Geeking Out

I have a friend who has DVDs of The West Wing, and I borrowed them because I was feeling nostalgic.

They're really bad. I mean I'm really nostalgic about the characters, and I'm into the early Josh/Donna moments (my dirty secret is that I'm a total 'shipper), but the politics sucks. I don't just mean that the politics on the show sucks - because that's nothing if not realistic. But the politics of the show are awful, in particular when women are treated like shit it is portrayed as if it's romantic. And lets not even get into the nationalism, because it makes me want to throw-up.

But despite the terribleness, watching The West Wing makes me sad. I miss having a TV show to watch. I miss looking forward to Monday (or Thursday, or whatever). I miss that feeling of rightness that you get from a great episode when character and theme comes together in a way that only works if you know and love the people on the show.

It's all Joss's fault.

I keep on hearing about these shows other people watch and enjoy: House and Veronica Mars have rather large fan-bases. But every time I've watched House I just can't handle the misogyny, and the way the only female character is treated (as a weak girl). Veronica Mars doesn't have any female friends, I'd rather watch a show about men than a show about a woman without any female friends.

No Joss has set too high standards, he has shown that a show can be really good, and not offend me every second of the day. And I can no longer watch the rest of the crap.

So in honour of the greatness of Joss I've made a list of the top 5 most feminist episodes of Buffy, and just to show I've realised it wasn't all destroying phalluses and overturning stereotypes I've also listed the top 5 least feminist episodes of Buffy.

Now my defintition of feminist is actually quite specific. I believe the ideal for feminist art is to tell the truth about women's lives and then to explore the ways that women can change those situations if they work together. Now Buffy never did that all in one episode, but the episodes I list covered up those different angles pretty well.

5 Most Feminist Episodes of Buffy

5. The Witch: Now I think Buffy has a lot of problems as it comes to body image issues. But this episode manages to capture some of the relationships between mothers, daughters and food, so perfectly. The mother who takes control of her daughter's body in order to relive her youth - well it's not really a metaphor.

4. Innocence: "I designed this show to be a feminist show, not a polemic, but a straight out feminist show. The moment where she kicks him in the balls is very important, very primal" OK that's from memory - but it's Joss on the Innocence commentary. To me the feminism here is very simple, it says women's lives, and the way men treat them, are important, it says we're worth fighting for. It also says that we're strong enough to win.

3. I Was Made to Love You: It's not the only episode where the misogyny of our society is represented in robot form, but I think it's the best. It does an amazing job of showing the world-view of men who view women as objects created to please them, and it also demonstrated how much those ideas are part of our everyday culture. The end where Buffy stays with April as she her batteries wind down is really beautiful.

2. Anne: Most people really don't like this episode, and I can see why, subtlety is not it's strong point. But I really love it, and I think the reason I really love it is the strength and resonance of the politics. Buffy ran away, and has spent her time in Los Angeles losing herself - she calls herself Anne. The scene where the guy she's waitressing on hits her on the ass, and there's nothing she can do, works for me on so many levels. On the most basic level it's an experience that too many women have to put up with everyday. In terms of the story it shows how much Buffy had to loose herself in order to survive.

Then another woman comes to her for help, and she reluctantly engages with the world. This leads her to a succesful slave revolt under a hammer and sickle (this is definately the nearest Buffy came to socialist feminism). She starts by reasserting who she is: "I'm Buffy, the vampire slayer, and you are?" and reclaims her strength. She doesn't do any of this as an individual, she does it with Lily, and as they fight together, they both grow stronger.

Probably it's also true that the idea of only being able to find yourself, and fight for yourself when you're fighting for other people resonates really strongly with me (then there's the Gandhi joke, which is probably my all-time favourite Buffy joke).

1. Restless: Joss uses the dreams in this episode to comment on ideas about gender pretty consistently, which makes it one of the most interesting to analyse from a feminist perspective ("lets make a fort" "I'll get the cushions"). In commenting on gender I think the show reasserts a really important idea, which is that it's entirely consistent for women to value traditionally feminine things, and for fight for access to what has traditionally masculine.

To me, that's what Buffy's speech to the first slayer brings to mind: "I walk. I talk. I shop. I sneeze. I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back. There's trees in the desert since you moved out. And I don't sleep on a bed of bones. Now give me back my friends."

Honourary Mention: Chosen - It was really hard not including this episode in the top 5. The shot where the girl in the trailer stands up is my favourite shot of all time, and it makes me cry every time I see it (I'm kind of tearing up just thinking about). From the beginning of the episode where Buffy cuts the misogynist creep in half through his balls, to the cookie dough speech which points out that a women's destiny isn't in her boyfriend, to the sharing of the power, to the end where she gets to be happy and imagine a life with potential, most of this episode is an amazing fulfilment of everything that made this show so special for me.

But...

You can reasonably read this episode to believe that Buffy has sex with the man who tried to rape her. She then tells him he loves her, and he tells her she's wrong about her feelings, just before he heroically burns up to save the world (if only he'd actually died). Not so much with the feminism there.

5 Least Feminist episodes of Buffy

5. Reptile Boy If you go to frat parties and drink then they'll drug you and sacrifice you to their Gods. A reasonably true representation of reality, possibly. But this reality is only worth repeating if you're also making sure you say that it's not the woman's fault for 'getting into that sitaution'.

4. Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered It's OK to make people be sexual with you without their consent, as long as you don't have sex with them (in fact not having sex with them makes you noble) and there are wacky hijinks.

3. Lullaby Ok I know this is actually an Angel episode, but it flew from one franchise to another powered on nothing but it's own misogyny, so I had to include it. The plot is that Darla is pregnant with Angel's child, and having a good human being inside her has stopped her from being evil. It looks like the child will not survive giving birth so Darla stakes her (evil) self in order that her (good) child can live.

I watched this episode with my friend Betsy and said "wow everyone who had anything to do with this episode must have hated women with a firey passion."

2. Some Season Seven Episode I don't know which season 7 episode Buffy started being all "I don't care that he tried to rape me, because he has a soul now", and don't care enough to find out. But here's the thing Buffy writers: if your show is to have any meaning it must have emotional resonance (and rocket launchers). I can't think of anything in the real world that would resemble the way this whole plot line was done that wouldn't be a deeply unfeminist.

1. Seeing Red I think this is one of the stronger episodes of season 6, and if every episode of Buffy that came after it disappeared from existence then I wouldn't have a problem with it. But they had a rape plot entirely for the effect it would have on the rapist. It's the sort of feminism that's not.

I'm sure I have many readers who also have opinions on feminism and Buffy - what are your best and worst?