September 19, 2023 • 37 mins
In this episode, we introduce the main theme, or “Big Bad,” for the season and discuss if “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is a feminist television show.
Spoiler alert: The entire “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” series will be discussed.
This episode was produced by Kate Balzer and Charles Swint. Edited by Jeremy Williams.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey everyone, this is Kate justinterrupting to say real quick,
you're going to hear in episode two thatthe sound quality for my side of the
recording isn't as great.
I had a different headset I was usingwith not as good of a microphone,
but we loved the conversationso much that we wanted to keep
the episode.
(00:21):
So you'll hear a difference between thequality of the recording in episode one
and episode three. We hope you stillenjoy it and let us know what you think.
Thanks.
(00:42):
Hey everyone. Welcome back.This is A Girl, A Guy,
and A Buffy Podcast. I'm KateBalzer, one of your hosts.
And I'm Charles Swint.
Well,
this episode we're really kind ofgetting into the meat and potatoes of the
format we planned forit in our discussion.
Our first episode was definitelymuch more of a introduction,
(01:04):
contextualizing Buffy in theperiod that it came onto the
scene. So we're tackling sort ofour first big question this episode.
Do you want to tell him whatthat question is, Charles?
Yeah, so we're meeting our, quote unquote,
big bad, and not that
these ideas are...theseideas are definitely big,
(01:24):
but they are not bad ideas.
Right. Exactly. Metaphorical big bad.Is that the right?
Yes, I think so. I don't want anyoneto misconstrue our thought here,
but we are going to be talkingabout feminism and gender throughout
the season and that being the topicthat we're going to be tackling
(01:47):
throughout the season.And so for this episode,
one of the things that we wanted toask the question is Buffy a feminist
show?
And, like so much aboutBuffy, the answer's kind of
complex.
I would say just to kind of jumpstraight into it from my perspective,
(02:09):
based on the reading I've done on feminismand feminist thought and preparing
for this discussion,
I would say so my take onfeminism and feminist thought
is that it's really aboutenacting a big systemic change.
So the first wave of feminismreally tackled suffrage,
(02:30):
getting the right to vote for women,
and we're really talking about thewestern feminism and specifically
even U.S. feminism as far as particularly
history and waves. So justputting that in that context,
obviously that's what applies toBuffy as well. It's a US-based show.
She's an American charactergrowing up in America.
(02:56):
And then the second one is really aboutwomen in work and getting rights in the
workplace and sort of becomingmuch more independent,
not dependent on a male figure, whetherthat's a father, a husband, a brother.
And then that's the second wave and thethird wave is really when Buffy comes
about.
So it was kind of kicking off rightabout the time that the show premiered.
(03:17):
So she's at the start ofit, and that is really
kind of what Buffy does.A lot of it is accepting
the girly, the feminine,
the female side of being a woman and
saying, Hey,
what women did in the second waveof feminism doesn't really fit us.
(03:41):
There's certainly different subsets of it,
but I think that if youreally look at the show,
not until the finale and thechoice to activate all the slayers,
which really changes asystem within the show,
I would say the show by truedefinition until that point is not
(04:04):
true feminist show. Now that being said,
it does a ton of stuff topromote representation,
to show complex women, sothere's a lot of great stuff,
but I think it's much more on aindividual basis, a cultural basis,
not necessarily systemic change.
If you want to go with a truedefinition in that regard.
(04:25):
That's just my take on it, which
I'm sure you ask a hundred people,you'll get a hundred different arguments.
Yeah, I totally agree. I think
mean there is definitely an argumentfor it not to be a feminist show, and
I think it also depends on
(04:47):
the moment and the view
of who side, of what side, thestory you're looking at each week.
And I think it sort of shifts.
I think it's one of thoseshows that is fighting
for feminists,
it's fighting for those things and
(05:09):
breaking through and findingnew ways to accomplish
what this new wave of feminism andfeminist thought are trying to accomplish.
So I think it's definitelystruggling to do that.
And it doesn't always get it right,
but nothing,
(05:32):
but when we're fightingfor something that's right,
it gets messy and it'salways going to get messy.
Yes,
exactly. And there's never one answer.
It's not a black and white issue asfar as this is the definitive answer,
fighting for any sort of activism,
(05:52):
social justice,
it's complicated andmessy and there's multiple
parts to it.
Going into intersectionality,
you could certainly make anargument that certain waves...
past waves of feminism,
obviously Buffy really focuseson white female characters and
(06:15):
white female charactersgrowing up in the suburbs.
So that's going to be totally differentthan somebody else's experience
growing up of a different ethnicity, adifferent race, a different location.
Whether you've been living in...
your family's been living inthe US for multiple years,
or you're a first generation immigrant.
(06:38):
That all adds to thecomplexity of the issue.
And I think you see that we startto see glimpses of what that
looks like
in season...when Kendra comes intothe scene, where we meet Kendra.
So
here is a person of colorwho is a slayer and her
(07:00):
experience and where she's given up herfamily and she's completely given up
her identity as a human being,
as a person of color to do this thing
that Buffy takes, almost takes for granted
while she makes sacrificesand things like that.
(07:22):
She did not give up herselfand she did not have to give
up
all of who she was in order tobe the slayer in the same case
that Kendra did,
where Kendra gave up all ofwho she was to be this thing,
her family, her friends, andher clothes. It's her shirt.
(07:46):
It's her only shirt.
That's my favorite shirt.I'll not do her accent.
Yeah, it's my favoriteshirt. It's my only shirt.
It's my only shirt.
That's what she has.
Yeah. Well, and I think too,
this again gets into thatcomplexity of context and
plays an important part init, comparing Kendra to Buffy.
(08:08):
The other part of it is that Buffywas undiscovered until she actually
became a slayer. I don'tremember it's said outright,
but certainly it's implied, if notsaid outright, like, oh no, it is.
She said that
it's a huge thing inher family and her town
(08:30):
and culture to be selected asa slayer. So everybody knows,
as soon as I'm sure this wasdiscovered as a potential,
she was taken away andgiven to her watcher.
So that's part of it too.
She never had the opportunity foragency and to grow up without that
(08:51):
part of the Watcher'sCouncil ruling her life.
And Buffy got...it's never
talked about in the show.
So you can come up with your own theorywhether that was done on purpose by the
powers that be so she could becomethe slayer she is or it was a fluke,
(09:12):
whatever your reasoning is. Obviouslythey never stated it specifically.
I like to think it was because thatwas so Buffy become the slayer she is.
I think it's a huge part of how she becamethis slayer she is because she could
grow up with a normal life.So she kind of had the,
even though she was,
(09:32):
that...came off as aCordelia-esque high school
girl before becoming the slayer,
I still think there was the underpinningsof who she was at the core as a
human were allowed to develop becauseshe didn't know she was a slayer until it
actually was activated.
And
(09:56):
when you start to look at characterslike Cordelia, which I think, again,
she's such a complex character, but again,
but she knows who she is or atleast in the moment she does.
She has sort of this air about her. ButI think, and one of my favorite lines,
which I just was just watching,
(10:18):
and Band Candy when they're talkingabout the SATs and she's like,
I do really good on standardized testsand my favorite line of hers is that what
I can't have layers? Yeah,
she's this typical mean girl,
high school student,
but she's also very smartand very intuitive and
(10:41):
can read people and canstand up for herself and has
many complex layers. And justlike her saying that is like,
what are you looking at? Whatdo you mean I can't have layers?
That line right there to mespeaks volumes about what they're
trying to do is that yes,
these female characters are multilayered.
(11:04):
They are not just one thing. They're nota monolith, they are not just a trope.
They are all of these things andso much more and they are messy
and they are...don't do things
right and that's okay becausethat's what being human is.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean,
(11:26):
I think that's the most interestingpart of the show is sort of the complex
characters, the messiness.
I know the horror as ametaphor for problems,
particularly in high school is one ofthe things that's most talked about the
show. But I would say that'smy favorite part of the show.
(11:46):
To me, that's what keeps mecoming back time and again,
because you really get to know thesecharacters, you get to love them,
their layers, theirflaws, their achievements,
and that's what makes it sospecial and so empowering
as a show.
One of the things, this was somethingthat I never really thought about,
(12:09):
but when I read it, Ithought, oh, wow, that's so,
it really is true is that I think oneof the things too that sort of changed
Buffy or was a subconscious,
or it was a conscious thing,
but sort of something that maybe youthought...didn't pick up on was that they
(12:29):
never really exploited Buffy's hotness,
how attractive she was.
She was like the clothes thatshe wore were age appropriate.
She was always well put togetherand she always looked good,
but there was never slow pans up of Buffy
(12:50):
and weird cleavage shotsof Buffy and all these
or any of the women in the show.
There was never the male gaze.
Yeah, I would agree with that.And preparing for this discussion,
there was definitely at least one or twoarticles that I was reading that were
(13:11):
more in the Buffy as a feministshow that said the same thing.
And I would agree, infact, actually, I feel like
they again flipped thescript in that way. Again,
whether that's feminist or not,but in the episode, go Fish,
when Xander comes out in the Speedo,
they totally do that sexy panup because their girls are like,
(13:33):
who's that hot guy? And then they'relike, oh my God, it's Xander.
And that is a full, I mean,
there is a full long crotshot of Xander that is a slow
pan across all of him. Andthey do it with Angel too.
They do it with Angel.
He's always shirtless and naked andsweaty all the time. And you're like,
geez.
(13:54):
Yes. Particularly in season three whenhe is brought back and I'm like, wait,
he's shirtless again.
Why does he, does hejust not wear his shirt?
And even him...when he comesback from hell and he's
full on naked, he isjust naked on the floor.
Well, and then Spike in season six,
(14:16):
he's always the onewho's shirtless or naked.
I mean,
they definitely sort of flip the script
with the male gaze on that,
where we're literally justgazing at men all the time
and just ogling them and looking,I mean, and it's good to look at
(14:38):
as a young queer boy, I was not madat it. I was kind of like, okay,
pause, rewind, pause, rewind.
These things happen.
Yeah, no, that's very true. Andeven when there was sexy moments,
it never felt gratuitous.
The Buffy sexy dance in season two.
(15:02):
I mean, I think it's more weird than sexy,
the context of it,
or Cordelia arriving back atschool after she got injured
and fell through the stairs and gother injury after discovering Willow and
Xander cheating,
and she comes back inthis kind of sexy leather,
(15:23):
pleather deep wine outfit and pulls up in
her Corvette or herconvertible and gets out.
It is kind of like, Ooh, Cordelia is back.
But it's more like badass Cordelia's back.
It's not like...there's a little bit of,
(15:44):
not that there's a littlebit of sexiness about her,
it focuses on her legs asshe steps out of the car,
but it's not in a way thatyou would see nowadays
or may have seen in other shows.
Yeah, there are no slow motion.The only time that they do that,
and even when they did do it,it was all very tongue in cheek,
(16:05):
when in season seven when Xander's joining
Buffy, the slayer of the vampyre,and he's talking about all of them,
and they're posing in the kitchen andthe wind is blowing in their hair.
Right, the romance novel style of...
And the soft, very softlight. Yes, that's happening,
but they're holding cerealboxes and it's very.
(16:25):
And that's Andrew's fantasy, it's notlike, yeah. And they're all like, Andrew,
you're ridiculous.
Yeah. So they never. So they never.
While
the women were, they were, they were
just never , I never felt like theywere exploited in that way on screen.
(16:48):
And then they never, they
never...
None
of them necessarily had totrade on their sex appeal
either.
They never used sex as a weapon.
Faith.
Faith did. Faith did.
Right. But it was not necessarilylooked on as a good thing.
(17:11):
No, it wasn't,
but it was also, but
I also believe that thatwas very character driven.
Oh, very much so. It was almostdone immaturely because of all
the impact of her growingup she had experienced,
(17:32):
and then all the emotion losing herwatcher and then being betrayed by the
supposed second watcher who's notreally her watcher, Mrs. Post.
So yeah, it's sort of herfallback defense mechanism, not.
I don't know, but there is somethingdifferent about how she does it,
and I think that it's, again,
not gratuitous because she's smart
(17:58):
and she's just,
she's able to manipulate a situationwhere she doesn't necessarily have
to use those things. Shehas so many other assets
that she can use.
Yeah, definitely.
(18:19):
And then anytime there was anysort of , anytime any guy did make
weird passes at themor anything like that,
it was usually metimmediately with retribution.
There was usually someconsequence to that happening.
So even if men were makinginappropriate comments or doing
(18:42):
things, even if Xander did it,
there was always a look or someone orBuffy or Willow or Cordelia were like,
Xander, that's not cool. There wasalways some sort of, you can't do that,
or some physical thing.I think there was...
(19:03):
somebody said somethingabout how Buffy was
dressed or something like that,and where she broke the guys nose.
And Go Fish. I was just thinkingthat he has to sexually assault her.
And she just like, Nope, not happening.
Yeah, exactly.
(19:24):
You've chosen the wrong one.
Yeah, I would agree. I mean,
the show certainly makes thepoint in multiple episodes
that that's not acceptabletreatment or behavior.
And yeah, there's usually consequences.
And it might not be traditionalconsequences, it might not be
(19:49):
depending on the level of behavior. If
it's an assault level, they mightnot be arrested, but in Go Fish,
they turn into fish monsters and now haveto live in the sea and are never have
a normal human life again,or Anya's form of punishment.
(20:10):
You're a slug going to,
yeah, for eternity. So yeah, so Ithink there are definitely points
to be made that it is ...to bemade that it is a feminist show or
definitely a female empowering show,
(20:33):
which could be, at least in my opinion,
it could be a blueprint or a guide,
not necessarily a blueprint,
but a guide to how we should be
behaving and how we should betreating people and that these are the
consequences behind that.
To the counterpoint,
(20:55):
I would like to sort oftoss out a counter argument.
Yeah, go Ahead. Absolutely. That's whatwe asked question. We didn't say yes,
this is.
The counter argument isthat the relationships
between the females, betweenthe women in the show,
the females that sounded awful,between the women in the show
(21:20):
were not always uplifting. I mean,
there was absolutely Buffyand Willow to the core,
which gave us that core, oh,
this is what friendship shouldlook like. And this is what,
for the most part, non-competitive and
(21:44):
mutually supportivefriends look like in almost
every aspect of their relationship,
except for a couple of timeswhere they get into it.
But the other women in the show,
there's always some sort of rivalryor competition between Cordelia and
Buffy, between Cordelia andWillow, between Gloria and Buffy,
(22:09):
between Druscilla and Buffy,between Harmony and Buffy.
So there's a lot of competitionand rivalry in there,
between that,
so that there is anargument to be made that...
it's not...
that there's a lot of femalecompetition that happens.
(22:31):
If you look at The Freshmen in season
four
and then Buffy's roommate,
and there's a lot of times whereshe is having to fight women
because they want to take her powerbecause they are jealous of her
(22:53):
because they need something fromher. They want something from her.
And so they fight her to get itas opposed to working with her.
And even when they're onthe same side with Cordelia,
even though they werefighting towards the same end,
a lot of times they were oftenat odds with each other like
(23:17):
in the Homecoming.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's likethey kind of develop eventually,
I think somewhat of a respect, buteven when Cordelia goes on to Angel,
there are sort of snide commentsshe still makes about Buffy
and the whole Buffy Angelrelationship. And so I think that,
(23:37):
I don't know if that makes itnot feminist, but it certainly is
they never reach a friendship stage.There might be some mutual respect.
Right.
For sure, but there's always that sense of
competition or seeing...
I'm sure as Cordeliadevelops feelings for Angel,
(24:01):
his relationship with Buffy is sortof always an underlying threat,
even if they're nevergoing to be together.
It was presented as thisgreat star crossed love.
Yeah, I think it goes, it's mixed.
That's part of the complex messinessof it. But I think you're right.
There's less, if you kindof break down the analysis,
(24:23):
there's not as much womencoming together to support each
other. I mean,
the strongest is probably Buffyand Willow's friendship and then
Willow and Tara.
Yeah, absolutely.
Until the end of the show.
I think the decision to activateand that it's two women who
do that, Buffy comes up with the idea,
(24:44):
has Willow enact it andmakes all the potential
slayers. And granted, that's obviouslygoing to have some consequences.
There was never going to be aperfect solution to fight the First.
But I think what that says is thesewomen don't have to do it alone
anymore, and we control it. It'sno longer controlled by this male,
(25:09):
patriarchal, top-down organizationthat only sees us as a weapon.
We see each other ashuman beings who have been
selected for this crazyexperience in this crazy
world, but we'll be betterif we do it together.
(25:29):
And the Faith/Buffy conversation,
towards the end of season seven as well,
after Faith has been injured,
and they're in Buffy's room while she'srecuperating, and she's like, well,
two slayers at once, maybe that'swhy we could never get along.
And to me, the ending counteracts that.
(25:50):
It was never about the two of them beingslayers. It was about the two of them,
their age, their issues at the time.
I think the slaying is the one thingthat sort of connected them to even get
them as far as theydid. But even with them,
there was a lot of that competition stuff,
competition for watcherattention, for friend attention,
(26:11):
parental attention.
Faith says, I never... Had Ihad the friends that you did.
I didn't come with the friends andthe mom and all of this other stuff.
My life would've been different.And so there's always a comparison.
So much so that sheswitched bodies with Buffy,
so much so that she literally doesa single white female and switches
(26:34):
bodies with her to live herlife and to take over her life.
So there is that thing thatthat's where I think if you're
looking at
female empowerment andfeminist thought that that's
not something that needs tohappen. There's no need for that.
(26:59):
There shouldn't be a comparison of eachother's life and competition because we
can't compete with each other because,
because we're all different and we allbring something different to the table.
And so I think that sort ofcounteracts some of that,
(27:20):
some of those thoughts. Yeah.
Yeah, no,
I think that's a really excellentpoint that I never really thought of.
There could have.
That's one area for, ifyou were going to say,
here's a great potential for improvement,
is more female relationshipsthat uplift each other.
(27:40):
Not saying that they have to get alongall the time or that every relationship
is perfect. Obviously that's not true,that's not realistic. But like you said,
there's a balance between being
human and emotionally realistic,
and yet having your femalecharacters at all levels,
whether it's familial,friendships, romantic,
(28:05):
come together in more of a supportiveenvironment and not always be in
competition with each other.
You can call each otheron each other's shit.
You can challenge each other
in a way that keeps people honestand it keeps people accountable,
(28:28):
but it's not competitive.
But again, overall the show is wonderful.
Think the show is wonderful.
I mean, the other thing you couldalso say is, certainly about the show,
is obviously it's lacking in a lot of
intersectionality. It hassome moments, but you have,
(28:51):
like we were talked about before, Imean the main characters are all white.
So white female.
They're all of a certain size.
So there's not body differences untilreally until the seventh season with the
potential slayers.
And even then very little.
Correct.
(29:13):
And obviously there's no characters of
color...for...living in...the coastal
Southern California.
That's certainly not arealistic representation.
(29:34):
So I mean, I think there's alot of that too. And again,
it's more about the time period when itwas being written and all of that stuff.
So there's a lot to.
The backside of it, which wehaven't really discussed is,
and this goes to the question,
(29:54):
the representation and having diverse
perspectives help make a work of art,
particularly one that'scollaborative, better.
You have a white maleshowrunner. Pretty much all,
not a hundred percent, but mostly whitewriters, a mix of male and female,
(30:16):
but I think still more male thanfemale. Like the percentages,
it's not 50-50.
I'm sure that's true if youlooked at...on the production
and design and crew side, itwould be the same situation. So.
That makes an impact as well,
the kind of story that's told.
(30:36):
Right. Absolutely.
But yeah, I mean overall,I think obviously
there's a lot to get out ofit positively about women,
about empowerment, aboutmale-female relationships, female-female relationships.
And we even haven't reallytalked as much about
(31:01):
Willow and Tara, which it was onlyone relationship, but at the time,
that representation andthat intersectionality of a
lesbian couple was very significant.
It was only just starting to happen on tv.
And they did it in such a beautifuland subtle way. It wasn't like,
(31:23):
here's our very specialepisode where Willow comes out.
Right? Yeah. Yes. Andhow Buffy handles it too.
It was...it was so greathow she did it, where,
it was not a thing, where she was like,
you're freaked out by this. And shewas like, no, no. She's like, no, no,
(31:44):
I'm not.
It takes her...It takes her literallyhalf a second to process the
information, and to course...
and then to see Willowagain and be like, yes,
I see you.
Yeah, exactly. I don't even think withXander or Giles, it was kind of like,
okay.
(32:05):
Yeah, it was never a big deal.
I mean, it was significant,
but it wasn't like we'rejudging you for it big deal.
It's just something new that you'regoing through, through her life.
And she does say that Willow,
does make comments about itthroughout season four, about,
I'm going through something bigand this is huge. Oz left me,
(32:28):
but I've found this new relationshipand who I am and that this is huge,
and I'm discoveringsomething new about myself.
And it's not just about the witchcraft.And I think sometimes they did make,
they utilized the witchcraft as sort
of a thinly veiled way to talk about her
(32:52):
being gay and the homosexuality. And
again, this is one of the cringeymoments that's kind of like,
I don't know,
I think it's in Restlesswhere they're in the dream and
where.
Xander says.
(33:12):
Where Xander goes.
I knew where you were going with it.
They do spells together. Then sometimes,
and then I do a spell on myself.
There's that moment that's like, oh gosh,
that's really weird.
Now that plays into the male gazecliche. Two women together is like,
Ooh, this hot fantasy. Yeah, for sure.
(33:36):
And in a way that I'm not sure that itadded anything to the Restless episode.
We kind of already knewXander was that way.
Right. I don't think we neededhim to say it. No, I was like,
I actually prefer thatyou not just say it.
But yeah, so there arethose moments that happened
(33:58):
that I think, and then of course
there's other things that we'lltalk about in other episodes.
I think that there's so,
I mean since feminism and gender issort of the big bad of our season,
there are so many other avenues that we
(34:18):
can explore and talk aboutand that we will talk about
throughout the season.
Yeah,
I mean that's a great thing about Buffyis it's a complex show and the issues it
tackles, in the ways does, are complex.
In ways it succeeds and doesn't succeed.
And so we'll be delving intothat more, not only this season,
(34:43):
but hopefully in future season,tackling the next thematic big bad.
And so I was on a
Reddit thread, and thisis one of the things,
so from somebody who posted,
"I think the most feminist part of Buffythe Vampire Slayer is that the leading
(35:06):
women are all allowed to becomplicated. They make mistakes,
they hurt other people,they have conflicts,
but they also support eachother and help each other grow."
I just thought that was reallynice, and I think it is,
I think that that's ultimately whatwe're trying to do is figure out a way
(35:29):
to support other women.
And when we say women, wetalk about all women and
how do we support themand what do they need,
and how can everyone who
(35:51):
does have the power get the power?
How do we allow women to find their power
and to be able to exert it in the world.
And remove the barriersthat prevent them from
using that power and finding that power.
(36:12):
And those of us who have the power,
how do the men in our world become Gileses
and help to clear a path for
that...when necessary and
help guide and be an ally for,
(36:36):
to strong women everywhere.
Yeah.
We've got so much more to talk about.
Absolutely. Looking forward to it.
So thank you all so muchfor joining us this week.
Yes. Thank you so much for tuning in.We hope you enjoyed the discussion.
We definitely want to hear your thoughts.
If you want to send us an email withyour thoughts, questions, concerns,
(36:59):
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(37:20):
and send us some stars and some love.
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Alright, thanks. Bye.
Bye.
Hey everyone, this is Kate justinterrupting to say real quick,
you're going to hear in episode two thatthe sound quality for my side of the
recording isn't as great.
I had a different headset I was usingwith not as good of a microphone,
but we loved the conversationso much that we wanted to keep
the episode.
(00:21):
So you'll hear a difference between thequality of the recording in episode one
and episode three. We hope you stillenjoy it and let us know what you think.
Thanks.
(00:42):
Hey everyone. Welcome back.This is A Girl, A Guy,
and A Buffy Podcast. I'm KateBalzer, one of your hosts.
And I'm Charles Swint.
Well,
this episode we're really kind ofgetting into the meat and potatoes of the
format we planned forit in our discussion.
Our first episode was definitelymuch more of a introduction,
(01:04):
contextualizing Buffy in theperiod that it came onto the
scene. So we're tackling sort ofour first big question this episode.
Do you want to tell him whatthat question is, Charles?
Yeah, so we're meeting our, quote unquote,
big bad, and not that
these ideas are...theseideas are definitely big,
(01:24):
but they are not bad ideas.
Right. Exactly. Metaphorical big bad.Is that the right?
Yes, I think so. I don't want anyoneto misconstrue our thought here,
but we are going to be talkingabout feminism and gender throughout
the season and that being the topicthat we're going to be tackling
(01:47):
throughout the season.And so for this episode,
one of the things that we wanted toask the question is Buffy a feminist
show?
And, like so much aboutBuffy, the answer's kind of
complex.
I would say just to kind of jumpstraight into it from my perspective,
(02:09):
based on the reading I've done on feminismand feminist thought and preparing
for this discussion,
I would say so my take onfeminism and feminist thought
is that it's really aboutenacting a big systemic change.
So the first wave of feminismreally tackled suffrage,
(02:30):
getting the right to vote for women,
and we're really talking about thewestern feminism and specifically
even U.S. feminism as far as particularly
history and waves. So justputting that in that context,
obviously that's what applies toBuffy as well. It's a US-based show.
She's an American charactergrowing up in America.
(02:56):
And then the second one is really aboutwomen in work and getting rights in the
workplace and sort of becomingmuch more independent,
not dependent on a male figure, whetherthat's a father, a husband, a brother.
And then that's the second wave and thethird wave is really when Buffy comes
about.
So it was kind of kicking off rightabout the time that the show premiered.
(03:17):
So she's at the start ofit, and that is really
kind of what Buffy does.A lot of it is accepting
the girly, the feminine,
the female side of being a woman and
saying, Hey,
what women did in the second waveof feminism doesn't really fit us.
(03:41):
There's certainly different subsets of it,
but I think that if youreally look at the show,
not until the finale and thechoice to activate all the slayers,
which really changes asystem within the show,
I would say the show by truedefinition until that point is not
(04:04):
true feminist show. Now that being said,
it does a ton of stuff topromote representation,
to show complex women, sothere's a lot of great stuff,
but I think it's much more on aindividual basis, a cultural basis,
not necessarily systemic change.
If you want to go with a truedefinition in that regard.
(04:25):
That's just my take on it, which
I'm sure you ask a hundred people,you'll get a hundred different arguments.
Yeah, I totally agree. I think
mean there is definitely an argumentfor it not to be a feminist show, and
I think it also depends on
(04:47):
the moment and the view
of who side, of what side, thestory you're looking at each week.
And I think it sort of shifts.
I think it's one of thoseshows that is fighting
for feminists,
it's fighting for those things and
(05:09):
breaking through and findingnew ways to accomplish
what this new wave of feminism andfeminist thought are trying to accomplish.
So I think it's definitelystruggling to do that.
And it doesn't always get it right,
but nothing,
(05:32):
but when we're fightingfor something that's right,
it gets messy and it'salways going to get messy.
Yes,
exactly. And there's never one answer.
It's not a black and white issue asfar as this is the definitive answer,
fighting for any sort of activism,
(05:52):
social justice,
it's complicated andmessy and there's multiple
parts to it.
Going into intersectionality,
you could certainly make anargument that certain waves...
past waves of feminism,
obviously Buffy really focuseson white female characters and
(06:15):
white female charactersgrowing up in the suburbs.
So that's going to be totally differentthan somebody else's experience
growing up of a different ethnicity, adifferent race, a different location.
Whether you've been living in...
your family's been living inthe US for multiple years,
or you're a first generation immigrant.
(06:38):
That all adds to thecomplexity of the issue.
And I think you see that we startto see glimpses of what that
looks like
in season...when Kendra comes intothe scene, where we meet Kendra.
So
here is a person of colorwho is a slayer and her
(07:00):
experience and where she's given up herfamily and she's completely given up
her identity as a human being,
as a person of color to do this thing
that Buffy takes, almost takes for granted
while she makes sacrificesand things like that.
(07:22):
She did not give up herselfand she did not have to give
up
all of who she was in order tobe the slayer in the same case
that Kendra did,
where Kendra gave up all ofwho she was to be this thing,
her family, her friends, andher clothes. It's her shirt.
(07:46):
It's her only shirt.
That's my favorite shirt.I'll not do her accent.
Yeah, it's my favoriteshirt. It's my only shirt.
It's my only shirt.
That's what she has.
Yeah. Well, and I think too,
this again gets into thatcomplexity of context and
plays an important part init, comparing Kendra to Buffy.
(08:08):
The other part of it is that Buffywas undiscovered until she actually
became a slayer. I don'tremember it's said outright,
but certainly it's implied, if notsaid outright, like, oh no, it is.
She said that
it's a huge thing inher family and her town
(08:30):
and culture to be selected asa slayer. So everybody knows,
as soon as I'm sure this wasdiscovered as a potential,
she was taken away andgiven to her watcher.
So that's part of it too.
She never had the opportunity foragency and to grow up without that
(08:51):
part of the Watcher'sCouncil ruling her life.
And Buffy got...it's never
talked about in the show.
So you can come up with your own theorywhether that was done on purpose by the
powers that be so she could becomethe slayer she is or it was a fluke,
(09:12):
whatever your reasoning is. Obviouslythey never stated it specifically.
I like to think it was because thatwas so Buffy become the slayer she is.
I think it's a huge part of how she becamethis slayer she is because she could
grow up with a normal life.So she kind of had the,
even though she was,
(09:32):
that...came off as aCordelia-esque high school
girl before becoming the slayer,
I still think there was the underpinningsof who she was at the core as a
human were allowed to develop becauseshe didn't know she was a slayer until it
actually was activated.
And
(09:56):
when you start to look at characterslike Cordelia, which I think, again,
she's such a complex character, but again,
but she knows who she is or atleast in the moment she does.
She has sort of this air about her. ButI think, and one of my favorite lines,
which I just was just watching,
(10:18):
and Band Candy when they're talkingabout the SATs and she's like,
I do really good on standardized testsand my favorite line of hers is that what
I can't have layers? Yeah,
she's this typical mean girl,
high school student,
but she's also very smartand very intuitive and
(10:41):
can read people and canstand up for herself and has
many complex layers. And justlike her saying that is like,
what are you looking at? Whatdo you mean I can't have layers?
That line right there to mespeaks volumes about what they're
trying to do is that yes,
these female characters are multilayered.
(11:04):
They are not just one thing. They're nota monolith, they are not just a trope.
They are all of these things andso much more and they are messy
and they are...don't do things
right and that's okay becausethat's what being human is.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean,
(11:26):
I think that's the most interestingpart of the show is sort of the complex
characters, the messiness.
I know the horror as ametaphor for problems,
particularly in high school is one ofthe things that's most talked about the
show. But I would say that'smy favorite part of the show.
(11:46):
To me, that's what keeps mecoming back time and again,
because you really get to know thesecharacters, you get to love them,
their layers, theirflaws, their achievements,
and that's what makes it sospecial and so empowering
as a show.
One of the things, this was somethingthat I never really thought about,
(12:09):
but when I read it, Ithought, oh, wow, that's so,
it really is true is that I think oneof the things too that sort of changed
Buffy or was a subconscious,
or it was a conscious thing,
but sort of something that maybe youthought...didn't pick up on was that they
(12:29):
never really exploited Buffy's hotness,
how attractive she was.
She was like the clothes thatshe wore were age appropriate.
She was always well put togetherand she always looked good,
but there was never slow pans up of Buffy
(12:50):
and weird cleavage shotsof Buffy and all these
or any of the women in the show.
There was never the male gaze.
Yeah, I would agree with that.And preparing for this discussion,
there was definitely at least one or twoarticles that I was reading that were
(13:11):
more in the Buffy as a feministshow that said the same thing.
And I would agree, infact, actually, I feel like
they again flipped thescript in that way. Again,
whether that's feminist or not,but in the episode, go Fish,
when Xander comes out in the Speedo,
they totally do that sexy panup because their girls are like,
(13:33):
who's that hot guy? And then they'relike, oh my God, it's Xander.
And that is a full, I mean,
there is a full long crotshot of Xander that is a slow
pan across all of him. Andthey do it with Angel too.
They do it with Angel.
He's always shirtless and naked andsweaty all the time. And you're like,
geez.
(13:54):
Yes. Particularly in season three whenhe is brought back and I'm like, wait,
he's shirtless again.
Why does he, does hejust not wear his shirt?
And even him...when he comesback from hell and he's
full on naked, he isjust naked on the floor.
Well, and then Spike in season six,
(14:16):
he's always the onewho's shirtless or naked.
I mean,
they definitely sort of flip the script
with the male gaze on that,
where we're literally justgazing at men all the time
and just ogling them and looking,I mean, and it's good to look at
(14:38):
as a young queer boy, I was not madat it. I was kind of like, okay,
pause, rewind, pause, rewind.
These things happen.
Yeah, no, that's very true. Andeven when there was sexy moments,
it never felt gratuitous.
The Buffy sexy dance in season two.
(15:02):
I mean, I think it's more weird than sexy,
the context of it,
or Cordelia arriving back atschool after she got injured
and fell through the stairs and gother injury after discovering Willow and
Xander cheating,
and she comes back inthis kind of sexy leather,
(15:23):
pleather deep wine outfit and pulls up in
her Corvette or herconvertible and gets out.
It is kind of like, Ooh, Cordelia is back.
But it's more like badass Cordelia's back.
It's not like...there's a little bit of,
(15:44):
not that there's a littlebit of sexiness about her,
it focuses on her legs asshe steps out of the car,
but it's not in a way thatyou would see nowadays
or may have seen in other shows.
Yeah, there are no slow motion.The only time that they do that,
and even when they did do it,it was all very tongue in cheek,
(16:05):
when in season seven when Xander's joining
Buffy, the slayer of the vampyre,and he's talking about all of them,
and they're posing in the kitchen andthe wind is blowing in their hair.
Right, the romance novel style of...
And the soft, very softlight. Yes, that's happening,
but they're holding cerealboxes and it's very.
(16:25):
And that's Andrew's fantasy, it's notlike, yeah. And they're all like, Andrew,
you're ridiculous.
Yeah. So they never. So they never.
While
the women were, they were, they were
just never , I never felt like theywere exploited in that way on screen.
(16:48):
And then they never, they
never...
None
of them necessarily had totrade on their sex appeal
either.
They never used sex as a weapon.
Faith.
Faith did. Faith did.
Right. But it was not necessarilylooked on as a good thing.
(17:11):
No, it wasn't,
but it was also, but
I also believe that thatwas very character driven.
Oh, very much so. It was almostdone immaturely because of all
the impact of her growingup she had experienced,
(17:32):
and then all the emotion losing herwatcher and then being betrayed by the
supposed second watcher who's notreally her watcher, Mrs. Post.
So yeah, it's sort of herfallback defense mechanism, not.
I don't know, but there is somethingdifferent about how she does it,
and I think that it's, again,
not gratuitous because she's smart
(17:58):
and she's just,
she's able to manipulate a situationwhere she doesn't necessarily have
to use those things. Shehas so many other assets
that she can use.
Yeah, definitely.
(18:19):
And then anytime there was anysort of , anytime any guy did make
weird passes at themor anything like that,
it was usually metimmediately with retribution.
There was usually someconsequence to that happening.
So even if men were makinginappropriate comments or doing
(18:42):
things, even if Xander did it,
there was always a look or someone orBuffy or Willow or Cordelia were like,
Xander, that's not cool. There wasalways some sort of, you can't do that,
or some physical thing.I think there was...
(19:03):
somebody said somethingabout how Buffy was
dressed or something like that,and where she broke the guys nose.
And Go Fish. I was just thinkingthat he has to sexually assault her.
And she just like, Nope, not happening.
Yeah, exactly.
(19:24):
You've chosen the wrong one.
Yeah, I would agree. I mean,
the show certainly makes thepoint in multiple episodes
that that's not acceptabletreatment or behavior.
And yeah, there's usually consequences.
And it might not be traditionalconsequences, it might not be
(19:49):
depending on the level of behavior. If
it's an assault level, they mightnot be arrested, but in Go Fish,
they turn into fish monsters and now haveto live in the sea and are never have
a normal human life again,or Anya's form of punishment.
(20:10):
You're a slug going to,
yeah, for eternity. So yeah, so Ithink there are definitely points
to be made that it is ...to bemade that it is a feminist show or
definitely a female empowering show,
(20:33):
which could be, at least in my opinion,
it could be a blueprint or a guide,
not necessarily a blueprint,
but a guide to how we should be
behaving and how we should betreating people and that these are the
consequences behind that.
To the counterpoint,
(20:55):
I would like to sort oftoss out a counter argument.
Yeah, go Ahead. Absolutely. That's whatwe asked question. We didn't say yes,
this is.
The counter argument isthat the relationships
between the females, betweenthe women in the show,
the females that sounded awful,between the women in the show
(21:20):
were not always uplifting. I mean,
there was absolutely Buffyand Willow to the core,
which gave us that core, oh,
this is what friendship shouldlook like. And this is what,
for the most part, non-competitive and
(21:44):
mutually supportivefriends look like in almost
every aspect of their relationship,
except for a couple of timeswhere they get into it.
But the other women in the show,
there's always some sort of rivalryor competition between Cordelia and
Buffy, between Cordelia andWillow, between Gloria and Buffy,
(22:09):
between Druscilla and Buffy,between Harmony and Buffy.
So there's a lot of competitionand rivalry in there,
between that,
so that there is anargument to be made that...
it's not...
that there's a lot of femalecompetition that happens.
(22:31):
If you look at The Freshmen in season
four
and then Buffy's roommate,
and there's a lot of times whereshe is having to fight women
because they want to take her powerbecause they are jealous of her
(22:53):
because they need something fromher. They want something from her.
And so they fight her to get itas opposed to working with her.
And even when they're onthe same side with Cordelia,
even though they werefighting towards the same end,
a lot of times they were oftenat odds with each other like
(23:17):
in the Homecoming.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's likethey kind of develop eventually,
I think somewhat of a respect, buteven when Cordelia goes on to Angel,
there are sort of snide commentsshe still makes about Buffy
and the whole Buffy Angelrelationship. And so I think that,
(23:37):
I don't know if that makes itnot feminist, but it certainly is
they never reach a friendship stage.There might be some mutual respect.
Right.
For sure, but there's always that sense of
competition or seeing...
I'm sure as Cordeliadevelops feelings for Angel,
(24:01):
his relationship with Buffy is sortof always an underlying threat,
even if they're nevergoing to be together.
It was presented as thisgreat star crossed love.
Yeah, I think it goes, it's mixed.
That's part of the complex messinessof it. But I think you're right.
There's less, if you kindof break down the analysis,
(24:23):
there's not as much womencoming together to support each
other. I mean,
the strongest is probably Buffyand Willow's friendship and then
Willow and Tara.
Yeah, absolutely.
Until the end of the show.
I think the decision to activateand that it's two women who
do that, Buffy comes up with the idea,
(24:44):
has Willow enact it andmakes all the potential
slayers. And granted, that's obviouslygoing to have some consequences.
There was never going to be aperfect solution to fight the First.
But I think what that says is thesewomen don't have to do it alone
anymore, and we control it. It'sno longer controlled by this male,
(25:09):
patriarchal, top-down organizationthat only sees us as a weapon.
We see each other ashuman beings who have been
selected for this crazyexperience in this crazy
world, but we'll be betterif we do it together.
(25:29):
And the Faith/Buffy conversation,
towards the end of season seven as well,
after Faith has been injured,
and they're in Buffy's room while she'srecuperating, and she's like, well,
two slayers at once, maybe that'swhy we could never get along.
And to me, the ending counteracts that.
(25:50):
It was never about the two of them beingslayers. It was about the two of them,
their age, their issues at the time.
I think the slaying is the one thingthat sort of connected them to even get
them as far as theydid. But even with them,
there was a lot of that competition stuff,
competition for watcherattention, for friend attention,
(26:11):
parental attention.
Faith says, I never... Had Ihad the friends that you did.
I didn't come with the friends andthe mom and all of this other stuff.
My life would've been different.And so there's always a comparison.
So much so that sheswitched bodies with Buffy,
so much so that she literally doesa single white female and switches
(26:34):
bodies with her to live herlife and to take over her life.
So there is that thing thatthat's where I think if you're
looking at
female empowerment andfeminist thought that that's
not something that needs tohappen. There's no need for that.
(26:59):
There shouldn't be a comparison of eachother's life and competition because we
can't compete with each other because,
because we're all different and we allbring something different to the table.
And so I think that sort ofcounteracts some of that,
(27:20):
some of those thoughts. Yeah.
Yeah, no,
I think that's a really excellentpoint that I never really thought of.
There could have.
That's one area for, ifyou were going to say,
here's a great potential for improvement,
is more female relationshipsthat uplift each other.
(27:40):
Not saying that they have to get alongall the time or that every relationship
is perfect. Obviously that's not true,that's not realistic. But like you said,
there's a balance between being
human and emotionally realistic,
and yet having your femalecharacters at all levels,
whether it's familial,friendships, romantic,
(28:05):
come together in more of a supportiveenvironment and not always be in
competition with each other.
You can call each otheron each other's shit.
You can challenge each other
in a way that keeps people honestand it keeps people accountable,
(28:28):
but it's not competitive.
But again, overall the show is wonderful.
Think the show is wonderful.
I mean, the other thing you couldalso say is, certainly about the show,
is obviously it's lacking in a lot of
intersectionality. It hassome moments, but you have,
(28:51):
like we were talked about before, Imean the main characters are all white.
So white female.
They're all of a certain size.
So there's not body differences untilreally until the seventh season with the
potential slayers.
And even then very little.
Correct.
(29:13):
And obviously there's no characters of
color...for...living in...the coastal
Southern California.
That's certainly not arealistic representation.
(29:34):
So I mean, I think there's alot of that too. And again,
it's more about the time period when itwas being written and all of that stuff.
So there's a lot to.
The backside of it, which wehaven't really discussed is,
and this goes to the question,
(29:54):
the representation and having diverse
perspectives help make a work of art,
particularly one that'scollaborative, better.
You have a white maleshowrunner. Pretty much all,
not a hundred percent, but mostly whitewriters, a mix of male and female,
(30:16):
but I think still more male thanfemale. Like the percentages,
it's not 50-50.
I'm sure that's true if youlooked at...on the production
and design and crew side, itwould be the same situation. So.
That makes an impact as well,
the kind of story that's told.
(30:36):
Right. Absolutely.
But yeah, I mean overall,I think obviously
there's a lot to get out ofit positively about women,
about empowerment, aboutmale-female relationships, female-female relationships.
And we even haven't reallytalked as much about
(31:01):
Willow and Tara, which it was onlyone relationship, but at the time,
that representation andthat intersectionality of a
lesbian couple was very significant.
It was only just starting to happen on tv.
And they did it in such a beautifuland subtle way. It wasn't like,
(31:23):
here's our very specialepisode where Willow comes out.
Right? Yeah. Yes. Andhow Buffy handles it too.
It was...it was so greathow she did it, where,
it was not a thing, where she was like,
you're freaked out by this. And shewas like, no, no. She's like, no, no,
(31:44):
I'm not.
It takes her...It takes her literallyhalf a second to process the
information, and to course...
and then to see Willowagain and be like, yes,
I see you.
Yeah, exactly. I don't even think withXander or Giles, it was kind of like,
okay.
(32:05):
Yeah, it was never a big deal.
I mean, it was significant,
but it wasn't like we'rejudging you for it big deal.
It's just something new that you'regoing through, through her life.
And she does say that Willow,
does make comments about itthroughout season four, about,
I'm going through something bigand this is huge. Oz left me,
(32:28):
but I've found this new relationshipand who I am and that this is huge,
and I'm discoveringsomething new about myself.
And it's not just about the witchcraft.And I think sometimes they did make,
they utilized the witchcraft as sort
of a thinly veiled way to talk about her
(32:52):
being gay and the homosexuality. And
again, this is one of the cringeymoments that's kind of like,
I don't know,
I think it's in Restlesswhere they're in the dream and
where.
Xander says.
(33:12):
Where Xander goes.
I knew where you were going with it.
They do spells together. Then sometimes,
and then I do a spell on myself.
There's that moment that's like, oh gosh,
that's really weird.
Now that plays into the male gazecliche. Two women together is like,
Ooh, this hot fantasy. Yeah, for sure.
(33:36):
And in a way that I'm not sure that itadded anything to the Restless episode.
We kind of already knewXander was that way.
Right. I don't think we neededhim to say it. No, I was like,
I actually prefer thatyou not just say it.
But yeah, so there arethose moments that happened
(33:58):
that I think, and then of course
there's other things that we'lltalk about in other episodes.
I think that there's so,
I mean since feminism and gender issort of the big bad of our season,
there are so many other avenues that we
(34:18):
can explore and talk aboutand that we will talk about
throughout the season.
Yeah,
I mean that's a great thing about Buffyis it's a complex show and the issues it
tackles, in the ways does, are complex.
In ways it succeeds and doesn't succeed.
And so we'll be delving intothat more, not only this season,
(34:43):
but hopefully in future season,tackling the next thematic big bad.
And so I was on a
Reddit thread, and thisis one of the things,
so from somebody who posted,
"I think the most feminist part of Buffythe Vampire Slayer is that the leading
(35:06):
women are all allowed to becomplicated. They make mistakes,
they hurt other people,they have conflicts,
but they also support eachother and help each other grow."
I just thought that was reallynice, and I think it is,
I think that that's ultimately whatwe're trying to do is figure out a way
(35:29):
to support other women.
And when we say women, wetalk about all women and
how do we support themand what do they need,
and how can everyone who
(35:51):
does have the power get the power?
How do we allow women to find their power
and to be able to exert it in the world.
And remove the barriersthat prevent them from
using that power and finding that power.
(36:12):
And those of us who have the power,
how do the men in our world become Gileses
and help to clear a path for
that...when necessary and
help guide and be an ally for,
(36:36):
to strong women everywhere.
Yeah.
We've got so much more to talk about.
Absolutely. Looking forward to it.
So thank you all so muchfor joining us this week.
Yes. Thank you so much for tuning in.We hope you enjoyed the discussion.
We definitely want to hear your thoughts.
If you want to send us an email withyour thoughts, questions, concerns,
(36:59):
you can email us atabuffypodcast@gmail.com.
We're on Facebook and Instagram at
abuffypodcast. And ifyou like what you hear,
please like and subscribeand download our podcast.
We would thoroughly love it andmake sure to leave us a review
(37:20):
and send us some stars and some love.
Yeah, let us know what you think.
Alright, thanks. Bye.
Bye.
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