sundries

[rm]

Brief, as it's Sunday, and you got a few links from me last night too. This included me jumping the gun on a thing. Sorry to get my over-excitedness on you. If you have any questions, please address it with me privately.

You do no want to know how many moths decided to come into our flat last night. Ugh ugh ugh ugh. Fuckers.

Yay, finished the edit for HackGender.

Hey, so a friend of mine is a CART provider, and has a cool blog about it, that's interesting from a few perspectives -- including disability access, being a sole proprietor in New York, and neat technology stuff. It occurs to me that with my readership, a large number of you may very well care about at least one of those three things. So hey, check it out.

Advocating for people with disabilities in Syria.

Black and (mostly Orthodox) Jewish.

Rounnd 1 of bidding in the help_pakistan auction ends today.

I still cannot find just a handful of links I find adequately discusses the many problems with the Beck rally: from intense racism to the apocalyptic delusions that rule of law has fled in the US and Marxist homosexuals are rampaging through the streets stealing everyone's guns.

Folks, voting for writerinadrawer Round 10 -- the round that decides the winner -- closes tonight. More votes are needed. Check it out. It's just three little stories and some opinions. You can do it!

So, the Buffy finale.... Really good. Satisfying. Calls back to things in the series without hitting you over the head with it, but also allowing you to remember the journey you've been on. Deeply, deeply aware of itself as a finale, and deeply deeply aware of its audience as knowing it is watching a finale. And, even still, when people die, there is still just a tiny moment of time to acknowledge and mourn that death (both Spike and Anya get that). It's also one of those finales that makes me stand up and cheer, because it has the right music, and the right vanquishing of the evil and all of that.

Which brings me to CoE and its reception. It wasn't written as a finale, although it was written as something that could exist as a finale if need be. And, I suspect, it was viewed by a lot of the audience, especially the American audience for who the structure of the way Torcwhood has aired is a much more radical departure than what they are used to, as something that was a finale. Which really, really, impacts reception. Because seriously? Our show is over and it ends in defeat? No wonder people are angry!

Of course, this also raises the question of how we place programs in time. I.e., did Joyce die when that episode first aired? Does she die every time that episode is watched? Is she dying, constantly, right now, over and over again? Extrapolate to Torchwood. See how that works?

I also felt, ultimately, that the finale of Buffy was more true to its aspirations of feminism than much of the series. All girls who are called arrive, and they skills are not just for survival, but for the perfectly ordinary, victorious living of their lives. Great power ultimately didn't turn Willow evil, but good and wise.

And the argument that "well, it was actually Spike who saved everyone and that's not feminist" doesn't hold for me; a man had to die to save people, but the girls saved people and got to keep on living. Ultimately, I think in a show like this, where you want all key characters involved in the end and to make sacrifices, you're sort of fucked in terms of reception -- at the end of the day, the women will always seem not enough, and rescued by men, no matter what you're trying to say (and you know I have serious problems in general with Whedon's feminist cred).

I almost don't want to read the comics, as I thought the ending was so cleanly and suitably executed, but I will eventually. In the, I have no time!!!! place that I'm in now, can someone just briefly tell me if there are any graveside/mourning type moments in there I need to find now as opposed to later for my D*C presentation?

Comments

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

Re: comics: there's a graveside mourning moment at the end of the "Wolves at the Gate" arc, but I can't remember if that compilation is one of the ones Patty is borrowing from me. (However, if you need it, I have the CBR files.) Also, significant but not major character death. Fair warning: the comics are BATSHIT.

All of my problems with feminism and the finale have to do with the issue of consent. As the comics make clear, the girls in the house are not all of the Slayers in the world. They make a choice for people who are not all there. We also don't ever actually see them make that choice; the camera cuts away at that point. It's really uncomfortable when you consider what we found out just a few episodes ago, that the First Slayer was made by men who placed a demon inside her.

Spike saving the day is fine by me. He was all pretty and glowy. :)


ETA: Oh yeah, issue #5 - "The Chain" - is all about death and mourning. You absolutely need to read that. Patty has it.

[elisi]

Oh yeah, issue #5 - "The Chain" - is all about death and mourning. You absolutely need to read that.
Seconded. That issue is excellent and very ambiguous, and (fortuitously) a complete standalone! :)

All of my problems with feminism and the finale have to do with the issue of consent.
See I get this on a meta-level, absolutely. But when I look at the show, then Buffy herself always sees her power as something positive. Indeed in 'Helpless', when Giles secretly removes her powers, she is furious and feels extremely violated. Mostly I just shove most of the issues into the corner in my head labelled 'Joss' rape-issues' and concentrate on the positive. ;)

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

Buffy herself always sees her power as something positive
Except for the parts where she tries to give up her responsibility as the Slayer or dies twice because it's her job to save the world? And where she criticizes the three men in "Get It Done" for "violating that girl" and giving her the demon which makes her the First Slayer? It's not context-free power.

I love the show and see its problems at the same time, personally. They're not mutually exclusive modes of watching/enjoyment.

[elisi]

It's not context-free power.
Oh of course not. And Buffy often struggles with the darker side (see her getting out of bed to go out hunting, leaving Riley behind, asleep - or all of S6), but overall I think the problem is more with the fact that she is alone in carrying the burden.

True it is problematic to 'activate' all the Slayers, but what's the alternative? The system would continue as before, with one, lonely, girl called after the other, and the rest still at risk, like we saw at the start of S7 - picked off one by one without the power to fight back.

I love the show and see its problems at the same time, personally. They're not mutually exclusive modes of watching/enjoyment.
Oh I have about three thousand different layers in my watching, so I get you, definitely. But although I can *see* the problems in Buffy's choice, when I watch, it doesn't feel like I'm watching something dark and disturbing. I get chills when Buffy does her 'Are you ready to be strong?' speech, because it's so wonderful. (Also the way it ties together all the themes of the season - and the whole show - makes me flail with happiness. It's always about the meta for me...)