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Can the Baseball Slayer, in "Chosen" actually pursue Sport as her vocation? Should she?
I'm not sure. The writers, having done nothing on a (for me fairly appropriate) metaphor for Slayer as elite athlete, I'll take it on it's face.
Most professional and olympic sports have a rigourous programme of testing for performance enhancing drugs. Baseball is currently embroiled in the BALCO scandal in which several players, most notably star Barry Bonds are under investigation for use of steroids.
Baseball Slayer, will become dominant overnight, thanks to Buffy. She now has supernatural powers almost no one else can access, and she'll uses them to dominate her sport. Nothing wrong with that. Except that she's going to spend her career under a tremendous cloud of suspicion, as no mere mortal should have her ability. Indeed - she is no mere mortal. She's a slayer.
And what does Baseball slayer say to her contemporary female star athletes like Serena Williams, Diana Taurasi, Marion Jones, or Michelle Wie - who became world class female athletes by dint of hard work and years of effort and practice - and without the benefit of superpowers.. Unlike everybody else, Baseball Slayer didn't even have to work for it. It was just magically given to her.
Are her baseball skills are a cheat and an unfair advantage, or is it simply good luck and better genetics? Think about the post-Sunnydale Olympics. Is this the amateur vs. professional debate of ten years ago, or should there be testing to weed out female athletes hopped up on SLAY-roids?
Setting aside the ethical question of whether a slayer should be playing fulltime professional sports rather than out fighting demons - is it fair or right for a slayer to be competing athletically alongside non-slayers? Should they be in different divisions or leagues?
The slayer is no ordinary mortal. Should she be handicapped?
Then again - Michael Jeffrey Jordan was no ordinary mortal, yet he played by the same rules as everybody else in the league. Thoughts?
I'm not sure. The writers, having done nothing on a (for me fairly appropriate) metaphor for Slayer as elite athlete, I'll take it on it's face.
Most professional and olympic sports have a rigourous programme of testing for performance enhancing drugs. Baseball is currently embroiled in the BALCO scandal in which several players, most notably star Barry Bonds are under investigation for use of steroids.
Baseball Slayer, will become dominant overnight, thanks to Buffy. She now has supernatural powers almost no one else can access, and she'll uses them to dominate her sport. Nothing wrong with that. Except that she's going to spend her career under a tremendous cloud of suspicion, as no mere mortal should have her ability. Indeed - she is no mere mortal. She's a slayer.
And what does Baseball slayer say to her contemporary female star athletes like Serena Williams, Diana Taurasi, Marion Jones, or Michelle Wie - who became world class female athletes by dint of hard work and years of effort and practice - and without the benefit of superpowers.. Unlike everybody else, Baseball Slayer didn't even have to work for it. It was just magically given to her.
Are her baseball skills are a cheat and an unfair advantage, or is it simply good luck and better genetics? Think about the post-Sunnydale Olympics. Is this the amateur vs. professional debate of ten years ago, or should there be testing to weed out female athletes hopped up on SLAY-roids?
Setting aside the ethical question of whether a slayer should be playing fulltime professional sports rather than out fighting demons - is it fair or right for a slayer to be competing athletically alongside non-slayers? Should they be in different divisions or leagues?
The slayer is no ordinary mortal. Should she be handicapped?
Then again - Michael Jeffrey Jordan was no ordinary mortal, yet he played by the same rules as everybody else in the league. Thoughts?