Buffy – Bitch Flicks

This guest post by Morgan Faust appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.

I had a professor who began our first writing class with a wonderful speech about how as writers we have the most important job in the world since we create the myths that inform and mold society and its expectations of itself. Granted, his job was to convince us grad school was worth $40,000 a year….but the idea that narratives have real power did stay with me (so I guess he proved his point). Our national cinema (by which I mean the big stuff that shows up in theaters and is sent out around the world) says a lot about who we, as a country, think we are.

To judge by last year’s overseas box office numbers, we are a nation of white boys and men who fight imaginary baddies…oh and Angelina Jolie. There are many things we could tease out about America’s self-assumed national identity from our cinematic persona with regard to race, heteronormativity, military prowess, but this is Bitch Flicks and the topic is masculinity, so for today, let’s stick to that. Notably, in those top ten movies we have (often in the form of a sequel, triquel, and I don’t even know where to begin counting the X-Men movies) the story of a scrawny, nerdy, outcast boy who goes on a journey and becomes the hero he was meant to be. This story is known to its friends as the monomyth. So what does this myth say about us? A whole heck of a lot! So come with me, oh humble reader, and you will be transformed!

They’re softly lit, and ready for action.

A fantastic, recent example of our everyman hero, monomyth affinity is The Lego Movie. This story has all the notes of the humble hero myth: the hero Emmet, a good-hearted nobody who is chosen by a higher power, Vitruvius, to be the “special,” is then supported by a team of talented people–Wild Style, Batman, and Unikitty–to try and conquer evil Mr. Business. He eventually discovers he had the power to defeat the big bad in him all along! (Sound familiar, Bilbo? Mr. Potter?) Lord and Miller know their stuff. They play craftily with the myth; it’s story structure (ultimately our characters are actually Legos, not people, and they represent the feelings of the boy that is playing with them. Therapists would have loved working with this kid). It has a great message about play and finding your own voice, and says we can all be heroes! Especially boys! Oh, right. While the message of the movie might be about everyone, the story is about an everyman. I am reminded of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” It represents all people, but it definitely says men.

You could be me! Unless you’re, you know, not a straight, white, um, yellow dude!

So let’s dig into the component parts here. We have Emmet who is a good guy, friendly, upbeat, hardworking but unappreciated by his peers (calling Steve Rogers). All of these are traits you choose to have, rather than are born with, which fits in perfectly with the Alger Hiss American Dream we hold so dear: we are not a nation of fated success stories, we are individuals formed by our choices. Monomyth heroes are often orphans, or at the very least unloved by their parents, so they are truly, self-made men. How to Train Your Dragon’s Hiccup is small, hardworking and big-hearted. Harry Potter, even though put upon by awful relatives, was still generally a good kid who tried his best. And Luke was, well let’s be honest, he was a brat, but he was supposed to be a good-hearted, ambitious kid, who wanted to get out and see the world. This is a particular vision of masculinity; it’s not the “right man for the job” skill set of Indiana Jones, Hercules, or James Bond, instead, these are highly attainable character traits.

For all these boys/men, at some point early in the story, someone or thing plucks them from their mundane existence to send them on their path to greatness. The Lego Movie has fun with this conceit by getting a bit meta and literally calling him “the special,” but it is still the familiar notion that through no action of his own, Emmet is lifted up and named the one person who can save the world; and while he doesn’t see it about himself yet, the powers that be have faith in him that he will one day be the hero they know he can be. Which leads us nicely to the next thing a humble hero needs: his team.

In The Lego Movie this is made up a of team of Master Builders, a group of elite builders with the ability to create anything from legos, a skill that Emmet notably lacks. And while this group has their doubts about him, they never abandon him, they listen, and they follow his leadership. Each is a different variation on Emmet, and a manifestation of a skill set he doesn’t have, which in this case, as in many movies, includes a token woman (in Lego there is a token woman, and a token female crazy pony). Despite their abilities, each of these characters are included in the story only so they can help the hero find his inner strength and attain the goal of defeating evil.

We’re here for you! Here and slightly behind you!

Which brings us to the final piece of the monomyth: the hero had the answer inside of him all along. Whether it be the hero’s discovery that in fact he is special, like with Harry Potter (not only am I a wizard, I’m a Horcrux!), or simply that some character trait that had been deemed worthless proves vital, like with Kung Fu Panda’s Po, his love and belief in his heroes proves to be the thing all heroes need to succeed. The journey has brought the hero to a crucial juncture, and in order to defeat the big bad, our man has to come to face-to-face with his true self and embrace his identity.

What a perfect ending to an American myth: we each have greatness inside of us, no matter who we are!

Those aren’t noodles in there, I’m full of greatness!

And it is, it’s a great story, maybe the greatest. In fact, most religions have some version of this very idea at the core of their system (think how at the end of every yoga class the teacher ends saying Namaste or “the God within me greets the God within you”). So if this self-empowerment myth is limited only to men, what does that say about our culture? Well, we see its reflection in the XY domination of the White House. We see it again in Lily Ledbetter’s fight for equal pay. And we see it in the hiring practices of Hollywood (hey there Colin Treverrow!). We have a national love affair with underdog male success stories, a love affair that has not yet extended to women. And that is a damn shame.

But there is hope, a whole lot of it. Things are changing (Hillary!), and that myth is becoming more inclusive. On the one hand, we see that the traits our male heroes often embrace in order to defeat the big bad are becoming more traditionally feminine characteristics: kindness, generosity, self-sacrifice and teamwork. It’s not just about who’s the strongest or fiercest, it’s about love and respect for others. All good things. And we have Buffy, we have Katniss, and (coming this summer!) the return of Sarah Connor. There is a difference, however, between our female heroes and their male counterparts, and that is that they are fleshed out, full characters. They are not mirrors to reflect an improved image of the audience, they are women with families, feelings and flaws; they are people, not archetypes.

These heroes are women, but they aren’t everywoman. — These heroes are women, but they aren’t *everywoman.*

As the monomyth evolves, the question is: will it evolve to include the “everywoman” hero archetype, or will the nature of myth itself change to embrace not just the messaging of individualization, but the representation of unique stories for unique people?

Morgan Faust is writer/director who works in LA with her creative partner and brother Max Isaacson. Together they form the duo BroSis. When they aren’t writing action films with kick-ass women heroes, they’re keeping it goofy over at FunnyorDie.com. Click here to see what she means.

Twitter @morganfaust

Instagram @brosisgrams

This is a guest post by Kathryn Diaz.

The YouTube web series Carmilla might just be the internet’s next best-kept secret. Often compared to Buffy, Carmilla is about a girl, her vampire, and her friends taking on life’s challenges with a dash of apocalypse-stopping on the side. But Carmilla is not a derivative of the 90s classic or anything else you’ve re-watched this year. Carmilla is the next step we have all secretly been waiting for. It is a treatise on the power of teamwork and love. In the words of one of its many heroines, it’s about girl-ing the hell up. And lesbians. We cannot forget the lesbians.

No, but seriously–at a time when the most popular gay ships on Tumblr are queer-baiting extravaganzas and TV lesbians have a tendency to be either invisible or dead, seeing not one, but at least three queer girls whose sexuality is present and normalized matters. Laura Hollis is a journalism student who has seen every episode of Veronica Mars. Danny Lawrence is an active member of the Summer Society, and a TA. Carmilla is a femme fatale in combat boots and heavy eyeliner who studies philosophy when she isn’t feeling Coleridge-y about her life. These young women have been written as women, not stereotypes or labels with legs. While ample time is given to their love lives and personal desires, it is neither the sole nor central part of their personalities and character arcs. We have seen this kind of character before, from Willow on Buffy to Cosima on Orphan Black. But these women, and many others on TV, inhabit a peripheral space as supporting characters. On Carmilla, they take center stage. As someone still working out their sexuality, I cannot emphasize enough how refreshing and heartening this is to see.

Besides its open queerness, the other big thing to consider when thinking about Carmilla is just how much of a reinvention of familiar stories and genres it is. Most obviously, this series is technically an adaptation of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 gothic novella of the same name. For this reason, it is sometimes lined up with other YouTube modern retellings of classics such as The Lizzie Bennett Diaries. However, Carmilla shares more in common with the emergence of radical re-imaginings in media like Wicked and Maleficent. Further still, the new setting and plot that Carmilla adapts in its transformation nestles it in the same company as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Like Maleficent, Carmilla consciously retools its plot and characters to chip away at oppressive elements in their source material and introduce feminist ideologies in the reinvented narrative. However, Carmilla takes things a step further by doing more than just turning the plot around and changing original antagonist into an anti-hero. The series transforms all the prominent characters into new, compelling versions of themselves. Where Le Fanu’s pure hearted heroine Laura timidly speculated about the horrors around her, web-series Laura starts her story as the only person at her university willing to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her roommate. The caretakers from Le Fanu’s story, Mme. Perrodon and Mlle. De Lafontaine, become neurotic maternal floor don, Perry, and genderqueer science whiz who isn’t afraid to face actual monsters in the library head on, LaFontaine. Carmilla gets what the production team of Maleficent did not: creating an anti-heroine of awesome need not come at the expense of the rest of Team Hero (I’m looking at you, Knotgrass, Thistletwit, and Flittle) and when it doesn’t, the story can benefit greatly.

Because of its subject matter, “rag-tag group of heroes” makeup, and “stop the Big Bad” plot, Carmilla also shares many elements with Buffy, as earlier mentioned. Whether intentional or not, to look at the show without this comparison might be missing an important part of the picture. There is a snark-tastic sense of humor between both shows that keeps the story from falling into pure melodrama. Carmilla’s dialogue includes such genre references as “honest to Lestat” and a bout of black comedy involving sock puppets. Beyond this and the presence of a brooding vamp with a hidden heart of gold, we also have light haired spunky heroines, love triangles, brain-sucking baddies, even a Big Bad fake-out before the reveal of the true villain at the season’s halfway point. And yet here, too, Carmilla can be seen as an endeavor to go beyond what was done before. Here there be no burying of our gays or turning them into revenge monsters.

Also worthy of notice: there be no singling out of our heroine either. No one is a Chosen One and no one has to go into a big showdown alone. Laura is the central protagonist, but she is not inherently the Alpha girl of the team she assembles. On a more episode-by-episode scale, the dynamics between Laura and Friends rejects any hierarchal structure. In fact, it is precisely when some of the friends start to play “I Know Best” that tensions emerge. The essence of what commentary comes out of these debacles seems to be this: that when something is big enough, personal agendas come second to the greater good and that love should not come between individuals and their autonomy. Carmilla rejects the possessive or selfish facets of love as attractive. However, this does not mean that it makes flawless do-gooders out of its heroines. Without getting even more spoiler-y (because you need to watch this series and watch it now), many a member of Team Hero has their negative moment and, though the good fight and teamwork must continue, transgressions are not always forgiven easily. By the season’s finale, not every relationship has a happy closure. Understandably, it’s the differences in the Carmilla-verse that make it feel like its own place. More specifically, a place that is simultaneously more realistic and more optimistic than the Sunnydale Hellmouth.

This is not to diminish the good in either Maleficent or Buffy. Personally, I’m a shameless fan of both, flaws and all. They are both strong, impactful works that have influenced many. But we are settling for less than what we deserve if we believe that they are as good as it gets. Even Carmilla isn’t as good as it gets. What Carmilla is is the next step–one that is worth taking and seriously well worth watching.

Kathryn Diaz is a writer living in Houston, Texas. She is currently pursuing a B.A in English at the University of Houston. You can follow her at The Telescope for more of her work.

Tag: Buffy

Let’s Hear It for the Boy! Masculinity and the Monomyth

Moving Us Forward: ‘Carmilla’ the Series