User:Paxomen/Buffy and social issues

This article is essentially an essay containing some original research and unverified claims. For that reason it was deleted from the Wikipedia main space, but I saved it in my userspace for those interested anyway. - Paxomen

Buffy the Vampire Slayer has dealt with a number of social issues, including gender expectations, homosexuality and class, and has received a great deal of attention from television critics for its unusual approaches in discussing them. As described in the main article, Buffy often, though not always, approaches contemporary issues through a veil of metaphor. Even when the writers have eschewed metaphor and dealt more directly with contemporary issues, the series has generally integrated its commentary with multi-episode plot arcs; the series creator, Joss Whedon, is on record as saying that "there will never be a Very Special Episode of Buffy".

Buffy and gender
Buffy has often been referred to as an explicitly feminist show by both its creators and critics. There is disagreement, however, on the nature of feminism in Buffy; some critics refer to the show as post-feminist, while others consider the "feminist" label for Buffy problematic.

In general, arguments for Buffy as a feminist show focus on the central conceit: as the possessor of an essential power, Buffy progresses from a light-headed, shallow teen, an instance of the American cheerleader stereotype, to a strong independent woman. As Whedon and others have often noted, the essential idea behind Buffy was to reverse the horror movie convention of the powerless woman.

As critics have noted, however, feminist themes in Buffy extend much further than this; an extensive bibliography of feminist interpretations of the show exists on the web. This section endeavors to treat some of the major themes in this form of criticism.

Despite her burden of duty as the "Slayer", Buffy is not depersonalized by her mission, and maintains &mdash; with some struggle &mdash; gendered essentials of her personality. Her depiction challenges a more typical portrayal of the driven woman &mdash; most famously, Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth &mdash; who must abandon "female" character traits in order to take on a more masculine, active role. The show's play on conventional gender expectations extends beyond the central character. The show consistently offers alternatives to established depictions of characters of each gender in other central characters, including Xander, Willow and Spike.

That Xander's two closest friends throughout the show, Willow and Buffy, are female, challenges both the normative expectation of homosocial socialization and the assumption of masculine leadership: Xander is &mdash; mostly &mdash; comfortable with taking the female figures within the group as superior in skill and power, and the show depicts his occasional attempts to assert priority as a source of humor.

Buffy's older, British Watcher Giles functions in many ways as a stand in for patriarchal authority. However, while beginning as a male figure of knowledge and power, Giles is gradually (and willingly) rendered redundant as a regulator of the group's activities. The Watcher's Council undergoes a similar evolution of role. Despite remaining an emotional focus of the gang, and playing a role as the only proper father-figure for Buffy, Xander and Willow, Giles is left, for the most part, in a passive position as his apprentice becomes a warrior and eventually a leader in her own right.

In general, the treatment of gender expectations on Buffy is lighthearted, but as the show progresses, feminist themes become more explicit. While many villains consider Buffy's sex an affront to their own power, two of the major villains that Buffy must confront in the final two seasons &mdash; Caleb and Warren &mdash; are essentially driven by misogyny, and have disturbing histories of sexual violence.

The most explicit reference to feminist principles appears in the final shows of the final season, especially in the last episode, Chosen. There, the plot to defeat the "First Evil" involves breaking an ancient contract, negotiated by male authority, to restrict the Slayer's powers to a single woman. In a speech to the "potentials" &mdash; young girls who will receive this power once the contract is broken &mdash; Buffy says:

"Every girl who could have the power... will have the power... can stand up, will stand up. Slayers... every one of us. Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?"

Buffy and homosexuality
Whedon has noted that it was always his desire to have a gay character on the show. As Buffy's main premise involved characters who were stereotyped as weak becoming strong and powerful, it is rumored that he initially planned to have a gay male character. Whedon himself has stated that he decided early on that he would make either Willow or Xander gay, and, while showing both engaging in heterosexual relationships, sprinkled the occasional innuendo of homosexuality into both of their characters (for example, the Xander-Larry mix-up about Xander's sexuality).

While homosexual characters appeared occasionally in early seasons, the most significant plot concerned with homosexuality started in season four, when main character Willow (who had previously been romantically involved with the male character Oz) began a romantic relationship with the female character Tara. This eventually led Willow to identify herself as gay. The narrative also saw Willow dramatically expand her "magical" powers during this period, and "magic" was frequently used as a metaphor for the developing sexual relationship.

Willow's shift to homosexuality created some controversy in the media, and heated controversy among fans. The producers and the network received criticism, both from those opposed to gay characters on television, and from some pro-gay viewers who were upset about the initial physical tepidness of the relationship, as well as the fact that the gay characters were both witches, which some considered an invocation of long-standing stereotypes.

Others accused the writers of tokenism and sensationalism; comments from the show's writers show they were also concerned with such issues. The show's creative team insisted that their intent was not to sensationalize or exploit the gay relationship. The plot also inspired debate among viewers over whether Willow's sexuality should be defined as "gay" or as "bisexual". In later seasons, the character explicitly identified herself as gay, and attracted only to women.

The couple's love ended in tragedy with Tara's murder near the end of season six, inspiring a violent magical rampage which served as the climax at the end of the season. Willow went on to have another (much more explicit) lesbian relationship throughout the final season with a young potential Slayer.

Tara's death, which ended what many considered the most positive portrayal of a lesbian relationship on television at the time, was equally controversial. Some fans criticized what they viewed as a clichéd resolution, arguing that lesbian relationships in film and television are too frequently "punished" by violent endings. The creative team and some fansdefended the storyline, arguing that Tara's death had nothing to do with her sexuality, and that they treated her as they would have treated any other character, which is highlighted by such tragedy laced relationships as Buffy and Angel during Season 2, Xander and Anya (failed wedding and then Anya's death), Jenny Calendar and Giles (Jenny killed by Angel) and even Joyce's sudden death after getting back on the dating scene. Buffy's sister series Angel mimicked this trend with many failed relationships. One of the last and most powerful was that between Wesley and Fred, which ended almost as soon as it truly began in a reciprocal sense in Fred's violent, prolonged and painful death. Fans used these deaths to claim that those critizing Tara's death were demanding special treatment. It didn't help matters that the critics claimed that all white males were interchangeable.

Buffy and other social issues
Two other social issues are notable in connection with the Buffy series: class and race.

Over its seven-year span, the series had a number of important narrative arcs that dealt with the question of social and economic class, beginning with the relationship between Xander Harris and Cordelia Chase. Xander's less-than-ideal family is depicted as working class, and Xander's impoverishment relative to upper class Cordelia is a significant issue in their relationship.

Class remains a significant issue in later seasons as well. When the main characters graduate from high-school at the end of season three, Xander is the only one not to attend University, and takes a job as a construction worker instead. The divergence of his life experiences from the other characters becomes a sticking point throughout season four and differences in class between the college student population and the rest of the town are a significant plot point in such episodes as Beer Bad. The conflict between slayers Faith and Buffy is in many ways rooted in class; Faith, from the working-class neighborhood of South Boston, is depicted as jealous of Buffy's more harmonious childhood, a product of the Summers family's relative position of affluence.

In general, the treatment of class in Buffy is similar to that in shows such as Dawson's Creek (and, in particular, Dawson Leery's position of relative wealth compared to that of Joey Potter); class for many characters is not a permanent attribute, nor is it a necessary barrier to friendship or love. It may be a source of hardship, but it is something to be transcended, not identified with. In contrast to the usually serious treatment of class on Buffy, Spike's remaking of himself as a working-class "tough" is treated as a source of humor. Although in Buffy's job at a fastfood restaurant can be seen as a commentary on low wage jobs, as much as about the fast food industry.

The issue of race in Buffy is notable by its absence; in a show that has been cited by many as a strongly feminist text and that has dealt openly with contemporary American attitudes towards gender, sexuality and class, the question of (human) race seems to be mostly invisible. In a large cast, there have been few major (recurring) characters of color; one of them, the dark-skinned vampire Mr. Trick, comments on the absence of black people in Sunnydale in his first on-screen appearance.

The absence of black characters is thus suggested as a reflection of the small number of black people that might be found in suburban Sunnydale. Interestingly, the two towns in California that might be considered models for fictional Sunnydale, Sunnyvale and Torrance, have small African-American populations, but significant numbers of Asian-Americans and Hispanic-identified people (roughly 30% and 15% in both, respectively.) Although one of the early main characters, Cordelia Chase, is played by a woman of Mexican and Cherokee descent, no mention of Cordelia's race is ever made, and there are no other major (recurring) characters of either of these two latter-mentioned races on the show.

One of the most notable non-white characters in early seasons is perhaps Kendra Young, a mixed-race woman who appears briefly as a slayer in the second season; Kendra's narrative arc on Buffy has been criticized by some academics as a portrayal of the stereotyped tragic mulatta, whose attempt to "assimilate" concludes in death. After Kendra's demise, in the finale of Season 2, the next significant "good" character of color to appear is Principal Robin Wood, in season seven.

Other minor African American characters did appear, i.e. Buffy's school conselor in season three. The Incan Mummy Girl episode praises multi-culturalism, at least in theory as does the episode about the American Indian returning from the dead in season four.

The question of race in Buffy remains controversial. Writers appear not ignorant of certain racial (and racist) conventions in horror films: Rona, an African-American "potential" slayer in the final season comments ironically on one, remarking that "the black girl always gets it first." While the absence of human characters of color on the show is notable, many academics have suggested that the treatment of vampires and demons addresses many of the complexities of race, and otherness in general, in coded form.