Slaying the Vamps [Feminist Flashback Friday]

Ever since I started blogging I have wanted to write a post dedicated to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is probably one of my all time favorite shows...and I just started watching it this past winter! This probably isn't that much of a flashback or a history lesson for many of you...but Buffy is in the past, so it's ok for a Feminist Flashback Friday, right? Even if it's not, it's going to be...


Joss Whedon has made some great creations and is a pro-feminist himself, so it would make sense that his feminist beliefs rub off on his TV shows. Buffy is one of his most feminist creations.

For those of you who don't know, the show revolves around the "chosen one," the slayer, who at this point in time is Buffy Summers. Buffy spends every episode fighting "the big bad," whether it is vampires or some other form of demon. She has her crew of "scoobies" that help her out and occasionally get into trouble. My favorite of the Scoobies is Willow who has some special powers of her own: she's a witch. There's just so much that happens over the seven seasons that I'm not even going to attempt to summarize right now, so this is the best I can do right now.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is all about strong women. Buffy herself is supernaturally, physically strong because of her status as the slayer. But she is emotionally strong as well. Sure, she has her breakdowns and times that she no longer wants to be the slayer, but overall she is a strong women, physically, emotionally, and mentally. And it's great to see a female action hero that was so sucessful. Buffy kicked ass on a weekly basis.

Willow was a strong woman as well. She went from a shy bookworm to a powerful, confident witch throughout the show. And she's the one example that I can think of in a mainstream, network show of a successful transition from straight to a lesbian. I don't know if "successful transition" is the right phrase, but there have been so many shows that make a character a lesbian for a couple shows and then she's straight again. But with Willow, she realized her sexual identity when she met Tara and she stuck with it. Yes, she did go crazy at one point, but all that did was to show how powerful and strong she actually was when it came to her magical powers.

And then there's Anya, who was a vengence demon who lost her powers (then regained them later). Even when she didn't have her supernatural powers, she was one of the key Scoobies. While it takes her a while to adjust to not having powers, she becomes one of the strong members of the team.

There are also some recurring minor strong women in the show. There's Faith, the slayer-turned-evil. Glory, who was a demon god bent on getting back to her hell.

Oh Xander. One of the two men in the Scoobies (yes, I do count Giles). He goes through a lot of identity crisis', especially in the later seasons, because he is surrounded by such powerful women and he doesn't really have a lot to offer. Buffy's the slayer, Willow and Tara are powerful witches, and Anya is an ex-demon. Some definite woman-power there.

One other thing that I like about Buffy is that it's not super focused on romantic relationships. Buffy's romantic relationships definitely play a big role in the show, but she's not relationship-centric. When Angel goes evil and when he leaves, Buffy does have a really hard time and falls apart a little bit, but then she learns that it's ok to be a strong woman on her own. Xander and Anya's relationship and Willow and Tara's relationship are key to the show as well. But in all of the relationships, each of the people are independent and strong on their own and have a pretty healthy relationship because of that (the only exception I can think of is Buffy and Spike, but that's a whole other story).

To me, one of the undertones of the show is about being the best person that you can be, no matter what your powers. While the characters themselves are probably not feminist, I think that the show is. Buffy the Vampire Slayer portrays strong women as they are. Sure some of their strength comes from supernatural powers, but the strength that I am most concerned about is their mental and emotional strength.

What Buffy has is something that is severely lacking from television today. It has great writing, great acting, and strong women. Where are shows like this today? It's not like Buffy was made all that long ago. Where did it go? Well, right now I am jonesing for a Buffy fix, so I think I am going to go watch an episode over on Hulu.

So, how many of you watched Buffy when it was on or have since picked it up, like me? Any thoughts about the feminist value of the show?

Joss' Strong Women

I LOVE Joss Whedon. He gave us great things like Buffy, Firefly, and Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog. He's awkwardly amazing and amazingly awkward. I was perusing the Bitch Magazine Blog the other day and came across this amazing video of Joss Whedon's speech at an Equality Now event.



In this speech, Whedon offers his many answers that he gives when asked: "Why do you always write such strong women characters?" Sometimes he attributed it to people in his life such as his mother, his father and step-father, and his wife. My favorite answer, though, was his last.

Because equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity, we need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it. We need equality, kinda now.

Joss Whedon is amazing. We need more writers like him in Hollywood to get some more strong women in entertainment. I can't remember a female character as strong, both physically and mentally, and human (kind of) as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Thank you for these characters, Joss.