Joss is My Master, But..
Jun. 8th, 2009 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ranrataHuh. I meant to make a post about Time of Your Life (which was so many levels of awesome), but I stumbled upon an unusually sane post about critiques of Joss Whedon's works. There was no "lalalala he's not a feminist and all he does is made of suck" or "lalalala Joss is my master and his work is the perfect paragon of ~superior~ to feminism." So, uh, obligatory post about things I've noticed about Whedon's works that bother me.
I admit, on the Angel stuff I could be wrong, because I only watched part of S5 and otherwise just read about the show.
That Race Thing
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is very white. Ridiculously so. Kendra (black) gets bumped off after her second appearance, and then we get Faith. (I love Faith, but the point stands: white.) We see a Chinese and another black slayer in flashbacks who are, obviously, killed by Spike. Giles' ~special friend~, Olivia, is black, but never really does anything ever. S7 there's Principal Wood (black), who's a regular. There's a gazillion slayers gathered at Buffy's house, but there were, what, two who weren't white?
Season 8 brings two new slayers who are pretty prominent, Satsu (Japanese) and Renee (black). Renee gets bumped off, and Satsu is now working off-screen. Yay?
I think Gunn (black) is about it for Angel...
Firefly had Zoe and Book (both black) in the main cast. But no Chinese characters. Which is extra odd, considering Kaylee was supposed to be Chinese originally. And, you know, China is one of the two world powers and everyone swears in Chinese and signs are written...in Chinese.
Dr. Horrible was white-tastic.
Dollhouse probably has the best track record. Boyd (black) and Sierra (Asian) are part of the main cast, and Loomis (black) and Ivy (Asian) are recurring.
Dead Girlfriend
I just noticed this, but unless I'm missing something, Whedon always kills the girlfriend, but not the boyfriend. (With the sole exception of Wash.)
Miss Calendar? Dead. Tara? Dead. Anya? Dead. Cordelia? Dead. Fred? Dead. (LOL rhyme.) Renee? Dead. But...Angel? Got his own show. Oz? Came back, ran off again, will be making another return in S8. Riley? Made a cameo, returned again in S8. Spike? Resurrected to appear on Angel. Even that jerk whats-his-face Buffy slept with lived. Satsu's still alive...so far. Kennedy better watch her back, too.
Oh, and Penny? Dead.
EDIT: Oh, and Mellie's still alive. So far.
Sexuality
Sexy, kinky, and/or bisexual apparently = evil, warped, or disturbed. It's an old trope, but needs to die. (Wouldn't a prudish villain be amazing? And potentially lolertastic?) Obvious examples: Spike, Angelus, and Drusilla; vamp!Willow. (In contrast, regular!Willow is strictly "gay now.") Buffy and Spike in S6. Faith. Only Xander and Anya are very lightly, and very jokingly implied to engage in kinks. (Spanking?)
Lesbian characters are a-okay: Willow, Tara, Kennedy. Even Buffy (the straightest straight girl who ever straighted) gets to be a little bicurious, plus heaps of intentional lesbian subtext between herself and Faith. Inara took on female clients, on-screen. Okay, awesome.
But gay men? Spike/Angelus is implied in one single line after several years. (Even though they're vamps, which equals evil, which equals bisexual!) And Giles/Ethan in the past is mentioned as a possibility only when the writers were directly questioned. (I wish I could find that quote...) Or else they're just jokes: whats-his-face that bullied Xander. (He gets eaten.) Andrew. (Seriously, Joss. Andrew needs to come out already. 100% gay now.I'm with Danny Strong, Warren was totally doing him.) Lorne. Hell, Xander-might-be-gay-teeheehee was a recurring joke, and it was a 50/50 chance whether it would be him or Willow who would come out. (The Dracula/Xander thing...seriously!? Gaaaay.)
That gay storyline for Dollhouse that didn't make it into S1? Better see it in S2. (Looking sideways and squinting, there was that guy with Whiskey and Alpha as part of his fantasy...) I get the network can be a douchenozzle, but if Whedon really wanted to pursue any of those storylines, he could. Hello, early Willow/Taranot-so-subtle subtext? Otherwise, it's coming off like he's just obsessed with lesbians.
I admit, on the Angel stuff I could be wrong, because I only watched part of S5 and otherwise just read about the show.
That Race Thing
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is very white. Ridiculously so. Kendra (black) gets bumped off after her second appearance, and then we get Faith. (I love Faith, but the point stands: white.) We see a Chinese and another black slayer in flashbacks who are, obviously, killed by Spike. Giles' ~special friend~, Olivia, is black, but never really does anything ever. S7 there's Principal Wood (black), who's a regular. There's a gazillion slayers gathered at Buffy's house, but there were, what, two who weren't white?
Season 8 brings two new slayers who are pretty prominent, Satsu (Japanese) and Renee (black). Renee gets bumped off, and Satsu is now working off-screen. Yay?
I think Gunn (black) is about it for Angel...
Firefly had Zoe and Book (both black) in the main cast. But no Chinese characters. Which is extra odd, considering Kaylee was supposed to be Chinese originally. And, you know, China is one of the two world powers and everyone swears in Chinese and signs are written...in Chinese.
Dr. Horrible was white-tastic.
Dollhouse probably has the best track record. Boyd (black) and Sierra (Asian) are part of the main cast, and Loomis (black) and Ivy (Asian) are recurring.
Dead Girlfriend
I just noticed this, but unless I'm missing something, Whedon always kills the girlfriend, but not the boyfriend. (With the sole exception of Wash.)
Miss Calendar? Dead. Tara? Dead. Anya? Dead. Cordelia? Dead. Fred? Dead. (LOL rhyme.) Renee? Dead. But...Angel? Got his own show. Oz? Came back, ran off again, will be making another return in S8. Riley? Made a cameo, returned again in S8. Spike? Resurrected to appear on Angel. Even that jerk whats-his-face Buffy slept with lived. Satsu's still alive...so far. Kennedy better watch her back, too.
Oh, and Penny? Dead.
EDIT: Oh, and Mellie's still alive. So far.
Sexuality
Sexy, kinky, and/or bisexual apparently = evil, warped, or disturbed. It's an old trope, but needs to die. (Wouldn't a prudish villain be amazing? And potentially lolertastic?) Obvious examples: Spike, Angelus, and Drusilla; vamp!Willow. (In contrast, regular!Willow is strictly "gay now.") Buffy and Spike in S6. Faith. Only Xander and Anya are very lightly, and very jokingly implied to engage in kinks. (Spanking?)
Lesbian characters are a-okay: Willow, Tara, Kennedy. Even Buffy (the straightest straight girl who ever straighted) gets to be a little bicurious, plus heaps of intentional lesbian subtext between herself and Faith. Inara took on female clients, on-screen. Okay, awesome.
But gay men? Spike/Angelus is implied in one single line after several years. (Even though they're vamps, which equals evil, which equals bisexual!) And Giles/Ethan in the past is mentioned as a possibility only when the writers were directly questioned. (I wish I could find that quote...) Or else they're just jokes: whats-his-face that bullied Xander. (He gets eaten.) Andrew. (Seriously, Joss. Andrew needs to come out already. 100% gay now.
That gay storyline for Dollhouse that didn't make it into S1? Better see it in S2. (Looking sideways and squinting, there was that guy with Whiskey and Alpha as part of his fantasy...) I get the network can be a douchenozzle, but if Whedon really wanted to pursue any of those storylines, he could. Hello, early Willow/Tara
I do agree about issue of race.
I've only watched Buffy, Angel and Dollhouse so I can't comment on the other shows, but I thought when Robin Wood appeared, that he was going to die. Mr. Trick died as well.
Dead Girlfriend
Agreed here as well, (You forgot Darla. She died, got resurrected and then I think she died again? I can't remember), but they did kill a few prominent male leads.
- Lindsay did die though (Lorne shot him).
- Doyle died by saving a group of people
- Ricky (Lily's aka Anne's boyfriend in Buffy. She later reappeared on Angel as Anne). Okay, Ricky is not significant, but I'm only mentioning him because Lily/Anne does appear in both Buffy and Angel).
Sexuality
Agreed. Although when someone did question Joss whether he was implying that Spike and Angel were attracted to each other sexually, he said yes (that he deliberately put the subtext in there) and any and all relationships (including Angel/Spike, Spike/Xander, etc) were plausible. I wish I could find that quote again. It would have been nice to have at least one gay male on the show, but I think on the majority of shows even today they're just nonexistent, which is a shame. I've noticed, however, that lesbians and bisexual women are somewhat more prominent on tv shows today. I think that's because most tv shows are run by men and they find lesbians or female bisexuals sexy whereas they feel threatened by any male that's portrayed as bisexual or gay.
(The Dracula/Xander thing...seriously!? Gaaaay.)
I loved that storyline.
I also loved the Giles/Ethan relationship. I can't wait for that Ripper movie.
That gay storyline for Dollhouse that didn't make it into S1?
I didn't know about this! Please tell me.
he's just obsessed with lesbians.
At first, I really didn't care for the Willow-comes-out storyline because I thought it was initially a ratings ploy due to the fact that during that time, I was also still watching ER and they had Kerry Weaver come out as a lesbian. I thought it was a little too coincidental. I don't think ER has ever had a male gay character (except Pratt's brother who wasn't a major character).
Mr. Trick! I knew I was forgetting someone.
Dead Girlfriend
Interesting that there were more dead guys on Angel, which had fewer female characters than Buffy. (Now I'm suddenly wondering how often Angel passed the Bechdel Test...)
It looks like Whedon's preferred method of disposing of a girlfriend character is to kill her off, while it's more of a toss-up for boyfriend characters.
Sexuality
I know I read one quote from Whedon about Spike/Angel, that more or less amounts to "well, obviously." If only there were more than one line about them actually on one of the shows. (Random aside: I hate Spike and Angel's back story was fighting over Drusilla. Through the entirety of Buffy, I assume the three of them just had freaky vampire threesomes regularly.)
TV loves bicurious/bisexual women (especially if they go back to men in the end), but not so much lesbians. But, yeah, the men running the networks are just afraid of teh gay, since gay storylines seem to go down just fine with audiences when allowed.
My god, the Xander/Dracula storyline in Season 8 is even gayer. I couldn't believe it.
I don't know anything about the Dollhouse gay storyline, except it was mentioned in an interview that they weren't able to fit it in S1. I
can only hopeassume it would involve Victor.Are we sharing a brain?! Because that's what I thought too! :D
Actually, I think even foursomes (don't forget Drusilla). There was an episode of Angel that probably inspired a lot of Darla/Drusilla fic (don't remember the name of the episode though).