Do I really have to go to work tomorrow?

[jadesfire]

It's been an odd weekend. I've done more chores than I knew we had room for - seriously, how can a 5 room flat acquire so much stuff to do? - I've watched enough Masterchef to make me seriously hungry and I've slep more than I usually do in a week. Huh.

I've also written what I think is one of my best Jack character studies, and everyone's more interested in the cheese. *sigh* I guess it didn't help that torchwood_three put my fic link in with the icon posts. Either that, or the fandom's just in the right mood for crack!fic right now. The fact that miss_zedem wrote cheese!fic as well makes me feel slightly better.

I also finally cracked open a book I've had for way too long without reading. And discovered that I shouldn't read it in the bath, because I was seized with the urge to drop it in. The book is "Fighting the Forces" which is a series of essays about Buffy. This isn't really my field (although I know it is some of yours) but I found myself both intrigued and infuriated.


The basic point of the essay is that Buffy continually subverts and undermines its female characters by not allowing them to express their anger. Using Buffy, Kendra and Faith, the author argues that the three women are shoved into stereotypes and forced to express their frustration in a lady-like manner, rather than being allowed true freedom of expression.

I will admit to being unfamiliar with the feminist articles on 'women's anger' that the author refers to, and I did agree with some of her points. However, there was no explanation or reference in the book to what the author would have considered a healthy expression of the anger that the characters feel. She condemns the portrayals for not allowing true freedom of expression, with little regard for the psychology of the situations. There's no "she did this when she should have done this". No suggestion that the author has taken into account the circumstances under which the anger is expressed. This bothers me.

One of the biggest themes in Buffy is that of responsibility. Yes, Buffy does continually channel her anger into humour, dark sarcasm and the occasional over-enthusiastic slaying. (On the plus side she killed the bench, which was looking shifty). This allows her to deal with the frustrations of life as a Slayer without going crazy or killing someone. One of Faith's biggest problems is that she sees being a Slayer as her way out of a hellish life, and gets kicks from it, rather than seeing it as a burden to be carried. In the article, her killing of the Mayor's assistant is rather glossed over, which baffled me completely. Faith is a great example of what damage that unexpressed anger can do, and yet the author constructs her rather as 'oppressed woman'. There are no answers as to how Faith should have expressed the anger that eats her up inside, only a condemnation of the writing of her, for making her 'the bad guy'.

I'm not saying that Buffy is perfect in its portrayal of women, and certainly I have issues with Kendra, but the insistence on viewing the characters as either stereotypes or 'oppressed women' rather leaves out the opportunity to treat them as 'people'. There seems to be little regard for the positive expressions of anger in Buffy, and no answers to the question of 'what should they have done instead?'

If the rest of the book continues like this, next time, I won't resist the urge to send it to a watery grave...


torchwood_meta is going great (check out the interview with fandom_me) and everyone seems to be calming down a bit. I'm kinda bracing myself for the next episode, but hopefully people have learned their lesson. And yes, I'm also expecting a fly-by from the Porcine Display team...