I always enjoy Ampersand’s link threads, but when I see the word ‘Buffy’ I start making squeals of geeker joy (that’s supposed to be a quote from Ted, but it may not be accurate). So I was really interested in Emma’s Raping the Slayer, which analyses the portrayal of sexual violence on Buffy. The only thing more fun than watching Buffy is talking about your feminist analysis of Buffy (one day I might write a very long post about my theory on the portrayal of teenage girl’s sexuality on Buffy, but you’re spared that – for now). I disagreed with some of the smaller points she was making, for instance, I may being over-defensive on behalf of my secret-TV-Boyfriend, but I just don’t think this is true:
Joss has always been clear that he resents some feminist analyses of it, and what he sees as an imposition of subtext.
But generally I really liked her analysis, particularly when it came to Spike’s attempted rape of Buffy in Seeing Red, and the complete lack of follow-up in season 7. There were two things that most disturbed me about that plot-line, the first was that it was All About Spike. They wrote a rape plot that was all about the rapist and his quest for redemption, to the extent that the attempted rape had almost no affect on Buffy, and certainly none that was important to the plot.
The other was that getting a soul is a plot there is no real world equivalent for. This meant they could weasel out of the real world implications of what they were saying. While they were basically telling the story of a rapist who went away and came back a better person who could earn trust.
I like to believe that people can change, I’m not going to reject the possibility that once you’ve tried to rape someone there’s no chance of you becoming a person who values women’s autonomy. I wouldn’t necessarily reject a fictional story that tried to talk about that possibility. But no-one who ever tried to rape a friend of mine could be anything but a rapist to me. If Spike had wandered off somewhere else entirely and played out his story of redemption there (preferably somewhere that wasn’t on my TV screen), then maybe I could have stomached it. But the idea that you can achieve redemption and forgiveness from the person you tried to rape, is not a story I have any interest in.
That isn’t actually what I wanted to talk about. On the comments of Emma’s post someone brought up a planned Firefly episode, that I’d wanted to talk about for a while. The original source is here:
[Tim Minear, asked about eps of Firefly they didn’t get to make] hemmed and hawed and said, “Should I tell you this?… Oh well, what’s he going to do, fire me?” The original show was darker and this story was more in keeping with that tone.
It opens with Mal and Inara fighting (as they do). Mal tells her she pretends to be a lady and wants everyone to bow before her and kiss her hand but she’s just a whore. Then the Reavers attack and take Inara. While trying to get her back they learn that she had something that would make anyone who had sex with her die.
When they finally track down and board the ship they find all of the Reavers dead and Inara shaking and traumatized. They take her back to the ship and Zoe guards her room. Mal tries to get in to see her and Zoe tells him he’s the last person Inara needs to see. He pushes past her, kneels before Inara and kisses her hand.
I’d never heard of a plot like that before, so I didn’t have a feminist analysis at first, just a general feeling of disgust.
My most immediate feeling of repulsion was definitely at the execution of the idea. I have written about the Mal/Inara relationship before, and I’m not a fan, this just underscored all the reasons why. The most basic reason was that he did not respect the work that she did, and that seemed to me a really shitty basis for a relationship. This plotline seems to be about her earning his respect for what she does by using it to do something that he does respect (fighting). That she has to be violated and traumatised to earn his respect is so gross and repulsive, that I imagine I would never be able to watch the show again after seeing that episode. The fact that he ignores her wishes, underscores how little he actually cares about her.
But what I do find interesting is the wider question. What do other feminist think of a piece of flabotinum that means women can kill their rapists through having sex? It’s not something I’d ever come accross before (although for all I know it could be a common idea in some genre I’m unfamiliar with). One of the things it reminded me of was the rape condom – but as a fictional device I think it needs to be analysed completely differently. I was particularly uncomfortable that this idea came from two men. When men write about rape, I always wonder why. What are they getting from it? What are they trying to say? But I’m not convinced that a woman could write a feminist story about it either. Because ultimately it’s about suffering oppression in order to get revenge.
Also posted on my blog.
Pingback: Hello Glastonbury!
Pingback: feminist blogs
Pingback: The Headpiece for the Staff of Ra
“What do other feminist think of a piece of flabotinum that means women can kill their rapists through having sex?”
1) flabotinum = ?
2) It’s so *anime* and juvenile. I swear that that’s been used in at least two separate anime plots I’ve heard of. It just goes back to a very basic, stereotyped-geekboy thing: the chick who’s so hot, but having sex with her will kill you for one reason or another, but it’s probably almost worth it because everyone totally knows that men would do anything for sex. I say geekboy because the Drow popped into my head immediately, but femme fatales and hot assassins are pretty mainstream.
Anyway, in the case of Inara, this means that a woman is punished for being sexual. Reavers, we’re told, rape anyone. Why is it the prostitute, the most sexually-active woman* who’s constantly knocked down for her sexuality the one that’s captured and gang-raped (we’re also told that they kill people pretty quickly, sometimes eat them while they’re alive, and don’t mind raping corpses, so it’s odd that she stays alive through all this) by hardly-human monsters? Why not Jayne, or Mal? If you’re going to put in something as silly as a kill-you-with-sex-injection, it’s no sillier to say that they accidentially were injected with it or that someone did experiments on them. And why, why, why would the producers do this to Inara, after making such a big deal about how Companions are empowered and better than regular prostitutes and have real power?
I’m sure there are plenty of other arguments about it – vagina dentata, femme fatale stereotypes, whatever – but what it ultimately comes down to for me is that they want us to accept the most proudly sexual female character on the show go through the sexual trauma of gang rape in the name of entertainment – I’m sure she’d be looking all gorgeously ravished when they find her. I don’t care that it’s edgy. It’s nothing new, and they would absolutely not have done such a plot with any of the male characters – all they’re doing is fetishizing rape and vulnerability. Gag.
*Kaylee is sexual, too, and I absolutely love that aspect of her character, but she’s shown having sex twice and one of those times is with Simon, who she’s interested in for other reasons. She doesn’t even have sex with random men when she has the chance, though she gives every indication that she’d like to do so – she sticks with her vibrator because she’s waiting on Simon.
Did I mention that I absolutely, passionately love all these shows to the point where this stuff drives me mad? Or was that self-evident?
I think that kind of goes without saying (although you’re not enough of a geek to know is flabotinum is the word Buffy writers used for a plot device)
I agree with your analysis entirely when it comes to the execution of this plot (and I don’t know anything about anime, but I totally thought that anime would be the genre I don’t know anything about which has women killing people through sex). It’s enough to make you glad the show was cancelled.
I am wondering, specifically, if it’s been used in other stories when it came to rape, and whether it would be possible to tell a feminist story about it. I incline towards no, but I’m not sure.
Great analysis…I’m a huge fan of Buffy, so whenever I see her name I also unleash an ‘egads!’ of surprise.
Thanks for the read.
In Julian May’s Pliocene saga she has a race whose women have vagina dentata, as nerdlet refers to. I read them years and years ago, so I may have some of the details wrong, but my impression was that it gave them sexual power, made them effectively unrape-able, and thus in their culture they tended to be the sexual initiators.
I loved both FIREFLY and BUFFY. But there are serious problems within the creator’s psyche concerning adolescent females — much less Inara. I have a theory that he and his project, Mal, really cannot deal with Inara BECAUSE Inanar is a grown up woman, not an adolescent female.
Postulating a solution/punishment to/for rape that involves the rapee’s vagina is just ignorant.
There are so many way of vaginal rape that don’t involve the rapist’s penis at all — see the poor girl in New Jersey, who was below normal par, intelligence-wise, lured to the home of one of the good ol jocks and raped with a broom handle, video-taped, etc. (They basically got off, and the community was on their side!)
1) I always thought that Mal’s disrespect for her work stemmed from his jealousy at being excluded from it (+5% class-driven scorn), not from real analysis of the job.
2) I read the hand-kiss in this context not as proof that her killing earned his respect but as evidence that the terrible thing that had happened had in no way *diminished* his respect for her (significant in the rape context), and in fact that he might have come down off his previous high horse entirely…
3) as for weaponizing rape, aren’t there variants of chastity belts with, um, teeth?
The thing about souls complicates stuff on BtVS. Spike was soulless when he tried to rape her, and in spite of all the muddying-the-waters Whedon did with Spike, I don’t think you can have moral responsibility without a soul in the Buffyverse.
As for rapists changing–if they can change, then why should we dismiss out of hand the possibility that a rape victim might see that her rapist has changed? That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad story. Whether or not such a storyline was good would depend very much on how it was done.
My main issue with the later-seasons Spike storyline was, like you said, the fact that it was All About Spike.
she had something that would make anyone who had sex with her die.
Does this mean she had a weapon she could use for that purpose, or she had a disease? If the latter, then wouldn’t Mal now be showing respect for her partly because it’s clear (since her clients survive) that she isn’t actually schtupping them, thus isn’t a “whore”?
If so, double ew.
The vaginal dentata idea was used in Neil Stephenson’s “Snow Crash”. Not exactly a feminist piece there, either, but … there you go. Good book though, especially from a geek history perspective.
My understanding was that it was something that you injected, not a permanent state of affairs – that’s what she was supposed to be doing in the pilot (when we all assumed she was planning to kill herself).
Maybe that’s why they ditched the script; they knew it was too ugly.
I’m not going to mind that the fiction of Whedon and Minear is full of quirks and neuroses and sicknesses including sexism and weirdness about young women. We don’t know where art comes from. I don’t mind that sometimes it comes from a weird or unpleasant place. I like Hitchcock, and he was a freaking nutbag. (Okay, The Birds is way too misogynist to watch, but many of his other films that are misogynist to a lesser degree are brilliant.) So the feminist analysis isn’t going to stop me digging the geeky teevee.
I don’t think gang-raping Inara is redeemable, vagina dentata or no. If she has the power to prevent rape by killing with her pussy, she should have that kissing lipstick instead. Why go for the pussy except to make the fact of owning and using one a two-edged sword?
As to Buffy and Spike, it’s the logical outcome of Buffy’s relationship with Angel. The whole series is based on the idea of the redemption of monsters. Angel was at least as big a monster as Spike was, back in his vamp days. Angel tortured, terrorized, murdered, cannibalized, and worse. He nailed puppies to doors. Buffy forgave him because he only did those things without a soul. Presumably we can read “not responsible for one’s own actions” for “soulless.” Without a soul, as Xander loves to point out, you’re a “thing.”
And Joss was very clear it wasn’t going to be Luke and Laura. Buffy barely forgave Spike, and had really clear boundaries with him. Dawn didn’t forgive him. I was pleased that Buffy had flashbacks, that rape wasn’t just this week’s episode, but was acknowledged as having lasting consequences. As Spike died, he was right…she didn’t love him, she was just saying that as a thank you gift for his sacrifice.
When men write about rape, I always wonder why. What are they getting from it? What are they trying to say? But I’m not convinced that a woman could write a feminist story about it either. Because ultimately it’s about suffering oppression in order to get revenge.
I just read Liz Williams’ Darkland (Tor UK, March 2006), in which pretty much the first thing that happens is that the protagonist lets the evil dictator rape her so that she can use her psychic powers to kill him (there’s some kind of negative energy feedback thing). And I think it certainly wants to be a feminist book; I can’t decide exactly how far it’s successful, though.
Hi Maia, I’m enjoying all the New Zealand-themed posts here (although I’m commenting on this one, wouldn’t that be the way).
The thing I remember most about the Spike attempted-rape was the absolute venom in fandom directed at the writer, Marti Noxon. It’s been a while, but from memory she was responsible for many of the shittier season 6 episodes and there was a lot of anger at her for working out her “bad boyfriend” issues through Spike. James Marsters was very very unhappy with that plotline and had a horrible time acting it.
I don’t know, I mean I can see how you could plausibly set it up that he would try and attempt to rape her but it really didn’t fit with the characterisation at that point in the story (to my mind) and really felt like the writers knew that Spike was becoming too popular as a character and he needed to take a hit on the show to drop the fannish opinion of the character. I think one of the things that blurred the lines for a lot of people was that, up until that point in their story, it was Buffy who had been the emotionally (and possibly sexually) abusive one in the relationship. Don’t get me wrong: he tried to rape her and that is obviously a big, fat NO. I hated the plotline and thought it weak, and it certainly wasn’t well-followed up later, either. It was a very grey-shaded scenario, though. It was sort of like watching someone beat the shit out of their partner for weeks and then having the partner turn around and do something completely unacceptable in retaliation: you don’t support the resulting crime but you understand, to an extent, how the criminal got to that point.
As for Firefly, I’ve finally watched the series (thank you, Christmas) and loved it, but it did have many of the Jossverse problems. I was particularly ranty over Inara and the race issues (MIA Asians and black-man-rapist). I am very very relieved we did not get to see the storyline you described. I personally like Mal/Inara (but that’s mostly because it fits one of my kinks; I don’t like the actual pairing all that much, oddly). Inara is yet another example of Joss’s white/straight/male feminist visions. He thinks he’s doing a great job with it but he really needs some feminists on staff to help him out with the character specs.
Yeah, Joss Whedon seems to have some real issues with female sexuality, plus there’s disturbing stuff with his double standards on sexual abuse, Buffy/Spike was terrible to watch, the whole thing was heartbreakingly horrible, it’s almost as if he uses his mythological setting to excuse the misogyny and anti-sex stuff in his writing. Also I agree that’s very anime, and this is coming from someone who really likes anime (seriously, I own 19 shows and 27 films.) If only I could be the radical feminist on Joss Whedon’s staff…
Well, I guess this can be considered one good thing that came as a result of Firefly getting canceled–we never had to watch this excruciating and awful plotline unfold.
Season Seven of “BUFFY” made it obvious that Buffy had not only forgiven Spike, but Spike had eventually forgiven her. What really irritates me about these discussions regarding “Seeing Red” is that so many fans – especially feminists – seemed to forget similar actions committed by other characters . . . including Buffy.
Willow had committed psychic rape on two occasions in early Season 6. After her first act of psychic rape against Tara, she used the latter’s erased memories as an opportunity to have sex. So, not only did Willow commit psychic rape against her girlfriend, but used that act to sexually exploit the latter. Why are you not complaining about this?
Buffy tried to rape Spike, while she was invisible in “Gone”. He eventually realized that she was the one tearing off his clothes and pushing him against the wall . . . and consented to have sex with her. The entire sequence was portrayed as comic relief. Why does Hollywood do this? Why does Hollywood always portray the rape or attempted rape of a man by a woman as a joke? The writer of “Seeing Red” actually admitted that she had tried to rape her boyfriend, after he broke up with her. She did not view her actions as a joke.
While under some kind of demonic possession, Xander tried to rape Buffy in “The Pack”. It was treated as a joke and eventually dismissed. Faith tried to rape Xander in mid-to-late Season 3. She was stopped by Angel. No one hardly mentions this little event.
And Angel got away with psychic rape on two different occasions. He had Buffy and Cordelia’s memories of a single day he was human, swiped by TPTB in the “ANGEL” episode, “I Will Remember You”. Most critics and fans regard this as one of the most romantic Buffy/Angel moments. And in the Season 4 episode, “Home”, he sanctioned Wolfram and Hart to wipe away his friends’ memories of his son, Connor. He had the same thing happened to Connor. When they found out near the end of Season 5, he DID NOT suffer any backlash from them. Buffy still does not know about her erased memories.
Why have you failed to consider all of this? Why do you continue to focus upon “Seeing Red”?