Day 5: Least Favorite Female Character
This one is really hard. one thing that Buffy does really well, at least feminism-wise, is making good female characters with strong story arcs. The male characters...well, that's another story that I'll write about over the next two days. But seriously, I actually had to make a bracket for this one and even then I wasn't satisfied with my choice. So I'm going to go with a kind of obvious choice.
Amy Madison
Honorable mentions go to Harmony Kendall (she's just so annoying), Maggie Walsh (probably won't be if her story arc hadn't been truncated) and the villain that Mrs. Landingham from The West Wing plays in "Where The Wild Things Are". Also, I wanted to write this peace on Dark Willow of the last three episodes of season 6 but I was told by several people that she can't actually be separated from Willow as a whole.
Amy isn't just boring, she's kind of problematic. We see her first in the third episode of the entire series where her mother--a former beauty queen wanting to revisit her glory days--uses witchcraft to switch bodies with Amy. She shows up again on a number of occasions, using magic to turn herself into a rat to avoid being burned at the stake in "Gingerbread" and then continuing to be that rat for three years. Willow keeps her for all of that time and finally brings her back to human form after Willow and Tara break up. Then, with no real reason whatsoever, Amy becomes friends with a magic "dealer" and tempts Willow back into using magic. After Willow finally says they can't do any of those things anymore she casts a spell on Willow in Season 7 that drives the plot for an episode.
And that's the thing--Amy doesn't really exist past the third season as anything other than a joke or a plot device. She has little motivation, is not really characterized, but is somehow evil despite being portrayed as a sympathetic character during the high school years. Then again, being turned into a rat might do that to you.
There are lots of characters that are used for plot devices but most of them aren't supposed to have an "arc" or as much screen time as Amy does. I feel like the audience is supposed to care about her but I just really can't find it in me. She clearly had a difficult childhood--dad that left, crazy mom--but we don't really get to see any of that come to fruition in a meaningful way. Which is disappointing--I think a lot could have been done here. I guess you can't develop every side character.
This is a short one for today because...well, there's not all that much more to say. Trust me, the treatises I'm going to write in the next two days will definitely make up for it. Tomorrow is Favorite Male Character. I'm sure a lot of you can hazard guesses on my selection.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
30 Days of Buffy and Feminism Day 4
Day 4: Favorite Female Character
This was not easy. There are very few female characters in this show that I don't love at one point or another. The character I'm going with may surprise you, but hear me out.
Anya
Honorable mentions go to Jenny Calendar, Tara, and Katrina Silber (remember her?)
First and foremost, Anya is hilarious. She has some of the best one-liners in the entire series, and I never get sick of the running joke of her hating bunnies. She's also one of the most sexually liberated women on this show, though the reason for that is debatable.
Anya starts out, interestingly, as an example of two anti-feminist paradigms. When we first meet her, she is Anyanka, a millennium-old vengeance demon who specializes in helping women scorned get back at their exes (always male, the heteronormativity of which bothers me but that's another post for another day). This character is practically a caricature of the man-hating, ball-busting feminist. She believes that men get what they deserve when they're horribly disfigured for hurting women, and she's the strong female demon who's going to dish out that retribution. Thus, she learns to hate men--in fact, her own revenge against her philandering husband back in the ninth century gained her the demon job in the first place.
After Anya becomes human and mortal, she does a kind of 180. She pursues Xander, first asking him to the prom at the end of Season 3 and then approaching him for sex in season 4, pushing until she becomes the archetypical clingy girlfriend. She becomes obsessed with being his girlfriend and connects with his friends and his life without much of a live for herself outside of him. Of course, circumstances prevent much else--she's been literally living in different worlds for centuries, and Xander is the eyes through which she sees the human world (what a shame that he abuses that power and trust by treating her like she's an idiot so much of the time). At the beginning of Season 5, in the episode "The Replacement", Anya has a bit of an existential crisis--realizing that she is now mortal and only has a finite lifespan she realizes that she wants a very traditional life with a house, a marriage and children. But there is something here that I think gets overlooked.
Anya is a perfect example of patriarchal socialization. She came from a different culture--before she was a demon she was apparently Viking--and when she became mortal again she was a blank canvas. This is why Xander had to so frequently condescendingly coach her on what to do in social situations. In the episode "Real Me", Anya is playing the Game of Life with Xander and Dawn when this exchange occurs:
Look at this. Now I am burdened with a
husband and several tiny pink children and
more cash than I can reasonably manage.
That means you're winning.
Really?
Yes. Cash equals good.
Oh, I'm so pleased! Can I trade in the
children for more cash?
Is it a coincidence that "The Replacement", where Anya realizes that she is mortal and suddenly wants to have children and a home, is the very next episode after this one? Having just become a human a year and a half before, Anya absorbs knowledge about what is expected of her and not necessarily what she wants for herself. But at the same time, she also becomes independent--in Season 5 she starts to work at The Magic Box and even becomes a part owner of the shop later on in the series. Despite this, her identity still revolves around Xander. Could this be a comment on societal expectations of women?
Everything changes at the end of Season 6 and beginning of Season 7. When Xander leaves her at the altar she is once again left without an identity, and so she goes back to being a vengeance demon. Only this time her heart isn't in it--after spending time being human a part of her as become empathetic and compassionate. This all comes to a head in the Season 7 episode "Selfless".
This episode is interspersed with flashbacks. The first is to back to the 9th century where we see her as Aud, married to a man named Olaf. He clearly gives her an identity here, saying that she will "always be Aud, my beautiful girl." In the next flashback we see Aud again after she has turned Olaf, who cheated on her, into a troll. The ruler of the vengeance demons, D'Hoffryn, shows up and tells her that she isn't Aud, she is "Anyanka, a vengeance demon, her true self." She resists this at first but then succumbs to it, accepting her new identity. The last of these identifying flashbacks comes as a return to an unseen moment in "Once More With Feeling". And yes, I am psyched that I get to use this video (once again, couldn't find one with the actual video but just imagine Anya going around doing domestic things like turning down the bed and removing a sleeping Xander's shoes and hat).
Here she identifies herself as "Mrs. Harris". In fact, she doesn't even care about her own name--"Mrs. Lame-Ass Made Up Maiden Name...Harris." She doesn't even seem that thrilled about the idea of marriage--the whole second verse of this song comes off as her trying to convince herself that it's a good idea--but she is thrilled at the idea of having this solid identity.
Anya is now too human to be a vengeance demon. After massacring a room full of frat boys she is so alarmed and sickened by what she did that she is practically depressed. But if she no longer has Xander to give her identity, and she can no longer cut it as a vengeance demon, what is she?
ANYA
Xander -- You can't help me. I'm not
even sure... there's a "me" for you
to help.
Xander -- You can't help me. I'm not
even sure... there's a "me" for you
to help.
But in the end she does accept the price of death to undo what she did to the frat boys and to make herself not a vengeance demon anymore. Unfortunately D'Hoffryn kills Halfrek instead--something I'm going to come back to later--and Anya lives. The end of this episode leaves her aimless and uncertain as to who she is. And yet, she does not turn back to the safe and easy arms of Xander so that she can once again define herself as his partner. She wanders off into the darkness alone--a pretty blatant metaphor.
And she does develop a self for the first time really in this season. She and Xander have one more passionate romp on Buffy's kitchen floor later in the season after which they agree they have finally moved on from each other. And then in the final battle she fights, instead of running away the way she did at the end of Season 3. She truly becomes a part of the group on her own terms and her own merits. She even stands up to Buffy at the end of "Empty Spaces."
There's a prompt later on in this series that asks for a thing that happened that you wish didn't. I'm going to give my first choice away right now and write on something else then. I wish Anya hadn't died. I wish that the writers would have left open the possibilities for her finding herself and doing big things in the world. I feel that, given some time to find herself, Anya would have been quite a force. It wasn't that she was without talents--she was always far more intelligent than anyone gave her credit for, she had financial drive and sense, and she obviously has a wealth of experiences--she just didn't have any reason or confidence to do much with her gifts. I think she got shortchanged in the end.
I will leave up to you, dear reader, to decide whether or not Anya can be seen as a personified metaphor for the difficult road women have to walk to find themselves in a world where they are expected to define themselves by the men around them. I think she can be read that way. I also think she deserved better in the end.
I'll be back tomorrow with my Least Favorite Female Character. Which means I have 24 hours to decide who that is. A March Madness-style bracket may be in order for this one.
Monday, February 11, 2013
30 Days of Buffy and Feminism Day 3
Day 3: Favorite Song Used in an Episode
This one isn't going to be feminist-rant-y, it's just a fun one. And yes, I am picking two of the obvious choices, but I don't care.
"Wild Horses" by the Sundays ("The Prom") and "Goodbye To You" by Michelle Branch ("Tabula Rasa")
This cover of The Rolling Stones' Wild Horses in in "The Prom" (I really need to get off season 3). I absolutely love "The Prom". And in itself it isn't a great episode--the bad guy is pretty uninteresting and Buffy's reaction to Angel breaking things off annoys me every time. But the scene at the end with this song? I cry every time. In fact, I'm just listening to the song and IMAGINING that scene right now and I'm crying. It's amazing that anything could give the Stones' version of this song a run for its money--I love The Rolling Stones and this is one of my favorites of theirs--but I often can't decide which version I like better. Yep, I'm totally crying all over my keyboard right now. And it's only going to get worse....
I tried really hard to find a video of this song that actually showed the scenes in "Tabula Rasa" it's played over. It's really not the same without the images. Now let me be a hipster for a minute: I loved this song before it was on Buffy. I mourned my first major crush by listening to Michelle Branch's album The Spirit Room over and over and over again when I was in the seventh grade. Granted, I didn't watch this show for the first time until last year, so I don't know how much room I have to talk. This song brought all of those first-broken-heart memories flooding back. Plus the scenes it's actually played over are heartbreaking without any help. This is another song that makes me cry without fail. Every time she belts out "I want you but I'm not giving in this time" I start to tear up.. As much as I love "Once More With Feeling" I think I might actually like "Tabula Rasa" more, and I think that has a lot to do with this song.
Well, that was actually more depressing than I intended it to be! Tomorrow will be a fun day--we'll be discussing my favorite female character. I think my choice might surprise you.
This one isn't going to be feminist-rant-y, it's just a fun one. And yes, I am picking two of the obvious choices, but I don't care.
"Wild Horses" by the Sundays ("The Prom") and "Goodbye To You" by Michelle Branch ("Tabula Rasa")
Well, that was actually more depressing than I intended it to be! Tomorrow will be a fun day--we'll be discussing my favorite female character. I think my choice might surprise you.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
30 Days of Buffy and Feminism Day 2
Day 2: Favorite Season
Oops! I mixed up the first two prompts--I was definitely supposed to do this one yesterday. But oh well, the two of them tie together so it works fine. So! Here we go.
Season 3
Honorable mentions go to Season 5, Season 1 and Season 2. I really love the high school seasons, guys.
First, the non-feminist reason for liking 3. It has a great story arc, one of the best Big Bads, and introduces some of my favorite characters and actually gives them stuff to do (Faith! Anya!). Plus it has some great episodes, like Band Candy, Enemies, and The Prom. This season is like chicken soup for me--when I'm sick or feeling down this is the automatic re-watch season for me.
Now, onto the feminist reasons. I talked yesterday about the Madona/whore dichotomy as relates to Buffy and Faith. That's a big huge theme throughout these episodes. But today I want to talk about another aspect of this show's feminism: patriarchal figures and institutions.
We finally see the Watcher's Council in full force this season in a number of different ways. In "Revelations" we see the first female watcher we are aware of and her subsequent evilness and downfall. In "Helpless" we see one of the many ways in which the Council attempts to control Slayers, and even put their lives in danger. And then Wesley shows up--another male Watcher that means to control the Slayer--and his actions as a surrogate of the Council causes Buffy to finally say she's had enough and break with them.
We also see the very obvious father-daughter relationship between Buffy and Giles this season. "Helpless" is an especially relevant episode here. When Buffy's father breaks tradition by not showing up to take her to the Icecapades for her birthday, she implies a desire for Giles to take her instead, revealing that she sees him as a father figure. He later betrays this trust by revealing to her that he aided the Council in temporarily taking away her power to test her. But, in the end of this episode he is fired by the Watchers Council. It is indicative of Buffy's trust in him that she not only keeps her on as her Watcher after this, but also after she denounces the Council in "Graduation Day Part 1".
Another father-daughter relationship fostered within a patriarchal institution is the development of familiarity between Faith and the Mayor. The Mayor here--a metaphor for oppressive government institutions throughout the whole season--does have a fondness for Faith and a trust that is very much mutual between them. It is interesting--and ironic, perhaps--that the Madonna in the Buffy/Faith Madonna/Whore complex does end up standing up against her patriarchal institution while Faith--the whore--does continue to work faithfully (no pun intended) for the Mayor until she is put into a coma.
Of course, Buffy gets a two-fer here. She breaks with the Council over tradition and kills the Mayor in a span of a few days. Score one for the powerful ladies!
The Watchers Council does show up again in Season 5 where Buffy shuts them out for good, but after being told by several different members of the Council (Wesley and Quentin Travers) that things have been "done this way for millennia" she does decide to no longer recognize their authority. Guess what else has been doing the same thing for millennia? The patriarchy!
All in all, I love this season because it gives us a few different dynamics to feminism and how it can screw people up. I also love it because we get to see Giles listening to Cream and smoking cigarettes. But that's neither here nor there.
Oops! I mixed up the first two prompts--I was definitely supposed to do this one yesterday. But oh well, the two of them tie together so it works fine. So! Here we go.
Season 3
Honorable mentions go to Season 5, Season 1 and Season 2. I really love the high school seasons, guys.
First, the non-feminist reason for liking 3. It has a great story arc, one of the best Big Bads, and introduces some of my favorite characters and actually gives them stuff to do (Faith! Anya!). Plus it has some great episodes, like Band Candy, Enemies, and The Prom. This season is like chicken soup for me--when I'm sick or feeling down this is the automatic re-watch season for me.
Now, onto the feminist reasons. I talked yesterday about the Madona/whore dichotomy as relates to Buffy and Faith. That's a big huge theme throughout these episodes. But today I want to talk about another aspect of this show's feminism: patriarchal figures and institutions.
We finally see the Watcher's Council in full force this season in a number of different ways. In "Revelations" we see the first female watcher we are aware of and her subsequent evilness and downfall. In "Helpless" we see one of the many ways in which the Council attempts to control Slayers, and even put their lives in danger. And then Wesley shows up--another male Watcher that means to control the Slayer--and his actions as a surrogate of the Council causes Buffy to finally say she's had enough and break with them.
We also see the very obvious father-daughter relationship between Buffy and Giles this season. "Helpless" is an especially relevant episode here. When Buffy's father breaks tradition by not showing up to take her to the Icecapades for her birthday, she implies a desire for Giles to take her instead, revealing that she sees him as a father figure. He later betrays this trust by revealing to her that he aided the Council in temporarily taking away her power to test her. But, in the end of this episode he is fired by the Watchers Council. It is indicative of Buffy's trust in him that she not only keeps her on as her Watcher after this, but also after she denounces the Council in "Graduation Day Part 1".
Another father-daughter relationship fostered within a patriarchal institution is the development of familiarity between Faith and the Mayor. The Mayor here--a metaphor for oppressive government institutions throughout the whole season--does have a fondness for Faith and a trust that is very much mutual between them. It is interesting--and ironic, perhaps--that the Madonna in the Buffy/Faith Madonna/Whore complex does end up standing up against her patriarchal institution while Faith--the whore--does continue to work faithfully (no pun intended) for the Mayor until she is put into a coma.
Of course, Buffy gets a two-fer here. She breaks with the Council over tradition and kills the Mayor in a span of a few days. Score one for the powerful ladies!
The Watchers Council does show up again in Season 5 where Buffy shuts them out for good, but after being told by several different members of the Council (Wesley and Quentin Travers) that things have been "done this way for millennia" she does decide to no longer recognize their authority. Guess what else has been doing the same thing for millennia? The patriarchy!
All in all, I love this season because it gives us a few different dynamics to feminism and how it can screw people up. I also love it because we get to see Giles listening to Cream and smoking cigarettes. But that's neither here nor there.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
30 Days of Buffy and Feminism Day 1
Day 1: Favorite Episode
Okay, I cheated a little on this one. I picked a two-parter. But I love this episode and it perfectly encapsulates what I want to talk about here. Sooo...
3x21 and 3x22 Graduation Day (Part 1 and 2)
Others include...God, a lot of them. Here are other picks from every season: "Nightmares", "Passion", "Band Candy", "Hush" and "Fear Itself", "Fool for Love", "Tabula Rasa" and "Selfless"
There are two things at work here that I really like. One, we have the fight between Faith and Buffy that we've been working up to all season. Second, we have the entire graduating class of Sunnydale High banding together to kick some ass.
First, I want to talk about Buffy and Faith. For those not familiar with the Madonna/whore dichotomy, let me talk about that for a second. It was a tenet within theories of sex essentialism that became popularized in the early 20th century. The idea is simple: there are two types of women in the world and every woman can be separated into them. Madonnas are feminine, nurturing, caring, motherly, protective, and virtuous. Whores are masculine, aggressive, strong-willed, and sexually liberated. I think you know where I'm going with this.
Buffy is a Madonna. She had sex one time and got punished for it, and she has remained chaste besides. She is protective, and it's clear in episodes like "Bad Girls" and "Faith, Hope and Trick" that she acts like she doesn't enjoy the rush she gets from slaying when she really does. She's even blonde, dresses in a feminine manner a lot of the time, and is the Good Slayer for the second half of the third season. Faith, on the other hand, is open with how much she enjoys slaying. She is sexually aggressive and open about promiscuity. She dresses in a more masculine fashion (when the Mayor buys her a pink dress she declares it not her style). She's dark-haired and often dresses in dark clothes. Faith is supposed to be the embodiment of the Whore stereotype. I think the writer does a good job of making both of these characters more complex and refuting the dichotomy, but we'll get to that in a later post.
Buffy crosses over to the Dark Side a bit here, though. After Angel is shot with a poison dart and can only be cured by drinking the blood of a slayer, she decides to go kill Faith. Remember that earlier in this season there was a lot of talk in the Scooby Gang about how terrible taking a human life is and how it "changes you forever". And yet, Buffy goes to kill Faith and in the end stabs her in the stomach. Buffy became violent, aggressive, and dark--and crosses over from Madonna. Then she goes to Angel and gets him to drink her blood in a scene that is one of the clearest sexual metaphors in this entire show. Buffy disputes the dichotomy completely in one episode--she attempts to kill Faith, but still saves all of Sunnydale in just the next episode.
The Mayor is a great villain. And watching him go down is still one of the most enjoyable experiences of the entire show. The whole graduating class gets together to defeat the Mayor! Cordelia even gets to dust a vampire! The school gets blown up! And Buffy uses her near murder of Faith as a weapon to do good. Thus begging the question: is it truly possible to be a Madonna and a Whore at the same time?
Though I still think Oz had a great idea with his chase-the-Mayor-with-hummus plan.
Okay, I cheated a little on this one. I picked a two-parter. But I love this episode and it perfectly encapsulates what I want to talk about here. Sooo...
3x21 and 3x22 Graduation Day (Part 1 and 2)
Others include...God, a lot of them. Here are other picks from every season: "Nightmares", "Passion", "Band Candy", "Hush" and "Fear Itself", "Fool for Love", "Tabula Rasa" and "Selfless"
There are two things at work here that I really like. One, we have the fight between Faith and Buffy that we've been working up to all season. Second, we have the entire graduating class of Sunnydale High banding together to kick some ass.
First, I want to talk about Buffy and Faith. For those not familiar with the Madonna/whore dichotomy, let me talk about that for a second. It was a tenet within theories of sex essentialism that became popularized in the early 20th century. The idea is simple: there are two types of women in the world and every woman can be separated into them. Madonnas are feminine, nurturing, caring, motherly, protective, and virtuous. Whores are masculine, aggressive, strong-willed, and sexually liberated. I think you know where I'm going with this.
Buffy is a Madonna. She had sex one time and got punished for it, and she has remained chaste besides. She is protective, and it's clear in episodes like "Bad Girls" and "Faith, Hope and Trick" that she acts like she doesn't enjoy the rush she gets from slaying when she really does. She's even blonde, dresses in a feminine manner a lot of the time, and is the Good Slayer for the second half of the third season. Faith, on the other hand, is open with how much she enjoys slaying. She is sexually aggressive and open about promiscuity. She dresses in a more masculine fashion (when the Mayor buys her a pink dress she declares it not her style). She's dark-haired and often dresses in dark clothes. Faith is supposed to be the embodiment of the Whore stereotype. I think the writer does a good job of making both of these characters more complex and refuting the dichotomy, but we'll get to that in a later post.
Buffy crosses over to the Dark Side a bit here, though. After Angel is shot with a poison dart and can only be cured by drinking the blood of a slayer, she decides to go kill Faith. Remember that earlier in this season there was a lot of talk in the Scooby Gang about how terrible taking a human life is and how it "changes you forever". And yet, Buffy goes to kill Faith and in the end stabs her in the stomach. Buffy became violent, aggressive, and dark--and crosses over from Madonna. Then she goes to Angel and gets him to drink her blood in a scene that is one of the clearest sexual metaphors in this entire show. Buffy disputes the dichotomy completely in one episode--she attempts to kill Faith, but still saves all of Sunnydale in just the next episode.
The Mayor is a great villain. And watching him go down is still one of the most enjoyable experiences of the entire show. The whole graduating class gets together to defeat the Mayor! Cordelia even gets to dust a vampire! The school gets blown up! And Buffy uses her near murder of Faith as a weapon to do good. Thus begging the question: is it truly possible to be a Madonna and a Whore at the same time?
Though I still think Oz had a great idea with his chase-the-Mayor-with-hummus plan.
30 Days of Buffy and Feminism
So I've been gone awhile, huh? Well, I'm going to get back into blogging with one of my favorite topics: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and feminism. This meme has been floating around Tumblr, and there are a few different versions that I've found. I may try to do all the different ones I can find so this may go longer than 30 days. A few disclaimers before I get started.
1. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. Most likely for all 7 seasons at one point or another. So if you haven't watched all of the show, don't read this until you do. I don't want to ruin this show for you.
2. Speaking of 7 seasons, the only canon I am using for this is the TV show. I have not read any of the comics that could be considered canon and I have not watched all of Angel yet (I know, I'm working on it!) so none of that will make appearances here. So if I miss something about a character that happens in Angel, it's because I'm only working off seasons 1-7 of Buffy.
3. Not all of this is going to be feminist ranting, there will be some days that I just have fun with it. But be warned, there will also be a lot of instances of Reading Too Much Into It and Taking This Shit Too Seriously. I am not only using Buffy as entertainment here but also as a sociological and cultural lens. Note that there is a reason for choosing this show as subject for a feminist blog. The creator, Joss Whedon, has discussed many times how feminist he is and how feminist this show is. I agree with that in some ways more than others, but we'll get to that in the next month.
4. I want my readers to participate! I want comments. If you have your own blog and you want to do this meme, let me know and I will link to it here.
5. A lot of the times I'm not going to necessarily pick my first choice for something, I'm going to be picking an unexpected choice. For example, who doesn't love Willow and Tara together or the episode Once More With Feeling? I'll give a few runners-up or alternate choices for everything, though.
6. I have a LOT of controversial opinions about this show. You have been warned.
Okay, I'm going to post my Day 1 thoughts in a bit, so stay tuned!
1. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. Most likely for all 7 seasons at one point or another. So if you haven't watched all of the show, don't read this until you do. I don't want to ruin this show for you.
2. Speaking of 7 seasons, the only canon I am using for this is the TV show. I have not read any of the comics that could be considered canon and I have not watched all of Angel yet (I know, I'm working on it!) so none of that will make appearances here. So if I miss something about a character that happens in Angel, it's because I'm only working off seasons 1-7 of Buffy.
3. Not all of this is going to be feminist ranting, there will be some days that I just have fun with it. But be warned, there will also be a lot of instances of Reading Too Much Into It and Taking This Shit Too Seriously. I am not only using Buffy as entertainment here but also as a sociological and cultural lens. Note that there is a reason for choosing this show as subject for a feminist blog. The creator, Joss Whedon, has discussed many times how feminist he is and how feminist this show is. I agree with that in some ways more than others, but we'll get to that in the next month.
4. I want my readers to participate! I want comments. If you have your own blog and you want to do this meme, let me know and I will link to it here.
5. A lot of the times I'm not going to necessarily pick my first choice for something, I'm going to be picking an unexpected choice. For example, who doesn't love Willow and Tara together or the episode Once More With Feeling? I'll give a few runners-up or alternate choices for everything, though.
6. I have a LOT of controversial opinions about this show. You have been warned.
Okay, I'm going to post my Day 1 thoughts in a bit, so stay tuned!
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Rape Jokes and the Humorless Feminist
"How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"
"Not funny."
My friends are really really fond of that joke. I can't explain why because--and I see the irony here--I just don't find it funny. I guess the idea of the "humorless feminist" is deeply planted in the minds of the American public--we don't find anything funny, everything offends us, we're uptight and buzzkilling and we hate comedy and testicles. I'm here to tell you that's bullshit. There are a number of entirely offensive comedians and movies and TV shows that I find hilarious: Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin, the occasional episode of South Park, plenty of guys that just talk about dicks all the time. I get it, it's comedy and if it's done cleverly and correctly it's funny. I even sit through the occasional episode of Tosh.0. Well, I used to, anyway--no longer.
Many of you may have heard about this already, but if not, allow me to explain. Now, here is the whole story according to the Tumblr account, half of which is entirely ignored by the Huffington Post article.
A woman and her friend were trying to decide what to do one night and her friend suggested they go see a comedy show. They decided that it sounded like fun, and there were several comedians performing that night. Dane Cook was the only one they recognized, so they went deciding to give the people they hadn't heard of a chance. One of those people was Daniel Tosh--who it would be easy to have never heard of if you hadn't seen his show--and they quickly discovered they'd made a mistake.
So apparently Tosh asked the audience what they wanted him to talk about (this is according to the comedy club manager, who may very well be entirely clueless) and the audience responded "rape!" which is...a whole other thing that needs to be talked about. So after Tosh goes on and on about how rape is hilarious this woman got upset, which is entirely her right, and called out that she didn't ever think that rape is funny. It wasn't that she called him a douche while she did it or told him that his face is stupid or walked up to the stage and threw a baseball at his crotch. That was all she said.
He proceeded to--depending on which source you believe--either talk about how hilarious it would be if she specifically were raped by five guys RIGHT THEN, or say that she sounded like she'd been raped by five guys. Either way...well, come on, let's think about this.
I made the mistake of reading the comments on that Huffington Post article. DO NOT MAKE MY MISTAKES. There are a few points at play here and I want to address them all.
I want to get the First Amendment thing out of the way here before anything else because I'm sick of this "it's a free country!" argument. No one, including the woman who was told it would be hilarious if she was gang-raped, is claiming that Tosh should be put in jail for what he said. He had every right to make jokes about rape, she had every right to stand up and say something, and he had every right to respond. But the First Amendment doesn't come without consequences, and she had every right to go out and tell whoever she wanted about what happened. I don't want this guy to have to pay a fine, go to jail, or even have his show cancelled because of what happened. But I have every right to criticize him for saying what he said, and so I will. He can go right on ahead and keep making rape jokes but I'm going to keep on finding him disgusting for it.
I have seen many people--including people I know--say that he should be free to say what he wants and she knew what she was getting into by going to a comedy club and heckling him. That still DOES NOT MAKE IT OKAY. Is it less bad than if this exchange had happened on the street? Maybe. But he still told a woman it would be funny if she got raped, and there is nothing funny about that. She went to the show--as is said in the article--without knowing who he was. I don't think "oh, it's a comedy club, he can say the most offensive thing he wants" excuses the fact that we, as a culture, condone that kind of behavior from stand-up comedians.
I'm going to Aaron Sorkin out here a bit for a second, so just bear with me. Prepare for dewy-eyed optimism about how we're better than this.
When did we get to the point where just saying the most "edgy" (read: offensive) thing you can possibly think of is comedy? With no context? I mean his bit appears to literally have been "haha rape is so funny." No, it isn't. George Carlin has been brought up a lot in the discussion about this incident, and I'll agree with what he said about any subject being funny if you put it on its head and put it in a context of social criticism. Since when were we all just playing to the lowest common denominator and yelling "Dead babies! People falling over! The Holocaust! Rape!" and suddenly it's just comedy?
There are rape jokes that are funny. I'm going to post a video of one below. Please be so kind as to skip ahead to 15:45 in this video. End at about 17:30.
Now this joke is funny because it turns the societal expectation on its head. He talks about how absurd it would be if he, as a man, had to worry about being raped all the time and how unlikely the circumstances would be if he were raped. That is societal commentary, and it's still funny. It's not just "HAHA RAPE!" and that's the joke.
Which brings me to another point. The Daniel Tosh incident--and male comedians making fun of rape in general--is a male privilege issue. Yes, it is. Rape can be hilarious to you if you don't have to worry about it all the time. You can make jokes about it without having to be concerned with the reality of it. Saying to a woman that it would be funny if she got raped or that she only thinks a joke isn't funny is because she got raped is actually scary. It could actually happen. That woman could really have been a rape survivor. And that's what truly makes it gross.
Now, are there off-color female comedians, too? Absolutely. Someone in the dreaded Huffo comments brought up Lisa Lampanelli, who I am personally not a fan of at all, and how offensive she can be. And you're right, we should not get a free pass for being women just like men shouldn't get a free pass for being men. Comedy continues to be an old boys' club, unfortunately. Adam Carrolla was kind enough to point out just how un-funny women are--in another statement of hilaaaarious racism and sexism--a few weeks ago. There is a LOT of sexism in comedy, from the fact that women and rape are the butt of so many jokes to the fact that female comedians often get stuck talking about tampons and how much dating sucks if they want to sell at all.
I am sick of hearing that women--especially feminists--are not funny or that we're entirely humorless. I don't find things funny that I can relate to in no way, shape or form and that's what so much of male-centric comedy is, especially when it involves rape. I cannot FATHOM finding the word "rape" funny when it's just tossed out there. Because that joke isn't for me, it's for all the frat guys who want to feel edgy and guffaw at something that doesn't require them to think. Why SHOULD I find that funny? It wasn't intended for me.
Daniel Tosh released a half-assed "apology" over Twitter and I'm sure his fanbase will not change at all because they didn't care in the first place. I know I won't be watching him again. He has made it clear that I am not his desired audience, and I don't find him funny anymore at all after that. I want to be optimistic enough to believe that this will at least start a conversation, but I doubt it--this frat boy culture is apparently pretty powerful and lucrative, so I'm not hopeful for too much examination. I just want to say that I do find lots of things funny--even farts, and even jokes about boobs, and even swearing and penises and on a rare occasion or two even Dane Cook. But when women, and feminists especially, are the joke, how are we supposed to laugh for the ten millionth time? It gets exhausting.
And a word of advice to comedians: If you can't pull off the rape joke, just don't even try. It just comes off as sad.
"Not funny."
My friends are really really fond of that joke. I can't explain why because--and I see the irony here--I just don't find it funny. I guess the idea of the "humorless feminist" is deeply planted in the minds of the American public--we don't find anything funny, everything offends us, we're uptight and buzzkilling and we hate comedy and testicles. I'm here to tell you that's bullshit. There are a number of entirely offensive comedians and movies and TV shows that I find hilarious: Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin, the occasional episode of South Park, plenty of guys that just talk about dicks all the time. I get it, it's comedy and if it's done cleverly and correctly it's funny. I even sit through the occasional episode of Tosh.0. Well, I used to, anyway--no longer.
Many of you may have heard about this already, but if not, allow me to explain. Now, here is the whole story according to the Tumblr account, half of which is entirely ignored by the Huffington Post article.
A woman and her friend were trying to decide what to do one night and her friend suggested they go see a comedy show. They decided that it sounded like fun, and there were several comedians performing that night. Dane Cook was the only one they recognized, so they went deciding to give the people they hadn't heard of a chance. One of those people was Daniel Tosh--who it would be easy to have never heard of if you hadn't seen his show--and they quickly discovered they'd made a mistake.
So apparently Tosh asked the audience what they wanted him to talk about (this is according to the comedy club manager, who may very well be entirely clueless) and the audience responded "rape!" which is...a whole other thing that needs to be talked about. So after Tosh goes on and on about how rape is hilarious this woman got upset, which is entirely her right, and called out that she didn't ever think that rape is funny. It wasn't that she called him a douche while she did it or told him that his face is stupid or walked up to the stage and threw a baseball at his crotch. That was all she said.
He proceeded to--depending on which source you believe--either talk about how hilarious it would be if she specifically were raped by five guys RIGHT THEN, or say that she sounded like she'd been raped by five guys. Either way...well, come on, let's think about this.
I made the mistake of reading the comments on that Huffington Post article. DO NOT MAKE MY MISTAKES. There are a few points at play here and I want to address them all.
I want to get the First Amendment thing out of the way here before anything else because I'm sick of this "it's a free country!" argument. No one, including the woman who was told it would be hilarious if she was gang-raped, is claiming that Tosh should be put in jail for what he said. He had every right to make jokes about rape, she had every right to stand up and say something, and he had every right to respond. But the First Amendment doesn't come without consequences, and she had every right to go out and tell whoever she wanted about what happened. I don't want this guy to have to pay a fine, go to jail, or even have his show cancelled because of what happened. But I have every right to criticize him for saying what he said, and so I will. He can go right on ahead and keep making rape jokes but I'm going to keep on finding him disgusting for it.
I have seen many people--including people I know--say that he should be free to say what he wants and she knew what she was getting into by going to a comedy club and heckling him. That still DOES NOT MAKE IT OKAY. Is it less bad than if this exchange had happened on the street? Maybe. But he still told a woman it would be funny if she got raped, and there is nothing funny about that. She went to the show--as is said in the article--without knowing who he was. I don't think "oh, it's a comedy club, he can say the most offensive thing he wants" excuses the fact that we, as a culture, condone that kind of behavior from stand-up comedians.
I'm going to Aaron Sorkin out here a bit for a second, so just bear with me. Prepare for dewy-eyed optimism about how we're better than this.
When did we get to the point where just saying the most "edgy" (read: offensive) thing you can possibly think of is comedy? With no context? I mean his bit appears to literally have been "haha rape is so funny." No, it isn't. George Carlin has been brought up a lot in the discussion about this incident, and I'll agree with what he said about any subject being funny if you put it on its head and put it in a context of social criticism. Since when were we all just playing to the lowest common denominator and yelling "Dead babies! People falling over! The Holocaust! Rape!" and suddenly it's just comedy?
There are rape jokes that are funny. I'm going to post a video of one below. Please be so kind as to skip ahead to 15:45 in this video. End at about 17:30.
Which brings me to another point. The Daniel Tosh incident--and male comedians making fun of rape in general--is a male privilege issue. Yes, it is. Rape can be hilarious to you if you don't have to worry about it all the time. You can make jokes about it without having to be concerned with the reality of it. Saying to a woman that it would be funny if she got raped or that she only thinks a joke isn't funny is because she got raped is actually scary. It could actually happen. That woman could really have been a rape survivor. And that's what truly makes it gross.
Now, are there off-color female comedians, too? Absolutely. Someone in the dreaded Huffo comments brought up Lisa Lampanelli, who I am personally not a fan of at all, and how offensive she can be. And you're right, we should not get a free pass for being women just like men shouldn't get a free pass for being men. Comedy continues to be an old boys' club, unfortunately. Adam Carrolla was kind enough to point out just how un-funny women are--in another statement of hilaaaarious racism and sexism--a few weeks ago. There is a LOT of sexism in comedy, from the fact that women and rape are the butt of so many jokes to the fact that female comedians often get stuck talking about tampons and how much dating sucks if they want to sell at all.
I am sick of hearing that women--especially feminists--are not funny or that we're entirely humorless. I don't find things funny that I can relate to in no way, shape or form and that's what so much of male-centric comedy is, especially when it involves rape. I cannot FATHOM finding the word "rape" funny when it's just tossed out there. Because that joke isn't for me, it's for all the frat guys who want to feel edgy and guffaw at something that doesn't require them to think. Why SHOULD I find that funny? It wasn't intended for me.
Daniel Tosh released a half-assed "apology" over Twitter and I'm sure his fanbase will not change at all because they didn't care in the first place. I know I won't be watching him again. He has made it clear that I am not his desired audience, and I don't find him funny anymore at all after that. I want to be optimistic enough to believe that this will at least start a conversation, but I doubt it--this frat boy culture is apparently pretty powerful and lucrative, so I'm not hopeful for too much examination. I just want to say that I do find lots of things funny--even farts, and even jokes about boobs, and even swearing and penises and on a rare occasion or two even Dane Cook. But when women, and feminists especially, are the joke, how are we supposed to laugh for the ten millionth time? It gets exhausting.
And a word of advice to comedians: If you can't pull off the rape joke, just don't even try. It just comes off as sad.
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