I hate Joss Whedon.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1997-2003). i hate joss whedon. let me count the ways. in S6E18 spike plies anya with alcohol and then has PIV with her on a table. otherwise known as rape, on a table. here, anya’s rape is broadcast via video to the rest of the gang as well as the gang of marauding rapists/dumbass incompetent hooligans (buffys “arch nemesises”) who set up the cameras all around town to spy on buffy and the rest. regarding spike, throughout the series, someone will occasionally call him out on his womanizing or generally unacceptable misogynist behavior (like oh say raping anya in this scene and attempting to rape buffy in another) and spike says “hello! i’m evil.” well duh. spike’s behavior is also barely distinguishable (or completely indistinguishable) from normal average male behavior.
is this old joss whedon being clever? i dont know, is this? — the image from anya’s magic-shop rape scene has spike plying her with alcohol for several minutes first, and the scene is shot so that the bottle looks like an erect penis, with anya about to non-consensually fellate it. (see screenshot above.) doesnt it? i mean, this is probably news to her since from her perspective, shes just sitting at the table and spikes pouring her a drink but old joss took the opportunity here to subliminally suggest a “surprise blowjob” to everyone watching, as a prelude to the main event: the non-consensual drunken PIV rape. joss i hate you!
it would be impossible to list all the instances of PIV or PIV-centric sexuality on buffy, but the whole series was brimming with it. the message was clear: penis-in-vagina is “sex” and there is no other kind. if you are straight, anyway. there is such a thing as lesbians in the buffyverse but at least one of them has the PIV first, as a straight woman, and all the straight-sex in buffy is men sticking their dicks into women in all kinds of situations, and sometimes the straight-sex is even straight-up rape. yes, sex and rape are indistinguishable here. blaming it on the “evil” belies much, including the fact that its completely and utterly normal, and to the extent that it crosses any kind of line that anyone recognizes and acknowledges, like spike attempting to rape a sober but incapacitated buffy whose “powers” are on the fritz…well its for the greater good that spike sticks around. they need men in the movement afterall: when trying to save the world, buffy needs all the help she can get. even if that “help” comes with physical and emotional trauma, trauma-bonding, threats, stalking, serial murder and rape. what else does this sound like, to you?
theres a mashup of season 5 below.
goal is to “land a man”. yes. anya wants to marry xander (for some reason) and he leaves her, devastated, at the altar. buffy dates several men and is particularly devastated when she alienates riley because she was so emotionally hardeded that she couldnt fully commit to him. spending vast amounts of time and energy trying to attain the unattainable man: the vampire slayer’s soul mate is…a vampire? really? yes.
normalizing reproductive stress and pain. [none that i can recall?]
pathologizing menstruation. yes. theres a whole “thing” with vampires, lunar cycles and blood that i could discuss here, but i wont. im gonna say yes to this one, and i will also bet that theres a PMS joke in there somewhere, but i cant remember for sure?
pathologizing older women and menopause/fetishizing female youth. yes. buffys mother reverts to a mentally-younger version of herself to have sex with an also mentally-younger giles; her mom “having sex” at all is gross. buffys mom also suffers a brain aneurysm and dies after a long illness. buffy is like a day old compared to angel and spike, since they are immortals. darla is (perhaps?) the evol-est vampire of all, and she also appears to be the oldest — she sired angel, and she herself was sired by “the master”. drucilla is very evol as well, and also very old — she sired spike.
normalizing simulated/exaggerated female pleasure from PIV and PIV-centric sex. yes. who could forget the episode where riley and buffy are bewitched into having the longest PIV-session ever? including the pornified soundtrack that mustve been gruelling to make, and is literally the soundtrack of FAKING IT. actors, acting aroused, and faking pleasure, from PIV. and since it was made obvious that they used condoms, this is supposed to be all good harmless fun, but many women have latex allergies and other reactions to condoms, and theres no way that an extended PIV-session like this is going to be universally enjoyed by all women, even ones who “like sex.” i didnt buy this one AT ALL, and that was even before i became PIV-critical.
rape and rape culture. yes. making womanlike robots as fuckdolls; kidnapping an actual woman and using her as a sexual slave (this one is even called “rape” outloud, on the show); non-consensual neck-biting/penetration; drugs and alcohol; attempted rape; “teenage sexuality” and underage girls; male violence; war.
rating: 5/6
oh dear! i forgot xanders porn. thats an example of “normalizing simulated/exaggerated female pleasure from PIV.” too late to make an edit now though, even for a serial editor like me. so i’ll just leave it in the comments.
August 2, 2011 at 11:34 pm
bahahaha! i spelled joss’s name wrong like 5 times in this article. it pains me to even correct them, but i guess i will.
August 6, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Yay! Another rad fem who hates Joss as much as I do!!! If you want to hate him even more watch Firefly. Seriously. Rapefest central.
I was going to write some posts about Buffy and I started rewatching the show. I got about 8 episodes in… one of the things I remembered was that Xander wears a pornstar t-shirt in one of the early episodes. And to think… thousands of women around the world look up to Joss as some kind of feminist hero. Seriously. When I wrote my posts about Firefly… I got taken to task and called crazy by a ‘feminist’ writer on a Feminist Sci Fi blog. The guy has his male characters wearing rape shirts and I’m the crazy one… yep.
August 7, 2011 at 11:36 am
hi allecto
ive never seen firefly! and yes buffy has been a problem for me for a long time, not the least of which is that i *still* enjoy watching it. i do! i think its clear though that buffy is NOT a feminist show, and i hope that i have helped to make that clear by analyzing it from a PIV-critical perspective, including narrowing it down to 6 themes. can a show that exaggerates female pleasure from PIV-centric sex (for example) be feminist? can one that pathologizes menstruation? can it? i really dont see how. not to mention the over-the-top depictions and normalizations of rape and rape culture. i mean really. “i like watching it” can no longer be a substitute for a truly feminist analysis of buffy, or of any show. bewitched and wonder woman dont get a free pass either, even though i LOVE them, and they kick so much ass.
August 7, 2011 at 12:57 pm
ps. feel free to drop a link to your buffy analyses.
August 7, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Oh, I kinda stopped blogging before I wrote them *shameface*. But I wrote about 5 posts on Firefly which brought me almost universal internet notoriety.
Actually the scene that most normalised PIV sex for me was the scene where Buffy loses her virginity to Angel. It is her 18th birthday and the sex is romanticised, idealised and Angels dick goes inside her and she is all aroused and orgasmic by it. That scene (post feminist awakening) was actually the one scene that made me really question the show. Because as a young woman… I totally grew up with the show. Buffy was the same age as me when it aired in australia. I turned 18 when she did, I went to uni, she went to college at the same time. The show had a huge impact on my life and how I interpretted things. And the PIV sex represented in the way that it was in Buffy influenced my sexual development. Disturbingly.
Anyways, if you want to hate Joss Whedon 10 times more than you do now… watch Firefly. If you are happy with your levels of hatred… then skip it!
August 8, 2011 at 1:09 am
omg YES the first time. UGH. first-times are always portrayed as something they arent, and nothing they are, for women: all the pleasurable moaning and rolling around and stuff, and of course the orgasming, and its always as if the women have been doing it for years and know exactly what to do. which either means shes been watching porn and is faking it, OR that women are supposed to be MEANT FOR FUCKING and it comes naturally to them, like throwing an animal into water and realizing they can swim, even though theyve never done it before.
first times are NOTHING like this, not for any woman i know, or for any woman ive seen discuss it.
August 8, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Forget Firefly, have you watched ‘Dollhouse’? literally fuck dolls – women technologically programmed to be men’s every waking fantasy – prostitutes who aren’t faking it. Some are put in the dollhouse against their will… the show is all about sexual slavery but at the same time eroticising it. We are even made to feel pity for the men who pay for the sexual services. The fbi agent ‘hero’ trying to take down the dollhouse, sees saving the main Doll Echo as his ultimate fantasy. eeech eecchh and double eeech. Watching this in light of Joss’ past work makes, I agree, Buffy and Firefly’s less obvious themes equally disturbing.
October 15, 2011 at 2:00 am
yes, joss is a woman hating shitbag and a porn hound. its really so disturbing that anyone thinks hes a feminist, or that any of his shows were anything other than a giant wankfest for him and his buds. of course he tells us whats up, he just makes buffy say it in relation to spike: hes a rapist and a serial killer, BUT WE NEED HIM. you know, for the CAUSE.
fuck you joss. and YOU WISH!
October 16, 2011 at 10:01 pm
Yeah, I agree. But I still like the fact that Willow becomes a hot lesbian witch.
December 5, 2011 at 6:11 am
i believe you when you say you “like it” boadie, but this is just another pornified image men have created to dehumanize women and wank off to. and the more i read about “witches” the more obvious it becomes that the image of a woman performing supernatural magic is an abusive image and a male-centric pornified delusion that men created so that they could justify killing us in real life. real “witches” werent practicing anything supernatural, they were just natural healers and used herbs and things to help people heal, to help laboring women, etc. thats all. its definitely a killjoy to realize how woman-hating all of these images really are, and it makes it difficult to watch television or go to the movies. “i like” certain shows too, or i like them more than others, but i cant say that i “like” any image that any man has created for any woman ever, and that includes the pornified willow.
December 14, 2011 at 3:26 am
I agree to a great extent with what you’re saying, but I don’t know if it’s fair to say that Willow was “pornified.” She was actually very innocent, and always fully clothed. Her relationship with her girlfriend was portrayed in a very innocent way. She was still hot but only because she was inherently hot, not because she was pornified.
April 5, 2012 at 11:39 pm
The thing that bothers me about the show is that it starts off with Buffy being a teenager in high school who is always sneaking out her window at night to go to a night club (where supposedly they don’t drink, yeah right) and to hook up with an older, creepy dude (who also happens to be a vampire). For those reasons, I wouldn’t want my daughter watching it. Lol. Oh yeah, and the Spikey rapey thing sucks too… no pun intended. :/
April 5, 2012 at 11:43 pm