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I've not forgotten about the Rant Meme...
As requested by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ludditerobot the final seasons/episodes of Buffy and Angel. In this case, BtVS-7, and why the Politics of Chosen drive me nuts. Mosly, because I view S7 as very Leninist in scope, projecting pretensions toward values of Democratization/Empowerment but actually supplying a rather Top Down model in which the good of the people are sacrificed in their name, without their input. It's the irony of someone trying to write a humanist story despite a rather low regard for humanity. It's a fine empowering/feminist story, just as Leninism was. That is, as long as you happen to be a member of the Revolutionary Vanguard.
One of my major problem with the season is the absence of a Buffy:Scoobies::Scoobies:Community metaphor. At the end of the series, the community of Sunnydale Buffy came to protect is left a smoking hole in the ground with its inhabitants refugees. People Buffy et al did not reach out to. I've always found this to run counter to Collective Heroism. After all, many in the town are innocent, average people, and yet they are ignored until they go away.
I keep in mind that the show's not about "innocent, average people"; it never really was. It's about the people who try to ensure that others can go on living innocent, average lives. Or at least – I think it was intended to give that sense. But somewhere along the line, I think the show "forgot" that there were people who didn't live in the magic box, or Casa Summers.
And therefore, to me S7 isn’t really about people who try to ensure others live innocent lives. It can’t be, because the awareness of those lives is missing. It’s revealed again and again, when in a season where “Everything’s Connected”, we are shown just dis-connected the scoobies are form those around them. Just as Buffy is disconnected from the people in her house. But it breaks for me as the show makes the point that Buffy’s disconnect can be a problem without considering that the analogous disconnect might be a problem as well.
Perhaps the Potentials are meant to represent innocent/average/ordinary people. I don’t think this is actually the case. The show goes out to point out that even before being Chosen, the Potentials are already Special.. They have Potential, elevated above those who do not. And Buffy, when shown relating to these girls, relates to them through the prism of Slayerness – not humanity. There is no – “once upon a time I was just a girl” anecdote. They are made explicitly a caste of Elite women who matter because they have potential, in a town full of women who are ignored because they (1) do not have Potential and (2) are not intimately associated or connected to the people who do.
Now, it can be asserted that Buffy isn’t ignoring her neighbors because they’ve ignored her (and the supernatural) for a long time. Something the show keeps pushing home every season - the residents of Sunnydale see what they want to see.
But IMHO that’s an easy crutch. If these are just "regular" people, they're just trying to make a living and get by, so it behooves the Powers That Be (and Buffy & crew are a huge power) to help these people see... to empower them. It's easy to just write everyone else off and say "they'll" never see" - but human interaction is a two way street, and lack of effort on one part does not preclude effort on the other. They didn't listen - but did you try to make them hear you? Did you listen to them?
And come S7, Buffy and the Scoobies were not listening. Or rather, not listening well. Not listening hard. Not really putting in due diligence, a good faith effort, what have you… Is that because the staff didn’t want to bring in extras, couldn’t think of how to do it, thought it would be boring… I don’t know. It seems the townsfolk and town government are too incapable of dealing with what they face… But then, aren’t the townsfolk nothing if not the faceless mass of humanity? How can one write a humanist/empowering story when humanity is held in such little regard?
Buffy (and co) worked with what they had, but they didn't work to expand the limits of what they had. Didn't track down a nurse or a firefighter. Or look for anybody who might want to help. And there isn't a single ordinary person going with them into the Hellmouth. Once upon-a-time they were, but not anymore. They’re the Inteligentsia, and they’ve been conspicuous outsiders and conspicuously unrepresentative. This is the Most Powerful military figure in the town marching down with her personal Secretariat and Staff. The Politburo and the Red Army. Is Xander really an everyman substitute here? ”The "boy" who has clocked more field time...
So I don’t find the story about Empowerment, in anything beyond a very narrow sense. It’s about Power, about taking joy in asserting personal power. But it’s not really a case of empowerment.
Why? The community – the average innocent person isn’t a party. Had to be rushed out of the room where all the important stuff goes down, and isn’t going to be told about either, before or after.
To me, S7 was essentially about a bureaucratic struggle. Once there was the Patriarchal Council – and Buffy has junked its rules from within. The new bureaucracy is more open and democratic in terms of how it handles internal processes. For the members of the new incarnation of the Bureaucracy, working conditions will be much, much better. This is a great celebration.
But I'm not sure that this translates into empowerment, for any but those on the inside. As far as I can tell, the Bureaucracy has just as patriarchal view of the constituent/customer as ever before. Those faceless people are the constituency, after all. And they have no voice, no representation, and are completely gone from the town when all that lovely empowerment is going down. They have no input, no oversight.
Life will probably be better, at least for those that can recover from losing their livelihoods and homes. And Buffy, through the empowerment Spell, has provided a bigger army of slayers to fight the mostly secret war.
But the people aren’t anymore powerful w/respect to the forces of darkness. They’be been given fish, not taught how to fish for themselves. So as a Democratic Theorist, it bugs me.
As requested by
ludditerobot the final seasons/episodes of Buffy and Angel. In this case, BtVS-7, and why the Politics of Chosen drive me nuts. Mosly, because I view S7 as very Leninist in scope, projecting pretensions toward values of Democratization/Empowerment but actually supplying a rather Top Down model in which the good of the people are sacrificed in their name, without their input. It's the irony of someone trying to write a humanist story despite a rather low regard for humanity. It's a fine empowering/feminist story, just as Leninism was. That is, as long as you happen to be a member of the Revolutionary Vanguard.One of my major problem with the season is the absence of a Buffy:Scoobies::Scoobies:Community metaphor. At the end of the series, the community of Sunnydale Buffy came to protect is left a smoking hole in the ground with its inhabitants refugees. People Buffy et al did not reach out to. I've always found this to run counter to Collective Heroism. After all, many in the town are innocent, average people, and yet they are ignored until they go away.
I keep in mind that the show's not about "innocent, average people"; it never really was. It's about the people who try to ensure that others can go on living innocent, average lives. Or at least – I think it was intended to give that sense. But somewhere along the line, I think the show "forgot" that there were people who didn't live in the magic box, or Casa Summers.
And therefore, to me S7 isn’t really about people who try to ensure others live innocent lives. It can’t be, because the awareness of those lives is missing. It’s revealed again and again, when in a season where “Everything’s Connected”, we are shown just dis-connected the scoobies are form those around them. Just as Buffy is disconnected from the people in her house. But it breaks for me as the show makes the point that Buffy’s disconnect can be a problem without considering that the analogous disconnect might be a problem as well.
Perhaps the Potentials are meant to represent innocent/average/ordinary people. I don’t think this is actually the case. The show goes out to point out that even before being Chosen, the Potentials are already Special.. They have Potential, elevated above those who do not. And Buffy, when shown relating to these girls, relates to them through the prism of Slayerness – not humanity. There is no – “once upon a time I was just a girl” anecdote. They are made explicitly a caste of Elite women who matter because they have potential, in a town full of women who are ignored because they (1) do not have Potential and (2) are not intimately associated or connected to the people who do.
Now, it can be asserted that Buffy isn’t ignoring her neighbors because they’ve ignored her (and the supernatural) for a long time. Something the show keeps pushing home every season - the residents of Sunnydale see what they want to see.
But IMHO that’s an easy crutch. If these are just "regular" people, they're just trying to make a living and get by, so it behooves the Powers That Be (and Buffy & crew are a huge power) to help these people see... to empower them. It's easy to just write everyone else off and say "they'll" never see" - but human interaction is a two way street, and lack of effort on one part does not preclude effort on the other. They didn't listen - but did you try to make them hear you? Did you listen to them?
And come S7, Buffy and the Scoobies were not listening. Or rather, not listening well. Not listening hard. Not really putting in due diligence, a good faith effort, what have you… Is that because the staff didn’t want to bring in extras, couldn’t think of how to do it, thought it would be boring… I don’t know. It seems the townsfolk and town government are too incapable of dealing with what they face… But then, aren’t the townsfolk nothing if not the faceless mass of humanity? How can one write a humanist/empowering story when humanity is held in such little regard?
Buffy (and co) worked with what they had, but they didn't work to expand the limits of what they had. Didn't track down a nurse or a firefighter. Or look for anybody who might want to help. And there isn't a single ordinary person going with them into the Hellmouth. Once upon-a-time they were, but not anymore. They’re the Inteligentsia, and they’ve been conspicuous outsiders and conspicuously unrepresentative. This is the Most Powerful military figure in the town marching down with her personal Secretariat and Staff. The Politburo and the Red Army. Is Xander really an everyman substitute here? ”The "boy" who has clocked more field time...
So I don’t find the story about Empowerment, in anything beyond a very narrow sense. It’s about Power, about taking joy in asserting personal power. But it’s not really a case of empowerment.
Why? The community – the average innocent person isn’t a party. Had to be rushed out of the room where all the important stuff goes down, and isn’t going to be told about either, before or after.
To me, S7 was essentially about a bureaucratic struggle. Once there was the Patriarchal Council – and Buffy has junked its rules from within. The new bureaucracy is more open and democratic in terms of how it handles internal processes. For the members of the new incarnation of the Bureaucracy, working conditions will be much, much better. This is a great celebration.
But I'm not sure that this translates into empowerment, for any but those on the inside. As far as I can tell, the Bureaucracy has just as patriarchal view of the constituent/customer as ever before. Those faceless people are the constituency, after all. And they have no voice, no representation, and are completely gone from the town when all that lovely empowerment is going down. They have no input, no oversight.
Life will probably be better, at least for those that can recover from losing their livelihoods and homes. And Buffy, through the empowerment Spell, has provided a bigger army of slayers to fight the mostly secret war.
But the people aren’t anymore powerful w/respect to the forces of darkness. They’be been given fish, not taught how to fish for themselves. So as a Democratic Theorist, it bugs me.
no subject
Yes. And where the show flops for me, is thatit never expands that metaphor. How much more powerful would they be, if they turned it outwards. If the scoobies were to the larger Sunnydale, what Buffy was to the scoobs. In essence, that's what makes Democratic societies thrive.
Buffy, in S7, is a politician with a tremendous amount of latent power. Except that she has no imagination. Doesn't understand what power is and what it's for. All she recognizes is her might. The graveyard scene with Dawn in "Lessons". What Dawn does - that's power. And the show forgets all about it.
The rest of S7, IMHO, is just symptomatic of that. The lack of joy, of zing, of sloppy characterization, bad pacing, weak writing, contrived story and characterization.
I would have depserately loved to see an episode featuring a potential that was an obvious parallel with Pre-Slayer Buffy... something that called out the "you have to grow up" message, but also reminded us of the strong things inside of us that get been buried or lost, but that need to be held onto and rediscovered.