+GIRL STUFF+

"Date. Shop. Go to school, hang out, save the world from unspeakable demons -- I wanna do all that girl stuff." - Buffy, 'Faith, Hope and Trick'

MISOGYNISTIC HORROR
Feminism has associations of hairy-armpitted women burning stuff and generally refusing to have anything to do with men. Obviously, feminism isn't really about that. It's about seeing the world from a female perspective, and of seeing things in terms of the inequalities of gender. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joss Whedon started from a feminist idea; taking an established stereotype (the modern horror genre) where women are typically the victims, and reversing it. The horror genre was always misogynistic; the basic idea was that women had to remain pure, and to have sex was punishable. In 'Halloween', that's the whole plot; the heroine survives because she doesn't shag. No shag, no die. The genre was all about punishing women, and having them seem feeble and helpless:

"I created Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a movie a long time ago to protect the blonde girl in the alley who always got killed. One of the distinguishing features of the blonde girl in the alley who always got killed is that she actually had sex. She always seemed to be punished for it, and I thought it wasn't fair - so Buffy was created as a sort of stereotype buster, on that level." - Joss Whedon

Whedon's idea was to change that; the girl that isn't bound by the genre stereotypes of horror. Rather than having a male figure, usually a 'psychopath', as the powerful figure, with some sort of moral authority, this time the girl in the alley fights back. While the horror genre had pretended to condemn the psycho figure, really it invested him with all the power to control the plot: and the power of life and death over characters. In Buffy, the heroine isn't running from the male killer, she's chasing him. Buffy doesn't reverse the stereotype, because that would simply mean a 'Fatal Attraction'-style female psycho; instead, Buffy hits back at the horror genre from within. Buffy is the champion of all the helpless women running from the men.

SHAGGED AND KILLED
Often, however, stereotypes are deliberately reversed. In the episode 'Teacher's Pet', the shag-then-die plot isn't exactly played out, but it's Xander's sexual urges which lead to him getting nearly shagged and killed. Buffy saves him and kills the giant shapechanging preying mantis, as you do. The difference here, however, is that the psycho-killer is also the seductress; in some ways it seems like female sexual desire is being punished. Okay, so the preying mantis wants to mate with Xander then eat his brains, which isn't exactly very nice, but the point is the same.

It's in Season 2 when the feminism really comes into play, when Joss Whedon really tackles the punished-for-sex stereotype. Buffy sleeps with Angel, and Angel turns bad. It seems at first glance that sex is being punished in the classic horror way. In reality Whedon is playing out a common occurrence from real life, and exaggerating it. Girl and boy have sex, then boy casts girl aside. But Buffy hits back; she kicks the crap out of Evil Angel.

"This show's designed to be a feminist show. Not a polemic, but a very straight-on feminist show, and for her to be so abused by him, and for her response to be to kick him in what Spike would refer to as the 'goolies'... it's very primal, it's very important, it's kinda empowering and I kinda love it." - Joss Whedon

BLOWING UP THE HIGH SCHOOL
What Whedon does time and time again in the show is take high school life, and blow it up into demonic, physical proportions. But he always takes it from a female perspective. All the male characters in the show are ultimately in the power of female characters; Giles is a father figure but on a basic physical level he's always proved to be far weaker than Buffy. Equally Xander is always buffeted around by women - Buffy, Cordelia, the big preying mantis thing. The big bads of the seasons tend to be men (the Master, Angel, the Mayor, Adam), and all are summarily dealt with. The Master, simply from his name, was an embodiment of the Dracula-like power over women, and Buffy had to overcome him to truly become a Slayer. The Mayor turned into a big penis-like demon which Buffy killed, a recurring theme in the show. Adam was an Incredible Hulk-style ubermensch, a symbol of male physical power. Buffy kicked his arse, but only with the aid of her friends. Joss Whedon's feminism isn't a self-contained anti-men ideology, it includes the likes of Xander, Oz and Giles; neither of whom are exactly butch.

However these male characters are always shown to have a dark side; Oz and Willow were a couple not dissimilar to Buffy and Angel. But with Oz, the dangerous, feral side was something to be contained; the idea was that it was through Willow that Oz could overcome his wolfy self. Later, Oz breaks from Willow and tries to master his inner beast alone. He fails because he can't overcome his feelings for her; the anger which brings out his werewolf side comes from his inability to deal with Willow and Tara's relationship. Similarly Xander and Giles have both shown dark sides; Xander once turned into a were-hyena ('The Pack'), and another time becomes a vampire (in 'The Wish'); both times Buffy either saves or kills him. Giles' 'Ripper' alter-ego is a tough, more manly side which has to be restrained.

WOMEN = POWERFUL
Similarly, women are powerful. Willow starts off in the show as a shy character in the power of Xander; though the years she has progressed to be possibly the most powerful of the whole Scooby Gang. Anya is an obvious feminist character in the form of a man-torturing demon; but while she does lose her powers, she is the one to make the first moves with Xander, and the more dominant in the relationship. Cordelia is obviously poweful, in a bitch-queen type way. In Angel the series she is the person from whose visions most of the plot develops, with power over the other characters.

Angel was, for a time, the only male character to get under Buffy's skin, and have real emotional power over her. In Season 3, Angel had to return helpless so that Buffy could be the powerful one again. It could be said that Angel is castrated; certainly he is effectively a eunuch, while Buffy is free to shag as she pleases. In the show there's always an emphasis on emotional strength; it's not enough for Buffy to be physically strong, she has to be emotionally tough; so when she was hurt by Parker, in Season 4, she had to come back from it without just the use of violence. But Whedon always makes Buffy a 'normal girl'; he's always careful not to make her into Faith, a solitary character without long-term relationships of any kind.

In this lies much of the show's genius; Buffy isn't like Xena, she's a normal girl. Joss Whedon creates a character which is both physically and emotionally strong, as well as a young girl with ordinary desires. "The two things that matter the most to me in the work I do; emotional resonance, and rocket launchers," Joss Whedon says in the DVD commentary to 'Innocence'. In other words, Whedon wants Buffy to be a character people can relate to and empathize with (whether we're male or female), as well as a super-chick fighter of evil men.

+LINKS+
Buffy the Patriachy Slayer
A collection of articles which look at Buffy from a feminist angle.

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