sundries

[rm]

On the train this morning a small child was singing: "Spider filled with rabies. Rabies rabies rabies. Spider filled with rabies. Rabies rabies rabies!" It made my morning.

Speaking of bugs, it's an exciting week in Rach and Patty land as we're going to see Ovo on Thursday.

shes_unreal needs some help getting a better job to get out of a bad situation. It's complicated, so I'll let her explain. Reliable source, real person, real situation. Please help if you can.

A fandom auction is being run to help thdancingferret who's job was evil and found a way to fire her for having cancer. Because the need is immediate, bidding closes tomorrow. Go now.

Yesterday on Twitter I linked to this giant sinkhole story before they included any info about the sinkhole, just the picture with no explanation whatsoever. Patty and I had a good time reading the comments (and subsequent ones on Twitter) to each other. They involved a remarkable number of references to "orbital lasers." But that sinkhole? Serious business.

Americans at the Bolshoi. One of the things that interests me is a passing mention that it is "all but taboo" for dance teachers to touch their students in California. I recall having a similar frustration in fencing -- take my limbs and show them where to go! That's how dance was when I was studying, but that was the 70s and 80s, and I guess the world changed; I am glad it hasn't everywhere.

Turns out there's more girls than boys in NYC's gifted programs and, as usual, The New York Times is alarmed. Meanwhile, people shrug and say "well, that's a shame" about all the ways boys of favored over girls. You'd think it would be okay for girls to be better than boys once in a while.

Lovely gay-themed ad for McDonalds from France. Although, when I first saw it, I thought McDonalds was going to be the host of this kid's coming out conversation with his father. But that's not the plot, which makes it all a little bit realer.

A history of trans and trans-like veterans that I should actually get around to checking out, since I reference stuff like this in that Snape, Gender and Heroism project I should actually write up for publication somewhere.

Last night on Buffy and Angel:

So, it was finally time for "Seeing Red," and my feelings are largely ambivalent. I don't think what Spike did (whether it was rape, attempted rape, threatened rape, etc.) was out of character -- we see him physically and sexually bully women both pre- and post- chip. I did find Buffy's response out of character -- not that she was startled, afraid and weak/injured, but just that what the show has argued as her automatic (not learned, most of us forget what we've learned when we're in danger) fighting abilities were not there. Also, I hated how the scene was overlit, although it was also interesting at the end how the scene where Buffy is talking to Xander before Warren shows up with a gun is also overlit. Also this whole thing doesn't stop me from being engaged with Spike as a character -- that's the great thing about fiction, I can like totally shit people who do totally shit things because their use in a narrative is brain stimulating on some level.

I found Tara's death to be startling, even though I knew about it (I didn't know it was this episode), and well done. I did not find it to be homophobic. Willow and Tara were the last couple standing, and if Whedon wanted all the couples doomed and they'd just gotten back together, that's what he had to do. I also appreciated that prior to the shooting Willow and Tara finally read like people who actually fuck, as opposed to the way lesbians usually read on TV, which is as people who pet each other gently and don't really have sex.

Xander was SUCH AN ASSHOLE in this ep I thought I was going to throw something at the TV.

Loved the Spike/Anya thing.

Meanwhile on Angel, Cordy is some mother goddess demon of love who I assume will eventually sacrifice her life so that Angel can become mortal. Connor is fucked up (and where do I know that kid from) and Holtz has bad make-up and a fucked up plan. Lila is courting Wesley and none of this is going to end well.

Comments

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Seeing Red: I didn't think Spike was out of character at all, I simply rather resented that Buffy's situation was so contrived; as well, I thought it was rather disingenuous of the show to treat Buffy's sexual bullying of Spike as humourous whereas when he did it back, it was all OMG RAPE. Their relationship had not been "safe, sane, or consensual" by a long shot, she is A LOT stronger than him, and she'd been using him as her sex toy regardless of his feelings (except for taking advantage of such), and on one occasion, when he'd been actually telling her "No" while she was doing it. But that was funny. Remember that episode of Angel, where Buffy shows up and hits him across the face, and then he just hauls off and hits her back? And she's like, "you hit me!" all girly and outraged, and he says, "you hit me first, and also you're stronger than me!" Anyway, I don't even think he did anything wrong, considering the parameters of their relationship; how was he to know that THIS TIME was different, and she wouldn't just stop him if she wanted to? But it's lit and shot like rape, and that's what I didn't like about it.

Willow & Tara: SNIFF. My only other problem with this is, though it was beautifully done, that I hate when they bring guns into the Buffyverse as it seems to invalidate all other occasions -- why does no one else do this, if it's an option? But all the emotional and cinematographical moments are drop dead gorgeous. (heh. literally.)

Connor & Wesley/Lilah & Wesley in general are literally the only things I would save from S4 Angel. The rest of it can die in a fire as far as I am concerned.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Seriously, was no one disturbed when just a few episodes age Buffy beat the shit out of Spike? I could barely watch that, and I don't think I'm displaying a gendered double-standard here.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the beating was terrible. She never apologizes either. And also, the part where she's invisible, and is trying to fuck him, and he's like, "No, really, stop." and then she's invisibly giving him a blowjob, and he's like, "Oh, that's unfair." But that's funny, right? UGH.

I thought they had a very equal relationship of fucking each other up in dysfunctional s&m-y ways, and I LOVED IT. (They are totally my favorite canonical couple). That's why I thought Seeing Red cheaped out -- it suffered from the Harry Potter problem of "well, when the hero does it, it's okay" and added an extra dollop of "when a girl does it, it's okay" that really bugged me.

[laufeyette.livejournal.com]

^ Feeling this entire thread.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Kinda awesome to be talking about Buffy again. I keep thinking about maybe pulling out my dvds and doing a rewatch!

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

We were. Spike fans were up in arms.

I thought that scene was brilliant at the time, because it illustrated what was so wrong in Buffy's part of the the Buffy/Spike relationship--not that she was dirtying her precious self with an icky vampire, but that she was using and abusing someone who loved her. I loved that scene because it was so obvious and I was sure that they were going to address it and deal with it.

But no, instead we got the attempted rape, and everything they "dealt with" afterward was how bad Spike was. As if the attempted rape erased the beating, and all of the questionably-consensual emotionally and physically abusive bullshit Buffy put Spike through before it. (Not in any way that Spike was an innocent, but that still doesn't make the way Buffy treated him okay.)

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

If trying to make Spike be the evil vampire again, they failed miserably.

I saw his actions as being totally in character and a logical extension of the mess that was their relationship. I saw Buffy as being as much at fault in the mess that was their relationship and her actions, especially in Dead Things, where she beat him unconscious and left him in the alley to possibly meet the sun.

She definitely had the power in that relationship and she abused it, several times, in several ways.

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

Bloody oath! I swear, I thought I was the only person on the planet who saw this! Thank you everyone, for showing me I'm wrong. I bitterly bitterly hate this scene and its implications. So she can beat the crap out of him, she can say no and mean yes, over and over and over again, and that's okay. And he's supposed to be a mindreader now and know that this time no means no? Bullshit. For me it kind of ties in with the Spike/Willow scene where he goes to bite/drink her and can't perform because of the chip, and it ends up being played for laughs. Now I do laugh at that scene, but at the same time ...

Anyhow. Yay for not being the only one who sees that bathroom scene as profoundly disturbing, and the whole Buffy sainthood thing off, and yes, Xander being repulsive. But then I mostly found him repulsve from go to whoah.

[rihani.livejournal.com]

Oh, I totally feel you, I thought it was just me too! I tried so many times, explaining the part where basically, Spike had been conditioned by Buffy that "no" meant "yes," and how no one had issues with her beating the shit out of him, tormenting him, ignoring when he said no, but the second he stepped past a line that people decided was there, it Was All Wrong and Spike was evil again. Everyone I said that too basically wrote ME off as trying to excuse attempted rape. So I stopped. Because it wasn't worth arguing. But yeah, felt totally alone in that perspective back when this was all going on. So glad we weren't! Or aren't now, anyway.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. At the time, my reaction to Spike attacking Buffy was a mixture of serious annoyance that Buffy suddenly lost the ability to fight and that it, like Buffy beating up Spike, was far more an example of Buffy and Spike's relationship was a deeply messed up horror on both sides than anything about Spike being an evil rapist.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

The first time I watched season 6, a few years ago (I, too, am a late comer to the Buffyverse), the episodes between Smashed and Seeing Red convinced me that Spike and Buffy were in an abusive relationship and that Buffy was more of the abuser than Spike. It was all too easy to see the signs, especially after Dead Things (where Buffy beats the shit out of Spike) and Older and Far Away (where he shows up at the party and skirts around the issue of his obvious bruises).

By the time we get to the bathroom in Seeing Red, I can totally believe Spike trying to woo Buffy in the same manner she's used on him, violence.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

I agree, but the problem is that attempting to understand Spike's actions in the context of the previous Buffy/Spike relationship dynamic comes close to blaming a woman for her (near) rape, which is horrible. I blame the writers for creating this mess in the first place. There is no real-life equivalent to the situation, and the metaphor is so mixed--one episode Buffy is domestically abusing Spike, then the metaphor is that they're "in the closet" and Tara's encouraging them to come out, then it's that Spike is the abusive (near) rapist. The writing that season was so inconsistent--the various writers all clearly had different ideas about what was going on with Spike and Buffy, and the resulting mess ended up hurting a lot of people who identified with Spike and who identified with Buffy.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

This is one of those seasons I'm really glad to have not been in the fandom then because it was so messy. I hate the scene in the bathroom because, knowing a good portion of the back story, including both characters ancient history, you really can see the steps that lead to the behaviour and it does make Buffy look partially culpable, which is way icky, especially to me, as a loud and proud, in one's face feminist.

As much as I love Firefly, season six Buffy and Season 3 Angel suffered from Joss being distracted by a shiny new space western with spookers and sp-belly dancers (from Alan Tudik's commentary on one of the Firefly eps. ;-p), especially the end of Buffy season 6. Joss and his stable of writers were paying way more attention to the new show and letting Buffy and Angel just sort of coast.