Vid rec

[hazelk]

Origin Stories by giandujakiss has been recced all over and much commentated on already (also here). These are my mixed-up and conflicted responses:



This is a powerful vid. An angry and polemical vid that starts out with an establishing sequence as provocative as the final section of Women’s Work. The Dana story with which the vid ends is equally effective, the visual matching her tormentor’s drug stash with the Shadowmen’s demon essence box especially striking.

Those early shots of Nikki and Robin, Robin as an adult, Nikki, the Chinese slayer and Kendra have a visceral angry power that is shaming to watch. But it gets more complicated and diffused with the introduction of the potentials. Does their disproportionate whiteness signify that they’re part of the problem or is the vid rooting for them too. We see all them fighting and all of them dying, Rhona and Amanda, Chloe and Eve. The role played by Buffy is even murkier, she’s repeatedly shown taking Spike’s part, siding with the oppressor but other scenes portray her more sympathetically reacting to the death and injury of the potentials. Is it meant to be significant that the victims in these particular clips are white? Probably, there are similar scenes involving Kendra and Chloe that could have been used. In which case it does work as commentary on Buffy (the show) focussing disproportionately on those of the Caucasian persuasion and I should stop reacting with fannish defensiveness as if attacking my favourite character were all that were at issue.

Buffy, however, is not the main subject of this vid and I do think the vid itself blurs the boundaries between fannish loyalties and metatextual analysis by making Robin the main POV and ultimately only through him the non-eponymous Vampire Slayers. Robin has his own story to tell but having him speak for the Slayers, leading the potentials into the school, telling them where to go, re-appropriating his mothers coat, feels problematic. Robin when all is said and done is not Nikki. Biologically he’s her son but he was raised by a Watcher of unknown ethnicity in the privileged surroundings of Beverly Hills. Textually he cleaves to the Watcher’s side, it’s Giles he entrusts with his mother’s identity and when he speaks of the potentials as weapons, as soldiers, he's paraphrasing Quentin Travers and the Council's definition of them as instruments in the war against evil. The vid ends by cutting from Dana’s capture and shooting by ex-Watcher Wesley to Robin’s defeat by Spike to Spike putting his mother’s coat back on. There is justice in that but it feels as if some other point is being misappropriated. Robin, like Dana and the Slayers she remembers, has suffered at Spike’s hands but his heritage is also Wesley’s. I don’t know. It feels a little as if Nikki’s story has once again been set aside in favour of a narrative about two men fighting over her coat, as if that lousy piece of leather had more significance than she did.

Comments

Re: "Origin Stories," part 2

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

He very clearly sees himself as his mother’s son, when Buffy uses her words against him he absolutely takes that on board, he even flings them right back at her in the next episode. At that point in the story all of them Buffy, Robin, Giles, Nikki herself are in thrall to the patriarchal injunction that it’s the mission that matters.

These are really excellent points - I remember I was relieved that Robin wouldn't let it go unchallenged after that episode. I'm not sure BtVS ever completely resolves that problem of conflicting values: the value of the individual vs. the value of the mission. The final battle in NFA comes down pretty squarely on the latter side, but sadly that makes a lot of sense in view of the patriarchal nature of "the mission that matters." When the spell gives all the Potentials in the world the chance to be Slayers (and I think the question of whether or not they're actually given a choice is important with respect to this discussion and also to Dana), in one sense the empowerment of all of those disparate individuals is an affirmation of their value as individuals. And almost all of the new worldwide Slayers we see are white. On the other hand, it only happens because that spell is the last hope of Buffy's army, which has to fulfill the mission or evil wins (i.e. no individual will be safe, etc.). From one perspective, it's a question of whether or not that spell gives those girls across the world a chance or just "enlists" them like the Shadowmen did the First Slayer; of course, the vid makes that connection between the Shadowmen and Dana's story.

I was clipping Kendra’s S2 story recently for a slayer vid of my own and quite apart from the whole ‘Tragic Mulatta 101’ aspect Buffy’s attitude to her is incredibly dismissive and quite unremarked on. It’s only one remove from Cordelia’s treatment of her foreign exchange student, which was played as a big joke in one of the early episodes of the season.

I'll look forward to seeing your Slayer vid! Yes, it's a little hard to pick which point's the nadir for BtVS treatment of characters of color, and Buffy-the-character's and Buffy-the-show's attitude toward Kendra was really cringe-inducing.

Re: "Origin Stories," part 2

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

And almost all of the new worldwide Slayers we see are white.
Actually of the five in the montage at least three are some shade of brown but the little baseball girl who begins and ends the sequence is unambiguously white. It looks as if the show was trying to make a point of diversity but not able to or paying close enough attention to make it clear. Another example, of the named potentials I think the ration is 4:6 CoC:white but the group as a whole looks much more white-dominated. I wonder if it has something to do with the way the industry recruits extras, in the comics where that isn’t an issue the balance is much better. I also remember noticing that Robin’s crew of baby Slayers were all chromatic. The artist is black and might have some input on aspects of the imagery that the plot doesn’t specify.

On the other hand, it only happens because that spell is the last hope of Buffy's army, which has to fulfill the mission or evil wins (i.e. no individual will be safe, etc.). From one perspective, it's a question of whether or not that spell gives those girls across the world a chance or just "enlists" them like the Shadowmen did the First Slayer.
I thought it was more that Buffy only came up with the idea because she had to fight the First’s army but that it was something that should have been done irrespective of that situation. The whole season constantly makes the point of how the problem with being the Slayer isn’t because Buffy would prefer a normal life or fears becoming a killer, those issues were resolved in previous seasons. The problem is that ‘there is only her’ or, as she and Faith agree, Slayerness is a burden that can’t be shared. She can be grateful for her friends but they can’t be her. The Shadowmen forced power on that one girl but what made her work for them was the fact of being the only one who could. With multiple Slayers there are other choices available than fulfill the mission or let evil win. For me it also ties in to the fact that patriarchal systems are quite happy to tolerate single powerful women, the Glorianas and the Thatchers, as long as they remain just that, singular and don’t grow into a ‘monstrous regiment.’

Re: "Origin Stories," part 2

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

Sorry, screwed up html first time around:

Another example, of the named potentials I think the ration is 4:6 CoC:white but the group as a whole looks much more white-dominated. This is true. I need to watch "Chosen" again and have another look at the montage!

I also remember noticing that Robin’s crew of baby Slayers were all chromatic. The artist is black and might have some input on aspects of the imagery that the plot doesn’t specify. Oh, see what you've done - now I'll have to take a look at the comics, too! *g* I have already heard that there are significant named chromatic Slayers in the comics, which sounds like a promising step up. I really hated it when Chao-Ahn had to rely on looking at flashcards and was lactose intolerant but no one understood - the latter in particular is a relatively minor but quintessential issue that POC often run into in the United States, since POC are much more likely to be lactose intolerant than Caucasians. (See Barbara Kingsolver's Pigs in Heaven for one fictional treatment of the issue; a white woman adopts a Native American child and is bewildered as to why her daughter keeps getting stomach aches until a pediatrician, an African American woman, tells her what's really going on.) Inability to communicate made the problem of survival far more potentially dangerous for Chao-Ahn than it was for the other Potentials, but the show consistently treated it as a joke.

I thought it was more that Buffy only came up with the idea because she had to fight the First’s army but that it was something that should have been done irrespective of that situation. True.

The Shadowmen forced power on that one girl but what made her work for them was the fact of being the only one who could. With multiple Slayers there are other choices available than fulfill the mission or let evil win. For me it also ties in to the fact that patriarchal systems are quite happy to tolerate single powerful women, the Glorianas and the Thatchers, as long as they remain just that, singular and don’t grow into a ‘monstrous regiment.’ Well said. The choices those singular women make are often compromised by patriarchal systems, which is a problem that in turn helps deflect the pain of a wronged past and present for CoC to what it's "really" supposed to mean for characters more privileged in the narrative.