Buffy Rewatch: Hush

S4’s Hush is widely acknowledged to be an awesome episode of Buffy. The acting is wonderful, the arc and writing are strong, and the non-verbal characterisation and communication are both brilliant. As villains, the Gentlemen are not only hugely creepy, but iconic – so much so that, as I was watching, I came to the belated realisation that two of Steven Moffat’s original monsters in Doctor Who, the Silence and the Whispermen, are inarguably Gentlemen knockoffs. (He’s even copied Whedon’s trick of the fake-creepy nursery rhyme to describe them.) It’s definitely one of the strongest episodes overall, and one that I still really like.

But.

(You knew there’d be one.)

Two things really bothered me in this episode – jarringly so, because I’d never noticed them before, and because they were both unequivocally sexist.

Firstly, there’s the issue of Anya. Ever since she turned human in S3, something about her characterisation in general and her interactions with Xander in particular has been really bothering me, but it wasn’t until Hush that I was able to pin it down: she’s a sexist caricature. Though her directness, socially inappropriate behaviour and greed are all played as quirky demon-turns-human traits, they overwhelmingly manifest as exaggerated and stereotypically negative female behaviours. After going with Xander to prom, which constitutes their one and only date, she forms a disproportionately strong attachment to him, demanding to know about the state of their relationship and in all respects behaving like a clingy, obsessive stalker – which is played for laughs at her expense. Immediately after sleeping with Xander, she says ‘I’m over you’, then penalises him for expressing the same sentiment, thereby conforming to the stereotype of women who say the opposite of what they mean – which is played for laughs at her expense. And then, in Hush, when she once again asks Xander about their relationship, he turns to her and says, ‘You really did turn into a real girl, didn’t you?’ – confirming the fact that her commitment anxiety, irrational mood-swings, demands that Xander buy her things, and nagging, attention-seeking behaviour are not only deemed to be inherently feminine traits, but are also viewed as negative because they’re female. Which, as ever, is played for laughs at her expense.

And I just. This skeevs me out and pisses me off so much, because even though Anya develops into an awesome character, these basic elements of her personality are always there to some extent, and they’re invariably painted as grounds for someone to mock or laugh at her. There are plenty of ways to portray her misunderstanding of human convention that don’t hinge on exaggerated sexist stereotypes, and given that Xander – Xander, King of Nice Guys and Insecure Masculinity, whose issues I’ll be blogging about in the future – is the one who helps her grow into a Real Human by socialising and correcting her, frequently by belittling her in front of other people? This is a serious problem.

Secondly: this is the episode where Willow first meets Tara at her Wiccan group, whose other members are portrayed as being anti-magic and generally ignorant. And… OK. It’s potentially a very cool idea! But here’s where it doesn’t work for me: the Wiccan group, instead of being about magic, is very clearly shown to be a feminist, pro-sisterhood organisation – or at least, they are on paper. They talk about empowerment and getting the word out to the sisters, and when Willow brings up the idea of actual magic, she’s chided for buying in to negative stereotypes. So, feminism, yes?

Only, no. The girl who rebukes Willow does so very passive-aggressively, in a way that portrays no sisterhood at all. But her treatment of Tara is even worse: despite the fact that Tara is visibly shy and stutters when speaking, the Wiccan group-leader mocks her, calls for quiet so Tara can speak (which is clearly a silencing tactic, designed to make her back down – which she does) and expresses sarcastic amazement at the idea that Tara might have anything to contribute. It’s clear from the way this is done that she – and, indeed, the others, who laugh along with her – have a pre-existing dislike of Tara, though we’re not told why. And I get what this scene is meant to do: in the Buffyverse, magic really exists, so the idea of Wiccans who think it’s fake is obviously comic. But here, in the real world occupied by the audience, there’s no such thing as magic – so what we’re left with is a scene that not only mocks as ignorant an overtly feminist group, but portrays its members as catty and cruel. Which, I’m sorry, but no.

And lest someone make the argument that, well, not every episode in the season was written by Whedon personally, so obviously some sexism still squeaked through? No. Hush is written by Joss alone; and believe me, as uncritical a fan as I used to be of his stuff – and even though I still love the vast majority of it – man are there some serious issues with what he does. UGH.

The X Files: S3 & S4

I’ve now reached the end of S4 of The X Files, and am happy to say that I’m still enjoying the show. Granted, it hasn’t improved on race issues, which has lead to some truly cringeworthy moments – as I noted before, with few exceptions, POC predominantly appear in the show as extensions of or vehicles for their supernatural and/or religious beliefs, with a strong tendency towards negative and/or highly stereotyped portrayals of both – and Scully is still being damselled in ways that Mulder isn’t by virtue of gender, but overall, the quality has remained impressively consistent. I’m especially enjoying the strength of the continuity: not only are there multiple regular callbacks, both large and small, to the events of previous episodes and seasons, but the way these references are braided together to form a cohesive background of conspiracies and character development is extremely well done. In modern television, a policy of as-you-go retconning seems to have long since become the default order of business, and as someone who appreciates background details, it’s refreshing to see them treated with the care they deserve.

But as before, what really stands out is the skill with which Scully and Mulder are rendered as characters, and the extent to which their relationship subverts the usual presentations of TV gender roles. Having observed in S1 and S2 how non-sexualised Scully is, for instance, it still came as a surprise to realise – or rather, to hear my husband observe – that Mulder is frequently sexualised in her place: often, he’s shown running around shirtless or wearing nothing but a towel, and as of the penultimate episode of S4, we’ve seen him naked in the shower. Skinner, too, is shown in a similar light, with multiple bare-chested appearances and one prolonged, overtly voyeuristic scene of him in his underwear. While I can certainly think of several more recent shows that feature male sexualisation as a regular component, I’m hard-pressed to think of any that do so instead of, rather than as an accompaniment to, female sexualisation, let alone where the male nudity isn’t filtered through the lens of an on-screen female gaze. By which I mean: in order not to frighten straight male viewers, men only tend to be sexualised on screen when in the presence of a straight female characters – their gaze, whether lustful or embarrassed, is overwhelmingly used as a barrier to protect straight men from seeing male bodies as sexual objects; that way, such viewers can continue to identify with sexualised male characters without actually feeling objectified themselves, because their identification is with the idea of being attractive to fictional women rather than unknown audience members. Take away the on-screen women, however, and what you’re left with is a man whose sexual appeal is only meant for the audience – an inherently radical prospect, when the most sought-after demographic are straight young men who’ve been socially conditioned to panic at even the slightest whiff of homoeroticism. And yet, this is exactly how The X Files runs its sexuality: shirtless Mulder and Skinner shown in contexts where neither Scully nor any other female character is there to see them, such that their nudity is for the benefit of the audience alone. (Scully does see Mulder in the shower, but it’s a profoundly unsexy encounter given his state of psychological shock, and she doesn’t react at all to seeing him undressed.)

It’s also notable that Mulder, while still a masculine character, is allowed to display emotions that are traditionally deemed feminine: he not only cries freely, but does so in the presence of other people, rather than at home, alone, while drunk, as a sign of repression. Similarly, Scully is allowed to display traditionally masculine traits without this compromising her femininity: she aggressively confronts congressmen, senators, generals, senior government officials and other powerful figures, and yet is never once characterised or described as nagging, bitchy or shrill – even her enemies respect her competence without slighting her gender, and that’s a rare thing. This dynamic is exemplified in S4’s The Field Where I Died, which deals with the idea of past lives: though not a fantastic episode in and of itself, the fact that Mulder was said to be female in one of his past lives, while Scully was male at least twice (once as Mulder’s father, and once his commanding officer, both positions of command and power over her colleague) says a lot about the show’s willingness to subvert gender dynamics – as does the fact that this information is presented without question.

All in all, then, I’m looking forward to the start of S5, and keen to see where the rest of the show is headed. Even if it starts to head downhill from this point (and let’s be honest – most TV shows tend to go a bit wonky in their fourth or fifth season) I’m glad to have seen this much.

True Blood: Love & Motive

 

A Softer World: 642

Warning: spoilers for True Blood Season 4

Falling asleep last night, I found myself considering a question that’s been niggling at me for months: why is it that I’m fine with forgiving some True Blood characters who’ve done terrible things in the past, but not others? Despite all the protestations and boundaries of my own ethical system, the distinction seems to have less to do with the type of terrible thing (up to a point) and more about why it was done. By all accounts, I should find Eric Northman to be a more horrific vampire than Bill Compton; his torture and imprisonment of Lafayette alone is one of the more harrowing plots in an already gritty show. And yet, I don’t – and while a reasonable portion of that discrepancy can probably be attributed to the not inconsiderable charms of Alexander Skarsgard, the vast majority of it isn’t.

Looking at Bill’s history, we see an interwoven pattern of love and violence. For love of his maker, Lorena, he committed multiple atrocious murders, their goriness shown to us in a series of flashbacks. For love of Sookie, he took it upon himself to kill both her pedophile Uncle Bartlett and the villainous, violent Rattrays. No matter how deserving of death we might view these characters to be, all their murders were premeditated, placing them well outside the show’s internally acceptable justification of self-defense which. By contrast, his multiple betrayals of Sookie – selling her to Queen Sophie-Anne, returning to Lorena, forcibly draining her blood – are all the worse for being committed against a loved one, even when we can acknowledge the extent to which his hand was forced.

In Eric’s case, however, there’s a sense in which the worst thing he’s done to Sookie personally (as opposed to her friends) is to buy her house and refuse to sell it back. Not only does this give him unprecedented control over her, but the house has such significance to Sookie that the threat of withholding it constitutes emotional blackmail. Compare this to earlier incidents: though Eric both tricked Sookie into drinking his blood and has forcibly bitten her, these crime are nullified – comparatively, if not absolutely – by the fact that Bill has done likewise in a far more awful manner. His history is violent, yes, but nonetheless designed to make us sympathetic: killing Nazis for one thing, and avenging his family’s murder for another. Elsewhere, his devotion to Godric and care for Pam are both used to underscore his benevolence and loyalty, whereas Bill, having first been a spy for Sophie-Anne, has more recently been revealed as a double agent, killing his queen with the aid of Nan Flanagan. Finally, there’s the terrible incident of Tara’s rape and imprisonment to consider. At the time, both Bill and Eric were witnesses to her plight, and it’s a significant mark against both of them that neither one helps her escape. The difference is that whereas Eric remains a relative stranger, his aid neither looked for nor expected, Tara and Bill are friends. When she pleads with Bill to free her, he refuses – and given what comes next, it’s this betrayal which damns him most of all.

Where am I going with this? That love is simultaneously the best and worst justification for committing terrible crimes, and also a leading cause of terribleness when love is the thing betrayed. Acting against a loved one, no matter how pure or necessary the motive, is bad. Acting for a loved one in a terrible way, no matter how pure the motive, is just as bad, but mitigated in cases of extreme necessity. Acting for a loved one in a pure or necessary way is good – which should hardly need to be said, except that distinguishing these latter instances from one another is where we tend to struggle. By this point in True Blood, pretty much every single character has either committed murder, attempted murder, betrayed their friends, run amok or otherwise behaved badly, to the extent that eliding certain events and justifying others is the only way to like anyone. But even then, some crimes stand out as unforgivable – it’s just that we don’t always agree on which these are, and the emotional byplay as the characters argue their respective cases is fascinating.

And that’s where the opening comic comes in: because doing terrible things for love has become the show’s raison d’etre. Whether it’s Sam and Tommy’s relationship with the Migginses, Sookie sheltering a mind-wiped Eric, Tara lying to Naomi about her real identity, Lafayette dealing drugs to pay for Ruby-Jean’s hospice, Crystal imprisoning Jason, Amy betraying Hoyt, Bill imprisoning Marnie or any one of a hundred other scenarios, True Blood has somehow become a show about the intrinsic difficulties of trying to redeem dysfunction. After three seasons of madness and bloodshed, the cast has been left demoralised and broken. Nobody is innocent, and where we once were quick to judge this character or that as being virtuous or villainous, both those terms have now been rendered fundamentally moot.

As to whether that answers my opening question, I’m not sure. Every fandom has arguments against or in favour of particular characters, but in the case of True Blood, it really is impossible to hinge that debate on superior moral fortitude. For my part, the line I draw, however shakily, seems to hinge on love. Killing someone in self-defense is one thing, but killing to show how much you care is a contradiction in terms.

Unless you’re Eric Northman. Then it’s OK.

Sort of.