For this essay I want to look at how BtVS, rather than giving honourary man status to one girl’s story, rewrites multiple stories, lots of girls, lots of times and lots of different ways.
This is one of the maybe not overlooked, but undervalued, things I think is great about BTVS. It isn't just about one girl having power, it's about lots of different strong young women, from Willow to Faith, from Cordelia to Tara. They're strong in different ways, but each girl has her own story.
She comes back not as a grateful ghost or a Christ-like vision but as a troublesome flesh and blood girl with issues to spare, alive but mad as hell about it and that’s something that wasn’t in the original script.
Again, this is one of the things that makes me love BTVS and Buffy herself so much. Her anger at being resurrected is a beautiful subversion of the girl as sacrificial lamb.
It’s important that those freed to realize their potential are girls not only because it makes a specifically feminist statement but because Buffy is a girl and the point is not so much that other people can help her but that other people can be her, can stand in her shoes.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2007-07-19 10:33 pm (UTC)For this essay I want to look at how BtVS, rather than giving honourary man status to one girl’s story, rewrites multiple stories, lots of girls, lots of times and lots of different ways.
This is one of the maybe not overlooked, but undervalued, things I think is great about BTVS. It isn't just about one girl having power, it's about lots of different strong young women, from Willow to Faith, from Cordelia to Tara. They're strong in different ways, but each girl has her own story.
She comes back not as a grateful ghost or a Christ-like vision but as a troublesome flesh and blood girl with issues to spare, alive but mad as hell about it and that’s something that wasn’t in the original script.
Again, this is one of the things that makes me love BTVS and Buffy herself so much. Her anger at being resurrected is a beautiful subversion of the girl as sacrificial lamb.
It’s important that those freed to realize their potential are girls not only because it makes a specifically feminist statement but because Buffy is a girl and the point is not so much that other people can help her but that other people can be her, can stand in her shoes.
YES.
I notice you quoted from the article written by Catherine Orenstein; have you read her book, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale? It's a broader examination of the themes she touches on in the article, and I thought it was quite interesting.