Tag: Female Protagonist

‘The Girls on Film’ Project Challenges Viewers’ Expectations

Here at Bitch Flicks, we discuss at length the under-representation (and often problematic representation) of women in media. In 2011, 11 percent of protagonists in the top 100 domestic grossing films were female (down from 16 percent in 2002). In contrast, women make up more than 50 percent of the population in the United States.
Toronto filmmakers Ashleigh Harrington and Jeff Hammond’s “The Girls on Film” project was inspired by an acting class the two took together. In an interview, Harrington says that their instructor would sometimes give male parts to female acting students as an acting exercise, and they decided they wanted to do something with that concept. Hammond adds that their goal is “entertainment” and to “stir up some questions” about gender in film. 
Ashleigh Harrington and Jeff Hammond, the duo behind “The Girls on Film”
They note that it seems natural to act in and watch these ultra-masculine scenes with women playing the men’s roles (although Hammond says that while it works with women playing men’s roles, when men play feminine characters often the result is “comedy”). Of course, this reinforces the notion that female characters are often marginalized, and the masculine–the lead–is what we aspire to be.
Harrington, left, as Tyler Durden and Cat McCormick as the narrator in Fight Club
So far, the two have produced scenes from Fight Club, The Town, No Country for Old Men, Star Trek, Twilight and Drive. The Fight Club (no, not Jane Austen Fight Club) and Drive scenes are particularly powerful in the fact that they aren’t spectacularly jarring. Instead, they seem organic, like women belong in those roles.
Laura Miyata as Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men
In a piece at The Guardian, Mathilda Gregory favorably reviews the project and analyzes what it is that we as audiences want and need:

“‘The Girls on Film’ project also raises a more subtle point. Do we need more films about what is      typically seen as ‘female’, or do we just need to relax more about which roles women can play? What is most astonishing about these gender-switched scenes is how well they work. … I quickly forget I was watching anything other than a scene from a movie.”
The fact that we can forget we’re watching “anything other than a scene from a movie” would suggest that the answer to Gregory’s question is a resounding both. 
Comparisons of the originals and their remakes

Hammond speculates what it might be like if Hollywood remade classics like Back to the Future with a female lead. Perhaps instead of regurgitating remakes ad nauseum, that could be one way to refresh old stories. (Ridley Scott–who has provided audiences with noteworthy female leads–has already said that the Blade Runner sequel will have a female protagonist.) While the answer to our female protagonist woes certainly isn’t recycling men’s stories and casting women in historically masculine roles, “The Girls on Film” provides an interesting and meaningful perspective into what it would look like if we allowed and expected women to have leading, “powerful” roles.

The possibilities could be endless.

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Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri. 

‘Won’t Back Down’ Causes Mixed Feelings

Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Won’t Back Down”
On September 28, 2012, Won’t Back Down will hit the theaters. This is a movie starring two well-known, respected actresses, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis. It has two female characters. One of them is a woman of color. They are two characters who work together in the pursuit of a common goal. They have lives that do not revolve around men. Their eventual triumph is a triumph of female collaboration.
This movie sounds like a feminist’s dream come true. It will probably pass the Bechdel test with flying colors and show a realistic portrayal of two women who become close as they fight a common enemy. And this common enemy is one of the greediest, most evil foes in American history: the teachers’ union.
*sigh*
I really shouldn’t be surprised. We live in the age of Corporations Are People, so of course a film financed by a conservative activist is going to portray a teachers’ union as the villain. After all, Waiting for Superman didn’t succeed enough in its propaganda to demonize unions and public schools, so the producers have no choice but to try their hand at fiction instead.
This is not exaggeration. An February article from The New York Times, “In Reality and Film, a Battle for Schools,” states the following:
“For Walden, the film is a second shot at an education-reform movie. With Mr. Gates and the progressive-minded Participant Media, Walden was among the financial backers of the documentary ‘Waiting for ‘Superman.’ ”
 
That film, released in 2010, advocated, as potential solutions to an education crisis, charter schools, teacher testing and an end to tenure. But it took in only about $6.4 million at the box office and received no Oscar nominations after union officials and others strongly attacked it. 

‘We realized the inherent limitations of the documentary format,’ said Michael Bostick, chief executive of Walden. Now, he said, the idea is to reach a larger audience through the power of actors playing complicated characters who struggle with issues that happen to be, in his phrase, ‘ripped from the headlines.'”
“Ripped from the headlines.” That’s an accurate description, as the story of the film is ripped from several different headlines about parent trigger laws (laws that allow parents to overturn public schools if they get enough signatures on a petition – 51%). “Inspired by a true story” also leads the audience to believe that this is a fictionalized version of a successful implementation of the parent trigger law – except that’s not the case. The parent trigger law has never been successfully been implemented, and moreover, Won’t Back Down takes place in Pennsylvania – a city that doesn’t have such a law in the first place.
But that’s not the only reason why Won’t Back Down appears to be problematic. Take a look at the trailer:
It’s only two and a half minutes long but I can’t keep count of all the cliches in such a short amount of time. I do think it’s interesting that the trailer only shows us two teachers – Maggie Gyllenhaal’s daughter’s Bad Teacher and Viola Davis’s Good Teacher – and we’re immediately led to believe that Davis’s character is the exceptional, rare Good one while the cartoonish Bad Teacher is indicative of most of the people at that school. 
Of course, I haven’t yet seen the film myself. Other former teachers have, though, and they point out the way the film portrays teachers and unions as villains. Sabrina Stevens, in “Why ‘Won’t Back Down Just Doesn’t Stack Up’,” writes:
“I personally remember lots of overstuffed rolling tote bags (an especially popular option among teachers who needed to bring work home after school ended) and reusable coffee mugs (popular among us newbies who often worked such long hours we barely saw daylight during the fall and winter months) in the school I worked in. Likewise, the school day itself was often a whirr, with teachers bouncing around among 25, 30 or more students at a time during lessons; moving in and out of meetings, planning and professional development sessions; and making calls and handling other daily logistics during “free” periods.

Yet in the movie, it is repeatedly asserted that the union contract prevents exactly this kind of work from taking place. (I suppose all those graded papers, lesson plans, letters of recommendation and after-school activities just happen by magic?) In this school, the contract and the union that backs it are blamed for teachers not helping kids and refusing to work after school. And except for the two teachers closest to the desperate mother played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, these teachers don’t appear to do all that much during the school day, either. The dour, bitter teachers on display during the first two-thirds of this movie looked very little like the committed, passionate teachers I know– though I suppose it’s easy for a screenwriter to misread teachers’ bouts of fatigue or frustration as bitterness if they don’t understand where that frustration comes from. Managing 30 or so people at once requires a constant stream of attention and thousands of split-second decisions every day. Add to that inadequate resources and escalating demands, and formerly bright smiles will indeed begin to dim.”

The film seems to have an overwhelming anti-union message. So what does that have to do with feminism?
Well, frankly, I’m really annoyed that there’s a movie with two women in the lead roles – three, if you include Holly Hunter’s antagonistic eeeevil union leader – and I can’t go see it because of the teacher-bashing.
I like to see movies with women in the lead roles. I especially like to see movies that have two women in the lead roles. I want to financially support movies that give women storylines that don’t revolve entirely around men. And now there seems to be such a film, that also happens to be dedicated to kicking a group that’s already down.
I feel like Hollywood bought me a kitty cat, made me fall in love with that kitty cat, and then crept into my room at night and punched me in the face.
Thanks, Hollywood. Thanks a lot.

‘The Mindy Project’ : A Case for the Female Anti-Hero


‘The Mindy Project’ premiers Sept. 25 (the pilot is available on Hulu).
The anti-hero is in. While one could analyze at length what this says about our society, it’s clear that we are more smitten with the male anti-hero than the female one. There’s still a notion that our female protagonists–when we get them–need to be flawed, but not too much. We still want them to fit a mold of what we deem good.

Mindy Kaling’s new sitcom, The Mindy Project, gives us the rare fully flawed female anti-hero in a prime-time comedy. What’s striking in the pilot episode (Hulu is previewing the pilot before the show premiers on Fox on Sept. 25), is that Mindy’s character, Mindy Lahiri, an OB/GYN, isn’t particularly lovable. In fact, she’s kind of an asshole.

And it’s great.

Lahiri gets trashed and attempts to ruin her ex’s wedding. She loves romantic comedies in a completely shallow, selfish way. She makes inappropriate (even racist) jokes. Was I being seduced by the fact that M.I.A. was blasting in the background during the show’s climax? Why did all of this work so well for me?

Lahiri, at her ex’s wedding, drunkenly insults the couple (including jabs at his new wife’s ethnicity).


I realized that it felt good to see an unlikable female protagonist. It felt good to see a true female anti-hero. Of course, it’s clear that we are supposed to root for her, and can do so easily. Lahiri as a protagonist fits in more with Sterling Archer, Michael Scott, Larry David and Jeff Winger than she would with Leslie Knope and Liz Lemon. We accept men as lovable assholes, but for women it’s often a different story.

The expectations we have for female characters in entertainment rival the expectations we have for women in our culture. Be funny, but not crude. Be pretty, but not vain. Be confident, but not prideful. Be excellent at your career, but don’t sacrifice love and motherhood. Be sexy, but not sexual.

Our expectations for men are much simpler, and less impossible. In fact, the expectations could be characterized as “lack thereof” (this is problematic in its own way). Perhaps this is the reason why we embrace the male anti-hero (whether it’s a sitcom, hour-long drama, film or Ernest Hemingway novel). Audiences expect men to be crude, shallow and unpleasant on many levels. These low expectations open up countless opportunities for complex male characters.

“I’m sorry, disorderly conduct? Aren’t there rapists and murderers out there?”
Upon release from her arrest, Lahiri shows little remorse.


Don’t get me wrong, I love Knope and Lemon. Knope’s character–the entire show, really–is a shining example of feminism in practice. Lemon is flawed, but is also hyper-self-aware and apologetic for herself in many ways. Both of those characters want to be liked. Lahiri (a true model Millennial) doesn’t seem like someone who would apologize to anyone. She just wants it all.

I look forward to having a relationship with a female anti-hero like I have with so many male anti-heroes on TV. I look forward to laughing and/or cringing at some of the character’s words and actions. Lahiri is not what we’ve been taught is the ideal. She’s real, and says and does things that don’t “fit” the ideal mold. Of course it goes without saying that seeing a curvy woman of color in a leading role feels pretty amazing. 

We don’t need every female protagonist to be a true hero. We simply need more complex depictions of women–the good, the bad and the accurate. We shouldn’t expect our female protagonists to keep sweet any more than we should ourselves. 

A reviewer at The Atlantic Wire, in a disappointed review of the pilot, says of the show’s premise, “… I’m worried this particular setup might not be the one. Bawdy talk in an OB/GYN office followed by drunken antics in a mini dress is all well and good, I guess. But Kaling, to some of us at least, has always seemed a bit better.”What does this mean, exactly, besides A. the show is too feminine, and B. she should be “better” than bawdiness and drunkenness? That’s not the point and is the whole point, all at once.

Lahiri grew up in an era of idealized depictions of love and womanhood via Meg Ryan and Sandra Bullock rom-coms. She wants that happy ending, but doesn’t seem to want to change herself for it. She’s clearly excellent at her career. At the end of the day–and at the end of the episode–she just wants to get laid. So she does. 

She smiles toward the camera and we’re invited not to judge, and not to clutch our pearls and wish for a more perfect female character. We’re simply supposed to come along for the ride.



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Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri. 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Week: Why Faith, Anya, and Willow Beat Buffy

The cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
This is a guest post by Gabriella Apicella. 

I missed Buffy the Vampire Slayer first time around. When it appeared on TV, I was the age the characters were meant to be, so was busy being fixated on appearing cool and hanging out with friends in my town’s equivalent of “The Bronze.” But in my mid-twenties, after studying film and media at university, after reading Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs, and after writing a couple of scripts filled with rage at the lack of interesting female characters anywhere, Buffy finally came into my life.

At the end of my first 45 minutes with Sunnydale’s finest, I remember feeling absolute delight. On the promise that they be returned in perfect condition, I borrowed one series after another of my friend’s treasured DVD boxsets, handed over with warnings and reverence, and received with the desperation of an addict. Needless to say I watched nothing but Buffy until reaching the final episode of Season 7 (it didn’t take long). I love this show. I believe it to be one of the most important television shows that has ever been conceived. Yes, there is the Riley blip, and Tara is no natural Scooby, despite her witchy credentials. But out of 144 episodes – that’s almost 7 days of watching Buffy continuously for 16 hours a day* (you’ve got to sleep right) – these niggles are small. It is a work of genius, and I will argue violently against any dissenters.

And yet … I am not particularly a fan of Buffy herself. I’m always on her side when she’s facing the bad guys, whether it’s The Master, Mayor Wilkins, Glory or the downright terrifying Caleb. But when it’s Willow, Faith or Anya that Buffy’s fighting, I can’t help feeling she sort of has it coming.

The entire show champions under-dogs: the nerdy, the quirky, and the excluded. People who aren’t classically beautiful; the unpopular ones that you’re embarrassed to hang out with; the screw-ups and lost souls. And with her perfect hair, kick-ass fighting skills, cool outfits, and dangerously sexy boyfriends, Buffy just doesn’t evoke the empathy of some of her fellow Scoobies. Sure, she has some romantic tangles along the way (excuse the enormous understatement), and definitely messes up occasionally: trying to kill her friends and sister; running away to leave Sunnydale to certain destruction; dying – all notable examples. But when it comes to saving the world, she delivers. She’s awesome at her job. And boy does she know it.

Faith, Buffy’s “rival” slayer

So when Faith arrives and ends up rocking Buffy’s world, there’s a wonderful satisfaction in watching the pair battle it out. Unpredictable, sexy and wild, Faith personifies the dark side of Buffy: what she could have been if she wasn’t so annoyingly right all the time. But more than that, Faith’s psychological issues make her empathetic: her psychotic behaviour is not only understandable, but almost forgivable. From an unstable and implied abandoned background, Faith openly wishes for the wholesome simplicity Buffy’s life retains despite her Slayer responsibilities. She has a touchingly childlike desperation for the conventional stability that the Scoobies, Giles, Angel and Joyce provide for Buffy. The Mayor’s fatherly affection for Faith appears the only stable relationship she has ever come across, where she is treated like the innocent little girl she seems to have never been allowed to be. It is no wonder that she would do anything for him: wouldn’t most of us do anything for our family after all?

Faith is an emotional Slayer, and it is not a straightforward job for her – she is driven by instinct, pain and desperation, and pushes Buffy further than any of her other adversaries up until that point. When Buffy stabs her at the end of their final confrontation in Season 3, she commits the very action that she condemned Faith for. That Faith survives is the only thing which saves Buffy from a hypocrisy that will stalk her in further conflicts.

But when it comes to Buffy’s hypocrisy and double-standards, no situation makes them clearer than the moment she all too easily decides she has to kill Anya in Season 7’s “Selfless.” Being a bad-ass Vengeance Demon notorious across numerous hell dimensions, Anya is nowhere near as harmless as the bunnies she has an illogical phobia of. Her confrontation with Buffy is vicious, and bloody, and is without a doubt one fight we’re really not rooting for Buffy to win.

Vengeance Demon Anya

Anya’s devastation after being jilted at the altar by Xander guts her emotionally. When she renews her status as a Vengeance Demon, it’s driven by desolation and grief. Like a lost soul she is doomed to meander through Sunnydale with no sense of purpose after her excruciating break-up with the love of her life, and finally resorts to her work as her only source of pride and fulfilment. The fact that that happens to include administering gory punishment to insensitive frat boys serves first to show the ravages her soul has endured – but subsequently her compassion when she bargains for them to be brought back to life.

Similarly Xander is all too aware of how painful the repercussions of his commitment-phobia are, and pleads with Buffy not to kill his one true love. When Buffy tells him she faced this problem when she stabbed Angel way back in Season 2, I can’t be the only one that felt she had milked that drama one time too many! And here’s why … To compare that relationship with Xander and Anya’s is immature at best, and delusional at worst. Xander and Anya move in together. They get engaged. They profess their love for one another openly. They plan to have children. They can spend whole days together without apocalypse as an excuse. And most importantly of all, they have lots and lots of sex.

Their physical connection, their delight in carnal intimacy, their inappropriate lustful outbursts are demonstrations that Anya and Xander are a grown-up couple. To compare the adult subtleties of the way they relate to one another with the doomed fairytale of Buffy’s teenage love affair shows a complete lack of empathy and understanding on Buffy’s part. She has no idea what it is like to experience love of the kind Anya and Xander share: where it isn’t “end-of-the-world” urgency all the time! Her response to Xander’s pleas with, “I am the law,” before leaving to kill fellow Scooby, Anya, out of some presumed sense of morality simply reeks of arrogance.

Thankfully, Anya survives Buffy’s assault, and in doing so she gives her a glimmer of insight into the lengths love, and not responsibility, will drive a person to. Amazing that after the show’s most exhilarating confrontation of all, she’d need a reminder of that, but it’s a lesson Buffy clearly doesn’t learn easily.

Buffy vs Willow: replacing “and” with “vs” surely never had a more devastatingly exciting depiction onscreen!

As one of the most popular characters, and with an incredibly complex character arc, Willow is arguably the reason why I love this show so much! Endlessly patient and studious throughout Seasons 1 and 2, over time Willow transforms into the embodiment of the “Woman Scorned” becoming a murderous and merciless master of dark magic in Season 6. In this gothic incarnation of unrestrained power Willow expresses all the suppressed frustrations she’s endured as Buffy’s “sideman.” She flaunts her strength, exhibits her magical prowess and becomes the personification of her enraged emotions. There’s a cathartic thrill at seeing someone previously so meek rebel. Countless times over numerous episodes we watch Willow put her own dramas to one side to prioritise Buffy’s needs, but with the death of Willow’s soul-mate she finally lets her instincts take over. Right or wrong lose significance and at last, Willow’s emotional needs are given priority – that she almost destroys the world in the process doesn’t say much for Buffy’s ability to empathise with her dearest friends!

Dark Willow

So whilst Buffy can defeat demons and save the world over and over, her emotional detachment and self-righteous sense of martyrdom (have some humility woman!) make these fights she doesn’t actually win, absolutely crucial to the Series’ greatness. Ultimately that’s why I find it hard not to let out a little yelp of glee when Dark Willow declares, “You really need to have every square inch of your ass kicked.” Faith, Willow and Anya teach Buffy to lose the ego and remember what she’s really fighting for, and that’s feminism in action right there.

*I am no mathematician, and it is testament to my love for Buffy that I actually worked this out.

———-

Gabriella Apicella is a feminist writer and tutor living in London, England. She has a degree in Film and Media from Birkbeck College, University of London, is on the board of Script Development organisation Euroscript, and in 2010 co-founded the UnderWire Festival that aims to recognise the raw filmmaking talent of women. Her writing features women in the central roles, and she has been commissioned to write short films, experimental theatre and prose for independent directors and artists. 

Quote of the Day from "When TV Became Art: What We Owe to Buffy" by Robert Moore

Buffy on the verge of killing a vampire

In an article published way back in 2009, Robert Moore made the case in PopMatters for why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is such an important television show:

Without any question, Buffy revolutionized the role of women on television, more even than Mary Tyler Moore or Cagney and Lacey or Murphy Brown or Ally McBeal. If you look at female heroes (as opposed to hapless heroines–I have always thought that the definition of heroine should be “endangered female in need of rescue by male hero”) in the history of TV, you will be astonished at how few there are prior to the nineties. You have Annie Oakley in the fifties and Emma Peel on The Avengers in the sixties, and to a degree Wonder Woman (who spent a great deal of her time worrying about impressing her boss Col. Steve Trevor) and The Bionic Woman (the weaker spin off to The Six Million Dollar Man). This all changed in the nineties, first with Dana Scully on The X-Files and then with Xena. But the former, as competent as she was as an FBI professional, was not sufficiently iconic to change TV, while the latter, sufficiently iconic, was too cartoonish to inspire future female heroes. Buffy was the turning point. You can write the history of female heroes on TV as Before Buffy and After Buffy. It is not a coincidence that most of the female heroes on TV arose in the wake of the little blonde vampire slayer. Look at the roster: Aeryn Sun (Farscape), Max (Dark Angel), Sydney Bristow (Alias), Kate Austin (Lost), Kara “Starbuck” Thrace (along with a plethora of other strong women on Battlestar Galactica), Olivia Dunham (Fringe), Sarah Connor and Cameron (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Veronica Mars, and an almost uncountable number of lesser characters. Buffy made TV safe for strong women. This isn’t art, but it is the content of art. Buffy guaranteed that TV as art would make a place for heroic women.
While I recognize that we can go back and forth for the end of time about whether Buffy (the show and the character) is feminist or antifeminist, I think we can at least agree that the simple statement “Buffy made TV safe from strong women” is pretty compelling and hard to entirely disagree with. 
My seven-year-old niece Sophia visited me recently in New York. When it was bedtime, and we were browsing through Netflix to find something to watch before we went to sleep, she wanted Buffy. The next day when we woke up, she immediately asked if we could watch Buffy while we ate breakfast. When we got home from New York sightseeing, she wanted Buffy. We skipped many of the violent, scarier episodes (“Hush,” anyone?), but she loved watching Buffy save her friends and fellow high school students by destroying monsters with her bare hands. 
Now Sophia takes Taekwondo. She showed me some of her moves the last time I saw her, and said, “I bet I’ll be able to kick as much butt as Buffy soon, maybe more!” 
I don’t want to get bogged down about how it sucks in a way that Buffy’s ability comes exclusively from superpowers. I get that, and I could write about it endlessly, but in this moment, I don’t care because Sophia doesn’t care. She watches Buffy and sees a woman who kicks ass, and she wants to emulate that. It’s tough to over-analyze and intellectualize a TV show when you’re watching a young girl practice roundhouse kicks because she wants to be a strong badass like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And I have to say, it’s much more heartwarming to see her excited about becoming a strong woman with martial arts skills than it was to watch her pretend she couldn’t speak–because she wanted to be Ariel from The Little Mermaid. 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Week: Xander Harris: Hyena Boy

Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon) in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Guest post written by Monika Bartyzel originally published at The Hooded Utilitarian. Cross-posted with permission.

As soon as Buffy hit television on March 10, 1997, Joss Whedon became the poster boy for geek feminism. Raised by a radical feminist, he always merged his creativity with gender studies which he called his “unofficial minor.” Buffy was created to defy stereotypical expectations, a blonde superhero whose adolescent growing pains were the blueprint for the supernatural evil she vanquished. This balance struck a chord in viewers, inspiring theoretical interpretations running as rampant as fanfic. But it was never the feminist dream that we thought it was. It couldn’t be, as long as Buffy was friends with Xander Harris, the thorn destroying any so-called feminism in Sunnydale.
Ironically, Alexander LaVelle Harris is based on Joss himself. As he told NPR in 2000, “Xander is obviously based on me, the sort of guy that all the girls want to be best friends with in high school, and who’s, you know, kind of a loser, but is more or less articulate and someone you can trust.” But instead of the radical feminist upbringing, Xander is the product of a highly dysfunctional family. He has no healthy male role models or friendships. (His only male friend, Jesse, is turned into a vampire he accidentally kills, and the act barely fazes him.) Xander only has Willow, the awkward girl who is in love with him, who he romantically ignores. 
When Buffy Summers arrives, Xander immediately wants her. His first words to her: “Can I have you?” He lusts over her power, sexiness, and defiance of school politics and adult authority. His willingness to accept her position of power has often been seen as an example of his feminism; moreover, it’s been used to frame him as a “subversive image of masculinity,” because “confronted with the feminist reality that women are at least equal to him … he doesn’t try to dominate it, he doesn’t try to deny it, and he doesn’t try to ignore it.” But that is precisely what he does. 
Xander sexualizes power, instead of maintaining a respectful attitude towards strong women. He lusts for most of the powerful women he meets, good or bad – Buffy, preying mantis lady, Incan mummy, Willow (as she begins to mature), Cordelia, Faith, and Anya. At the same time, he finds himself at odds with this attraction, which manifests into this strange almost self-loathing that drives him to assert dominance. Since he’s a rather awkward boy without strength, he uses his tongue, throwing insults and off-the-mark opinions as “Xander, the Chronicler of Buffy’s Failures.”
It begins rather benignly. Xander complains about Owen’s “shifty” eyes and rants that Angel is a “girly name.” But it becomes a real problem after “The Pack.” When Xander is possessed by a hyena, he becomes the misogynist alpha male. Though he acts like an animal, he also reveals observations he wouldn’t dare to as human. He acknowledges that Willow likes him, and he challenges Buffy: “We both know what you want… You like your men dangerous.” Hyena juju might make him sniff things and eat piglets, but hyenas aren’t cognizant of high school politics. Possession merely removes Xander’s filter.

Xander possessed by a hyena spirit
Though he is quickly freed of hyena (which he never apologizes for, claiming amnesia), the possession seems to spark an egocentric attitude deep within – Xander’s questionable moments increase in a flurry of sexism and hypocritical commentary that sometimes wanes, but never disappears. In “Angel,” he begins calling Cordelia a hooker. There is no provocation for the term, he’s merely trying to neutralize Cordelia’s power by slut-shaming her, and sadly, the show backs these opinions by drawing a line between acceptable and over-the-top Cordelia-centric insults in “When She Was Bad.” “Hooker” is okay, but Buffy calling Cordelia a “moron” is framed as highly questionable.
“Angel” also marks the beginning of Xander’s war against the souled vampire. When Buffy learns that Angel isn’t human, Xander fails to think of anyone but himself. Though it isn’t wrong for him to note that Buffy should slay Angel (they don’t yet know about his soul), it is not for her benefit or Sunnydale’s. Xander wants Buffy to remove his competition, and urges her to kill him without thinking of her feelings.
Even Willow suffers Xander’s egocentrism. As she develops feelings for someone else (“I Robot, You Jane”), he is immediately critical: “I don’t like it; it’s not healthy.” For these women to be his friend, each must tolerate jealousy and/or insults. Xander is loyal and will help in any deadly fight, but if there is even the slightest question or challenge to his “territory” or masculinity, Xander’s sexual interests and ego come first. He even makes boundaries for Buffy’s strength – it’s okay for her to be an unstoppable Slayer, but she should not protect him from the class bully. Female strength is okay in their private, vampire night, not in the public halls of high school.
Sadly, Xander is continually rewarded for his worst moments. Increasing, sexualized insults towards the most popular girl in school lead Xander to win over Cordelia, creating one of his two highly problematic relationships. When Cordelia momentarily dumps Xander because of her waning popularity, he wants to control her by blackmailing Amy into performing a love spell. He yearns to remove Cordelia’s free will and gain the power, and he’s rewarded for the action. Though Giles chastises him, Buffy praises him for being a gentleman when the spell goes wrong and she hits on him. Likewise, Cordelia is charmed by what Xander has done, and is willing to lose her friends and social standing to be with him.
Dating Cordelia, however, doesn’t stop Xander’s Angel hatred. Yes, Angel killed Ms. Calendar and Xander has a right to be mad. But while the rest of the team hope for the best outcome in “Becoming,” and are concerned for Buffy’s feelings, he just wants Angel dead and couldn’t care less about its effect on Buffy. “The way I see it, you want to forget all about Ms. Calendar’s murder so you can get your boyfriend back.” One might forgive his reductive anger in this particular situation, but it’s not a one-time event. Xander again refuses to acknowledge Buffy’s feelings, or provide comfort that could possibly make her job easier. Instead, he lies, giving her a false message from Willow to “kick his ass.”
Buffy kills a freshly re-souled Angel and runs away. When she returns, Xander quickly condemns her in “Dead Man’s Party” as “incredibly selfish and stupid.” As he sees it: “I’m sorry your honey was a demon, but most girls don’t hop a Greyhound over boy troubles.” Xander is so wrapped up in his own ego-driven world that Buffy’s wildly complicated and emotionally scarring situation is framed as “boy troubles.” Again, no one questions him for his actions. Zombies descend, fighting begins, and everyone forgives each other. Xander begins to be framed as the voice of reason who tells her how it is. 
Cordelia, meanwhile, is treated terribly. Xander, with his overt weakness for Slayers, openly gushes over a newly arrived Faith in “Faith, Hope, and Trick,” until Cordelia tersely asks him to “find a new theme.” He’s in love with Buffy, lusting for Faith, and dating Cordy. Two episodes later, he’s cheating on her with Willow, having become increasingly attracted to his rapidly maturing friend. And this fictional incarnation of Joss isn’t done. When Cordelia discovers the affair and nearly dies, Xander can only feel anger over his loss. He repeatedly gripes about his own unhappiness, blaming his actions on other people, and is desperate to make Cordelia feel even worse. He is completely unable to atone for his actions: “You want to do a guilt-a-palooza? Fine. But I’m done with that.” As Xander later states about his incessant, mean-spirited ranting: “I can’t help it; it’s my nature.”
Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Xander (Nicholas Brendon)

If the show ever decided to question Xander for his sexist, problematic nature, these moments would serve a purpose and help the character evolve into a more worthwhile person and true “heart” of the group. Instead, the Powers That Be continue to reward him for his bad behavior: he loses his virginity to Faith. She’s not Buffy, but she is a powerful Slayer.
When the girls head off to college and Xander becomes the townie, the series gets a break from the sexism. This does not mean Xander is silent; he’s just the marginalized menace. He continues to joke about his lust for Buffy; he never lets her forget that he wants her, marking her as his ideal prey. He might stubbornly accept that they won’t be together, but he lets it fuel his every action as a friend, and the show never questions it or lets him evolve beyond it. 
Meanwhile, Xander begins a rather combative relationship with Anya, chastising her every comment and story – whether they’re demon memories or normal interpersonal communications. When she tells him he isn’t showing an interest in her life in “Hush,” he retorts: “You really did turn into a real girl, didn’t ya?” No man comfortable with female equality equates real concern with nagging, though we can’t be surprised that Xander does – not only because of his many previous and problematic actions, but also because of his attitude towards Anya. He clearly believes he is the better person, the moral center who will teach Anya to be human. Luckily, as he grows into his relationship with Anya, he seems to mellow, becoming a regular Scooby member and friend until Buffy’s relationship implodes in “Into the Woods.” 
Riley and Buffy are a good-on-paper couple. He’s the strong and heroic human offering the security Angel never could. But he’s also a deeply flawed man who cannot stomach Buffy’s strength, especially when she’s in crisis. When Joyce becomes ill and Buffy refuses to fall apart and cry on his shoulder, Riley’s inferiority complex leads him into the arms of blood-hungry vampires he willingly feeds. When she discovers his infidelity, he issues an ultimatum: immediately give him a reason to stay, or he’s going to run off with the Army and leave her forever.
It’s a ridiculous, callous ultimatum, and Xander supports it. Once again, instead of comforting her, he ridicules her. He chastises her for wanting to hide, though she’s barely had a second to process what’s happened. (Riley, meanwhile, had tons of time to process the back story Xander told him about Angel and Buffy.) Xander castigates her for not seeing the problems earlier, though she’s been dealing with her mother’s very serious illness and the arrival of a sister-shaped key. Buffy asks: “What am I supposed to do? Beg him to stay?” Xander looks downright shocked at her hesitation and asks: “Why wouldn’t you?” He continues: “you’ve been treating Riley like the rebound guy, when he’s the one that comes around once in a lifetime. He’s never held back with you. He’s risked everything, and you’re about to let him fly because you don’t like ultimatums? … Think what you’re about to lose.” It’s not much of a jump to wonder if Xander is pro-Riley not because Finn is perfect for Buffy, but because he’s the safe, human choice – the almost-Xander. He continues to be the voice of faulty reason, setting the stage for his utter hypocrisy in season 6 and 7.
Xander is relatively normal for the next year, until his wedding to Anya. He disappears when he’s presented with an obviously fake ‘50s version of his so-called marital future; he flees just like Buffy did, but for much less. (And of course, Buffy and Willow don’t ever condemn him for fleeing, they only support him.) Xander leaves Anya at the altar, telling her “I don’t want to hurt you. Not that way. I’m so sorry.” He lets fear guide him to publically humiliate her and break her heart as if it’s some sort of moral, heroic choice. 
Astonishingly, he destroys her, yet still expects to be with her. Everything surrounding Xander’s cancelled wedding speaks to his egocentrism and hypocrisy. He’s so used to Anya being head over heels in love with him that he expects their relationship to go back to normal. And though he finds it simple to ignore Riley’s infidelity, he prepares to kill when he discovers that his ex is having sex with Spike. Xander questions Anya’s maturity and insults her: “I’m not joking now. You let that evil, soul-less thing touch you. You wanted me to feel something? Congratulations, it worked. I look at you, and I feel sick, cuz you had sex with that.” Though he left her at the altar, he still believes he is the moral center with a right to judge her choices.

Xander and Buffy
Yet it’s Buffy’s sex with Spike that really breaks him. Again, it’s up to Buffy to explain herself in “Seeing Red,” as if she needs to apologize for her own personal life. Ever the egomaniac, when Buffy says: “You don’t know how hard it’s been,” he thinks she’s talking about lying to him about Spike, not about struggling with her newly revived life. Xander even stretches to condemn her choice based on Spike’s previous violence: “I didn’t say I haven’t made mistakes, but last I checked, slaughtering half of Europe wasn’t one of them. He doesn’t have a soul, Buffy.” Though he’s never believed that having a soul makes a vampire an okay bedfellow, he uses that qualifier to denounce Buffy and absolve his own choice of Anya — who was was much more dangerous than Spike, and killed and tortured men for over a thousand years.
Anya rightly tries to temper Xander’s egocentrism in “Two to Go,” but it doesn’t work. She explains that sex with Spike “wasn’t vengeance. It was solace,” and she refuses to let him “play the martyr,” but Xander is still too wrapped up in his own ego. In the next episode he carelessly removes Buffy’s agency and tells Dawn about Spike’s attempted rape. Not only that, but he continually and persistently brings it up through the rest of the series. He takes that power and repeatedly uses it against her.
Xander’s hypocrisy is finally center-stage in “Selfless,” yet he still manages a hypocritical attack. Though he fiercely fought for Angel’s death, he now insists that “when our friends go all crazy and start killing people, we help them.” When his feelings aren’t enough to change Buffy’s mind, he chooses to once again attack her sexual choices: “You know, if there’s a mass-murdering demon that you’re oh, say boning, then it’s all grey area.” He refuses to acknowledge that Anya consciously chose to become a demon both times, and tries to frame Buffy’s responsibility as another example of her capriciousness: “You think we haven’t all seen this before? The part where you just cut us all out? Just step away from everything human and act like you’re the law?”
But it’s the next words that really sum up his complete and utter refusal to acknowledge or consider Buffy’s feelings and power: “If you knew what I felt,” Xander says. He can’t see the similarities between killing Anya and killing Angel, or notice what Buffy went through when she sent Angel to hell. This is our moment to finally call Xander out for his hypocrisy and chastise him for lying about Willow’s message those years ago, and his attitude since. Yet only one line is tossed in, and Willow’s reaction to the “kick his ass” quote is buried in the heated argument. As much as Xander’s hypocrisy is displayed for those eager to see it acknowledged, it’s all words of anger – Xander never learns a damn thing from the exchange; he never gets punished, or feels remorse for his actions. 
The series continually, passively, upholds Xander’s skewed viewpoint, never forcing him to repent and never allowing him to change. Instead, they give him the ultimate gift – Buffy’s strength. In the series’ penultimate episode “End of Days,” Buffy says: “You’re my strength, Xander. You’re the reason I made it this far.” By this point, the idea of the Slayer is already problematic – she’s the result of a vicious supernatural rape on the first Slayer, a lineage controlled by a white, patriarchal council. And now she attributes her strength and survival to the man who constantly sexualized her, belittled her, and condemned her. Not only that, but he’s given more power in the comics, having dominion over all the slayers as the “unofficial Watcher.” 
Upon reflection, it’s hard to link Buffy the Vampire Slayer to feminism because Xander, the self-proclaimed “perspective guy,” continually nullifies the agency of the women around him. His respect for powerful women is qualified. No woman enjoys her power without Xander trying to exert some form of control (judgment) over it. As one fan once described it, “he hurts people with an uncanny casualness of a true bully.” Through casual banter, his egocentric power struggle is framed as comedy. We’re supposed to laugh at this superficially witty and charismatic everyman, and ultimately listen to him as the group’s moral compass, which undermines the show’s push for female empowerment.
This isn’t mere oversight or writer missteps, these moments come again and again and they cannot be excused. The minute Joss and his team embraced the feminist label and strove to create a feminist heroine, they accepted the responsibility of upholding those ideals, or at the very least, not continually undermining them. Buffy cannot be a feminist heroine if her strength comes from a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do man, especially one happy to remove her agency and morally judge her.
Monika Bartyzel is a freelance writer and creator of Girls on Film, a weekly look at femme-centric film news and concerns, currently residing at Movies.com. Her work has appeared in the likes of The Atlantic, Moviefone, Collider, Splice Today, Hooded Utilitarian, Toronto Screenshots, and the now-defunct Cinematical, where she was a lead writer and assignment editor. You can follow Monika on Twitter at @mbartyzel.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Week: Are You Ready to Be Strong? Power and Sisterhood in ‘Buffy’

Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
 
Guest post written by Amanda Rodriguez.

No one will argue that the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer isn’t populated with strong female characters. Buffy’s best friend, Willow, is a computer-hacking lesbian witch with the magical prowess to end the world. Her sister, Dawn, is a mythic Key who can open gateways between dimensions. Faith, Buffy’s sometime friend and ally, is a sexually and physically empowered slayer who revels in her body’s physical gifts. The female villains are also intensely powerful and iconic, ranging from ancient vampires, werewolves, and vengeance demons to genius scientists and even the ultimate foe, The First (though technically genderless, this force often takes the form of Buffy herself). Season 5’s villainess, Glory, is even a goddess whose power is only diminished when she is forced to inhabit the body of a human male, and if that ain’t feminist commentary, I don’t know what is.
Though the show suffers from no shortage of powerful women, the ways in which they relate to one another throughout the series is a constant struggle. This is because the dominant patriarchal paradigm within which the show is operating insists that one powerful woman is a delightful anomaly, but multiple powerful women are a threat to hegemony. By these standards, Buffy, by herself, is set up as a superior paragon of womanhood: strong, independent, sassy, beautiful, smart,courageous, and compassionate. If all women, however, were empowered like Buffy, or even a small group, it would be a subversive threat to male dominance,which is why Buffy and her power are exceptional and solitary. This, in effect,handicaps her, limiting her power.
“Into every generation, a slayer is born. One girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness.” | Image of Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar)
Within this context, each woman’s power in the Buffyverse sets her apart from others and often puts her at odds with other powerful women. Buffy laments the isolation that her power causes, feeling as if no one can relate to the magnitude of the unending burden that she must bear alone. On multiple occasions, her power also puts her into a position where she feels she must destroy other women who are abusing their power.
Though Buffy has no qualms destroying evildoing villainesses, her decision-making becomes more complicated when it is a female friend/loved one/ally using her power in ways that go against Buffy’s code. Inevitably in these instances, Buffy struggles with her duties as a slayer but always comes back around to what the dominant patriarchal paradigm expects of her. Buffy begrudgingly conforms to patriarchy’s prescribed dichotomy that polarizes powerful women, steeling herself to kill the love of Xander’s life, her sister-slayer, and even her own blood sister.
Anya, Xander’s ex-fiancee and Buffy’s friend, returns to her vengeance demon ways in Season 6 after Xander jilts her at the altar. In the Season 7 episode Selfless, Anya kills an entire fraternity as part of her vengeance demon work, punishing men who wrong women. Buffy says of her responsibility to kill the rampaging Anya, “It’s always complicated. And at some point, someone has to draw a line in the sand, and that is always going to be me…I am the law.” Here again the series insists that two mighty female forces cannot coexist. Their power will be constantly at odds, and a balance must be struck by either the neutralization or the destruction of one of the women’s powers. Though Buffy stabs Anya in the chest, Anya lives and chooses to “take back” her murder of the fraternity and relinquish her vengeance demon powers, becoming human again. There is a price, though, for this transformation, and another powerful woman pays it. In a cruel twist, Anya’s friend and fellow vengeance demon, Halfrek, is obliterated in order to restore balance. This implies that women are to be punished for their powers and nonconformist desires and, most importantly, that all powerful women are interchangeable.
“The proverbial scales must balance. In order to restore the lives of the victims, the fates require a sacrifice: the life and soul of a vengeance demon.” – D’Hoffryn | Image of Anya
The polarization of powerful women in the series is most exemplified by the relationship between Buffy and Faith. The nature of slayer power allows only one slayer at a time. She possesses all the power until death. Buffy is drowned and dies briefly in Season 1, disrupting the slayer line, causing another slayer to be “called.” The relationship between Buffy and Faith (commonly known as “the dark slayer”) is contentious from the beginning. There is resentment and jealousy between them. Faith is set up as the outsider little sister who has no friends, no home, no family, causing a deep resentment toward the stability of Buffy’s life. This reveals the unspoken power of Buffy’s privilege, calling attention to the economic and educational disparities between the two slayers. On the other hand, Buffy is simultaneously judgmental toward (in a classic big sister way) and intoxicated by Faith’s free sexuality and her love of slaying (fans and academics alike have cited the two as metaphors for each other).
In Season 3, Faith betrays her sacred duty as a slayer, killing humans and aligning herself with the evil Mayor. Buffy decides to kill Faith, but because the two women share the same abilities, this task is easier said than done. The two go round and round before Buffy finally stabs Faith in the stomach with her own knife, putting her in a coma. In Season 4, Faith wakes up, and after more discord, Faith leaves town and turns herself in, choosing prison as a method of atonement. Faith’s threatening power is effectively neutralized behind bars.
 “There’s only supposed to be one. Maybe that’s why you and I can never get along. We’re not supposed to exist together.”- Faith | Image of Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Faith (Eliza Dushku)
The only time Buffy refuses to do her duty and kill someone she loves is in Season 5 when her sister, Dawn (the mystical Key), must be killed to stop her from unwillingly opening a gateway to a demon dimension that will send the world into chaos. Throughout the season, the sisters often have an uneasy relationship due to typical sibling rivalry and the fact that Dawn isn’t truly Buffy’s sister. Monks harness the awesome power of the Key and shape it into human form, using Buffy’s blood and altering her memories so that she will be compelled to protect it. In spite of all this, when Dawn must die to save the world, Buffy chooses to sacrifice herself and dies instead. This is meant to be a beautiful,selfless act of love, and, though it is, Buffy’s death simply reinforces the idea that only so much female power can safely exist in the world.
“This is the work that I have to do.” – Buffy | Illustration by boo21190 via deviantart.com
All these “sister” relationships are deeply dysfunctional and problematic from a feminist perspective. The show itself sits uneasily within the patriarchal paradigm that it is constantly reinforcing. Though the series complies in a circuitous way by systematically disempowering powerful women by divesting them of their abilities (in the case of Anya) or forcing them to reign in their strengths (in the case of Willow), the show refuses throughout to actually kill these women(permanently anyway). To stop another apocalyptic menace in the final season, Buffy,Anya, Faith, and Dawn all work together alongside a host of “potential slayers.”The “potentials” are women who are not actually powerful but could become powerful should a slayer die, further underscoring the notion that female power must be balanced and finite.
This is when it gets really good. The ending of this series gives me goosebumps every time I watch it. It’s a feminist dream come true. They are facing The First, a truly invincible foe who is only able to rear its ugly head when the cosmic balance is upset because of Buffy’s mystical resurrection, allowing two slayers to exist in the worlds simultaneously. One could even posit that The First is symbolic of patriarchal and misogynistic oppression of women, especially since Its right-hand man is a woman-hating religious fanatic. Not only that, but The First appears often as Buffy, herself, implying, perhaps, that female complicity or conformity to an oppressive standard is a major obstacle to equality. That’s a whole other paper, though.
To muster enough force to beat back The First, Buffy creates a new paradigm. She enlists the help of another powerful woman (Willow) to subvert the paradigm that requires only one woman/one slayer to exist at any given time. In a speech that moves me almost to tears every time I watch it, Buffy explains that Willow will use an ancient slayer artifact to release its power to all potential slayers around the world.
“So here’s the part where you make a choice. What if you could have that power, now? In every generation, one slayer is born, because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule. They were powerful men. This woman is more powerful than all of them combined. So I say we change the rule. I say my power, should be our power. Tomorrow, Willow will use the essence of this scythe to change our destiny. From now on, every girl in the world who might be a slayer, will be a slayer. Every girl who could have the power, will have the power. Can stand up, will stand up. Slayers, every one of us. Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?” — Buffy

The series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer tells us that women must band together to defeat patriarchal oppression. Here Buffy chooses to share her power with other women,creating a community of slayers. Buffy has evolved into a powerful woman who refuses to see other women as a threat. She is now a strong woman embracing and empowering other strong women. Together they create a unified force that changes the world forever.
Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.