Witchcraft Beliefs’, RMN Newsletter, 3 (2011), 6-11.

Jolly, K.L., Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996)

Kieckhefer, R., Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)

Maxwell-Stuart, P.G., The Occult in Mediaeval Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005)

Storms, G., Anglo-Saxon Magic (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1947)

Tangherlini, T., ‘From Trolls to Turks: Continuity and Change in Danish Legend Tradition’, Scandinavian Studies, 67 (1995), 32–62.

[stretchjournalemerson]

Revisiting Buffy the Vampire Slayer : Intersectional Feminism in 2019

By Allison Hoag

Over twenty years after the series first premiered, Buffy the Vampire Slayer remains not only as a popular show in the public consciousness, but also as a hotly debated text in the academic sphere. What exactly is it about this demon-fighting, vampire-slaying, teenage girl that has captivated audiences for so long, and why has Buffy spawned so much controversy both publicly and academically? Most importantly, how should Buffy and its various implications about gender, race, and “otherness” be read in 2019?

It is undeniable that Buffy is a somewhat exclusionary narrative that directs our sympathies solely towards its overwhelmingly white and privileged characters. Any feminist inclinations this series espouses are emblematic of the equally exclusionary white feminism. However, even within these constraints—focusing only on feminism impactful to socioeconomically privileged white women—Buffy scholarship continually debates the extent of feminist messaging in the series. In 2019, surface-level white feminism alone is often not seen as enough to define a text as feminist. More and more, people are embracing Kimberle Crenshaw’s notions of intersectionality as a lens through which to evaluate texts. Crenshaw suggested that both feminist and anti-racist movements exclude black women, who face the most discrimination because of the intersection of their race and gender, arguing that “feminism must include an analysis of race if it hopes to express the aspirations of non-white women” (166). This term has since expanded to include class, ability, gender identity, and sexuality in feminist critiques.

Recently, the feminist debate over Buffy has been revisited after a somewhat shocking blog post by Buffy creator Joss Whedon’s ex-wife, Kai Cole, that suggested Whedon is not the “loveable geek-feminist” he presents himself as (Cole). Despite the flaws of its creator, is there still a way for Buffy to be viewed as a feminist show? Is this a matter of separating the artist from the art, or, because his intentions while making this art are being called into question, are the two inextricably linked? In light of these revelations, I intend to reexamine Buffy through Crenshaw’s intersectional lens, focusing less on surface-level feminist readings of this series, but instead shifting the focus onto specific storylines to explore how Whedon addresses topics of gender, race, love, and rape.

***

It is not without reason that critics and fans alike have showered Buffy with feminist praise since its debut in 1997. Not only does this series make Buffy the “subject of traditionally masculine storytelling tropes…, [but] she does it all as a tiny, blonde former cheerleader…the embodiment of the girl her genre usually kills first” (Grady). Buffy takes the idea of a “strong” woman quite literally and manifests a teenage girl with superhuman strength who “must stand against the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness,” as the introduction to each episode reminds us (Whedon). Buffy seems to be a show rife with positive female role models for the impressionable teen and pre-teen girls that make up its audience: Buffy is selfless and strong (physically and emotionally); Willow is kind, intelligent, and stands up for what she believes is right; Cordelia is bold and unafraid to go after what she wants; Tara is loving and is constantly helping and caring for her friends.

Buffy often addresses topics that many members of this teen audience may face, largely through its (sometimes heavy handed) metaphorical use of vampires and demons, as well as online predators (“I Robot…You, Jane”), drinking at parties (“Beer Bad”), and drug addiction (“Wrecked”). Seemingly less metaphorical, however, is its feminism. Throughout the series, Buffy repeatedly defends the whole of humanity against vampires, demons, and the like, maintains positive relationships with the other women in her life, is independent, and has (mostly) healthy romantic relationships. The overt “girl-power” theme of this show is quite clear. However, in its final season, Buffy “raises the explicit feminist stakes of the series considerably” (Pender). While in previous seasons, the metaphorical misogyny of the villains Buffy faces could be debated, season seven’s “big bad” is, “of all the show’s myriad manifestations of evil, the most recognizably misogynist” (Pender). Dubbed “Reverend-I-Hate-Women” by Xander (“Touched”), Caleb can only be defeated if Buffy teams up with and shares her power with all potential Slayers across the globe, an act that takes “female empowerment” quite literally in the series finale.

But how did Buffy get to this point? Buffy wasn’t even initially intended for the pre-teen and teenage girl demographic who would become its main audience. Knowing that this show was originally aimed at a male demographic, “it seems evident that producers did not intend to market a feminist show” (Riordan 292). Not only do some of the feminist statements in Buffy feel painfully forced, but upon deeper exploration, much of this show’s “feminism” is only surface-level and disregards Crenshaw’s notions of intersectionality.

Mary Magoulick, a folklorist and Professor of English, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Women’s Studies at Georgia College (“Mary Magoulick”), explores some of the downfalls of “feminist” shows that were primarily created by men for predominantly male audiences in her article, “Frustrating Female Heroism: Mixed Messages in Xena, Nikita, and Buffy.” Magoulick argues that female heroes like Buffy that are “conceived of and written mostly by men in a still male-dominated world…project the status quo more than they fulfill feminist hopes” (729). An integral part of Magoulick’s argument is the idea that “Buffy [is] less concerned with building or celebrating a world than surviving a hostile one” (745). Although Magoulick acknowledges that recognizing the hostility women face in the world is an important part of feminist conversations, Buffy is widely praised for its progressive presentation of women, not for “presenting the troubling reality women live in” (750). Buffy continually expresses her desire to escape from her responsibilities as the Slayer and lead an average life; yet, she continues fighting vampires and demons, largely due to the pressure from her Watcher, Giles. The idea that Buffy cannot escape her situation because of a social institution—the Watcher’s Council, dominated by men and put in place to control women—provides strong textual support for Magoulick’s claim that Buffy is “reflective of current social inequities and gender roles” (750).

Ultimately Buffy escapes her duties as Slayer, sacrificing herself in the season five finale, only for her friends to later resurrect her, bringing her back from what they believe to be a hell dimension. However, Buffy confesses to Spike, “I think I was in heaven. And now I'm not…this is hell” (“After Life”), making him promise to never tell her friends. After coming back to life, Buffy almost immediately returns to her predetermined social position and initially deals with being brought back into her personal version of hell alone, wanting to protect her friends from the truth. Not only does this arc present the feminist concept of emotional labor as something inherently expected of women, but it also more directly begs the question Magoulick poses regarding the entirety of the series: “Is survival in hell, albeit with occasional victories and humor, the best [women] can imagine?” (748).

***

Magoulick promotes an argument first raised by Elyce Rae Helford that “[Buffy] is laudable for allowing women unusual space to voice and act out anger” while also sending strong implications about what kind of women are allowed to express anger (733). Of the Slayers introduced throughout the series, Buffy is the only one who is allowed to act upon her anger, and most of the time this anger is expressed towards the vampires and demons she fights, not people in her personal life. However, Kendra—a Slayer who is also a woman of color—has her anger framed in a much more negative way. Despite the lack of people of color in Buffy—or possibly because of the show’s few characters played by people of color—race and racism have become prominent topics in Buffy scholarship. A closer examination of direct and indirect racist implications in Buffy reinforces the idea that any feminist tendencies in Buffy fall strictly into the category of white feminism, and the show cannot be considered an example of the intersectional feminism pushed for in 2019.

The intersectional failings of Buffy are further explored by Kent A. Ono, a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Utah who researches representations of race, gender, sexuality, class, and nation in print, film, and television media (“Kent A. Ono”). In his article, “To Be a Vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Race and (‘Other’) Socially Marginalizing Positions on Horror TV,” Ono argues that Buffy “conveys debilitating images of and ideas about people of color” (163), claiming that “the valorization and heroification [sic] of a white feminist protagonist is constructed through an associated villainization and demonization of people of color” (164). Here, Ono quite literally means demonization. Most of the vampires and demons that appear on this show are played by white actors, so it is not necessarily a question of casting people of color as villains, so much as it is a question of who these villains are intended to be.

As previously established, the writers of Buffy can be somewhat aggressive with their use of metaphor; therefore, it is inarguable that, on Buffy, a vampire isn’t just a vampire. Ono argues that “the marginalization of vampires on the show takes the place of racial marginalization in the world outside the show” (172). In contrast, Magoulick presents a non-racial reading of the teenage vampires as “representative of gangs” (745). Considering the show’s overarching plot, especially the first few seasons Magoulick references when Buffy is still in high school, both of these interpretations are equally valid, and both can be supported by textual evidence. Given the history of representation of people of color on television, it is particularly disturbing that two of the major metaphorical interpretations of vampires on this show are as people of color and as gang members. It is not unreasonable to believe that Whedon and his writers were familiar with racist representations on television that were prominent in the 60s and early 70s, especially because some of these representations still exist twenty years after the show was created. With this understanding, it could be argued that vampires were equally intended to represent people who were racially marginalized and gangs. Ono argues that because the villains of Buffy were the ones chosen to represent people of color, “Buffy…indirectly and directly shows violence by primarily white vigilante youths against people of color in the name of civilization” (168), evoking images of violent white supremacy that are present throughout American history and to the present day.

However, there is a reason Ono describes the “vigilante youths” as only primarily white (168). Kendra, the previously mentioned second Slayer portrayed by Bianca Lawson who is featured in three episodes over the course of Buffy’s second season, is a black woman. Although only appearing in three episodes, Kendra is credited as “offer[ing] the most complex development of a black female character in Buffy” (Edwards 95). While this is technically true, it is important to note that her arc was fairly straightforward, and any character development is as a result of a somewhat racist narrative of acceptance only after assimilation. However, because she is one of the few examples of a prominent character who is a person of color and essentially the only person of color who works with Buffy, I will be examining her in some detail.

Ono argues that because she takes the responsibility of being the Slayer far more seriously, Kendra is a threat to Buffy, causing Buffy’s own racism to emerge. Ono specifically cites “[Buffy’s] discomfort with Kendra’s language…When Buffy uses the word wiggy and Kendra asks what that means, Buffy responds with a racist comment…‘You know, no kicko, no fighto’” (174). However, Buffy’s comment is indicative of a much larger issue in the show’s production team. “By casting Bianca Lawson, a black actress, in the role of Kendra, the second Slayer, [Whedon] makes character a sign imbued with cultural meanings about gender, race, and race relations” (Edwards 87). Kendra is marked as other not only by her skin color, but also by her heavy Jamaican accent, and she is not accepted by Buffy and her friends until she begins to assimilate, sending the message that people of color are responsible for changing themselves if they want to be accepted by white America.

It is important to note that Bianca Lawson’s casting wasn’t accidental. The script specifically delineates Kendra as an “ethnic young woman” (Edwards 91). Whedon has admitted that he did not make any efforts to hire people of color behind the scenes (Busis), so there is a possibility that the overwhelmingly white writers’ room and crew did not detect the racist treatment of Kendra. However, that in itself poses a major issue, not only socially, but also with how we’re supposed to understand the treatment of the few people of color and the metaphorical “people of color”/vampires throughout the series. The absence of people of color behind the scenes could also at least partially account for the Ono’s observation that “no person of color acknowledged as such on the series has been able to remain a significant character. All characters of color…have either died or have failed to reappear” (177).

Although she was killed off after only three episodes, as a black woman, Kendra represents the black women facing discrimination based on both race and gender that Crenshaw advocated for in developing her theory of intersectional feminism. Kendra’s treatment in Buffy is indicative of both the white feminism that will often ignore racist representations in a text because of its slight feminist messaging, and the necessity of including intersectionality in the evaluation and creation of feminist texts.

***

Buffy is filled with incredibly disturbing scenes. We watch Willow get skinned alive by a demon (“Same Time, Same Place”), Buffy’s own mother attempt to burn her at the stake (“Gingerbread”), and a demon stalk and murder sickly children in their hospital beds (“Killed by Death”). However, “Seeing Red” (2002) remains one of Buffy’s most upsetting episodes. Spike corners an injured Buffy in her bathroom and violently attempts to rape her until she is finally able to fight him off. In a recent interview, James Marsters (Spike) described his opposition to the scene, inadvertently pinpointing the reason this scene is so difficult to watch: “My argument was that, actually, when anyone is watching Buffy, they are Buffy…the audience, especially the female audience, they are not superheroes, but they are Buffy” (Marsters). This scene is particularly upsetting not only because of the content, but also because it presents many women’s worst fears—if an injured Buffy, who is still exponentially stronger than an average woman, can barely fight off Spike, what hope do they have of fighting off their attacker? Additionally, Spike is not presented as a violent vampire here: he is presented as human, making this scene more realistic and horrifying.

Wendy Fall, a doctoral candidate at Marquette University and editor of Marquette’s Gothic Archive (“Graduate Research”), discusses this scene at length in her article “Spike Is Forgiven: The Sympathetic Vampire's Resonance with Rape Culture.” She suggests that because James Malcolm Rymer’s Varney the Vampire (1845) is the first English-language vampire narrative that conflates an attack and rape scene, it established a “three-part strategy [gaslighting, silencing the victim, and emphasizing the assailant’s goodness] which encouraged readers to overlook Varney’s sexual violence, and thereby increased their sympathy for him” (Fall 76). She argues that although Spike’s attempted rape technically avoids Rymer’s narrative because he does not attempt to bite Buffy and is never even seen as a vampire, “The more problematic nature of this attack…is in what happens next, when the show adopts similar narrative schemes to Rymer’s to reinforce sympathy for Spike after his attempted sexual assault” (Fall 76).

Fall points out that there are only three more episodes in season six following Spike’s attempted rape, followed by a four-month gap between seasons, prompting the audience to forget how violent and serious it was (77). Not only are Spike and Buffy not seen together for the rest of the season, but they are separated because attempting to rape Buffy acts as a catalyst for Spike’s quest to get his soul back. This gives the audience time to develop sympathy for Spike as they watch him go through painful trials as he tries to recover his soul, while diminishing the severity of the attempted rape in their minds—because, surely, someone willing to go to this extent to obtain their soul and be a better person would never have acted as violently as he did.

Fall argues that Buffy also follows Varney’s narrative strategy of silencing the victim because “the show’s writers seem unwilling to allow the characters to have further discussion on the topic; Buffy never tells anyone the full story, and after this scene, she rarely mentions it again” (78). Fall further claims that “they had access to a strong female character and the opportunity to address her experience of trauma, but they opt not to pursue it” (78). Surely, at least part of the reason we never see Buffy attempting to deal with the emotional aftermath of someone she trusted trying to rape her is because the larger narrative suggests a degree of victim blaming that cannot coexist with holding Spike accountable for his actions. Prior to this scene, Buffy and Spike had been having a consensual sexual relationship, and Buffy attributes the start of this relationship to her “bad kissing decisions” (“Smashed”), so “when Spike attempts to rape her, it seems like an inevitable consequence of her poor decisions” (Nichol).

Finally, Fall suggests that Buffy completes this pattern when it “adopts a narrative strategy that redirects attention away from sexual violence by emphasizing the assailant’s positive contributions” (80). Not only does the rest of season six focus on Spike’s attempt to regain a soul, but the early episodes of season seven also show Spike as psychologically damaged as he comes to terms with the harm he caused as a vampire, putting Buffy and the audience in a position to want to pity Spike when we next see Spike and Buffy interact. Fall suggests that this plotline goes further than simply asking the audience to excuse the fact that this character tried to rape someone. She argues that “the vampire narrative’s memory-altering strategies are also deployed to reinforce rape culture, mostly in the cases of assailants who have sufficient financial power to reframe their own narratives to emphasize their better deeds” (Fall 83). This narrative is everywhere, especially after it became widely acceptable, even expected, to report on the #MeToo movement. It’s unfortunate that this supposedly feminist show perpetuates and validates this narrative that has successfully allowed so many rapists to escape legal scrutiny; Brock Turner’s swimming career comes to mind as a relatively recent example. While Fall ends her article on a relatively hopeful note, providing research stating that articles—like hers—that challenge rape myths can make people more likely to believe survivors than assailants (83), arguments for forgiving Spike still abound.

In 2017, Alyssa Rosenberg, an opinion writer for the Washington Post who covers culture and politics (“Alyssa Rosenberg”), made a case for why both Buffy and the audience should have a more forgiving view of Spike. In her article, “On ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” we fell for the Slayer along with Angel, Riley and Spike," Rosenberg specifically addresses this scene as a “horrifying…illustration that Spike’s gestures are not the same as moral reform” (Rosenberg); however, she identifies it as “the catalyst for a quest that ends with Spike…earning back his soul and sacrificing himself to save the world” (Rosenberg). Rosenberg’s argument falls flat in a way many rapist-apology narratives do. She directly acknowledges the horror of the narrative, both literally in the scene and also in the audience’s minds as they grapple with the fact that this character who is supposedly trying to reform himself can still do something this violent; yet, she quickly glosses over it. Rosenberg immediately dives into how trying to rape Buffy influenced Spike to become a better person, without addressing how it affected Buffy—the actual victim. She highlights that Whedon’s integration of the narrative tactics Rymer introduced to get the audience to want to forgive Spike were effective.

Rosenberg argues that although Spike “commits some of the show’s cruelest acts…he sacrifices the most in an attempt to atone for his sins” (Rosenberg). She additionally characterizes his arc following his attempted rape of Buffy as “a journey that encourages us to think about the conditions under which even someone guilty of heinous acts can perform genuine penance and achieve real redemption” (Rosenberg). Interestingly, her choice of the word “penance” invokes a religious underscoring that implies that once he has performed this penance, Buffy, and by extension, the audience who identifies with her, have no choice but to forgive him. Additionally, none of the “penance” Rosenberg describes is directed towards Buffy. Spike undoubtedly goes through physically and emotionally painful trials as he attempts to regain his soul; however, this is not so much penance as it is a self-centered act. Spike believes that getting a soul might make Buffy finally love him, eventually “becom[ing] a legitimate romantic interest after the near-rape incident” (Nichol).

Rosenberg claims that Buffy “explored where evil and misogyny come from and urged us to fight them,” while simultaneously “ask[ing] those of us who loved Buffy and identified with her to contemplate grace and forgiveness” (Rosenberg). She technically is not wrong here, Whedon absolutely positions us to want to forgive Spike. However, I would venture to argue that the question up for debate is not so much the question Rosenberg poses of are we put in a position to forgive him, as it is, should we be put in a position to forgive him. Buffy is intended to be a role model for the pre-teen and teenage girls who watch the series. Yet, here, it sends a very damaging message: if you have a consensual sexual relationship with someone without loving them, you’re responsible if they attempt to rape you; but even if someone tries to rape you, you should easily forgive them and possibly begin a romantic relationship with them because they may change.

***

In the past few years, the public feminist conversation has shifted towards embracing Crenshaw’s idea of intersectionality. This has therefore influenced the ways we read all texts, even texts such as Buffy that were created after Crenshaw’s paper was first published but before intersectionality was a major concern of the feminist movement. Additionally, the #MeToo movement has revealed the prevalence of the abuse of power by men in all sectors, but notably in Hollywood. Joss Whedon admittedly “didn’t make a point of hiring female directors…[or] people of color’” (Busis); explicitly equated a woman unable to have children with the Hulk—yes, that Hulk (Yang); and, as recently as 2015, refused to call himself a feminist (Busis). The combination of these two public paradigm shifts, closer examinations of Whedon both personally and as a creator, as well as Kai Cole’s disturbing essay about her ex-husband has many people questioning what Whedon’s work can add to the cultural conversation surrounding feminism in 2019. Is the problematic nature of Joss Whedon a matter of separating the artist from the art, or, because his intentions while making this art are being called into question, are the two inextricably linked?

Joss Whedon has made his name creating and writing shows featuring strong female characters. However, he does not seem to understand that “having a girl beat up guys is not equivalent to a strong female character when they always, constantly depend on men” (Simons). Yet, he has still managed to create a career and profit off of television’s lack of actual strong female characters, catering to a largely underserved audience who hoped to see any sort of feminist ideas in fictional television. “Whedon’s openly feminist agenda, frequently mentioned in interviews, has provided an interpretive framework for much Buffy scholarship” (Berridge 478). Whedon pushes this narrative and the public’s perception of him as a well-meaning feminist, while refusing to be labeled as such “because suddenly that’s the litmus test for everything you do…if you don’t live up to the litmus test of feminism in this one instance, then you’re a misogynist” (Busis). It’s upsetting for fans of Buffy to realize that its creator feels that unless he is overtly espousing feminist ideas, his writing will be seen as misogynistic—which, it has been, he’s been criticized for both his Avengers: Age of Ultron script (Yang) and his rejected Wonder Woman script (White).

Although his public persona is that of a feminist, a closer look at his work and his personal life tells a very different story. In a commentary DVD extra for the second season of Buffy, Whedon discusses writing the script for the initial confrontation between Buffy and Angelus, saying “It felt icky that I could make him say these things. It felt icky and kind of powerful. It was very uncomfortable and very exciting for me to do it” (Nichol). This short piece of commentary is a perfect metaphor for Whedon’s career. He’s trying to be seen as “more” of a feminist by claiming he had no idea how he could write a scene where his heroine is eviscerated by her (newly-evil) boyfriend after having sex with him. However, he’s actually taking what could’ve been a moment to discuss the prevalence of slut shaming in our culture and refocusing it on himself.

Not only has his work contained misogynistic and offensive language toward women, but according to his ex-wife, Kai Cole’s, guest blog on The Wrap, he has also had several inappropriate affairs “with his actresses, co-workers, fans, and friends” (Cole). Aside from cheating on his wife, as creator and producer of several prominent series—at least in terms of his actresses, co-workers, and fans—it could be argued that he objectively had more power in these situations. This begs the question of exactly how consensual these affairs were and how much, if any, (possibly unintentional) coercion may have been involved. Furthermore, Cole says he wrote her a letter trying to excuse these affairs, explaining that he “was surrounded by beautiful, needy, aggressive young women” (Cole), and blaming them, rather than taking responsibility for his actions. This pattern of blame is unsettlingly close to the blame Buffy endures for her relationship with Spike.

***

Despite the shortcomings of both this show and its creator, Buffy was, and remains, a prominent series in the lives of many of the pre-teen and teenage girls who have watched and grown with Buffy and her friends since its 1997 premiere—this author included. However, as we become more educated on certain cultural topics, we—especially those of us in positions of power and privilege—are often forced to reconcile our love of certain texts with their more problematic aspects.

I began this essay with a very different conception of Buffy than I have now. Admittedly, I bought into the allure of this series’ surface-level feminism and girl power when I was watching it for the first time. Sure, it was sometimes overtly problematic, but the positive aspects seemed to outweigh the negatives. I thought that this essay would reveal the surface-level feminism of Buffy ran much deeper than I originally realized—not the opposite. A closer examination of Buffy has revealed that the issues with this series are far more serious than its creator’s personal failings. Reading Buffy as a cultural text exposes a series of disturbing messages. Moreover, even when it does put forth feminist ideas, they often fall under the more exclusionary sect of white feminism, completely ignoring Crenshaw’s proposed intersectionality, which had been published nearly a decade before Buffy’s premiere.

The question of how Buffy should be read in 2019 is a question that has been repeated a lot recently: Can the Harvey Weinstein’s films still be appreciated? What about The Cosby Show? Or shows affiliated with Fox Broadcasting, and, therefore, Roger Ailes? While some argue that these men and any texts or media associated with them should be “cancelled,” others call for a separation between the artist and the art. However, I would argue that, at least for Buffy, it is not so much about separating the artist from the art as it is about recognizing the art for what it is—its limits included.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my mom for proofreading all 4,500-odd words of this and catching the many mistakes I missed. I would also like to profusely thank Mary Kovaleski Byrnes for her support, guidance, and the much-needed periodic confidence boosts.

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"Mary Macgoulick." Folklore Connections, Georgia College & State University, 1 Apr. 2001, faculty.gcsu.edu/custom-website/mary-magoulick/.

Nicol, Rhonda. “When You Kiss Me, I Want to Die”: Arrested Feminism in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Twilight Series. Gale, Cengage Learning. EBSCOhost, proxy.emerson.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e dsglr&AN=edsgcl.H1100110197&site=eds-live.

Ono, Kent A. “To Be a Vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Race and (‘Other’) Socially Marginalizing Positions on Horror TV.” Fantasy Girls: Gender in the New Universe of Science Fiction and Fantasy Television, edited by Elyce Rae Helford, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000, pp. 163–186.

Pender, Patricia. "Buffy Summers: Third-Wave Feminist Icon." The Atlantic, 31 July 2016, www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/07/how-buffy-became-a-third-wave-feminist-icon/493154/.

Riordan, Ellen. "Commodified agents and empowered girls: consuming and producing feminism." Journal of Communication Inquiry, vol. 25, no. 3, July 2001, pp. 279-97. EBSCOhost, proxy.emerson.edu/login?url=search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx direct=true&db=edsgao&AN=edsgcl.78260548&site=eds-live.

Rosenberg, Alyssa. "On ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ we fell for the Slayer along with Angel,Riley and Spike." Editorial. The Washington Post, 10 Mar. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2017/03/10/on-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-we-fell-for-the-slayer-along-with-angel-riley-and-spike/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.90b458f0de94.

“Same Time, Same Place.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 7, episode 3, UPN, 8 Oct. 2002. Hulu, www.hulu.com/watch/f9a3b884-b72b-4bef-81e4-bcd95b002608.

Simons, Natasha. "Reconsidering the Feminism of Joss Whedon." The Mary Sue, edited by Kaila

Hale-Stern and Dan Van Winkle, Dan Abrams, 10 Apr. 2011, www.themarysue.com/ reconsidering-the-feminism-of-joss-whedon/.

“Smashed.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 6, episode 9, UPN, 20 Nov. 2001. Hulu, www.hulu.com/watch/7728e9d5-e05d-4be3-ac93-d8792a018e54.

“Touched.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 7, episode 20, UPN, 6 May 2003. Hulu,www.hulu.com/watch/ba2c6e7c-b015-47d2-8c62-4f16be64c579.

Whedon, Joss. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The WB and UPN, 1997-2003.

White, Adam. "Five time Joss Whedon, self-proclaimed 'woke bae', blew his feminist credentials." The Telegraph, edited by Martin Chilton, The Daily Telegraph, 21 Aug. 2017, www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/joss-whedon-5-times-blew-feminist-credentials/.

“Wrecked.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 6, episode 10, UPN, 27 Nov. 2001. Hulu, www.hulu.com/watch/661f80ab-5cdc-426f-a494-283b03cf2ca6.

Yang, Jeff. "Is Joss Whedon a feminist?" Editorial. CNN Wire, 8 May 2015. EBSCOhost, www.cnn.com/2015/05/08/opinions/yang-joss-whedon-feminism/index.html.

[hereticaloracles]

TNO Watch: Eris

Helios on Eris– So, somehow in my accounting of the Transneptunians, I managed to overlook the biggest, most prolific of them all (however not the first to be discovered past Pluto!)- Eris! Now I can’t rightly finish off the archive without her, now can I? So without further ado, let me formally welcome back the most controversial dwarf planet back into the party! Gird your loins, y’all

The Astronomy– Eris is the most massive and second-largest (by volume) dwarf planet (and plutoid) known in the Solar System. Eris was discovered in January 2005, and in September 2006 it was named after Eris, the Greek goddess of strife and discord. Eris is the ninth most massive object directly orbiting the Sun, and the 16th most massive overall, because seven moons are more massive than all known dwarf planets. It is also the largest which has not yet been visited by a spacecraft. Eris was measured to be 2,326 ± 12 kilometers (1,445.3 ± 7.5 mi) in diameter. Eris’s mass is about 0.27% of the Earth mass, about 27% more than dwarf planet Pluto, although Pluto is slightly larger by volume.

Eris is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) and a member of a high-eccentricity population known as the scattered disk. It has one known moon, Dysnomia. As of February 2016, its distance from the Sun was 96.3 astronomical units (1.441×1010 km; 8.95×109 mi), roughly three times that of Pluto. With the exception of some long-period comets, until 2018 VG18��was discovered on December 17, 2018, Eris and Dysnomia were the most distant known natural objects in the Solar System.[

Because Eris appeared to be larger than Pluto, NASA initially described it as the Solar System’s tenth planet. This, along with the prospect of other objects of similar size being discovered in the future, motivated the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to define the term planet for the first time. Under the IAU definition approved on August 24, 2006, Eris is a “dwarf planet”, along with objects such as Pluto, Ceres, Haumea and Makemake thereby reducing the number of known planets in the Solar System to eight, the same as before Pluto’s discovery in 1930. Observations of a stellar occultation by Eris in 2010 showed that its diameter was 2,326 ± 12 kilometers (1,445.3 ± 7.5 mi), very slightly less than Pluto, which was measured by New Horizons in July 2015.

The Myth– Eris is the Greek goddess of strife and discord. The most famous tale of Eris recounts her initiating the Trojan War by causing the Judgement of Paris. The goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite had been invited along with the rest of Olympus to the forced wedding of Peleus and Thetis, who would become the parents of Achilles, but Eris had been snubbed because of her troublemaking inclinations.

She, therefore (as mentioned at the Kypria according to Proclus as part of a plan hatched by Zeus and Themis) tossed into the party the Apple of Discord, a golden apple inscribed Ancient Greek: τῇ καλλίστῃ, “For the most beautiful one”, or “To the Fairest One” – provoking the goddesses to begin quarreling about the appropriate recipient. The hapless Paris, Prince of Troy, was appointed to select the fairest by Zeus. The goddesses stripped naked to try to win Paris’s decision and also attempted to bribe him. Hera offered political power; Athena promised infinite wisdom; and Aphrodite tempted him with the most beautiful woman in the world: Helen, wife of Menelaus of Sparta. While Greek culture placed a greater emphasis on prowess and power, Paris chose to award the apple to Aphrodite, thereby dooming his city, which was destroyed in the war that ensued.

Another story of Eris includes Hera and the love of Polytekhnos and Aedon. They claimed to love each other more than Hera and Zeus were in love. This angered Hera, so she sent Eris to wreak discord upon them. Polytekhnos was finishing off a chariot board, and Aedon a web she had been weaving. Eris said to them, “Whosoever finishes thine task last shall have to present the other with a female servant!” Aedon won. But Polytekhnos was not happy by his defeat, so he came to Khelidon, Aedon’s sister, and raped her. He then disguised her as a slave, presenting her to Aedon. When Aedon discovered this was indeed her sister, she chopped up Polytekhnos’s son and fed him to Polytekhnos. The gods were not pleased, so they turned them all into birds.

Eris has been adopted as the patron deity of the modern Discordian religion, which was begun in the late 1950s by Gregory Hill and Kerry Wendell Thornley under the pen names of “Malaclypse the Younger” and “Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst”. The Discordian version of Eris is considerably lighter in comparison to the rather malevolent Graeco-Roman original, wherein she is depicted as a positive (albeit mischievous) force of chaotic creation.

A quote from the Principia Discordia, the first holy book of Discordianism, attempts to clear up the matter: One day Mal-2 consulted his Pineal Gland and asked Eris if She really created all of those terrible things. She told him that She had always liked the Old Greeks, but that they cannot be trusted with historical matters. “They were,” She added, “victims of indigestion, you know.” Suffice it to say that Eris is not hateful or malicious. But she is mischievous and does get a little bitchy at times.

The story of Eris being snubbed and indirectly starting the Trojan War is recorded in the Principia and is referred to as the Original Snub. The Principia Discordia states that her parents may be as described in Greek legend, or that she may be the daughter of Void. She is the Goddess of Disorder and Being, whereas her sister Aneris (called the equivalent of Harmonia by the Mythics of Harmonia) is the goddess of Order and Non-Being. Their brother is Spirituality.

Discordian Eris is looked upon as a foil to the preoccupation of western philosophy in attempting to find order in the chaos of reality, in prescribing order to be synonymous with truth. Discordian Eris teaches us that the only truth is chaos and that order and disorder are simply temporary filters applied to the lenses through which we view the chaos. This is known as the Aneristic Illusion.

Why She Matters– Okay, its no secret that Eris is fantastic and I love her. Yes, Eris is chaos, but you know what? So is life. You can try and plan and make things nice and neat, but then the Universe comes through like a toddler who just learned how to walk, hellbent on getting to the other side of the room- consequences be damned. Eris is that universal action. Make no mistake, she is a destroyer and lives for the battlefield, but she also loves to dance, finding the beat in the deaths of men clamoring to prove that they are right to unseen forces (but most of all, themselves). If Mars ever did drag, she would look like Eris (and you bet your ass there would be death drops and shablams like you’ve never seen before!)

When people (read: hecklers) try to come at me with proof that astrology works (but who don’t have their birth time handy for me to utterly eviscerate them) I point to Eris. I remember when she was discovered, and the excitement that her unveiling brought to all of us. And then I remember, quite vividly, the fallout from the IAU decision after she was named but then relegated to dwarf planet status. It was a repeat of the Judgement of Paris myth! She was snubbed, yet again, by the authority, and Pluto was caught up in the fallout as collateral damage just because she was bigger than him (men and size issues, amirite?). And the authority paid for it in the end! Even total luddites who don’t follow the whirling and twirling of the planets (dwarf or otherwise) have a strong opinion about the decision. It made people care about these crazy space rocks, which brings me great happiness.

We aren’t all running around fighting all the time in this modern age, so how do we look at Eris now? A primal force of chaos doesn’t really mesh with our modern sensibilities- or does it? One of the more enlightening views on Eris comes when we consider her in terms of Justice, especially against any kind of oppressive authority. This can be seen in almost every major social movement to demand better treatment, to deny an oppressive ruling class its ability to exploit those below it- Stonewall, May Day, Ferguson, Rodney King, The Arab Spring…. Hell, even the Boston Tea Party! Eris is that urge we feel to stand our ground and refuse to roll over to the bad guys. Eris is the urge to fight for our rights. Yes, it can get violent- but better short violence that changes things for the better than the long, slow violence of inaction. Far better to live boldly and bravely. More commonly though, Eris spurs us on to fight with our racist uncles on Facebook or send petty gifs in the group chats calling out our friends for being slutty… but like, in an endearing way. In fact you could solidly call Eris the Goddess of Shade. Hey, not every action can be a revolutionary one after all- sometimes you just want to get brunch with your girls.

Eris isnt just Chaos, by the way- she also represents Strife. More specifically, what you are striving for. What do you want out of this life? If you are lost, look to Eris and she can help you find your way when you’ve lost it. Mind you, you’ll be in for a HELL of a trip with her (more Thelma and Louise than Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas- That’s solidly Arawn territory) and you might not survive, but at least you’ll know!

Now, we all have all of these planets and asteroids SOMEWHERE in our chart, so in you is the seed of chaos- even the most holier-than-thou Libra. As with all of the Transneptunians, look at her house placement, not necessarily the sign, to see her effect. To find out where she shows up in your chart, go to astro.com, put in your birth details and in the extended options, all the way at the bottom of the next page, there will be a menu of additional objects. Under that is a blank space where you can enter the number 136199, for Eris. Once you have it entered, generate the chart! Where does Eris affect your life? Let us know in the comments below!

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TNO Watch: Eris was originally published on Heretical Oracles

[azeher]

The Villain Problem (which is easily solved)

I’ve seen frequently a lot of posts and threads (making emphasis on “frequently” and “a lot”) here on tumblr and on twitter making a claim that people just don’t want their villains to be redeemed because they refuse to give them character development. This is my take on it and how I solve it.

Well, for starters, character development goes both ways so a villain that starts as someone who wants to do mildly bad things but ends up mass-murdering, raping back and forth, torturing other characters and so on, already got character development. They went from bad to the absolute worst. Of course, a writer’s storytelling skills have the power to make or break a story, so even this can be poorly executed.

To continue, at least in my case, I’m only not into the “redemption” thing when the villain has reached a point of no return, because their actions are bigger than anything else. Something like the example I provided above. And no amount of sad backstory caked with child abuse will change my mind.

Actually, when a story (and by “a story” I mean all of them) gives me the sad backstory and the child abuse excuse--which is an insult to every real child abuse victim ever who chose not to harm anyone, and to those who were victims of people who used this excuse, it completely loses me. Not every bad person had a bad childhood. Having a bad childhood doesn’t excuse them from owning their bad actions. And in the case of the villain, last time I checked, having their mother killed in front of their eyes when they were a little kid didn’t prevent them from creepily smiling when brutally killing a woman in front of her innocent child’s eyes. At this point, having a story give me a sad backstory for Evil Guy not only makes me roll my eyes so far back I can see my brain cells dying, not only increases my anger towards Evil Guy, not only diminishes what respect I might have for the author and their ability to tell a good story, it also actually makes me lose any interest I could’ve had about the villain. And villains are supposed to be interesting. They’re supposed to be the spice of your story.

Other instance in which I might be against the villain’s redemption is when the redemption actually takes away from the story. Some villains were born in the whimsical space of our minds to be evil and go grand about it and tell a message about it. Suddenly redeeming them erases anything that the writer was trying to say.

So how to tell when a villain can be redeemed? Everything depends on writing skills, really. You’re the one writing your story, right? Then you’re the one who will know if this villain can or deserves or wants or needs to be redeemed. You’re the one to know if your story will suffer from it or gain from it. It’s not the readers who decide this; what they feel about the villain, positive or negative, is completely up to them and their fanfics. It’s only you and your intention to tell a good story what matters here.

My list of personal tips, tho, are:

a. Treat your villain as another Main Character, which in a way they are. Villains that are faceless shadows lurking in the awfully decorated halls of what looks like a BDSM dungeon and the result of a quarrell in IKEA, are boring. And I’ll bet not even you fear/care for them.

b. Give Evil Guy a goal that matters to them as a person. Goals are better and more believable than stupid tragic backstories. Also a must if you want a 3D character. They don’t need to be huge goals. I mean, some people would harass and send death threats to someone else over ships, right? Think about that.

c. Add the sad backstory if you want to. Just know that its actual purpose is to give the villain an origin story, not excusing them. Heros also have sad backstories usually and you can still see them being normal people, working on retail at the start of their hero journey. Actually scrap the sad backstory if you have your hero or villain working on retail, that’s enough torture already.

d. If you don’t like or have any interest in your villain, why are you expecting others to? When you don’t like or have any interest in your villain it is because of different reasons: They’re not believable, their goal isn’t believable, you just don’t know what kind of person they are. Do what I do. Talk to them. Sit alone, organize an interview or a really messed up date and get to know the guy. (I do this with every character, really, but villains make for really big experiences).

e. Be prepared to love-hate them. You’re creating a monster. You have to be happy with the kind of monster you came up with. “You’re the worst and don’t have a place outside of the deepest pits of hell. You’re perfect!”

f. Only after you know your villain and how far they’re willing to go to accomplish their goal, you can consider whether or not to redeem them.

g. Realize what role this villain plays in the lives of the rest of your characters. And they must play a role since Evil Guy has been antagonizing them since the beginning of the story. Sometimes, there are other kind of relationships or ties involved that might be the ultimate decisive factor. Let’s use Kubo and the Two Strings as an example. (SPOILERS) Evil Guy was Kubo’s grandfather, but the story chose to give him a new chance to be good and care for his grandson because Kubo had literally no one else. It was such a powerful resolution, because Moon King also despised humankind and their warmth and having to look at them, and thought of himself as superior for being immortal, but then he was turned into a human, was convinced that he was the most compassionate man, and was made to look at humans in the eyes every day until he died someday. But MOST IMPORTANT, it was Kubo’s decision.

(Don’t force a character to end up with or forgive their abuser. Kubo did it amazingly but it’s not something everyone or every story can do. Forgiving is a very personal and intimate thing that isn’t about the abuser but the victim. Forgiving doesn’t mean allowing the abuser back into your life and it definitely isn’t about falling in love with them. It shouldn’t be played as the exoneration of the abuser).

In mp100 (SPOILERS AGAIN) Shou forgives his father. Shou took the decision to give his father another chance. A chance to finally be the father Shou deserved to have. A chance for Touichirou not to disappoint his son again. It was all about Shou, and mp100 is a story about growth and decisions and choosing to be better, so Touichirou also chose to take the chance Shou was giving him. This completes the themes of the narrative and is not forcing us, the readers, to sympathize with Touichirou, it’s only showing us what kind of person Shou is, what his needs are and why we have to respect them, and what he and his father decided to do about their conflict.

h. Realize what sort of story you’re telling or trying to tell. You know, sometimes the message can be pessimistic. Sometimes you want to talk about morality, sometimes about amorality. Sometimes you simply really want your villain to mean something. Once you define this you can choose HOW you want to redeem them (if you had chosen to redeem them that is).

i. In general, antagonists that take bad decisions but deal with an internal conflict of good and evil are the ones we all want to see redeemed. Think Zuko, Loki and (tho it never happened) Draco Malfoy.

j. No matter what sort of redemption you gave your villain or why, make sure they still get to face the consequences of their actions. It doesn’t matter if you love them so much that you are willing to overlook murder cuz “Aw, c’mon, I don’t go to jail for killing all my chances for a decent future, do I?” or “It’s medieval times! Everyone had at least killed five people by the age of 18 back then”. Their actions must come back to them, somehow. It doesn’t have to be jail time, or death or stuff like that, but they must feel real regret. If they don’t, you’re not really redeeming them, you’re just letting your Evil Guy win by gaining MC’s trust and getting to live a full live without any inconveniences. I mean, I guess that’s what uncaught serial killers, corrupt politicians and some Nazis got to do so it’s not that unthinkable.

I, myself, have a thing for villains, which is a reason why I don’t understand the oversimplified posts that go: “People who don’t want villains to be redeemed think you’re evil if you like villains. People just don’t want character development for villains.” I may think that any specific villain doesn’t need a redemption, that doesn’t mean I think no villain can have a redemption. I may think that the villain that doesn’t deserve the redemption is a literal disgusting creature, that doesn’t mean I can’t be impressed by how amazingly and cleverly constructed the villain is. My biggest example: The Joker. And every character needs character development, else they’re not really characters but plot devices.

As for the other side of the argument: “They think you’re evil if you like villains”. I might be missing something here, but the one complaint I’ve heard barely reminiscent of this claim is the one that surfaces when a fandom collectively justifies or ignores the villain’s actions (as if that’s necessary to be allowed to like the villain) and that’s a complaint as valid as any other; or when the story itself justifies the villain’s actions then chooses to never mention them again, which, yeah, is bad writing (see Snape).

If you choose to ignore a villain’s actions, doesn’t that just mean that you like the character but not exactly what they did? Tho, the route you’re taking isn’t the best but still. If you justify a villain’s actions (murder is common, rape is worse, they were having a rough day, they were depressed--bitch, I’m depressed!, she asked for it, it’s okay because they fall in love later, they just don’t know how to express love in a healthy way that doesn’t involve emotional and physical and sometimes even sexual abuse, they grew up in a violent and/or manipulative environment, they have an awful father…), and then make a big deal out of that and talk about it online, don’t be surprised if someone disagrees with you, or you touch a nerve with an actual real life person and get called out. Because, it was you who made it internet-relevant.

It’s your right to like a villain for whatever reasons you want and you don’t owe an explanation to anyone, but thinking critically about your fave, recognizing their flaws, or the themes they embody are also important things. And even if you just don’t feel like doing that, which is fair, that doesn’t change the fact that the villain is a piece of shit and other people will notice it. Not everyone will love your sinnamon roll. You’ll have to deal with the two sides: Enjoying your small villain fandom with your nice group of peers, and seeing posts where other people trash your fave. That if the story itself doesn’t do it.

[preserving-ferretbrain]

I, Whedon

by Dan H

Monday, 23 February 2009

Dan on Joss Whedon, Nice Guy Syndrome, and the Man!Feminist~

So what with the release of Dollhouse, Joss Whedon's new series about how men treat womenthere's been a certain number of people on this site talking about good old JW's much vaunted feminist credentials. While none of us would go so far as

actually calling him a rapist

a lot of us get a little bit uncomfortable with the way he tries to pass off scenes of hot women wearing skimpy costumes as empowering.

A few of us have spent a while trying to put our fingers on exactly what we find so frustrating about Joss Whedon, and now our esteemed editor and I have started to rewatch Firefly, I think I've worked out exactly what it is:

Joss Whedon thinks exactly like me.

Or, to put it another way, Joss Whedon thinks exactly the way I used to before I grew up, got a girlfriend, and became less of an insecure douchebag.

Basically, Joss Whedon's portrayal of women tallies almost perfectly with the phenomenon known generally on the internet as

Nice Guy Syndrome

.

Just to clarify, the term “Nice Guy Syndrome” has two essentially contrary meanings (check out the

Urban Dictionary Entry

. Its first use is the perceived phenomenon whereby women date “jerks” because they're stupid/insecure/oppressed by the patriarchy/have Stockholm Syndrome when they should really be dating “nice guys” like – well – whichever guy is using the phrase. The second meaning of the phrase is the phenomenon of creepy, insecure guys who can't get a date because of the messed up way they treat women (usually by pretending they want to be “

friends

” with women they actually want to sleep with) who ascribe their lack of sexual conquests to their being “too nice”.

It's this second definition that I'm talking about here. I know exactly what these guys are like, because I used to be one and, to be honest, part of me probably still is.

To lay it all on the line, both for the women in the audience who are wondering why the fuck these creepy guys are following them around, and for the men in the audience who are wondering why women find them so creepy, the key points of Nice Guy thinking are these:

Respect For Women is Paramount: The basis of Nice Guy thinking is the idea that Women must be Respected. It is the duty of men who Respect women to protect women from men who No Not Respect them. A woman is, of course, powerless before a man who Does Not Respect her, she can be saved only by the intervention of a Nice Guy.

Women Do Not Enjoy Sex: This is the central, axiomatic tenet of Nice Guy thinking. Sex is a service a woman performs for a man. Ideally she will perform it willingly for a Good man (i.e. me) who cares about her and Respects her, but frequently women are tricked or forced into providing sex for Bad Men because women are Stupid.

Men Are Evil, Male Sexuality is Evil: To be sexually attracted to a woman is fundamentally disrespectful. After all, women don't like sex, they only provide it out of a sense of social obligation. Therefore a man who respects women will do his utmost to suppress any sexual desires he has, and he will certainly not tell a woman he is attracted to her (a really Respectful relationship has to grow out of friendship remember). Nice Guys tend to idealise lesbianism as the perfect non-exploitative relationship for women, they tend to do this to give them an excuse to fantasise about hot chicks doing it.

Women Are Weak and Stupid: The reason it is so important to Respect women is because you, and only you, are capable of protecting them from the undeserving men who would demean them. Women are not capable of protecting themselves, or making their own decisions. A woman who has sex with another man is effectively being abused. A woman who has sex with you is wilfully degrading herself for your benefit.

In short, this all adds up to one fucker of a Madonna/Whore complex, and a totally sexist worldview which is inextricably bound up with the belief that you Truly Understand Women.

Enter the Man!Feminist

I'm not going to get into the “can men be feminists” argument here. What I am going to say is that in my experience guys who pride themselves on their ability to understand women are guys women want to stay the fuck away from them. Men who self-define as feminists should, at the very least, take a long hard look at the way they think about women.

Anyway, this was supposed to be an article about Joss Whedon. Where to begin.

Joss Whedon is a feminist. And how. His shows are packed full of “strong women” and feminist themes and sisters doing it for themselves. Unfortunately they're also packed full of examples of fucked up Nice Guy logic.

I'm going to start with the big issue here, which is Whedon's portrayal of male and female sexuality. It isn't universal, but there is a strong tendency in Joss Whedon's works to view male sexuality as evil (see point three above) and female sexuality as play-acting (see point two).

I'm not going to count Angel and his Curse, that was a specific plot-event, and it was supposed to mirror a classic teen issue (“I had sex with this guy and he totally changed!”) but after the Angel drama, Buffy's next sexual encounter is with Parker who, while manipulative, is direct and honest about the fact that he's after sex. Of course the way he treats Buffy is horrible, but that's sort of my point – he's the Nice Guy's classic idea of the “jerk” who extracts sex from women by trickery. And of course corn-fed Iowa boy Riley only realises his own attraction to Buffy when it manifests in his punching Parker in the face (thus allowing the worthy Nice Guy to overcome the unworthy Jerk and claim his reward in the shape of hot Buffysex). Then of course Riley gets written out for being too boring, and Buffy gets with Spike.

The Buffy/Spike arc is telling, particularly when taken over the course of seasons 5-7. Like Parker, Spike is quite upfront about the fact that his attraction to Buffy is sexual and it's this as much as the fact that he's a soulless killing machine that makes their relationship so destructive. Buffy clearly doesn't actually enjoy having sex with him (see point two) she's just reacting badly to her traumatic resurrection experience. And of course Spike's Evil Male Sexuality finally culminates in an attempt to rape Buffy (because remember folks, all men are

potential rapists

). Then between series six and seven, Spike gets his soul back, effectively redeeming him, and his redemption, of course, manifests as his no longer being overtly sexually attracted to Buffy. His redemption arc culminates, in fact, when Buffy gives Spike the “best night of his life” by lying platonically with him while the world burns.

There's a bunch of similar examples in Buffy, Oz isn't allowed to have sex with Willow until he has first proven himself worthy by refusing to have sex with her, and of course when Willow gets together with Tara, Oz is effectively retconned out, with Joss insisting that Willow is definitely gaybecause, as per point three, lesbianism is inherently empowering. Faith's promiscuity is deeply intertwined with her psychological scars, and Anya's love of sex is presented, along with her literal-mindedness and love of money, as a mark of her ex-demon “otherness”.

Now I should stress here that I'm not saying that Joss Whedon has done anything wrong with his portrayal of the characters in Buffy. Like my earlier article on

race in fantasy

this is basically a call for people to be honest about their assumptions.

Anyway, that's Buffy. Next stop: Firefly.

Madonna, Whores, and Sacred Prostitution

The first thing I should say is that there actually are some reasonably sexually active women in Firefly. Wash and Zoe's relationship is clearly healthy and functional, and Kaylee has been heard to bemon the fact that she “ain't had nothing 'twixt her nethers don't run on batteries” (although that line was from the movie, and has been denounced by fans as out of character).

But if you're going to talk about sex in Firefly you really have to talk about Inara.

Inara, for those who haven't seen the series and couldn't work out what was going on in the film is a “Companion”. Companions are kind of space-Geishas, super-high-class prostitutes who are trained in – well – pretty much everything (possibly including espionage and martial arts, if we're to judge by Saffron, the evil Companion who appears in the episode Our Mrs Reynolds). Companions occupy a ludicrously exalted position in the society of the “'verse” (as Whedon cutely calls it) roughly equivalent to modern movie stars or corporate high-flyers. Whenever Inara walks into a room, people flock around her saying “oh my Lord, a real Companion, I've never seen one before! You're so amazing and empowered!” We are told at great length how the Companions are valued and respected, how a companion always chooses her clients, and how they basically have a free pass to go anywhere and do anything within the Alliance.

But every two episodes, somebody will smack Inara and call her a whore.

Not only does Mal (which means bad, in the Latin, by the way) constantly condemn her profession, but most of her clients treat her like property, or try to “take her away” from her fantastically prestigious career, or just generally treat her like shit. This is completely stupid. It's like having a series set in the present day in which one of your characters is on the board of directors for GSK, and having every third person they meet treat them like a street drug dealer. It's also a classic example of the way that Whedon will try to have his cake and eat it when it comes to these sorts of issues.

Inara is a classic male fantasy, but more than that, she's a classic Nice Guy fantasy. She's a woman you can have sex with without feeling bad about it. Indeed the whole Companion ethos is constructed around the assumptions of the Nice Guy worldview. Respect is paramount, and the whole thing is sublimated in ritual to ensure that respect is maximised at all times. The companions do not enjoy sex (you never once see Inara have an orgasm). The role of the companion is to select men who she considers worthy and allow them to have sex with her. It's “empowering” only in the sense that the Companion is always detached from the whole proceedings, the perfect untouchable being who briefly lowers herself to be with her client

Put simply, it's a very male idea of what female sexuality is and should be, and viewed as an ideal of female sexual behaviour, it's actually kinda creepy. Inara doesn't choose clients who she's attracted to, or people she thinks will satisfy her sexually (a number of her clients in the series are virgins she's been hired to make a man out of). Her decision to service somebody or not is almost entirely a judgement of their moral character which, yet again, is a pillar of the Nice Guy ethos, where sex is a reward for good behaviour.

And needless to say, Inara is always underneath.

Dirty Girls

The final element of the Nice Guy ethos is the most controversial and the most destructive. Deep down, all Nice Guys believe that women are weak, stupid bitches who don't know what's good for them.

This is the bit I'm going to get most flak for trying to pin on ol' Joss, but bear with me.

The really dangerous thing about the Nice Guy ethos is that it leads you down circular lines of argument like “I'm a nice guy, so there's nothing wrong with the way I'm acting towards this girl” or – to relate this back to good old JW “Joss got an award from Equality Now! That means nothing he creates could ever be sexist in any way”.

To put it another way, Nice Guys like to believe that the world is divided into Nice Guys and Jerks, and that the only reason that there are any problems with sexism at all is because of the Jerks (and that incidentally part of the reason there are so many Jerks out there is because women keep having sex with them, so really the women are to blame).

To put it yet another way, Nice Guys believe that there are Good People and Bad People, and everything the Good People do is Good and everything the Bad People do is Bad.

Let's bring this back to Whedon.

In the Firefly episode Shindig, Inara hooks up with an evil man named Atherton Wing. Atherton Wing acts like the stereotypical Jerk. He takes Inara for granted, gloats about the fact that everybody wants to have sex with her but only he gets to, and keeps going on about how she's his because he bought and paid for her. He asks Inara to come and stay with him to be his Personal Companion, and she considers it even though he is patently evil. Finally Mal baits him into calling Inara a whore, at which point Mal punches him and they wind up in a duel.

This then leads to the following exchange

Inara: You have a strange sense of nobility Captain. You'll lay a man out for implying I'm a whore but you keep calling me one to my face. Mal: I might not show respect to your job, but he didn't respect *you*. That's the difference. Inara, he doesn't even see you.

First off, see that word “respect” again. Remember guys, that's what it's all about. You respect women, other guys don't. How do you know? Well you know you respect women, don't you? And the other guy treats them differently to you, so the other guy must not respect women.

Secondly, look at what happened here for fuck's sake. Inara, a Companion, one of the most highly paid, high-status individuals in the entire 'verse, falls in with a Bad Man and she is completely incapable of extricating herself without Mal's help. She's supposed to be the goddamned poster child for female empowerment in the series but the moment she's faced with a man who (horror of horrors) “doesn't respect her” she becomes totally powerless and has to be rescued by Mal. Mal who, let us not forget, calls her a whore, pays no attention to her wishes, and generally treats her very, very badly.

But it's okay, because he respects her. Just “her” of course. He doesn't respect her choices, her career, her wishes or her privacy, but he respects “her” as a kind of abstract entity. But in the Whedonverse that's the way it is, there are Bad Misogynists who Oppress Women and there are Good Guys who fight against them. The idea that an otherwise sympathetic character could have an attitude towards women that isn't appropriate (or even, shock horror, that Joss Whedon could have attitudes that are not appropriate) is simply unthinkable. He's a feminist, therefore he cannot be sexist. He respects her, therefore his actions are respectful.

A big part of Joss Whedon's problem is that he wants at one and the same time to have empowered female characters and also draw attention to the fundamentally disempowering situations women often face. As far as it goes, this is laudable, but he frequently lacks the subtlety to do these ideas justice. Worse, because he is so fond of presenting Good, Virtuous, Powerful Women versus Bad Oppressive Misogynists he frequently falls into the all-too-common trap of presenting abuse and oppression as being direct causes of virtue or, worse, empowerment.

To bring this up to date, with a final example the pilot episode of Dollhouse sees Eliza Dushku taking on the persona of a shit-hot hostage negotiator. Said shit-hot hostage negotiator became a shit-hot hostage negotiator because, as a child, she was abducted and sexually abused. By drawing a direct line between childhood abuse and adult success, Whedon confuses empowerment with obsession. The shit-hot hostage negotiator literally would not have become the woman she was without the man who abused her. She owed her success to him absolutely. By entangling his female protagonists' successes so intimately with the indignities they suffer at the hands of his male villains, he creates a world in which women are defined only by how men treat them, and the only choice he gives them is whether to accept or reject the roles men put them into, and that is anything but feminist.Themes:

TV & Movies

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

,

Whedonverse

,

Minority Warrior

~

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Arthur B

at 11:28 on 2009-02-23

Its first use is the perceived phenomenon whereby women date “jerks” because they're stupid/insecure/oppressed by the patriarchy/have Stockholm Syndrome when they should really be dating “nice guys” like – well – whichever guy is using the phrase. The second meaning of the phrase is the phenomenon of creepy, insecure guys who can't get a date because of the messed up way they treat women (usually by pretending they want to be “friends” with women they actually want to sleep with) who ascribe their lack of sexual conquests to their being “too nice”.

I'm pretty sure the first definition was invented by guys who fit the second...

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Rami

at 15:23 on 2009-02-23*agrees with Arthur*

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Rami

at 16:30 on 2009-02-23I read part of

a book once

that argued that the "Nice Guy" effect goes beyond just sexual relationships -- that it's a kind of dysfunction that views *any* interpersonal interaction as an implicit contract of that nature. So you get thought patterns like: "I did well in school, therefore I deserve my parents' affection"; "I organize group activites and provide pizza, therefore I deserve Extra Regard and Love from my social circle"; "I Respect and Honor women, therefore I deserve for them to want to sleep with me".

There was lots of his argument that I'm not sure I agree with but it all seems to hit very close to the

geek social fallacies

, which is to say, very close to home...

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Dan H

at 19:08 on 2009-02-23Interesting, you might have a point there. It ties in rather nicely with good old Joel from Surrey and "I worked hard at school so I deserve to get into Oxford."

On another point (and I know it's a bit gauche to be suggesting further reading for my own article - sorry folks) it strikes me that one of the few times I've seen the "empowered prostitute" thing working in fiction is in Jaqueline Carey's otherwise awful Kushiel series. It works there, I think, for all the reasons Inara doesn't work: people genuinely treat the high-status prostitutes with respect, the main character seems to actually enjoy what she does, and enjoy it in the "get off on it" sense as well as the "derive spiritual fulfillment" sense.

Clue: when you compare unfavorably to Jacqueline Carey, you are in trouble.

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Nathalie H

at 20:37 on 2009-02-23Ooh, good article! I think I agree with everything you've had said (which is not as common as I'd like when it relates to feminism) - I think you've explained the things that bother me about Joss.

I'd like to follow up on this:

"The companions do not enjoy sex (you never once see Inara have an orgasm)." - that is true, but that may be because of US TV limitations. It's probably also worth considering Inara's one episode of sleeping with a woman, which according to your Nice Guy code appears to be the best thing for women...she appears to be enjoying herself, but then she always /appears/ to be enjoying herself. All we learn is that 'people are surprised' and 'people think two women is hot', which...yeah.

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http://rudecyrus.livejournal.com/

at 20:58 on 2009-02-23Don't you mean "hot-shit hostage negotiator"?

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Nathalie H

at 21:15 on 2009-02-23(Follow up to previous comment fail - should be "you've said", and agreeing not being as common as I'd like relates to men's viewpoints rather than yours personally. Should not comment while I'm watching TV!)

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Shim

at 21:27 on 2009-02-23

Not only does Mal (which means bad, in the Latin, by the way) constantly condemn her profession, but most of her clients treat her like property, or try to “take her away” from her fantastically prestigious career, or just generally treat her like shit. This is completely stupid.

Agreed. Actually, if it were just Mal, I could sort of forgive it. You could construct some... thing... where Mal was meant to be unconsciously hypocritical about his sexism, being as he is a bit erratic anyway, and disliked the "Companions" bit as part of the culture he's rejected, so kept undermining it (which... isn't that difficult). Trouble is, as you said, Inara

only

gets respect at the plot-convenient moments. The rest of the crew barely notice her or are entirely blasé about her, even the posh kids (who you'd expect to be inclined towards the normal hierarchy) don't seem to show any deference. And the culture shows none of the etiquette rules you'd expect, or explanations for why Companions have special status, to help suspend disbelief.

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http://descrime.livejournal.com/

at 23:24 on 2009-02-23The problem with Companion -> Geisha -> female empowerment is that geisha weren't empowered. They had status, but that's hardly the same thing. The geisha were slaves. Their knowledge/skills and their behavior was all scripted around what men wanted and would pay for. They were taught to repress emotion and reflect only what men wanted to see. It was only the top geisha "stars" who got to be choosy about their clientele. I don't find any of that particularly empowering.

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http://wormwood-pearl.livejournal.com/

at 09:42 on 2009-02-24I

submitted this to reddit"> :)

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Dan H

at 14:29 on 2009-02-24

Their knowledge/skills and their behavior was all scripted around what men wanted and would pay for.

The Companions, however, seem to live in this special magic world (or "post patriarchy society" as the "Whedon is totally feminist" crowd like to call it) where "what men want and will pay for" magically overlaps totally with "what the Companion wants to do" which also, weirdly, seems to overlap entirely with "her lying there looking motherly while the guy lies on top of her and thrusts like a sixteen year old."

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Rami

at 14:39 on 2009-02-24@wormwood-pearl: Yay! Someone actually used the bookmarking feature! I knew I put it there for a reason...

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Wardog

at 15:06 on 2009-02-24I think is a really interesting article, Dan, and I really want to say something about it ... but I'm not sure what to say. I think I'm still just traumatised by Nice Guy Syndrome... as A WOMAN I should know about this stuff, right?

Also I think it's slightly dodgy ground to try and establish what lies "behind" Whedon's presentation of women. After all, this has changed a lot over the years. Although Buffy was probably self-consciously constructed to be a "feminist" heroine, Early Season Buffy is "empowered" almost by chance. I mean, she's a bubbly 16 year old who worries about cheerleading and boys, and just happens to kill vampires competantly on the side. I suppose what I always liked about her is that being into cheerleading and worrying about boys (i.e. being a person) was never really presented as a hindrance to her being good at her job. Set that against someone like Starbuck who is "strong" only when she's pretending to be a man, and the rest of time is a nuclear-explosion sized mess. Or, for that matter, bloody Cameron in House - the fact she is a woman (and thus, inclined to be over-emotional when she should be professional) is always portrayed as some kind of hindrance to her doctoring.

Sorry, this is a heap of undigested thoughts.

Talking about Firefly is also awkward because there just isn't enough of it. I mean, we never really find out what is with the Companion Guild - if it is EVIL and OPPRESSIVE, or if they're secret ninja assassins or what. And we never really see what Whedon was trying to do with Inara - admittedly what he seems to be starting to do is rather depressing. I think there's also a lot of like in Inara, if not for the messy virgin/whore issue. None of the women in Firefly are standard hotties - Kaylee is adorable and girly, Inara is poised and graceful, Zoe is Amazonian, and all of them are clearly very good at their very different jobs. I love Kaylee's touchy-feely mechanical skills.

It's just there's so much that's awkward and unfortunate in Inara. She's gets all hot and flustered over Mal, which leads to her behaving like an idiot a lot of the time. *None* of her clients ever seem to respect her (the first guy whinges that she's sped the clock up to cheat him of his cash, Atherton Wing is an arse, the guy in Canton has an overbearing father who keeps hustling her to just get on with the bonking), except the one woman to whom she gives a back masage while they talk about the softness of each other's skin (which is, of course, what lesbians spend all their time together doing...). Kaylee is all awestruck about how wonderful companions are but, again, she's a woman.

Anyway, I'm babbling now.

But, yes, v. interesting article.

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Dan H

at 17:18 on 2009-02-24

Also I think it's slightly dodgy ground to try and establish what lies "behind" Whedon's presentation of women.

Oh absolutely, but I thrive in slightly dodgy ground.

Much like the Rowling Calvinism article I don't actually mean to say that I know for certain that Joss Whedon thinks about women this way, just that I keep getting the *creepy impression* that he does, and I know from first hand experience that thinking about women this way is in no way incompatible with self-defining as a "feminist."

Which I suppose makes this sort of a meta-article really, the whole point of which winds up being "guys who self-define as feminists, Joss Whedon included, should take a good honest look at how they actually think about women because guys, there is a non zero chance you are a creepy asshole."

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Wardog

at 16:28 on 2009-02-26Much like the Rowling Calvinism article I don't actually mean to say that I know for certain that Joss Whedon thinks about women this way, just that I keep getting the *creepy impression* that he does, and I know from first hand experience that thinking about women this way is in no way incompatible with self-defining as a "feminist."

To be fair to you, there is definitely something "off" with the Whedonverse.

I am more forcibly struck by it than ever since embarking upon the second series of Veronica Mars - of may be one of the most successful "empowered" women I have seen on television. Veronica has a lot of strengths and a lot of, quite interesting, weaknesses to balance them out. I think what I like best about it, actually, is that she is a *person* I can admire and, in some respects, aspire to be more like. The key word being "person" not "WOMAN".

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Sonia Mitchell

at 23:05 on 2009-02-27

I think what I like best about it, actually, is that she is a *person* I can admire and, in some respects, aspire to be more like. The key word being "person" not "WOMAN".

Reminds me of the comments beneath your article on

Mesuline

(I've been playing with the random button too) re. gay characters in fantasy. The OMG we're including empowered women/gay people/disabled people/etc! being a step up from invisible but still some way off Veronica Mars (as you describe her - not that I've seen VM). Not sure if I'm in total agreement as it applies to Firefly (not seen enough of Buffy to comment) but this is definitely an interesting article.

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http://arkan2.livejournal.com/

at 15:30 on 2009-02-28Just when I think your reviews can't get any more brilliant, you come out with something like this. Your insight and clarity are matched by few others of my acquaintance (and several of the rest are also on this site, I might add). I salute.

There are a lot of specifics to this article which I will address later, when I have more time and cognitive energy at my disposal to give this wonderful essay they intelligent response it deserves.

For now, I feel obligated to render Kyra a friendly warning re:

Veronica Mars

. Warning: the following material is heavily biased, and if you really want to continue watching with an open mind, I suggest you don't read it, I just thought I should give you the option of knowing what you're (probably) in for. (Like I said, very biased, you might find yourself disagreeing when you see it yourself.)

Veronica Mars

starts out good, but somewhere by the beginning of the third season the main character devolves into (and this is my feminist cred taking one for the team, but some things have to be said) a real

bitch

. She treats the people who love her like crap, even when they go to heroic lengths for her benefit, and constantly plays the victim whenever they do not comply with her wishes (well, that last one may just be her boyfriend). Oh, and she keeps making the same mistakes about mistrusting people based on total hearsay (the way she dumped Logan at the end of season 1) over and over and

over

and over again.

On a show where at least half the cast are lovable jerks, you wouldn't think this would be a problem, and it probably wouldn't: except that the writers obviously intend us to ascribe to Veronica's view of reality. Logan and Dick and Vinnie and all the other jerks are lovable

because

they act like jerks, and the writers make it clear to the audience that they're supposed to be jerks. Veronica is vile because she's a jerk, and the writers make it clear to the audience that she's supposed to be heroic.

To invert your message, Kyra, and use Whedon to illustrate a point about

Veronica Mars

: the difference between Veronica and all the other jerks in the cast is like the difference between Mal and Jayne on

Firefly

. They're both jerks, but Jayne is an admitted jerk, whereas the writers keep trying to tell us, despite all the evidence, that Mal is a Nice Guy, who's maybe just a little rough around the edges.

Also, in season 3, Veronica goes off to college, and one of the overarching themes of the season is her interactions with campus feminazis. I wish I were making that up.

... Wow, I didn't expect that to turn into a rant. [insert chagrined smile emoticon here]

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http://miss-morland.livejournal.com/

at 14:49 on 2009-03-02I'll confess to not being very familiar with Whedon's shows, but I still found this article very interesting - the Nice Guy logic seems to be fairly common in popular culture (and society in general). Then again, the Whore/Madonna logic isn't exactly new...

One of the things that annoy me the most, is that Nice Guy logic gives women basically two options: you can be with a Jerk who may do things like beat or rape you, or you can be with a Nice Guy, who'll never do that sort of thing, but who is just as controlling as the Jerk. Either way, you can't win, because having a partner that treats you like an equal is out of the question. (Unless you're a lesbian, of course, and then you don't have to have any nasty sex, because women are totally sexless, you know.)

Also, when women choose macho Jerks, it's seen as a proof that 'we want men who treat us badly', because that's the way of nature, isn't it? [insert eyeroll here]

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Dan H

at 14:55 on 2009-03-02

Also, when women choose macho Jerks, it's seen as a proof that 'we want men who treat us badly', because that's the way of nature, isn't it? [insert eyeroll here]

It's *science*. You can't argue with *science*.

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http://arkan2.livejournal.com/

at 00:30 on 2009-03-25Reply to “I, Whedon”

For someone so obsessed with punctuality in person, I always seem to join these parties at about the time the music has gone on its fourth repeat, the refreshments are down to the crumbs, the organizers are beginning to put away the balloons and decorations, and even the diehards are beginning to think it's time to go home.

Still, now that I've finally put together the time to say what I have to say, I'm damn well going to say it.

So first, I'm linking Kyra's article

Consuming Problems

, which I just read last week. In Kyra's first comment she says:

Possibly it's the weird transaction to which popular culture tends to reduce relationships: the man gives the woman romance, in return she gives him sex. When both should surely be mutual activities =P

Which is an interesting perspective on the those Nice Guy assumptions. (Personally, I'm all in favor of romance, although “embarrassing and awkward”? Yeah, definitely.)

As for the main argument … well, that's about six hits to the self-esteem in rapid succession, especially that “Heartless Bitches” essay. As if I didn't have enough problems with insecurity. Oh well.

The really dangerous thing about the Nice Guy ethos is that it leads you down circular lines of argument like “I'm a nice guy, so there's nothing wrong with the way I'm acting towards this girl” or – to relate this back to good old JW “Joss got an award from Equality Now! That means nothing he creates could ever be sexist in any way”.

It's just a slightly modified version of the privilege self-defense mechanism “I'm not sexist/racist/heterosexist/classist/ableist/ageist/whatever, therefore I'm not part of the problem and I don't need to do anything differently.” The upgraded version is “I support women's rights/the NAACP/give money to charity/etc. therefore I'm doing my part for equality and I don't need to do anything differently.”

Whedon's portrayal of sexism as being the sole province of the Misogynist-of-the-Week makes him an enabler. The none batshit-crazy misogynists in his audience (i.e. more than 99.9% of them) can breathe a sigh of relief, suitably assured that they are not in any way a part of the problem.

To put it yet another way, Nice Guys believe that there are Good People and Bad People, and everything the Good People do is Good and everything the Bad People do is Bad.

I think that basically sums up what I just said in the last two paragraphs. And maybe that explains Mal and his behavior: sure he's objectively no better than Jayne, but because he's Good/a member of the

Elect

(yay for referencing my first ever ferretbrain essay!) everything he does—including insulting Inara and kicking helpless prisoners into engines—is automatically Good, too.

Nathalie H, notice also in that one scene where Inara is with another woman, they talk about how great it is to be “just us girls,” away from men where they can “be themselves.” (As my sister pointed out, apparently Inara

really is

that melodramatic when she's just being herself.)

Which I suppose makes this sort of a meta-article really, the whole point of which winds up being "guys who self-define as feminists, Joss Whedon included, should take a good honest look at how they actually think about women because guys, there is a non zero chance you are a creepy asshole."

Exactly.

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http://arkan2.livejournal.com/

at 15:06 on 2009-03-26Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this. A while ago I read an

essay

by internet columnist Karen Healey about the portrayal of "strong women" in

Buffy

,

Angel

, and

Firefly

. As I recall, the comment thread also contained something about female sexuality in particular being depicted negatively.

From what I saw, it doesn't exactly fit the Nice Guy Syndrome model, but it's another way of looking at the portrayal of women and sexuality in Whedon's work that doesn't come from either the "Whedon can do no wrong" or the "Whedon is a rapist and everything he does is misogynistic" camps.

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Wardog

at 16:17 on 2009-03-26Interesting post, thanks for the link.

There's also a link to

to this

in the article ... which makes me hit the wtf button.

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Arthur B

at 16:24 on 2009-03-26Kyra, that link is incredible. Curse the day that

Firefly

was cancelled and we were denied this genius.

Inara: NOOOOOOOOOO DON'T LOOK AT ME I HAVE THE DEATH CUNT

Mal: I KISS YOUR DAINTY HAND FOR I AM YOUR PURE WHITE KNIGHT WHO RESPECTS YOU, EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE THE DEATH CUNT

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Wardog

at 16:28 on 2009-03-26I *know*, I *know* - it's awful! Makes me actually relieved they stopped Firefly when they did - and that's heresy!

What gets me is:

Mal: INARA, YOU FILTHY WHORE ... oh, you've been gang-raped ... my mistake, you're not a filthy whore.

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Arthur B

at 16:39 on 2009-03-26It reads more to me like:

MAL: Inara, I do not like you, because you are a slutty slut who sluts about the place.

INARA: Oh no, Reavers! I must turn myself into a chemical weapon so that none may touch my venomous DEATH CUNT.

MAL: Inara, I like you now, because you can't slut about the place thanks to the DEATH CUNT which

beckons to me in my dreams but I can never ever have it because it is unattainable, unattainable like you are, sweet Inara, let me place you on this pedestal and kiss your sweet hand, yes, let Mal take care of it, let Joss Mal take care of it all...

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Dan H

at 23:27 on 2009-03-26Tragically it's even worse than that. Comedy DEATH CUNT jokes aside it's basically

MAL: Inara, you may think you're a strong independent woman who is able to make her own choices, but really you just want a man to treat you like a woman.

INARA: No Mal, I really am a strong independent woman and I make my own choices and am totally empowered.

[ INARA gets GANG RAPED by REAVERS ]

MAL: See!

INARA: You're right! My horrific abuse experience has made me realize that your perception of me is more accurate than my own!

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Dan H

at 23:28 on 2009-03-26(Of course, it's not Joss Whedon, it's Tim Minnear. I bet Joss Whedon was all like "no Tim, don't do that, it would be totally fucked up", but then the networks were all like "no, put it in, we want to mess your show up" - this being of course the only possible interpretation of any flaw in the works of the Great Man).

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Arthur B

at 23:42 on 2009-03-26I think we're agreed that the story requires one or both of Inara and Mal being completely pathetic, just in different ways; given that it was never filmed, I suppose we'll never find out for sure...

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Wardog

at 09:29 on 2009-03-27Of course, the other rather indicative thing about this idea is that it's an anti-rape weapon that only works *after* you've been raped. Flaw, much?

It seems to me rather illustrative of much of Whedon's thinking on this issue - i.e. that punishing people for committing rape is more important than preventing rape happening.

Sigh.

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http://fintinobrien.livejournal.com/

at 10:02 on 2009-03-27I like how its effectiveness as a deterrent is completely undercut by the fact that nobody knows she has the frackin' weapon. Way to prevent rape, jackass.

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Dan H

at 11:30 on 2009-03-27

It seems to me rather illustrative of much of Whedon's thinking on this issue - i.e. that punishing people for committing rape is more important than preventing rape happening.

This, again, is why I'm so iffy about Joss Whedon's attitude towards women. It's not that he hates women or is anti-woman, it's that he's the kind of guy (as are a great many of us, I think) who is really into the idea of protecting women or, better still, punishing men who don't treat women "right".

For a lot of guys "girl gets horribly abused, I beat up the abuser, she is eternally grateful and we have teh hot secks" is a fantasy and, as a fantasy, it's relatively harmless (in the sense that fantasies aren't real, and any guy with half a brain eventually works out that other people's abuse experiences aren't about you). The problem comes when you try to dress that fantasy up as feminism.

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Arthur B

at 12:54 on 2009-03-27

I like how its effectiveness as a deterrent is completely undercut by the fact that nobody knows she has the frackin' weapon. Way to prevent rape, jackass.

This is almost precisely like the anti-rape device in

Snow Crash

, which fails horribly for similar reasons. Supposedly, the idea is that if Mr Potential Rapist doesn't

know

whether any particular woman possesses a vagina dentata, or whatever the hell it is the weapon is meant to be, then he's going to play it safe and not rape anyone.

This doesn't really work in universes with insane space rapists (especially insane space rapists who are perfectly willing to continue gang-raping someone after the first few guys drop dead screaming OH GOD IT'S A TRAP SAVE YOURSELF). The whole point of a deterrent (other than you don't keep it secret -

vhy didn't you tell the world, eh?

) is that the person it's deterring needs to have some kind of self-preservation instinct and the capacity to understand the threat, and as I understand it it's debatable as to whether the Reavers possess either.

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Arthur B

at 12:56 on 2009-03-27(I should add that it doesn't work in our world either, because a potential rapist never knows whether a woman is carrying a gun, or a knife, or whether he'll be caught for his crimes and shanked in a grimy jail cell.)

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Viorica

at 16:05 on 2009-03-27I . . . I . . .

. . . I have no words. So after Inara has learned her place and understands that Mal will only respect her if she's had her sexual freedom taken away, what? They have sex?

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Dan H

at 16:47 on 2009-03-27I don't think that the implication is that they have sex (can't blow that good ol' will-they-won't-they now can you), but it's still clearly supposed to be a touching, romantic scene and not

as creepy as all fuck

.

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Viorica

at 22:19 on 2009-03-27I . . . okay, I'm not at all averse to hurt/comfort, but the idea of people being drawn together due to the girl being sexually abused is just . . . EW. EW. EW.

(Incidentally, this far from the only instance of this sort of thing in Joss's work- last week's episode of Dollhouse had a women sobbing on the floor as her boyfriend cradled her after a fairly sexualised attack. It wasn't nearly as bad as this, but it was still kind of creepy.)

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Dan H

at 22:29 on 2009-03-27As ever it's all about context and awareness. Ultimately there's nothing intrinsically wrong with hurt/comfort (as I understand it is called in fandom), there's not even anything *specifically* wrong with a guy who likes the idea of "comforting" vulnerable women (with his PENIS).

It's when he lies to himself about the "with his PENIS" bit and pretends that his attraction to hurt and abused women comes from his EMPATHY with the FEMALE CONDITION that it gets skeevy.

Incidentally I'm really loving typing "with his PENIS".

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Viorica

at 23:24 on 2009-03-27Well in the Dollhouse example there had quite a bit of comforting done (with his PENIS) before the attack or the cuddling, so as I said- not nearly on the same level.

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Wardog

at 21:53 on 2009-03-28I really really badly want to participate in this discussion because I want an excuse to say 'with his PENIS' ... but I can't think of anything ...

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http://fintinobrien.livejournal.com/

at 09:35 on 2009-03-29I'm just enjoying mentally removing the quotation marks.

Incidentally I'm really loving typing with his PENIS.

Heehee, I'm a child. :D

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Morgus

at 18:33 on 2009-12-06I think the problems that you have with sexuality in the Whedonverse stem from the fact that the sensibility portrayed is essentially traditional. Everybody's monogamous, the only lesbian couple is an outlier in every way, and the protagonist wants nothing more than to be normal. The symptoms of "nice guy syndrome" overlap with "traditional, 'safe' relationship syndrome."

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Morgus

at 18:34 on 2009-12-06Now that I think of it, I have never seen a genuine polyamorous group potrayed in media outside of porn. Whedon's "problem" may not be that he's a "nice guy," but that he's a product of Western society.

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Morgus

at 19:00 on 2009-12-06This gave me a great thought about liberalism in general. It's not really about accepting people who are marginal, it's about creating an ideal of normalcy that everyone, presumably, can agree with and conform to. Or at least that's the goal of "mainstream" liberalism.

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Wardog

at 09:25 on 2009-12-07I'm not sure more polyamory in the Whedonverse would help with his portrayal of sexuality.

Also maybe I'm being down on pornography here, and admittedly my knowledge of it is perhaps less than yours, but I can't really recall many genuine, functional and loving polyamorous groups portrayed in porn either. Unless you are counting the device that everyone fucks everyone else as polyamory (something, I suspect, most practising polyamorists would take issue with).

And finally saying the problems with somebody's atttiude to / portrayal of something springs from the fact they are "a product of Western society" is about as helpful as pointing out they wrote their text a certain way because they had two arms. We are all products of the ideologies that shape us - that's, uh, kind of the way it is.

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Morgus

at 00:10 on 2009-12-09>Also maybe I'm being down on pornography here, and admittedly my knowledge of it is perhaps less than yours, but I can't really recall many genuine, functional and loving polyamorous groups portrayed in porn either.

That kind of strengthens my point about truly alternative relationships being completely foreign to society as a whole. And no, I have never seen any such relationship in porn.

>And finally saying the problems with somebody's atttiude to / portrayal of something springs from the fact they are "a product of Western society" is about as helpful as pointing out they wrote their text a certain way because they had two arms. We are all products of the ideologies that shape us - that's, uh, kind of the way it is.

I guess I really should have been more clear about my "thesis." Marriage exists more or less to inhibit sexual competition, and that, I think, is also the core of "nice guy" syndrome.

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Arthur B

at 00:18 on 2009-12-09Woah! That's an awfully simple explanation you're offer for an awfully big concept. Is marriage

really

that simple?

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Morgus

at 07:13 on 2009-12-09Anything on top of what I said is purely subjective, IMO. Kind of like Marx's "false consciousness." Economic motives are everything, questions of race and religion are distractions.

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Arthur B

at 11:23 on 2009-12-09Yes, but even if you restrict yourself to the material benefits of marriage it's still more complex than reducing competition. What about children? Obligating people to look after their own kids through a powerful social expectation that people should only have children within a marriage has historically been a big deal, for example.

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Rami

at 19:36 on 2009-12-09

Economic motives are everything, questions of race and religion are distractions.

There's a lot more to the 'economic' motives of marriage, IMO (including financial motives) than sexual competition. And inhibition of sexual competition is just as subjective as other motives (like those Arthur mentions).

That kind of strengthens my point about truly alternative relationships being completely foreign to society as a whole. And no, I have never seen any such relationship in porn.

Surely by definition an 'alternative' relationship is one that is foreign to society as a whole ;-)?

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Morgus

at 02:52 on 2009-12-12>What about children? Obligating people to look after their own kids through a powerful social expectation that people should only have children within a marriage has historically been a big deal, for example.

I view the desire to increase the size of one's herd the ultimate manifestation of material greed.

>There's a lot more to the 'economic' motives of marriage, IMO (including financial motives) than sexual competition.

By "economic" I mean "materialistic." Status within society, building up of one's social group, etc.

>Surely by definition an 'alternative' relationship is one that is foreign to society as a whole ;-)?

My point (which you are distracting yourself from perhaps on purpose) is that relationships are essentially homogeneous. That is also the great lie of our "consumer choice." Yes, there is, on the surface, great variety, but our place as a consumer and the seller's place as a seller is essentially the same regardless of one's choice of product or venue. One's desire does not make one an individual, especially if it's for what everyone else wants. Vast resources are wasted to hide this fact.

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Guy

at 03:39 on 2009-12-12@Morgus: I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the Marxist/Materialist worldview, but I also think there's a problem with evaluating it as an ideology if you don't have some sense of what it would take to demonstrate it to be incorrect. I mean, OK, we can start by looking at various social phenomena and saying, "Yep, that's part of the economic base, that's only part of the social superstructure, that thing over there is base..." &c &c. But if somebody picks out some example and wants to argue that it shows that not all relationships are fundamentally driven by economic motives or structures, how are you going to respond? By what criteria are you going to judge the validity of their counter-example? If you say it's "self-evident" that it's invalid, or the criteria of validity boils down to "proper materialist interpretation = valid, other = not valid", then you end up stuck in the bubble of a self-validating ideology. I know it's a big ask, but, can you say anything about what your criteria of falsification would be?

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Morgus

at 07:27 on 2009-12-12>I know it's a big ask, but, can you say anything about what your criteria of falsification would be?

Self-sacrifice of one sort or another. Priesthood doesn't count, that brings great status. (and wealth) Kind of like Yukio Mishima, he said that he did not believe in the sincerity of Westerners, since they kept their sincerity locked within their torsos. He was referring, of course, to seppuku, which he ended up committing quite publicly.

Another less gruesome criteria would be the degree to which a person is individuated. If he/she pursued goals or had a way of thinking that had nothing to do with the world of the "people" or any established group or immediate, simple-minded self-interest. In short, I would accept a person who had displayed an ability to transcend the linearity that arbitrarily limits the human condition.

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Wardog

at 15:51 on 2009-12-12Lol!Rand.

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Morgus

at 19:59 on 2009-12-12Nope, Ayn Rand only acknowledged "rational" self-interest, IOW simplistic money-grubbing. Even if there were rules governing this idealized quest for money, the basic motive was inherently banal.

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Rami

at 22:44 on 2009-12-12Still don't quite follow. But...

By "economic" I mean "materialistic." Status within society, building up of one's social group, etc.

given the above and your implication that "rational" self-interest != self-interest, I'm thinking our basic definitions of key terms differ too much for me to understand your point unless you expand further.

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Morgus

at 22:55 on 2009-12-12I really don't know where your confusion's coming from. I'm not a proponent of simple-minded self-interest, and I've said so repeatedly. "Rational" self-interest is another form of simple-minded self-interest dressed up as logical positivism. Long story short, I dislike banal motivations veiled as heroic, transcendent things.

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Arthur B

at 23:02 on 2009-12-12But given your views on the purpose of marriage, it sounds like you don't believe that people by and large have any non-banal motives...

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Rami

at 23:47 on 2009-12-12

I really don't know where your confusion's coming from.

Well, for instance, you said "economic interest", and seemed to mean by it something different from what I mean when I say "economic interest". You also seem to understand "rational" self-interest differently. Extrapolating from that, I would expect that your definition of "simple-minded self-interest" would differ from mine too, so I have no definite idea of what you mean when you say it. How are you defining "simple-minded"?

I dislike banal motivations veiled as heroic, transcendent things

I don't know which culture you grew up in, but in mine marriage is always understood as a useful thing that serves certain functions. Not heroic or transcendent.

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Morgus

at 01:14 on 2009-12-13>But given your views on the purpose of marriage, it sounds like you don't believe that people by and large have any non-banal motives...

Yes, that is precisely my point. Those who conceive of better things are great people.

>How are you defining "simple-minded"?

Linear, unimaginative, gotten from some other, still more mundane source like your church, your parents, or corporate America.

>I don't know which culture you grew up in, but in mine marriage is always understood as a useful thing that serves certain functions. Not heroic or transcendent.

"But marriage is about love! And sanctity and shit!"

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Morgus

at 06:34 on 2009-12-13And back to the point. Nobody's disputed that Whedon's sensibility is traditional, they've disputed only my wording of my criticisms.

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Rami

at 07:01 on 2009-12-13

Nobody's disputed that Whedon's sensibility is traditional

Well, I'd not call it traditional per se

1

, but I don't think anyone was arguing about that to begin with -- I think we're mostly agreed that it's problematic.

they've disputed only my wording of my criticisms.

Well you did make a few other assertions beyond "the sensibility Whedon portrays is traditional" ;-)

[1]: Assuming Anglo-American 'tradition', yes, there's a good deal of overlap with Nice Guy but I really don't think either is a pure superset of the other...

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Wardog

at 19:33 on 2009-12-13I also rather think this discussion that wandered rather far from the original article. Shall we rein it in?

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Morgus

at 23:12 on 2009-12-13yeah okay mom

And btw all the 4 bulletpoints at the beginning of the article could easily describe the Victorian view of human sexuality. Just sayin'.

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Melissa G.

at 00:19 on 2009-12-14

yeah okay mom

Um, that was rather rude. And Kyra makes a valid point. This has nothing to do with the original article anymore. And the discussion doesn't seem to be going anywhere so why not just put an end to it?

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Morgus

at 00:58 on 2009-12-14Strange how the Internet both disinhibits people and makes them more overly sensitive. That was really my way of jokingly backing out of this while reiterating my point.

If you don't want to move us off track any more, then don't respond to this. I am done.

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Rami

at 02:36 on 2009-12-14

That was really my way of jokingly backing out of this while reiterating my point.

Try appending a ;-) to indicate humorous intent, it works better on the Internets :-)

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Morgus

at 03:06 on 2009-12-14noooo you are off track

oh shit so am i

edit: I just looked at my first post. It comes like 9 months after the one before. It appears that digression is healthy.

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Rami

at 03:29 on 2009-12-14

noooo you are off track oh shit so am i

WTF???

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Arthur B

at 03:41 on 2009-12-14

I just looked at my first post. It comes like 9 months after the one before. It appears that digression is healthy.

Here on FB, we don't mind if the conversation on an article peters out. We're not against someone resurrecting a discussion if they have a new point to make, but we also recognise that there are times when nobody has anything useful to say and it's best if people stop posting for a while.

This is one of those times.

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Arthur B

at 20:36 on 2012-11-30Super-special three year necro because I finally started watching

Firefly

and uuuuuuh...

I mean, maybe I'm not being fair and I'm judging it in the light of the article but the Inara/Companion stuff is just toe-curling and I 100% see Dan's point about it being a kind of Nice Guy fantasy (right down to several of her clients apparently being Nice Guys).

On top of that I'm having trouble sussing how she even fits into this culture. Most people think Companions are awesome, but they only seem to mention their existence when Inara happens to be in the room - so far I've yet to see an Alliance officer griping about his long tour of duty and daydreaming about hooking up with a Companion he'd employed back home or anything like that. On top of Mal being unceasingly unpleasant about her profession, Shepherd seems to disapprove when he first meets her, so even though Shepherd comes around fairly quickly it still seems as though there's some social stigma attached to it (because where else did Mal learn that "whore" was a word you could use to insult people with?) but this only seems to come up when Whedon needs Mal to be unpleasant to Inara. Unless there's an episode which unpacks all this late in the series (or a diversion revolving around it in the movie) it doesn't seem we ever get any insight into the history of the institution and how it came into being and got to the level of social acceptance it has, which would seem to be an obvious and necessary thing to work out considering the amount of work which has clearly gone into figuring out other aspects of the future history here. On top of that, I don't feel that I'm getting enough indications as to whether Mal and Shepherd's disapproval of the concept pegs them as conservative but in line with a substantial body of feeling in the general population, or markedly old-fashioned in a way which makes their view of the subject eccentric or extreme, or so far out of step with public opinion that they're being kind of nuts about it - in other words, I haven't the slightest idea what level of social acceptance the Companions are meant to have.

It feels, in fact, like something Whedon ham-fistedly patched in because he wanted prostitutes in his space Western without the consequences of having prostitutes, in the same way that the Reavers are his way of having a culture of people living out in the wasteland with a reputation for brutal atrocities against settlers without having Native Americans portrayed in the way they were often portrayed in the nastier sort of golden age Westerns, and how the Browncoats were a way to have a Confederacy analogue without the slavery angle.

I dunno how I feel about all that. On the one hand it's obviously a step up from having an unreconstructed Western with all the nastier setting elements intact. On the other hand, seeing the main character giving the old "We [the South] Will Rise Again!" line and having his belief that the war was about freedom from central government meddling be actually justified gives me shivers.

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Arthur B

at 20:43 on 2012-11-30Ew, I'm watching the "I don't respect your job but he doesn't respect

you

" episode.

Between this and the fact I have seen literally nothing so far to make me imagine that the Alliance as a whole are evil aside from the River thing (and nothing to suggest that that isn't the responsibility of a small conspiracy within an otherwise benign society rather than evidence of all-pervasive corruption) and I'm beginning to think that the only way I'm going to enjoy this show is if I regard Mal as an unutterable prick who deserves whatever horrible stuff happens to him.

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Michal

at 00:24 on 2012-12-01Well Arthur, there's a certain a "major" plot twist in

Serenity

that bears a striking resemblance to a short story by Michael Moorcock. Which means you'll just have to watch it to the end now to find out what that resemblance is.

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Arthur B

at 01:25 on 2012-12-01Unless it involves Simon and Inara merging to become an androgynous Antichrist who consumes the world, or Mal having a breakdown where he almost but not quite accepts the fact that he murdered the whole crew and dumped the bodies in the cryo-berths, or Vera the assault rifle killing Jayne, turning into a humanoid form and declaring "Farewell, friend, I was a thousand times more evil than thou", I think I'm going to be disappointed. ;)

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James D

at 06:39 on 2012-12-01

On top of that I'm having trouble sussing how she even fits into this culture.

Well first of all it's important to note that there are regular ol' prostitutes in Firefly too (as you'll see in one of the later episodes), and the Companions look down on them just as much as Mal does. I get the idea that Companions are basically just like highly-trained, high-priced prostitutes controlled by a central body who requires them to undergo regular health checkups and pass various tests before 'licensing' them (these details are mentioned). Regular prostitutes can't get these licenses, thus they're looked down upon. Because of how beautiful/smart/good in bed the Companions are, they're in absurdly high demand and can basically pick and choose from a large pool of potential clients. More cultured types give them a moral pass, more conservative, old-fashioned types like Mal and Shepherd Book (who have presumably had little exposure to Companions due to living out in the boonies) tend to be less approving. It seems like the whole "Companion" thing is Whedon's ideal for legal prostitution, rather than a separate thing altogether.

In principle I don't really see anything wrong with it, but the whole Nice Guy angle is definitely creepy. Also, I think Mal taking issue with Inara's profession was set up as a conflict that would initially keep them from getting romantically involved despite obvious chemistry, but would eventually resolve - Mal would later loosen the stick up his butt, come to terms with Inara's profession, and they'd finally hook up. Of course, it ended after only one season, so who knows what would have happened otherwise.

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http://jmkmagnum.blogspot.com/

at 07:20 on 2012-12-01I could see that working, but they went WAY overboard on making Mal disgustingly judgmental and disrespectful toward Inara. It doesn't feel like they have great chemistry that if Mal could just get over his superficial hangups they would be great together; it feels like Mal is sexually attracted to her and has an attitude of "If all your life choices and personality were different, I wouldn't have to look down at you." And so more than rooting for him to modernize his views, I root for him to get the hell away from Inara and let her live her life.

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Dan H

at 13:44 on 2012-12-01@Arthur

On top of Mal being unceasingly unpleasant about her profession, Shepherd seems to disapprove when he first meets her, so even though Shepherd comes around fairly quickly it still seems as though there's some social stigma attached to it (because where else did Mal learn that "whore" was a word you could use to insult people with?) but this only seems to come up when Whedon needs Mal to be unpleasant to Inara.

It should come as no surprise to those who know anything about Whedon fandom that I've heard people cite this very issue as evidence that the way Mal treats Inara is *one hundred percent okay*.

Because, you see, Firefly is set in a post-patriarchy society, and so when Mal calls Inara a whore, he isn't using a misogynistic, gendered insult in order to assert his superiority over her, he's just expressing his entirely rational, entirely well-founded disregard for her profession - just as you might call Jane "mercenary" or Book "preacher" or for that matter call Simon a "quack".

This, after all, is the ideal of all social justice movements - to get to the point where we can be as racist and misogynistic as we like but it will be okay because everybody will be equal anyway.

@James D

Regular prostitutes can't get these licenses, thus they're looked down upon.

I agree that that's how it seems to work in the setting (and I'm aware that all you're doing here is pointing out how things work in-universe, not arguing for any particular interpretation of it), it's just that this makes things *even more* fucked up, because it means that Mal's attitude problem goes from being "looks down Inara because she is a prostitute, which is wrong because it is none of his damned business whether she is a prostitute or not" to "looks down on Inara because he *mistakenly believes* her to be a prostitute, when in fact she is a Companion, which is okay because Companions are special."

Kyra and I have just watched Easy A, which suffers from exactly this problem. It's about a girl who gets a reputation for being a slut because she lies about losing her virginity. She spends the entire movie being horrendously slut-shamed, which the movie seems to feel is wrong *only* because it is based on a factual error - as in the reason it's wrong to slut-shame this girl is because she isn't a slut, not because slut-shaming is wrong *in general*. It's full of horrible scenes where she pontificates whether maybe pretending to be a slut is as bad as really being a slut, and people say things like "I know you're not really a whore, because a real whore doesn't know she's a whore".

It seems like the whole "Companion" thing is Whedon's ideal for legal prostitution, rather than a separate thing altogether.

Pretty much this, but once again that just creeps me out even more. Ironically, Whedon here is arguing for exactly the kind of ridiculous straw man "legalized prostitution" that Chester Brown was arguing against in

Paying For It

, where legalization isn't about providing prostitutes with better working conditions, or proper legal protection, or any level of social acceptability *as a whole* - it's just about making sure that the only people who are allowed to be prostitutes are really hot.

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Fishing in the Mud

at 14:33 on 2012-12-01

the reason it's wrong to slut-shame this girl is because she isn't a slut, not because slut-shaming is wrong *in general*.

It's been years since I saw

Easy A

, but I still get slightly sick thinking about it. What a disgusting piece of filth. It's strange the way it seemed to completely miss what's actually wrong with slut-shaming, as you outlined, but to clearly understand how gross slut-shaming is and how pathetic and hypocritical slut-shamers are. It's all the worse for almost managing to be decent.

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Dan H

at 15:04 on 2012-12-01It kept coming *so close* to redeeming itself. There's the bit towards the end when she talks to her mother, and she's like "oh yeah, I was a total slut in high school" and you believe for about ten seconds that it's going to point out that there would have been *nothing wrong with that*. Then she follow up with "I had a very low sense of self-worth."

The very last line is, in fact "it's none of your damned business" but in the context of the wider film it seems a lot like she's saying "it's none of your business whether I have sex with my current boyfriend, because what goes on in a conventional monogamous relationship is understood to be private, in a way that the broader details of my sexual behaviour are not."

Gah.

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Arthur B

at 15:59 on 2012-12-01Watched

Our Mrs Reynolds

last night and yeeeeeeeeeah I think I'm done.

Note to

Firefly

fans about to write in with "but it gets so good in episode 7/10/14/the movie!" - I'm not interested and I'm not going to read what you have to say. The series is just too much of a slog and too prone to fall over its own incoherent setting and Minority Warring for me to devote any more time to it.

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James D

at 17:49 on 2012-12-01

Pretty much this, but once again that just creeps me out even more. Ironically, Whedon here is arguing for exactly the kind of ridiculous straw man "legalized prostitution" that Chester Brown was arguing against in Paying For It, where legalization isn't about providing prostitutes with better working conditions, or proper legal protection, or any level of social acceptability *as a whole* - it's just about making sure that the only people who are allowed to be prostitutes are really hot.

Yeah, it also would have been nice to see, say, a male Companion, or a Companion that isn't traditionally attractive. To be honest the whole thing just doesn't seem terribly thought-out; it seems like he just wanted one of the crew members to be a prostitute, since it's unusual/shocking/challenging/etc. at least for the basic cable crowd.

You have to remember who his initial audience was here; I don't know how much you non-American types know about regular Fox programming, but it's generally "edgy" in certain specific ways (see: the Simpsons, Family Guy) and very conservative in others. You might even say they're edgy in a reactionary way, what with Family Guy often pushing the line in terms of what racist/sexist/homophobic jokes it can get away with (despite its superficial white guy liberal leanings in general).

So Whedon decided he didn't want to make her just a regular prostitute, that would be too gritty and/or unsympathetic (either for his taste or for Fox's), instead making her a "special" prostitute, and attached some half-assed ideas about the sex trade in general. But really he never does anything with those ideas - Mal never has to explain his fundamental assumptions about prostitution being immoral, because I think his attitude was meant to be a stand-in for the average Fox viewer's. Not that that excuses Whedon or anything - just that I think he bit off way more than he could chew given his medium, and probably should have scrapped the whole idea.

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Fishing in the Mud

at 18:04 on 2012-12-01

it's generally "edgy" in certain specific ways (see: the Simpsons, Family Guy) and very conservative in others.

Not to mention

Glee

, created especially for the mainstream America that most certainly is not homophobic, racist, sexist, or bigoted in any way, but does think it's a bit unfair that minorities get treated better than everyone else and should really stop whining.

"I had a very low sense of self-worth."

There's nothing wrong with being a slut as long as you hate yourself for it. That way the Nice Guy you decide to settle down with when you get tired of sex with Alpha Jerks can reassure you that you're a good person after all for seeing the light and deciding to devote yourself to him. He will be in charge of your virtue from then on, you'll have his permission to feel good about yourself.

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Jules V.O.

at 02:20 on 2012-12-02

Of course, it ended after only one season, so who knows what would have happened otherwise.

Actually, we *do* know what would have happened otherwise:

gang rape by reavers.

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Daniel F

at 11:23 on 2012-12-02

Watched Our Mrs Reynolds last night and yeeeeeeeeeah I think I'm done.

But you didn't even get to

Heart of Gold

or

Objects in Space

!

It got worse, I'm afraid.

Quite early on while watching

Buffy

, I reached the conclusion that Joss Whedon is at his best when he's not consciously trying to be feminist, and when he's not thinking about gender issues at all. The more he tries, the worse the end result. In the context of

Firefly

, I found that the show is at its best when Inara is not in the plot. I don't know about the best, but

Ariel

is still the episode I enjoyed the most, and it starts by inventing an excuse to exclude Inara for the duration of the episode.

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Dan H

at 11:35 on 2012-12-02

Actually, we *do* know what would have happened otherwise: gang rape by reavers.

Worse: Gang rape by Reavers, the primary narrative purpose of which was to allow Mal to demonstrate *how good he would be for Inara* by *not being disgusted by the fact that she had been raped*.

This little titbit made me particularly uncomfortable because I suspect that "girl I fancy gets raped, I am totally supportive about it, she totally has sex with me" is a far more common fantasy than any of us would like to admit.

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Michal

at 13:49 on 2012-12-02What is up with anti-rape devices in science fiction that only work while you're being raped? First the dentata in Snowcrash, then this thing.

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http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/

at 14:51 on 2012-12-02Well, I don't know if this is what Stephenson or Minear had in mind, but what occurs to me in the face of both of these stories is that if you're in a situation where you're going to get raped, there's no reason to believe that that's where it will end, and a device that doesn't protect you from rape but does incapacitate or kill your attacker might save your life. In theory, anyway. In practice, that kind of thinking assumes that there's only one attacker and that you're going to be in a position (and in a state) to escape once they're taken care of, neither of which strike me as reasonable assumptions for the sort of situation where such a device might conceivably be of use. I suspect the actual appeal for writers is the ironic reversal - the attribute that supposedly makes women vulnerable makes them dangerous - hence the popularity of the vagina dentata trope in general.

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Arthur B

at 15:27 on 2012-12-02I seem to remember that in

Snow Crash

the dentata is mentioned as being there for deterrent purposes - because rapists never know who's got a dentata, they don't know whether they're going to lose a dick in a rape attempt.

In practice, as I mentioned upthread, rapists these days never know whether someone they're targeting is carrying a gun or a knife or mace or whatever. Doesn't stop 'em!

Also the discussion of the device in

Snow Crash

seems to assume that rape always consists of complete strangers attacking you and humping you briefly in an alleyway.

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Fishing in the Mud

at 16:12 on 2012-12-02Knowing that a potential victim might be armed probably fails to move them because they can't actually imagine a weak, helpless woman knowing how to use a gun or knife properly. I would guess the image of vagina dentata working effectively is exponentially more vivid.

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James D

at 20:12 on 2012-12-02Also you have to be in a position to use a knife/gun/mace/whatever effectively, which if the rapist gets the jump on you might not be an option. From what I understand, the dentata just works without you having to do anything except insert it beforehand.

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Dan H

at 23:30 on 2012-12-02

Also you have to be in a position to use a knife/gun/mace/whatever effectively, which if the rapist gets the jump on you might not be an option. From what I understand, the dentata just works without you having to do anything except insert it beforehand.

Of course the flip side of that is that the dentata only works in the case of actual vaginal penetration. If it's meant to be used as a way of incapacitating a rapist so that they can't harm you *after* they've raped you, it's still in practice far less reliable than pretty much every other kind of cybernetic weapon implant you might want to get. If it's meant to be a deterrent, it's one that is - without wanting to think too deeply about the details - easily circumvented.

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James D

at 23:39 on 2012-12-02

If it's meant to be a deterrent, it's one that is - without wanting to think too deeply about the details - easily circumvented.

The obvious solution is to have dentata in every part of your body. FOOL PROOF

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Arthur B

at 01:23 on 2012-12-03Uh, is it just me or is this getting kind of unnecessary?

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Wardog

at 10:06 on 2012-12-03Well, it's slightly more entertaining that thinking too hard about the doomed hypothetical future of Firefly. I mean, I know there's lots to dislike about the show, and the gender politics are all Whedony and unpleasant, but ... uh ... I quite liked it.

That doesn't mean it's not wildly problematic in very many ways, and perhaps the only reason I like it so much is because it didn't have a chance to go horribly wrong, but I thought it was fun and witty, and actually I was pretty passionate about it when it first aired. Or rather after it was aired and cancelled.

I think it's harder to watch in retrospect because The Whedon Problems have sort of developed over time. It's easy to downplay how fucking awesome Buffy, and some of Angel, was in the light of, well, Dollhouse and Whedon deciding he was god's gift to feminism. Before he basically decided that liking to watch hot women run around in tight fitting clothing was morally equivalent to raping them and that sent him off on a Nice Guy Minority Warrior spin ... he did good stuff.

I miss that guy.

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Arthur B

at 10:40 on 2012-12-03Eh, I find Whedon's wit to be kind of grating personally. (In particular, I find that the more it comes out in his writing the more the characters end up sounding like the stock Whedon characters he's been using since the early days rather than distinct individuals.)

Possibly this is a "you had to be there at the time" thing because I came onboard

Buffy

fairly late (mainly catching episodes when I happened to be in Dan's presence and the show happened to be on) and I don't recall having a reaction more positive than "eh, this is OK". I guess maybe I'd be more appreciative of his stuff if I'd got on the Whedon train earlier (say, during the early

Buffy

period or something) but as it is my first exposure to him involved more mediocre stuff so even his better material just ends up reminding me of the mediocre stuff, if you see what I mean.

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Robinson L

at 15:30 on 2012-12-03

Arthur: as it is my first exposure to him involved more mediocre stuff so even his better material just ends up reminding me of the mediocre stuff, if you see what I mean.

Yeah, that makes sense. Ptolemaeus and I recently re-watched the first three seasons of

Buffy

, and even that wasn't as great as we remembered. (Even in his early years, Whedon had an inflated sense of his own profundity.)

I also am quite fond of

Firefly

, despite its more deplorable elements (e.g. the protagonist), but I can see how you'd come to the conclusion that it's not worth your while, and it really doesn't get significantly better. As Dan has already mentioned, in some places it gets even worse.

Kyra: Before he basically decided that liking to watch hot women run around in tight fitting clothing was morally equivalent to raping them and that sent him off on a Nice Guy Minority Warrior spin ... he did good stuff. I miss that guy.

Me too. Still, there's always the

Avengers

movie/

Avengers Assemble

.

Dan: Because, you see, Firefly is set in a post-patriarchy society, and so when Mal calls Inara a whore, he isn't using a misogynistic, gendered insult in order to assert his superiority over her, he's just expressing his entirely rational, entirely well-founded disregard for her profession - just as you might call Jane "mercenary" or Book "preacher" or for that matter call Simon a "quack".

Apart from not really being an at all accurate picture of what social justice movements struggle for (as you point out), this argument is also ludicrous just on the face of it, considering how many villainous cartoon misogynists Whedon populates the

Firefly

'Verse with to make his hamfisted gender commentaries.

This little titbit made me particularly uncomfortable because I suspect that "girl I fancy gets raped, I am totally supportive about it, she totally has sex with me" is a far more common fantasy than any of us would like to admit.

Well, there's nothing wrong with fantasies, even about stuff that would be highly messed up in the real world, so long as you don't try projecting those fantasies onto the real world ... like by portraying such a fantasy as series drama, for instance.

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Fishing in the Mud

at 18:04 on 2012-12-03

Buffy

worked for me when I first watched it because I'd never seen anything like it before, and I often had no idea where it was going. There was a brightness and innocence to it that made it genuinely fun. Buffy's pathos felt warm and real and unavoidable, not hard and dry and bloodless like it did in the later seasons. I don't think this is all hindsight on my part, even though I haven't seen the show in at least five or six years.

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Bookwyrm

at 04:54 on 2013-01-27Hi! This is my first time commenting here. I came across this short story after reading this article. Its probably unintentional but it kind of reads like a cautionary tale against this sort of behavior.

http://www.halloweenghoststories.com/featured/index.html

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/yeKsQ_cNqux16s489peIhdzZ2dSaOlA-#da226

at 03:40 on 2013-08-05I will use Buffy for most examples as I am more familiar with this, his longest running project. . .

Rape is all about power. The rape scenes in Buffy are no different. Buffy was the one with the power. The chosen. The heavenly, loved, good one. She trained Spike to be sexually violent with the rapes she performed on him. Pushing and degrading him; beating him and demanding he perform sexual acts. She was the one in control, with all power. When Spike broke emotionally and reciprocated, he was judged to have shown how evil he had been, was, and always would be. A double standard that is dangerous to encourage.

Wheton's simplistic view that Buffy is justified in her treatment of Spike because he is all evil, encourages the viewer to subconsciously believe that anything they do to a person they define as "evil" is justified. The slayer and the vampire are on fairly equal footing physically. They should both have been judged as rapist or neither should have been judged as such. It doesn't matter that Spike was an evil vampire without a soul, for the character arch had already surpassed that basic premise.

The positive message of equality and forgiveness, even atonement for past acts, are given lip service in the series but they become superimposed with the concept that one evil act makes us, and everything we do, always and forever evil. The second message is even more simplistic, juvenile, and dangerous, for it demonstrates that certain chosen few are not to be judged by the same criteria as everyone else. It stereotypically enhances the fact that, in Whedon's world, the privileged, regardless of their sex, is all-powerful. Evil men show it, good men keep it hidden, and those with power don't even have to acknowledge it. Huge fallacies.

A good man can perform acts of evil, and an evil man can perform acts of good. It is the nature of the beast. Therefore man, being defined in this context to include both sexes, is neither good nor evil. There is just man, in all his imperfections. If you attempt to judge a man's entire moral compass by one single act, or even a lot of acts during one period of his growth and development, then you do not judge the man. A man should be judged on the total sum of his parts for the development he has achieved to date, with the understanding that new experiences will have an effect and will alter and change him. Man is not a stagnate creature. He is not the man he was; nor is he the man he will become.

Though Whedon had ample time, in Spike's character arch, this level of development was never achieved and any time the journey was begun, the Spike character was reset to ground zero. Almost like James Marsters brought more depth to the role than was intended and so the character was punished for the transgression. The same hold's true in all Whedon's excellently casted series.

I wasn't sold on the rape concept and couldn't even suspend my disbelief long enough to see the scene as anything more than an end of season rating ploy. I viewed Inara's rape episode in Firefly with similar trepidation, and there are numerous instances in Whedon's work from which to extrapolate.

I won't even get into the glaring inequality that appears when you view that both Angel and Spike were working to become “champions”, a telling word that. Whereas, if she hadn't been chosen by outside forces, Buffy would have been an airhead. Other than to say the men were the “earners” while the woman was “the little girl to bestow gifts upon but not capable of walking the path on her own.” Which is further demonstrated by the fact that the slayers had watchers and the champions choose their own path.

As for empowering women, the all powerful slayer, does not even have the strength of character to live her life in the open and instead hides in the shadows to obtain the sexual relief that Wheton's male characters flaunt and mostly take for granted. The message being that women should be ashamed of their sexual appetites and must work to suppress and hide them, least they be found out and the woman subsequently fall from grace. Inara is allowed to have sex, but not to enjoy it, and has to be paid to perform it. Faith, being Buffy's foil, is showed as the unstable and nasty, common, girl, who repeatedly falls outside of the norms and morays society demands. Thus, is she to be despised, because she openly pursues such sexual liaisons. Faith is also written as crude and unacceptable because she isn't diplomatic and she repeatedly shows human qualities that keep her from being chosen one material.

Even employment is harangued. Their are many women in food service who are intelligent, warm, and friendly. That are working to better themselves because they were not born into privileged circumstances. Many are working for their families survival, and if that isn't a noble act, I don't know what is! Joss portrays them as end of the line, throw away characters. Social services is also not immune to his prosaic view of woman. He had an opportunity to show that we all fall on hard times and can struggle and overcome. He failed to do so.

True empowerment comes from knowing if we do what is necessary, with dignity and decency, even if we never climb any higher on society's perceived social ladder, we are worthy and have overcome, regardless of the outer trappings of our souls.

His views are too cut and dry, to one-sided and are mired too much in the upper crust motif of his life. Good actors of both sexes, who journey outside Whedon's work morality, appear to be left behind because they manage to raise questions, to shine the light of inquiry into the character they portray in ways that Joss Whedon will grudgingly capitalize upon, while he reins in the character to assure that those questions remain out of focus and unexamined. Then, those actors seem to be condemned and dropped by the wayside as quickly as feasibly possible. I would question his level of devotion to his supporters who constantly ask for, but never see, the actors they have grown to love receive any roles with substance. The individual talent pool that is not being taped seems to grow exponentially.

So, is this all evil/all good concept he repeatedly embodies in his work, Joss Whedon's internal beliefs manifested? Scary thought. I watch Joss Whedon's projects for enjoyable escapism. His works are not my answer to the feminine mystique. Nor is he my guru.

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Arthur B

at 13:14 on 2017-08-31It feels timely to dust this one off since

this wave just broke

.

To be fair, by this point

even the Torygraph kind of gets that Joss isn't as good an ally as he proclaims himself to be

. But it kind of feels like a sea change has happened.

Whedonesque has shuttered

, and whilst the decision to close isn't overtly connected to the open letter the fact that they suggest donations to a C-PTSD charity when Kai's open letter talks about how she had to work through that kind of points to it being a factor.

There's separating the art from the artist, of course, and more power to you if you feel able to do that, but Whedon's proclamation of his woke bae nature isn't art, it's self-promotional rhetoric, and whilst the fact that someone has behaved badly and caused harm to others shouldn't in principle have any effect on the validity of their arguments - truth is truth even if Hitler is saying it - it's hard to look past the hypocrisy, especially when his feminist talking points are so tied to the image of himself he promotes.

You don't get to claim the brownie points for being One Of The Good Guys unless you actually are a good guy, and Dan's diagnosis of Whedon with Nice Guy Syndrome in retrospect seems dead on.

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Robinson L

at 00:00 on 2017-10-31On the one hand, this is sadly consistent with the increasingly dubious quality of the feminist discourse in his works—and makes all the messed up sexual politics, especially concerning consent, in

Dollhouse

that much creepier. (I’m a little amazed that

Telegraph

article didn’t cite any examples from

Dollhouse

; it seems such a natural choice.)

On the other hand, up to this point I could’ve seen Whedon as basically a decent guy whose feminist analysis isn’t as sophisticated as he thinks it is. I didn’t think the occasional bouts of awfulness in his storytelling necessarily reflected back on him as a person. Maybe I’m too naive.

In any event, I’m sure I’ll still retain a soft spot for

Buffy

,

Angel

, certain elements of

Firefly

which don’t involve the main character, and the first

Avengers

movie. But, well, yeah, this really sucks, no pun intended.

(By the way, I clicked the link for the

Telegraph

article and it took me to the donotlink site. I copy-pasted the tinyurl provided on the donotlink site into url bar, and it took me directly to the

Telegraph

article, complete with the regular url. Does that mean I did something wrong?)

Oh yeah, final thought:

While none of us would go so far as actually calling him a rapist

I remember at the time, we generally agreed this accusation was a tad overblown—I certainly thought so. In light of Ms. Cole’s revelation, though, it seems eerily close to the truth.

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Arthur B

at 10:25 on 2017-10-31

I remember at the time, we generally agreed this accusation was a tad overblown—I certainly thought so. In light of Ms. Cole’s revelation, though, it seems eerily close to the truth.

Yeah, in retrospect I still can't get onboard with, eg, assuming a particular character is a rapist and an abuser based solely on the fact that they're the white partner in an interracial relationship, or for that matter armchair diagnosing Whedon as a rapist based solely on the content of his work.

That said, I can totally see merit in saying that a particular work expresses a rape culture worldview, and doing so doesn't necessarily amount to accusing the creator of rape. It is unfortunately the case that it's completely possible for someone to perpetuate rape culture and rape apologetics without themselves being a rapist; that's kind of how rape culture perpetuates itself to begin with. And it's going to be pretty hard to keep what Kai's had to say out of mind when tackling Whedon's work from here on out.

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Robinson L

at 20:30 on 2017-10-31Oh yeah, I didn't mean to imply I agree with the

reasoning

in that post, even in hindsight. You're absolutely right that an artistic work can promote rape culture without the artist(s) behind it being rapists - there are numerous such works out there.

I just find it morbidly interesting that, even though I still find the logic which led up to it faulty, the accusation itself ultimately proved not so far off the mark as I originally assumed.