Buffy and Angel 1: BUFFYNANGLE4EVA!!!!!1!
Is it better the second time around? Or the third? Or tenth? This is the place to come when you have a burning desire to talk about an old episode that was just re-run.
I would also say they kept wanting to use "Soul Now!" to excuse it, without really saying what "Soul Now!" means.
Yes. This is one of things I mean't when I talked about how Soul was a bad choice for McGuffin. This is fundmental in judging a character. To what extent is Soul!Spike responsible for NotSoul!Spikes actions. Ditto Soul!Angel for Angelus. You will note that on Angel the show finally had to come to a conclusion about the nature of souls - that Angel was responsible and probably even to blame for what Angelus did - that Spike with the Soul had to carry the weight of what Spike without the Soul had done. Joss kept that ambiguous way to long. On this Minear was the better story teller - he saw that while lots of questions about the nature of the Buffyverse soul could be left unresolved, that one could not. And Cindy did some brilliant wanking on the subject - but on that aspect wanking should not have been needed.
Luke and Laura and GWTW:
Both reflect a world view that I think we've moved beyond. It is like appreciating the Merchant of Venice. The MOV is brilliant, but in spite of attempts at other interpertation also anti-Semitic. But no one sensible says that Shakespear lacked a 20th century world view, so we can't enjoy Merchant of Venice, Shylock and all. And no one sensible would write that kind of anti-semetic stereotype today - at least not without dealing with the fact that it was an anti-semetic stereotype. You could not write the Merchant of Venice today (at least not with a Jewish sterotype. I'll bet you could get away with a gay or Muslim sterotype.)
Similarly, the "Happy Rape" is an old trope - Sabine Women, or a famous verse in Orlando Furioso for example. Don't think you could write Luke and Laura or GWTW today (GWTW for reasons besides the rape scene ending). Don't think we are poorer for that.
I'm kind of blind in the Soap range. Never really appreciated GWTW or most of the soaps. But I'll take peoples word for it that they have merit. And if the culture has opened its eyes to stuff they were blind to, that merit does not disapear.
If I'm not mistaken Laura went crazy and might have tried to kill Skye, though not askye which I keep trying to type
I think so. I stopped watching quite a few years ago, and before Skye came on. Laura might even be dead (again, oh! That's where she's like Buffy), or maybe they think she is, or maybe she's just in an institution.
I'd forgotten about Lucky finding out about the rape. I was watching, then. That was funny (odd) because they had already retconned it away as a seduction, and then they reretconned it, or unretconned it back to a rape.
Also, thanks to the heat and this discussion, the Spike in my head is now played by Tony Geary. I curse you all.
Oh, shoot. Heh. I'll ask what I asked in Minearverse, when we turned into a week of soaps. If you locked Tony Geary, James Marsters, and Maurice Bernard (Sonny/GH) on a locked set. Who'd chew the most scenery?
The end of Gone with the Wind, when Rhett hauls Scarlett's ass up that grand sweeping flight of stairs? She doesn't appear in any way to be consenting. IJS.
Not the end, more like near the endish of the middle. The end was her deciding that she wanted Rhett and him not giving a damn. But you're absolutely right about him raping her.
She doesn't consent, but she's happy about it the morning after, and so I am never comfortable considering it a rape, because Scarlett doesn't seem to.
She doesn't consent, but she's happy about it the morning after, and so I am never comfortable considering it a rape, because Scarlett doesn't seem to.
That's really dicey, the way I look at it. It's not just that she doesn't consent; she struggles and protests. No matter how much I want to romanticize it (and until that point in the movie, I *adore* Rhett unreservedly), she's fighting him.
Honestly, the Spike/Buffy attempted rape scene could have been lifted straight out of GwtW, now that I think about it. Buffy just manages to stop him.
And that bit about Scarlett looking all glowy and well-plowed the next morning? I think that's all about the writers' intent -- when the movie was made, it was still a ludicrous notion that a husband could rape his wife -- to show that she really wanted it; she just didn't *know* she wanted it. Which, in 2005, is all kinds of dangerous territory, but was par for the course when GwtW was made.
She doesn't consent, but she's happy about it the morning after, and so I am never comfortable considering it a rape, because Scarlett doesn't seem to.
I'm fine with calling it rape, in the same way I'm fine with calling the slavery in GWTW oppression, though the slaves don't seem to think so.
And it looks like I may have to forgive TB for liking salmon, for lo, he has proved himself once again as my one true imaginary internet boyfriend.
Honestly, the Spike/Buffy attempted rape scene could have been lifted straight out of GwtW, now that I think about it. Buffy just manages to stop him.
Well, and that she wasn't all glowy and actually said she could never love him after the attempt, of course that was all before the New!With Soul!
If you locked Tony Geary, James Marsters, and Maurice Bernard (Sonny/GH) on a locked set. Who'd chew the most scenery?
Tony by a hair.
That's really dicey, the way I look at it. It's not just that she doesn't consent; she struggles and protests. No matter how much I want to romanticize it (and until that point in the movie, I *adore* Rhett unreservedly), she's fighting him.
Yes, and I understand that. In the book, you never see a thing in the bedroom, so it takes judgment to make a pronouncement, either way. They have their argument in the dining room. Then he sweeps her upstairs. It cuts 'til the next morning. We don't know what went on in the bedroom, so the only place to take our cue is from Scarlett's reaction.
I'm fine with calling it rape, in the same way I'm fine with calling the slavery in GWTW oppression, though the slaves don't seem to think so.
I'm having trouble with the analogy, because I think this is more akin to discerning if a given character was a slave. Of course slavery is oppression. Rape is assault. But since rape involves a person's consent, it also involves her perception of events. I don't think it's a huge overstep to call the scene in GWTW a rape, but it takes making a decision based on what happened in that bedroom, and all we know about what happened in the bedroom is that the next morning, Scarlett is happy about it.
Similarly, the "Happy Rape" is an old trope - Sabine Women, or a famous verse in Orlando Furioso for example. Don't think you could write Luke and Laura or GWTW today (GWTW for reasons besides the rape scene ending). Don't think we are poorer for that.
I agree. I don't think though, that every story has to be socially responsible. It's fiction. If Buffy weren't put forth as take-back-the-night girl, my expectations of how she would be presented would have been different, and on plot points like her reaction to Spike after the rape attempt, they would be lower. If you're telling random individual's story, and that random individual isn't being put forth as a hero, you could actually have her be happy she was forced into sex/raped. I probably wouldn't want to read it, but that's a different issue.
Tony by a hair.
I'm thinking Maurice. I think I'm the only one who is, though.
I'm having trouble with the analogy, because I think this is more akin to discerning if a given character was a slave.
I guess what I'm saying is that with my modern viewer's eyes saying no and physically pushing someone off of me and them not stopping=rape, whether it is for Scarlet or not in the same way that owning someone as property=oppressive whether Mamie considered it to be or not.
If you locked Tony Geary, James Marsters, and Maurice Bernard (Sonny/GH) on a locked set. Who'd chew the most scenery?
Tony by a hair.
Don't you mean "Tony by a BADLY PERMED hair"?
Similarly, the "Happy Rape" is an old trope - Sabine Women, or a famous verse in Orlando Furioso for example. Don't think you could write Luke and Laura or GWTW today (GWTW for reasons besides the rape scene ending). Don't think we are poorer for that.
I agree. I don't think though, that every story has to be socially responsible. It's fiction.
Oh, absolutely. I don't think the issue of "responsibility" comes into play with fiction until/unless the character who does something reprehensible is lionized *by the creator/writers*. I definitely don't think that happened with Spike. (Granted, segments of fandom said that poor widdle Spikey was just misunderstood and Buffy was such a bitca to him, but I'm definitely not talking about fans here. I don't think the *writers,* however, presented Spike's actions in a favorable light.)
