Finding Feminist Heroism in Buffy

Feminist heroes are celebrated as champions of femininity, by either defying it or showing femininity does not mean weakness. Buffy does this in her example of typical femininity in interests and appearance, while being literally the strongest person in the world. She shows she’s interested in lip gloss and mini skirts, but she also stays up to all hours of the night fighting the bad guys and saving the world. Buffy is largely celebrated as a feminist hero, but she is not perfect. No part of her character is without flaw, she shows example of femininity by being a “girly girl” while being strong and muscular. Is this a choice as to make sure she does not come off too masculine? Or is it rather just the interests of the character and used to show how powerful women and femininity can be? This balance is tricky, much like everything else in her life. Buffy has a difficult time balancing various aspects of her life, and as a result she has to do some serious work to in her personal relationships in particular. She often has to put them on the back burner, and due to this they tend to suffer. Buffy in particular has a hard time with her romantic-sexual relationships, in that she never gets the truly complete balance of a positive romantic life combined with a positive sexual life. This raises the question: do our feminist heroes have sex, and is it good?

The sex lives of women have been considered taboo, and by talking about them openly and how they are shown in popular culture is inherently a feminist issue. This is simply due to the misconception that women are less interested and care less about sex because of patriarchal ideological structures in society. Throughout the series Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Buffy is praised as a feminist hero who takes down the “big bad” and saves the day. She doesn’t need anyone else, she’s under the impression (as so many of us are) that she is a grown woman at 16. The major difference between Buffy at 16 and everyone else is, she has the receipts to show she really can take care of herself and basically everyone else. However, she’s still 16. She still wants to go to the Bronze (which by the way, is so weird. The Bronze is a club in town that apparently all of the teenagers go to at night to see music etc. and none of their parents have an issue with them going until all hours on school nights. Also in my experience underage “clubs” are so horrible and smelly and definitely don’t have cool bands like in Buffy, but okay.) She still wants to meet boys, be out with her friends, be a teenager. A running story line in the show is that Buffy doesn’t want to be the world’s savior. She doesn’t want to be the hero; she wants to be a teenager. So, when Angel appears as a mysterious figure from the darkness in the first season to help her, it’s hard to ignore the sexual tension between the two. Never mind the tension of “hey we are so into each other, but I’m the slayer and you’re a vampire.” Put aside the absolutely RIDICULOUS brooding situation going on with Angel and the fact that he is apparently incapable of speaking in straight forward sentences, the guy is a total dreamboat. He’s tall, he’s mysterious, he’s unattainable because he’s a vampire, she’s the slayer, blah blah blah. Honestly one of the best moments of the series is when he sleeps over because she’s trying to protect him from…himself? (There was a rumor of a specific vampire hunting her at the time, Angel slept at her house to protect her, it was all very romantic.) Throughout this entire relationship of theirs there is a lot of tension and “oh we can’t” due to the whole slayer-vampire situation. Angel reveals at some point that the reason he doesn’t hunt human beings the way other vampires do is because he was cursed with a soul. Normal vampires don’t have them, and Angel was such a horrendous murderer in his day that he was captured and cursed with a soul. He spent many years tortured over the disgusting things he did (probably why he’s so moody 24/7, too). The major catch to him having a soul is he wants to keep it, but it can be lost if he has one moment of “true happiness”. So Angel can never be truly happy, because he would turn back into a devious monster that tortures the world around; thus why him being with Buffy is so dangerous. She makes him happy, and that could literally ruin everything. However, they run the risk because it makes good television and also you know, you can’t choose who you love and all. So their relationship continues, and eventually they decide to have sex. Just after they have sex, Angel loses his soul. Because he experienced “true happiness”. I can not make this up, it is so amazingly cringe worthy it is outstanding.

Obviously having sex for the first time with someone who promptly turns into the worst murderer in history is going to screw you up a bit. Buffy also has to kill him later, that’s a fun story line. But staying in the lane of Buffy’s sex life, she has sex issues from the get go. The Angel situation is on and off for a bit (his soul is eventually returned, it’s a whole thing) and then she goes to college where she dates the most boring man in the history of men. Riley is nice and means well, but he’s also completely obsessed with being more masculine than Buffy is. Apparently she is not allowed to be the strong one in the relationship, despite being the chosen Slayer (like, chill Riley.) Riley is so insanely boring, he’s not a bad guy generally he just kind of does whatever Buffy wants and doesn’t add anything exciting. Also, he later cheats on her so he’s not exactly winning “amazing guy” points. Again, factoring into the theme we are seeing here of our feminist heroes can’t have happy sex and happy romantic relationships. Buffy and Riley do have consistent and consensual sex though, and Buffy seems to be pretty alright with the entire Riley situation. Despite him not being all that exciting, Buffy and Riley have lots of awesome sex, you go Buffy. After the boring but safe Riley relationship ends, Buffy starts having sex with Spike, another vampire. Spike has been around since early in the series, and he’s always been a funny bad boy type who sometimes helps Buffy and co. He, unlike Angel doesn’t have a soul, but clearly isn’t as horrible as other seemingly brainless vampires can be. Buffy and Spike start having sex on the down low, and while their relationship is not picture perfect, they clearly are into each other and have a great sex life. At one point they break down a building from their insane sex (demon-human sexual relationships, am I right?) Things are pretty decent between the two of them despite their fights and personality differences; until the sixth season. At a point in the sixth season, Spike and Buffy are no longer together and Spike is entirely desperate to show Buffy that she should love him the way he does her. (Spike has always been deeply in love with Buffy while Buffy always just kind of saw Spike as a goofy friend who was fun to have sex with and solve crimes with. At one point when they aren’t together Spike makes a Buffy robot to spend time with him; it’s pretty insufferable.) Spike becomes so desperate to get Buffy to love him, that there is a scene in which he attempts to force himself on her. Buffy forces him off of her, which is great, but also implies that women are not only capable of doing so but should fight back in situations of sexual assault. Which is not an option to every person in that situation, and in certain instances could make the assault worse. Again, an example of how this show is doing it’s best to provide feminist heroes, but is still reinforcing complicated and patriarchal ideology in the show. This relates to Claudia Card’s piece on rape as terrorism, where she states, “Terrorism involves planned or systematic manipulation. Terror- panicky and heightened fear- makes us vulnerable to manipulation. We feel an urgent need to act before it is too late. Thus we are in a poor position to reflect or get things in perspective. We are in a poor position to be prudent or just. Our attention is riveted by the threat of disaster and what we can do to prevent it. We are thus not so likely to pay attention to the terrorizer’s situation, options, motivations, or aims, except as they define what we must do to avoid disaster.” This is interesting to use to analyze the rape scene in Buffy, as almost none of this is true. Spike clearly acted in the moment, frustrated with Buffy being adamant that things were done between them. Buffy fights back, she says no, she gets out before anything happens. On top of all of this, the viewer is swayed to forgive Spike nearly immediately. We are expected to say “look what he’s been through, of course he acted that way”, and we are also expected want Buffy to forgive him in the end. Even in one of the most heinous crimes against an individuals person, our feminist heroes are expected to be above that and the pain they cause, and forgive their attacker.

At this point, Buffy’s various sexual partners have been a literal monster, the most boring man alive (patent pending) and another monster who attempts to rape her. A story line of deep apology unfolds after said event, but it doesn’t change that Spike attempted to rape Buffy. After this point there is a bit of an on and off forever and ever between Spike and Buffy and Angel and Buffy, with her sexual and romantic lives never really balancing out or becoming any less complicated.

Throughout the series, Buffy is praised as feminist hero. She shows young girls you can literally save the world, be the strong girl, take control, and still wear heels. She loves makeup, she also loves killing the bad guys. She has a dorky outcast group of friends, she has a contentious relationship with her mother, she has a sister who mysteriously appears like she’s been there the whole time (a plot line i don’t have the time or energy to get into, but good god it is the worst). Take out the slayer bit, and Buffy is a normal teenager. Add in the slayer bit, and she is the strongest young woman to walk the earth. Why then, as a celebrated feminist hero, is Buffy denied the benefit of a positive sex life? Is it not complicated enough for her to have to LITERALLY SAVE THE WORLD DAILY? I understand the fantasy level, the concept of choosing the bad boy, the ones she cant have so of course she wants them. But why, could this not be altered to let Buffy have something? Yes she has friends, yes she has a family. But as the series goes on, she begins to lose these things. Her friends stay around, but as happens to all of us she begins to drift from them and have issues with them. Willow, her best friend begins to become completely overwhelmed with her magic powers (as she is a witch now) and basically loses her mind. Xander, her other best friend loses his way a bit but largely just becomes whiney and lost towards the end of the series. Then there’s Dawn, who is Buffy’s sister and needs to be taken care of by Buffy because their mother dies. Buffy has everything go wrong for her at certain points, down to the point of actually having been ripped from heaven by her friends after she dies to save the world. Can we not give her one good sexual relationship? Perhaps this denial of positive sexual relationships to Buffy was to create tension and give her a tumultuous back story, but frankly it just was not necessary. She had it rough enough as is, we really didn’t need to add an attempted rape to the story. This entire situation begs the question: would giving Buffy positive sexual experiences make her be perceived as less of a strong woman? Clearly she was having sex with multiple people throughout the series, so the question of the prude or slut trope is out of the realm of possibility here. I think that frankly it is owed to Buffy to have a positive sexual relationship. We owe our feminist heroes positive romantic and sexual relationships, without judgement or belief that they are being selfish. How is she supposed to save the world when she’s falling apart?

Theres a running theme through the show that Buffy doesn’t have time for a personal life, but she finds time for other parts of her personal life throughout the series. She found time for boys at certain times, she found time to go to the Bronze, she could have time for someone who she has a good relationship with. This is not to say that it is Buffy’s fault these relationships went completely bananas. Rather, that there was time and ability in the show to give her quality relationships as opposed to damaging ones. There is a blatant hypocrisy between the praising of Buffy as a feminist hero and denying her a happy sex life. Being sex positive (positive attitude towards sex) as a woman who is sexually active would provide Buffy as a role model for positive sexual relationships as well as sexual safety. (Theres never really a conversation about safe sex with Buffy due to the fact that she largely has sex with dead people. However a platform to speak about safe sex to an audience of teenagers would be incredibly beneficial). Does this image of Buffy as a strong woman with negative sexual experiences and Buffy going back to the men who hurt her teach young women that sexual abuse is attractive? I first saw the series when I was 17, and I remember being deeply in love with both Spike and Angel, and I did not even remember the attempted rape until someone pointed it out to me later. I had friends I brought the issue up to who had the same reaction. The nature of the show makes the viewer sympathize with these men who hurt her to a point that their abuse is actually forgettable. I remember thinking of course Buffy would go back to them, she loves them and they love her and it doesn’t matter how messy it is. As an adult, I see these relationships as more of a Stockholm syndrome when Buffy goes back. Spike and Angel know what her life is like, they know she’s the slayer, they know it’s hard. They’re easy to run back to no matter how horrible their relationship is, because they understand. Meeting a new man and explaining “hey the balance of bad and good lies in my hands daily, and oh by the way demons are real.” would be a lot to handle in a casual dating relationship. Theres reason for Buffy to run back, and frankly I do not blame her so much as I blame the show for not making Spike and Angel better people. Also, did Angel’s one moment of true happiness need to be during sex with Buffy? Like, I get the complexity and the sweetness implied in that much happiness in sex, but COME ON. Give the poor girl something here.

Our feminist heroes are seen as selfish the second they take interest in something personal. Buffy showing interest and desire for sex would be seen as her being self centered when she should be off saving the world. She’s seen as even more self centered when she’s literally sleeping with the enemy, instead of killing them. Unfortunately this is a theme seen not only in our feminist heroes, but a theme which also reflects on the daily woman. Single mothers dating are routinely seen as selfish because they are focusing on themselves for any period, as opposed to working and raising their children. Buffy deals with this same issue. She’s regularly told by Giles (her watcher, he helps her with all slayer like duties) that she shouldn’t be focusing on boys, and that this is just the nature of being the slayer. There are certain things you have to give up. This hearkens back to the idea of eroticism in daily life proposed by Audre Lorde, particularly this passage, “During World War II, we bought sealed plastic packets of white, uncolored margarine, with a tiny, intense pellet of yellow coloring perched like a topaz just inside the clear skin of the bag. We would leave the margarine out for a while to soften, and then we would pinch the little pellet to break it inside the bag, releasing the rich yellowness into the soft pale mass of margarine. Then taking it carefully between our fingers, we would knead it gently back and forth, over and over, until the color had spread throughout the whole pound bag of margarine, thoroughly coloring it. I find the erotic such a kernel within myself. When released from its intense and constrained pellet, it flows through and col-ors my life with a kind of energy that heightens and sensitizes and strengthens all my experience.” However, the second Buffy begins to massage that kernel of eroticism in any aspect of her life, but particularly in her sexual and romantic life, she is seen as ignoring her slayer duties. When she finds happiness or enjoyment in her life, especially in her sexual and romantic life, she’s labelled as narcissistic. The lack of respect for self interest particularly in ones sex life in our feminist heroes is alarming. This is a blatant attack on women’s ability to be interested in sex and their desire for it. Societal expectations say men want sex, they initiate it, they just have more sexual desire than women. So when a woman wants sex, and wants good sex, it is seen as lacking in femininity and inherently masculine. Feminist heroes are expected to be champions of femininity, move outside of or defy concepts which box women in to being a specific person and hold a certain role. If our feminist heroes are meant to defy these stereotypical ideals and actions, and interest in sex positivity and sexual experience is a defiance to those stereotypes, why do we so often see that our feminist heroes do not have sexual experiences which align with their standards of happiness and pleasure? Sure, Buffy has positive sexual experiences at times. However, Buffy is clearly a character who wants to be having sex with someone she is in a relationship with, and she never gets a happy romantic relationship and happy sex life combination. Why do our feminist heroes refute other ideologies of what women should look and behave like, but aren’t given this level of rebellion against patriarchal ideals as well?

Sources:

Card, Claudia. The unnatural lottery: character and moral luck. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1996. Chapter Five: Rape Terrorism

Lorde, Audre. Uses of the erotic: the erotic as power. Tucson: Kore Pr., 2000.