QueenBitch

I thought this was interesting topic. What do you guys think?

I think it may be because they're underestimated, or it's more surprising. Just a thought.

~*~Paola~*~

I think maybe cause girls are more balanced than guys are instead of leaning more to one side, like violence. And cuz like you said, it's unexpected.

AlexEvans

Because Whedon figured girls would watch for the female protagonist, and guys would watch for the same reason. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] Obviously he was right.

And yeah, it's unexpected.

[img]smilies/abduct.gif[/img] [img]smilies/read.gif[/img]

sum1

That's a sexist statement based on sexist generalization and stereotype.

[ 01-24-2004: Message edited sum1 ]

Cruel Irony

Who would you expect to take you down? A big burly guy? Or, like Buffy, a rather petite girl?

She'll surprise you.

Plus, it's a lot hotter. [img]smilies/lol.gif[/img]

Sexy Rebel

A long time ago at the UC thread, we came to the conclusion that prissy guys can be slayers as well.

Like me [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

sum1

Yeah, all guys are big and burly. Like Oz. And Jonathon.

And SMG has a "don't mess" aura, anyway. Somebody like that, if you're any good at judging people, you don't figure them for a pushover. Irrelevant of gender or size. So not such a big surprise.

[ 01-24-2004: Message edited sum1 ]

Cruel Irony

1) Wouldn't you expect a man someone who hunts creatures to be big and burly?

2) I disagree. I think SMG looks more sweet and adorable.

And I think you can stop with that aditude of yours. With the whole, "you're sexist" thing.

Cause it's rude and it's bugging me.

Don't act like everyone else is dumb and you're the only one who's smart enough to see past those sexist stereotypes.

[ 01-24-2004: Message edited MARIAROCKS000 ]

coreana

because girls kick ass. it says so on a t-shirt..... .

[img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

REG

me too [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

*Lethe's Bramble*

It's cos Joss wanted to show that there also can be female heroines and that the males don't always have to be the ones to save the day.

[ 01-25-2004: Message edited Vermont Slayer ]

Scythe

[img]smilies/lol.gif[/img] We do actually know the answer to this. Dawn tells us:

"because girls are cooler"

Messed Up Girl

I guess Joss was going for another angle! It's certainly original! This show pretty much introduced the female heroine genre into TV!

sum1

1) Nope, not if they were hunting because they were a Slayer who'd been given powers. Not anymore than a female Slayer would have to be big and burly. Nor are all real world tough types (of either gender) big or burly, anyway.

2) Who says she can't be that and have a "don't mess" aura? Far as I'm concerned, her formidable air is an important part of what makes her convincing as a warrior, which is important to making her performance convincing and thus to making the show work. Some people seem to think there's something wrong with formidableness in a woman. I don't.
Well, you know what bugs me? Sexism.

And it's not about who's "smart" or "dumb". Sexist stereotypes and sexist thinking are the accepted norm in society and they need to be confronted. Humanity has a gender problem a mile high that desperately needs fixing.

And I'd appreciate if you'd avoid giving me orders.

Look, I'm sorry if I gave you the idea I was trying to be rude and belittle people's intelligence. That wasn't my intention. It's just that sexism is a subject that I feel very strongly about. And unfortunately intelligent people are as capable of being guilty of sexism as stupid ones, otherwise it wouldn't still be such a big problem.

[ 01-25-2004: Message edited sum1 ]

sum1

Having guys around who are equal to them shouldn't prevent women from "saving the day". It just means there's sometimes going to be some sharing of the saving. Which is equality. It's only when a story is handled in a sexist manner (which is admittedly the case in way too many stories) that having male heroes means there can't be female heroes too. But in a specifically female empowerment show like Buffy, it makes sense that the lead figure be female and, it being her story, that it's her who saves the day most of the time. But that shouldn't mean there can't be equally powerful guys in the same world or in the past. It doesn't justify putting an all out ban on any Slayers in all history ever being guys.

It's hardly positive if people think (and many do) that women can only shine when men are put down or out of the way. That implies a view of women as weak beside men, incapable of standing equal to men out of the own strengths, incapable of competing with men as equals. It's basically a view that says women can't cut it and it's an incredible insult to women and their abilities. True equality is both genders standing side by side on equal footing. Equal power, equal standing, neither dominant, neither dominated.

On BTVS, the only really powerful good guy males are vampires -dead, wrong by very nature, potentially evil, can't go out in the day, with a big bullseye (a label "Slayer's Prey"), marked on them. And they're not even human -human guys can't have real power. And by the end of the show, one of those vampires is dead and the other is gone away. And their power is so clearly shown to be wrong and unhealthy -they're the product of an evil act, are supposed to be evil (it's their nature as vampires -they were made good only by later alteration), are in danger of going evil again (soul loss, trigger, demon inside, bloodthirst, etc) and wish they could become human (and no thus longer powerful). Sure, Slayers are touched with demon essence, were started by a wrong done by the Shadow Men, and can have a bloodlust problem or wish they weren't Slayers. But that's nothing compared to the darkness of the vampire thing. Vampires are monsters by nature. Sinister even when good. A soulled vamp is a bad guy gone good, with the beast still there. A rogue Slayer is good gone bad, still supposed to be good (heck they had to have Faith go nuts to retrospectively explain her going bad and to take some of the responsibility off her).

And remember, Spike was still considered an "evil soulless thing" until season 7 and even then the trigger had him doing evil. That Angel's default nature is evil is shown by the way it's so easy for him to lose his soul. And when he's good, he's depressed over all the evil he's done with his power. Remember, these guys got their power by a process that simultaneously made them evil by very nature. They were non-evil before they were vamps (though Angel wasn't too impressive), but they weren't powerful then. From the start of their time as powerful, they're evil creatures and good is what's added later -Angel's soul, Spike's reformation and soul. And this soulled vamp thing. Powerful guy, evil by nature, becomes good when a soul is added. The implication -a powerful guy is naturally a monster and is civilized only when something is specially added on to restrain him (and Spike's chip, anybody?). Contrast with Faith. Powerful female is on the good side and goes evil because she had a hard time and dysfunctioned, and she ends up all better (same for Willow). Powerful guy = monster, powerful female = hero, male power bad, female power good (and remember the contrast between the demonic magic of the Shadow Men and the good magic of the all-female Guardians?). A sexist ideology.

Powerful guys are only thoroughly ok when they're de-powered. Shanshu. And remember Riley's Initiative drug-induced power? Caused him mental problems and negative behavior and later heart problems, so he had to get depowered. And drugs? Negative connotation. Oz's werewolf thing was more a problem than a power and it forced him to leave anyway (and it still cast power in males as something wrong and savage and sinister, not to mention "all men are beasts"). Andrew was reformed only after he quit his minor power, Xander has none (very conspicuously!), Giles only dabbles and is very tame and Wood has no power (despite being a Slayer's son).

Admittedly, the show's treated some female characters to bad luck in that area too. Anya got disempowered and killed and Tara got killed ( [img]smilies/mad.gif[/img] ) and Kendra got killed and Dawn gets diddlysquat (despite being Buffy's sister and the key). Also, there's negative or misused female power, too -Anya, Willow, Faith. Anya was a demon and a murderer, but, until season 7, that's mostly treated as just a joke. Willow's magic, though often misused and later an addiction, is not originally evil in nature. And while she eventually goes evil for a while and then suffers the after-effects of that, she ends up totally on the opposite end of the scale, in powerful, celebrated, totally good "white magic" territory. In the end, near-world-destroying, partner-mind-warping Willow ends up glorified as a "goddess", and we get tons of Slayers, while all the powerful males are either dead or have left. And murderous Faith is accepted, while Spike has to die to get that.

It all fits with the dangerous view that always one gender or the other has to dominate and the other one has to be dominated. That's poison to hopes of gender equality. The whole dominance power games thing humanity is fixated on doesn't help anybody. I mean, equality anybody?

The show ends with numerous Slayers being created all over the world. Well, I'm inclined to think that's the harsh duty of Slayer status being imposed on numerous underagers, without them having a choice or being consulted. Which is anathema to female empowerment. It's forcing stuff on women, not letting them make their own choices. It's what the Shadow Men did. But that's another debate. What it was intended to be was a female empowerment statement, so let's look at it as that.

Problem. With not only endless Slayers down through history, but also huge numbers present in the now, "Slayer" is really beginning to look like a job, one which only one gender is allowed in. Last I checked, excluding people from a job based on gender is sexual discrimination. It's irrelevant which gender is being excluded, it's the same principle either way. And the cause of female empowerment needs all such sexism removed entirely. Engage in sexism against one gender and you're bound to engage in sexism against the other too, to at least some extent. If either gender is really to be freed from sexism, both must be. Hold onto sexism against one gender and you'll find sexism against the other invariably comes with it. You can't mistreat one gender without ultimately mistreating the other too. And I sure don't see why anybody should have to suffer of account of their gender.

History has not only a long record of women being oppressed, but also of men being forced into a narrow "male" role, taught they had to behave and think a certain way, couldn't do "female" things (and god help them if they were homosexual!), had to judge their human value by their brawn and their balls, etc. Massive negative effects, deep and wide and long lasting. And the more a society oppresses women, the more it's likely to be restrictive in general, the more it's likely to be a place where nobody's free, and nobody can be themselves. It's not that women were second class citizens, but that they were third class citizens and that men were second class, with no first class citizens existing. And too much of that still lingers today.

The idea that all Slayers must be female amounts to support for the principle of sexual discrimination. Sure, make the Slayer the show revolves around female. It's a female empowerwment show. But all the Slayers in history shouldn't have to be female too, nor all those made in Chosen. In Chosen, had male Slayers been made too, it could have been a real statement for equality (and for abandonning historical sexual discrimination). The Slayer thing uses physical power as an analogy for female empowerment. Had both male and female Slayers been made, it would have been a statement of power being equalized between the genders. Any possible original inequality in strength between the males and females would have been equalized, written over so to speak, by both being empowered to equal level of Slayer power. It would have been a truly egalitarian message. Instead, Joss went for more of the same one gender up, one gender down dominance crap that's a root of so much gender trouble.

The empowerment of multiple Potentials, clearly many more than we see the faces of, gave female viewers a chance to effectively feel "I could be a Slayer too", a message of "imagine yourself as a Slayer". Maybe putting it that way sounds kinda juvenile, but that's how stories like this work. Point is, I find it a tad unfair that this is extended to female viewers, but that male viwers are cut out of it. It's almost as if the show is telling its male viewers, just as it ends, that they're not really welcome after all. That they're trespassing. Kinda "This show is female territory, you're second class citizens here". And no, it being a female empowerment show doesn't justify that. Female empowerment is in the interest of both genders. It's everybody's cause. Telling guys they don't really belong (effectively that they shouldn't be interested in female empowerment related matters) -oh great, that really helps get the cause the wider support and acceptance it needs if sexism is truly to be defeated. And we need both genders working together on the project of empowering both genders, freeing both genders. Female empowerment is an inseparable part of the cause of freeing both genders from sexism and striving toward total equality.

('Course, I'm also p!ssed at the Chosen spell 'cause Dawn didn't get to be a Slayer when all these come-lately characters did. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] )

[ 01-25-2004: Message edited sum1 ]