Replying to Onebyone

[triskellian]

Bateleur II was me:
Nope; it was Bateleur's comment about Buffy not being qualified to be a feminist icon that I was disagreeing with, not your comment about feminism representing women doing the things they've been complaining about men doing for centuries ;-)

In fact, from my practically non-existent knowledge of feminism - or, more accurately, public perceptions of feminism - that aspect is something I don't like either. The word itself is too much associated with female power (at the expense of men, or as some sort of payback to men), and not enough with equality.

Yes it is. But if the traditional hero-type things of men wandering around, trampling the bad guys beneath your boot, and picking up the under-clad girl are sexist, then it is because of unreasonably one-sided interactions based on domination. In this case, by the hero.
Yeah, but Buffy doesn't pick up a pretty-boy in his boxers after she's done kicking the ass of the bad guys, does she? Or, for that matter, slope off for some hot lovin' with Willow, because men are redundant? She likes men, and has reasonably equal relationships with them. She's powerful, and so are they. In fact, in all three cases, she's fought alongside them, with no particular inequality.

Which feels to me much more like the kind of female-empowerment I'd like.

That's what I mean by that which is bad within feminism - the understandable tendency of the abused to instinctively want to reverse the situation, rather than wanting to end it.
Yup, and I'm entirely in agreement with you on this.

explaining to him that some people are supposed to be successful and happy, whereas other people just don't deserve to be and shouldn't try to achieve that by cheating.
You should just get the teasing over with now, cos I've looked up the lines, and I'm going to quote them at you. Yes, I'm a sad Buffyholic. So sue me.

Buffy: Jonathan you get why everyone is angry though, right? It's not just the monster. People didn't like being the little actors in your sock puppet theater

Jonathan: "You weren't! You weren't socks! We were friends."

Buffy: "Jonathan you can't keep trying to make everything work out with some big gesture all at once. Things are complicated. They take time and work."

Jonathan: "Yeah, right."

Which makes more sense than your version ;-)

For me, this does not particularly recommend Buffy as a role model. It's bourne out throughout all the series, as much as I've seen them, by how upset Buffy tends to get with anyone who challenges her position as the best at killing vampires.
Whereas I've always interpreted that as her trying to wring something good (being special) out of the otherwise fairly sucky situation she's in.

Comments

Re: Independence

[triskellian]

I don't think Buffy is a particularly important example of the type other than for the fact that the show is within the mainstream
Yeah, but that's the point. There aren't many such characters in the mainstream, so we're glad to have another.

Re: Independence

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

But if all she is is a famous example of an ass-kicking alphathing who happens to be female, then for the reasons I was banging on about earlier, I don't think she's doing anything very important for feminism.

Re: Independence

[triskellian]

I've given up arguing that she's doing anything good for feminism. I don't know anything about it, to start with. I'm just saying we could use another 'ass-kicking alphathing who happens to be female', cos we're loaded down with male ones.