I think that Nikki's coat is mainly important as a symbol of who's really going to be allowed to help define the issue. My problem is that it’s actually Spike who made the coat Nikki’s defining attribute. It was him who decided that was the only part of her worth keeping. It did become a symbol of the whole debate in the fandom but personally I’d rather have had the issue resolved by having Robin be allowed to tell Nikki’s full story than taking her coat back for good. Of course the show did neither.
Robin's position allows him a unique perspective on the persistent racial failures of the Buffyverse and the stories it tells. I can certainly see that. But I wonder if the more fundamental problem isn’t this whole need for a *unique* perspective, a one true storyteller. It the problem with BtVS, that by definition it’s all about Buffy and thus can’t get away from her being a skinny middle-class white chick. One reason Women’s Work *works* is that it avoids making any one women the spokesperson, it combines all their voices. This vid does that too, very powerfully in the opening sequences and through Dana, but it still ends by giving Spike the final scene and more face-time than any single one of the women he killed. It’s hard to be sure whether doing that is a critique of the pattern of the show or a repetition of it.
Re: "Origin Stories," part 3
My problem is that it’s actually Spike who made the coat Nikki’s defining attribute. It was him who decided that was the only part of her worth keeping. It did become a symbol of the whole debate in the fandom but personally I’d rather have had the issue resolved by having Robin be allowed to tell Nikki’s full story than taking her coat back for good. Of course the show did neither.
Robin's position allows him a unique perspective on the persistent racial failures of the Buffyverse and the stories it tells.
I can certainly see that. But I wonder if the more fundamental problem isn’t this whole need for a *unique* perspective, a one true storyteller. It the problem with BtVS, that by definition it’s all about Buffy and thus can’t get away from her being a skinny middle-class white chick. One reason Women’s Work *works* is that it avoids making any one women the spokesperson, it combines all their voices. This vid does that too, very powerfully in the opening sequences and through Dana, but it still ends by giving Spike the final scene and more face-time than any single one of the women he killed. It’s hard to be sure whether doing that is a critique of the pattern of the show or a repetition of it.