Blog PostsJoss Whedon and the Girl Geek Archetype

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Theresa Basile

I may have mentioned once or twice that I am a fan of Joss Whedon. Aside from being a self-proclaimed feminist, he writes stories, characters, and dialogue that entertains me and intellectually stimulates me in equal measure. I won’t pretend to unabashedly love everything he does; I have issues with both Angel and Firefly for feminist and storytelling reasons, I thought Dollhouse was a brilliant premise with flawed execution, and as much as I adore Buffy, I’ll never pretend that it was perfect or consistent in its message and mythology. But no matter how flawed the premise or the execution, I never leave a Whedon production without a million thoughts whirring through my head. Whether he hits or misses, he always gets me thinking, and I’ll always appreciate him for that quality alone.

That said, I have a bone to pick with him that I meant to pick awhile ago. Watching Firefly for the first time in years reminded me of one of my least favorite qualities of Whedon’s writing: the use of the girl geek archetype.

Like many writers, Whedon uses and re-uses some of the same stock character archetypes in many of his projects. There’s always a dorky funny average guy (Xander on Buffy, Doyle in the first season of Angel, Wash on Firefly), a creepier version of the dorky funny average guy (Andrew on Buffy, Topher on Dollhouse), and the snarky truth-telling character who makes fun of everyone else (Cordelia/Anya/Spike on Buffy, Jayne on Firefly). One of my least favorite archetypes Whedon likes to reuse is the Girl Geek. The Girl Geek can be seen in the forms of Willow Rosenberg on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fred Burkle on Angel, and Kaylee Frye on Firefly.

Whedon’s version of the Girl Geek has several distinguishing characteristics. The Girl Geek is usually a genius who shows particular aptitude in one specific area, usually without having any formal training. Willow shows excellent computer hacking skills as early as “The Harvest,” even though no one knows where she learned these skills, and she shows similar aptitude for witchcraft, quickly shooting past Tara’s level of power even though Tara has been practicing for much longer. Fred, meanwhile, is a genius physicist; unlike Willow, she is shown to have studied physics for several years at the university level before reaching her “genius” state. However, later on Angel, her physics concentration became less important as she turned into the go-to science smartypants – “We have a problem that might possibly be somewhat related to science? Let’s ask Fred!” Finally, Kaylee is a genius mechanic who also doesn’t have any formal training; machines just “speak to her.”

Another defining characteristic of the Whedon Girl Geek is a quality of wide-eyed girly innocence. Willow is the shy, quiet member of the Scooby Gang who, despite being academically gifted and occasionally coming up with brilliant plans to save the day, doesn’t understand a lot of grown-up ideas – she’s sixteen before she understands what The Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself” is really about. The same cannot quite be said for Fred and Kaylee, as the audience is first introduced to them as adult women than as teenage girls, and both are more sexually mature than Willow was in the first half of Buffy, but they both have that quality of assuming innocence and good intentions from everyone they meet. (Kaylee also has an appreciation for frilly dresses that make her look like a cupcake.)

The final defining characteristic of the Whedon Girl Geek is the “sweetheart” nature of the character. The Girl Geek is usually the most beloved one of the group. Willow’s three love interests (Oz, Tara, and Kennedy) almost worshiped her, they were so in awe of her, and Giles referred to her as “truly the best of all of us” when they thought she was dead. Fred was initially viewed to be off-putting until she became the adored one of the group and both Wesley and Gunn fell in love with her. Kaylee never had the worshipful devotion of a love interest (as her crush Simon always seemed more interested in his own sister than he was in her), but she was still the darling of the Serenity crew – even Jayne had a soft spot for her.

And clearly, Joss Whedon has a soft spot for the Girl Geek archetype. I lost count of the number of times he gushed over Willow and Kaylee in the commentaries for Buffy and Firefly, and Amy Acker has joined the special club of Actors Whedon Likes to Cast A Lot. (This club also includes Nathan Fillion, Fran Kranz, Carlos Jacott, and Felicia Day, among others.) Unlike Whedon, though, I don’t care too much for this archetype. As much as I love seeing intelligent, academically gifted girls represented on television, but the combination of the three traits in Whedon’s Girl Geek – the naturally brilliant mind, the girlish innocence, the beloved status in the group – really gets under my skin.

First, the “naturally gifted” characteristic irks me because there’s a hint of the Exceptional Woman trope in there. The Whedon Girl Geek is either intuitively brilliant and needs no training, or she’s a genius. It’s not enough for her to simply be smart. She has to be The Smartest.

Second, the “girlish innocent” characteristic stinks of male fantasy to me in some ways, like Willow and Fred and Kaylee exist for the guys who are interested in smart women – as long as those smart women balance that intelligence with a dose of cutesy behavior. Smart women with assertive personalities are too threatening.

Third, the “universally beloved” characteristic annoys me because I want to see more women respected, not adored. Plus, this “universally beloved” trait is used to develop the storyline of a male character – Kaylee was less important as her own character than as a figure of cheery goodness on the ship, and Fred was shoved into the fridge to further develop Wesley and provide pain to all the other male characters on the show. (This was especially egregious after the fridging of Lilah and Cordelia earlier in the show’s run.)

Of the three Girl Geeks, Willow is by far the best character (even if she annoys the crap out of me, and even though I think Amy Acker is the best actress of the three Girl Geek performers). I appreciate Willow more than Fred or Kaylee because she has the most development in service for her own storyline, as opposed to a largely symbolic development or development in service to a male character. I also think Willow is aware of her beloved status and willing to exploit it to get what she wants, or rely on her perception of herself as “very seldom naughty” to excuse her bad behavior. There’s a strong current of passive-aggressive tendencies underlying her innocent exterior and a fair amount of resentment and rage, culminating in a character who I often find infuriating, but rarely boring and never one-dimensional. Fred and Kaylee, on the other hand, come across to me as a collection of ideal traits that a male writer really wants to see in a woman, and not so much as fully-formed characters in their own right.

Again, I love Joss Whedon’s work and I admire his writing and feminist sensibilities, but having watched Buffy and Firefly and Angel several times, I’m not in love with his Girl Geek characters, and I’m glad he’s not relying on that archetype as much in his later works.

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ReviewsGender Roles in “The Cabin in the Woods”

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Theresa Basile

Last weekend, the Joss Whedon-directed The Avengers was released, and there was much rejoicing. Fans seemed pleased. I plan on seeing this eventually, more for the director at the helm than for the superheros themselves, but I don’t know if I’ll have the time. I’m currently obsessed with the OTHER Joss Whedon-directed film recently in theaters, and I’m torn between seeing The Avengers and doing what I really want, which is to see The Cabin in the Woods for the third time.

I loved The Cabin in the Woods and there are so many things I want to say about this movie, but for now I’m going to write about the interesting commentary on gender roles that was in the story.

WARNING: If you have any intention of seeing The Cabin in the Woods, do not read the rest of this post. Spoilers ahead like you wouldn’t even believe. Continue reading →

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Blog PostsWhy “Girls” Gets Slammed and “Veep” Gets Praised

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Theresa Basile

As a followup to yesterday’s post about my ambivalent feelings towards HBO’s Girls, I’d like to talk about a recent article from Jezebel that sarcastically criticized Veep for being all about white people. “We’ve Been Shitting on the Wrong Show” implies that the criticism against Girls is unfair because there’s another recent HBO show with a female lead that is also heavily white, and yet no one is complaining about that.

I’ll write a more in-depth perspective about Veep closer to the end of the season, but for now, I want to offer a list of possible reasons why Girls is getting criticized for racism while Veep is not, and also whyVeep has not received the same negative backlash in general. (“Possible” is the key word in that sentence – I’m offering theories, not declarations of fact.)

– Veep is in the Vice President’s Office. Girls is in Brooklyn.
The population of Washington, D.C. is very diverse, but Congress and the inner circle of Washington D.C.’s elite is not, despite many people wanting to believe that racism is done forever because we have a black president. Brooklyn, however, is only one-third white. Veep reflects the population of its setting more accurately than Girls does.

– Veep has at least one black character as part of the main cast.
So far, Selina Meyer’s executive assistant Sue (Sufe Bradshaw) doesn’t have a whole lot to do, but she’s had a few funny lines and she isn’t written as a stereotype. On Girls so far, the only people of color have existed as set dressing or to lecture Lena Dunham’s character on how selfish she’s being. And the upcoming characters we’ll see are the sexy Latina nanny and the thick-accented Jamaican nanny. No, Veep isn’t breaking new ground with race as of yet and there’s only one person of color in the main cast, but it’s still  better than Girls on the race front so far, which just makes people facepalm with race fail.

– Girls claims to be realistic. Veep is satire.
A show that has realism or naturalism as a goal is going to receive more criticism when it’s, well, not that realistic. Satire, meanwhile, is over-the-top by definition. A clear satire is not going to get slammed for being unrealistic because the audience understands that realism is not the point.

– Girls has a relatively unknown cast. Veep has Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Buster Bluth, a UCBer, and My Girl.
Dismissing all criticism of Girls to come from people who are “just jealous” of Lena Dunham’s success would be unfair and inaccurate, but I do think jealousy is one factor, at least for some people. She’s twenty-five years old (younger than I), she has famous parents, and her co-stars include the daughter of the drummer from Bad Company, the daughter of NBC anchor Brian Williams, and the daughter of David Mamet. Who do these snotty upstarts think they are, getting this gig because of nepotism when so many of us creative types have to struggle and flail blindly before maybe, maybe finding success?

Veep, on the other hand, has beloved comedy veteran Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the title role. She’s probably the only cast member of Seinfeld who is universally beloved and constantly getting good work, and who cares if she’s also the heiress to a huge fortune? She’s been kicking butt in the comedy arena for so long that no one cares if she got a head start in the game. Besides Louis-Dreyfus, Veep also stars UCBer Matt Walsh (glad he’s getting some high-profile work!), Tony Hale (I really miss Arrested Development) and Anna Chlumsky (OMG I haven’t seen her forever since My Girl and I had no idea I missed her this much!!!)

In short, Girls has famous people’s daughters who haven’t proven themselves yet, and Veep has comedy veterans and actors we really miss seeing on TV.

– Girls has a female creator.
Could Girls be getting more criticism than Veep in terms of race because Girls was created by a woman? After all, if Lena Dunham is a woman, she has a better ability to understand the needs and struggles of another underrepresented group (people of color). Armando Iannucci, though – well, he’s just a white dude, so how is he supposed to know any better? We’ll give him a pass on the race issue because he’s so privileged that he can’t possibly be expected to do better, but Lena – Lena, how dare you, as a woman, not understand the struggles of people of color. (This paragraph is sarcastic.)

– Girls has an all-female main cast.
After seeing movie after movie and TV show after TV show that fail the Bechdel test, women are craving for an amazing show that focuses on women and female friendships. Now Girls finally exists almost a decade after Sex and the Citywent off the air. Even if the show was perfect, was it ever going to live up to the expectations of something that viewers have been wanting for such a long time?

– Real-life girls under pressure.
In addition to women genuinely wanting to see more shows about female friendships, I also think women felt pressured to like and support this show BECAUSE it focused on female friendships. If a show starring a man fails, then that show fails. If a show starring a woman fails, then it means that shows about women will usually fail. (See this comic, and apply the point about math to film, television, and marketing.) Women may think, “I have to watch this show so that more shows about women will be on the air!” And feeling pressured to like something will only lead to resentment when you don’t enjoy it.

– Jerks reign supreme on Girls AND Veep, but they’re different kinds of jerks.
Audiences may feel more comfortable laughing at the Washington-insider jerks on Veep than at the spoiled whiny twenty-somethings of Girls, especially because the Veep writers don’t try so hard to make us feel sorry for the characters on their show. Many Americans are fed up with the state of United States politics and the state of the economy. Veep lets us laugh at the jerks in Washington, D.C., while Girls wants us to identify with whiny, jobless twenty-somethings who feel like it’s reasonable to ask their parents for $1100 a month.

– Veep is funnier than Girls.
Obviously, this is a completely subjective opinion, as are all opinions about humor. But I don’t think I’m the only one who laughed throughout Veep and only cracked a few smiles during Girls. When I watch Girls, I tend to think, “That was amusing,” or, “That was a clever line,” or, “I can see why others would find that funny.” I feel like I’m watching more of an exercise in comedy than an actual comedy.

Maybe the simple reason that Girls gets criticism for being white and Veep doesn’t is that people are more likely to forgive problematic aspects of shows they really enjoy, and shows that aren’t as enjoyable will feel the full brunt of the criticism.

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Blog PostsHBO’s “Girls” (Run the World?)

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Theresa Basile

2012 is a good year for the woman-centric comedy. In fact, so many women-centric comedies have premiered on television that I don’t have time to watch them all. Three recent women-centric comedies I have been watching are ABC’s Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23 and HBO’s Girls and Veep. I originally planned to write a post about all of these shows, but I find that I don’t have much to say so far about Don’t Trust the B—- and Veep. Don’t Trust the B—- is amusing and I really enjoy Krysten Ritter and James Van Der Beek, but I’m not sure I see the show keeping its high-energy momentum for very long. As for Veep, I’m too busy laughing – and forcing myself NOT to laugh so I don’t miss all of the funny lines – to have many deep thoughts about it yet, so I’ll probably save a Veep post for later in the season after I rewatch the episodes. I unreservedly love the show so far – I know it’s only two episodes in, but I’m optimistic.

Girls, on the other hand – I have a lot to say about Girls, even though I’m not sure the show deserves as much thought as I’m giving it, and I don’t know if I would even be talking about Girls if everyone else wasn’t talking about it. (Talking about something because everything else is talking about it…does that make me the opposite of a hipster?)

Girls debuted on April 15th after weeks and weeks of hype, positive press, and descriptions as an innovative show that would speak to a broad audience of twenty-something women. Immediately after the show debuted, it was criticized as being yet another New York City-based show that was all about white people – spoiled, privileged, whiny white people at that.

Defenders of Girls claimed that Lena Dunham was writing about her own personal experience, and therefore shouldn’t have to include people of color for the sake of diversity. Critics of Girls wanted to know how she could live in Brooklyn without meeting any people of color worth writing about. One such critic was a friend of mine who went to high school with Lena Dunham and wrote this essay: Monochrome. Then writer Lesley Arfin showed her ass by writing a racist tweet, and Jezebel essays about the annoying trend of hipster racism wrote themselves.

But the portrayal of a lily-white Brooklyn isn’t the only aspect of Girls that viewers are questioning. Many people are complaining that the characters themselves – Hannah (Lena Dunham), Marnie (Allison Williams), Jessa (Jemima Kirke), and Shoshana (Zosie Mamet) aren’t likable.

I’ve watched the first three episodes and I, for the most part, agree with this assessment. The only character that I find myself liking at all is Shoshana. She’s annoying and whiny, but in a way that makes me feel sorry for her rather than wanting her to get off of my screen. She’s also been the center of one of my favorite scenes on the show where she describes her three types of baggage in ascending order: her IBS, the fact that she doesn’t like her grandmother, and her virginity. She’s irritating, but I feel for her, and she reminds me a little of a Freaks and Geeks character.

The other three characters, however, I don’t like at all. This isn’t necessarily a problem. I don’t have to like a character in order to find a character interesting. A character can be a terrible person and still hold my interest (see Lannister, Cersei). But I also don’t find these characters interesting, and that’s a huge problem. I don’t care about Marnie and I find Jessa to be such a complete cliche that my mind turns off whenever she’s onscreen. Hannah is more interesting than the other two because she’s been given more time to develop, but for every scene that makes me empathize with Hannah (meeting with her gay ex-boyfriend Andrew Rannells and feeling humiliated)  there’s another scene where I find her actions unsympathetic and completely unbelievable (making a joke about date rape with the person interviewing her for a job). And I don’t object to the joke about date rape because I don’t like rape jokes (though I don’t); I object to the scene because I did not believe that even someone as clueless as Hannah would make that particular joke in that particular moment. It seemed completely forced, like the writers wanted so much to create an AWKWARD MOMENT that they bludgeoned me in the head with it.

Now, some viewers have wondered whether the characters on Girls are supposed to be likable. That’s a good question and I’m not sure how to answer it. The marketing has certainly pushed the “by us, for us” angle, advertising Girls as a show that can and should appeal to a broad audience of women. On the other hand, Hannah has a line in the first episode that seems to counteract that expectation, when she says, “I think I’m the voice of my generation…or of a generation, somewhere.” Dunham is poking fun at self-absorbed writers, but also at the idea that any single person can claim to be the voice of a generation.

So maybe Girls isn’t meant to appeal to a wide audience of women. Maybe it’s meant to appeal only to white twenty-something women in hipster Greenpoint and Williamsburg. That’s fine – not every show can or should appeal to anyone. But in that case, why is the show called Girls? Why not Hannah and Her Friends, or something else that shows the limited appeal of the show and doesn’t almost rip off the title of a Woody Allen movie?

This, I think, is the main problem with Girls. It wants to appeal to a wide audience without actually trying to appeal to a wide audience. We’re supposed to relate to these girls because we’re supposed to, not because they do things that many people can relate to. We’re supposed to laugh at these characters’ selfishness while also feeling sorry for them – an extremely difficult task for any writer to pull off. I admire them for trying, and I think they sometimes succeed, but I often sense them trying SO HARD to be realistic that they often come off as unrealistic.

Of course, the other main problem with Girls – or at least the problem I have with it – is that it doesn’t make me laugh. A lot of the moments that are supposed to be awkward-funny are just plain awkward, particularly the opening of the second episode where Hannah has awful sex with her boyfriend as he enacts a rape fantasy of an eleven-year-old girl. It’s meant to be awkward and uncomfortable, but we’re also meant to be laugh at the boyfriend for being such an asshole. Well, the show succeeded with the awkward and uncomfortable part, but don’t try to tell me that scene was funny, because I honestly found it harder to watch than the rape scene from Fincher’s adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I’m not exaggerating. Even though Hannah was engaging in consensual sex, the feeling of violation was so strong that I almost couldn’t watch the rest of the episode. I’m quite disturbed that the scene was meant to be funny, even if awkward-funny instead of ha-ha-funny.

Now, the show still has bits and pieces that I enjoy. I liked Shoshana and Hannah’s conversation about baggage. I really like Charlie, the sweet boyfriend who’s way too good for Marnie. I felt for Hannah when she was meeting with her ex-boyfriend. I like that the women look like real women with minimal makeup and clothing that people would actually buy instead of clothes from whatever designer is advertising a line of fashion. I’ll probably watch the rest of the season to see if it improves. But based on reactions I’ve seen from critics and fans, I strongly suspect that Girls will become one of Those Shows where not loving it means that “you just don’t get it,” and nothing will turn me off of a show more quickly than an obnoxious fanbase – especially a show where my feelings are already ambivalent.

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ReviewsBtVS and Consent Issues: Episode 2.7 – “Lie to Me” and Episode 2.10 – “What’s My Line? Part 2”

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Theresa Basile

[Note: I’ve decided to begin a series about consent issues in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I will post a new entry in this series every other Tuesday – or perhaps on a weekly basis, if I have the time. In this series, I will look at an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that deals with rape, sexual assault, or consent issues as a main plot point or as a featured event of the episode. I will examine these episodes in chronological order. If, in my writing of this series, you feel that I have skipped an episode that should be a part of this series, feel free to submit a guest post, and I will consider publishing it.]

EPISODES: “Lie to Me” and “What’s My Line? Part 2”
INCIDENT: Allusions to past rape and abuse
PERPETRATOR: Angel
VICTIM: Drusilla

The specifics: In “Lie to Me,” Angel tells Buffy about his past deeds, including what he did to Drusilla. He describes his treatment of Drusilla as the worst thing he ever did when he was an unsouled vampire:

“First I made her insane. Killed everyone she ever loved. Visited every mental torture on her I could devise. She eventually fled to a  convent, and on the day she took her holy orders, I turned her into a demon.”

In “What’s My Line? Part 2,” Drusilla reveals a little more about their history. Spike has delivered Angel to her so she can use him in a ritual, but she decides to torture him and play with him before she and Spike kill him. She tortures him by pouring holy water on his body, but also reminds him of all the pain he inflicted on her and her family. When Spike comes back to take Angel away, Angel describes his past sexual history with Drusilla.

“ANGEL: You shoulda let me talk to him, Dru. Sounds like your boy could use some pointers. She likes to be teased.

SPIKE: Keep your hole shut!

ANGEL: Take care of her, Spike. The way she touched me just now? I can tell when she’s not satisfied.

SPIKE: I said SHUT UP!

ANGEL: Or maybe you two just don’t have the fire we had.”

Angel does this to goad Spike into staking him, because he would rather die at the moment than be used in a ritual to restore Drusilla to her full strength. Subsequent episodes on both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel will show that he wasn’t lying about their sexual history, and that Angel and Drusilla often slept together even when he was with Darla and she was with Spike.

I haven’t watched every episode of Angel, so I don’t know if what I’m about to say was ever proved by canon, but there’s no doubt in my mind that rape and sexual abuse was part of Angel’s torture of Drusilla when she was still human. He emphasizes that she was “sweet and pure and chaste,” and that’s one of the reasons he became obsessed with her – he wanted to undo everything that was sweet and pure and chaste about her.

The mind of the perpetrator: Angel has said that his treatment of Drusilla was the worst thing he had ever done. He regrets his actions against her more than anything else. This is why, in “Lie to Me,” he warns her to take Spike and leave town instead of killing her. He knows that Drusilla restored to her full strength is extremely dangerous, but he can’t kill her because he’s directly to blame for all of her actions. He didn’t simply turn her into a vampire; he trained her to be insane and dangerous. Guilt isn’t his only motivating factor, though – I also believe he doesn’t want a physical reminder of what he did to Drusilla walking around in a town where he and Buffy both live.

These episodes combined with “Becoming Part 1” reinforce my opinion that is one creepy fucker. He was attracted to Drusilla’s sweetness and innocence and chasteness, and these are the exact same qualities that first attract him to Buffy when he sees her in “Becoming Part 1.” Soulless Angel wants to corrupt innocence and souled Angel wants to preserve it, but he’s still drawn to it either way. The lines between Angel and Angelus are not as distinct as he wants to think.

The victim’s perspective: In “Lie to Me,” Drusilla is disappointed to see Angel again because she knows he has a soul. She misses the torturing, evil monster that drove her insane and turned her into a demon.

“ANGEL: Drusilla, leave here. I’m offering you that chance. Take Spike and get out.

DRUSILLA: Or you’ll hurt me? No. No, you can’t. Not anymore.

ANGEL: If you don’t leave it’ll go badly. For all of us.

DRUSILLA: My dear boy’s gone all away, hasn’t he? To her.

ANGEL: Who?

DRUSILLA: The girl. The Slayer. Your heart stinks of her. Poor little thing. She has no idea what’s in store.”

In this last bit of dialogue, I can’t tell if Drusilla is using her psychic powers to foresee Angel losing his soul and hurting Buffy, or if she’s only using what she knows of Angel to predict that he will hurt Buffy.

In “What’s My Line? Part 2,” Drusilla tortures Angel and reminds him of all the ways that he hurt her. It sounds like she’s been holding back this anger and resentment for a long time. Yet four episodes later, in “Innocence,” where Angel loses his soul again, she couldn’t be happier to see him.

What does this episode say about misogyny and rape culture?

I’ve often thought that Drusilla is the most tragic character on Buffy, and that’s largely because of her relationship with Angel. I think her obsession with Angel is a commentary on molestation and Stockholm Syndrome. I’m not sure how old she was when Angel and Darla turned her into a vampire, but these episodes and a few flashbacks on Angel indicate that she was pretty young, maybe on the verge of turning eighteen. However old she was, the point is that she was “pure, sweet, and chaste” – qualities that made Angel obsessed with her, made him want to corrupt her innocence. When she was still human and sane, Drusilla was miserable and unhappy and suffering because of Angel’s torture. (Darla participated in the torture but the show makes it clear that Angel was the ringleader.) When she turned into a vampire, she enjoyed Angel’s brutality and wanted her vampire “daddy” to hurt her even more. She started to get off on the pain.

This change from hating her torturer to lusting for him can partially be explained by the transition from human to vampire. The things that made Drusilla miserable as a human turned her on as vampire. But I also think you can look at Angel and Drusilla’s history as an example of abuse victims becoming attached to their abusers. We hear stories of children not wanting to leave their abusive parents, having grown up with a perverted notion of what it means to love. That’s why Drusilla tortures Angel with holy water. She’s not only angry with him for killing her family. She’s angry with him for abandoning her and for not continuing to torture her. Angel leaving her means that he doesn’t love her anymore. Even though she loves Spike, she still misses the attention from her vampire daddy.

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ReviewsThoughts When Re-Watching “Titanic”

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Theresa Basile

I saw Titanic in 3-D with a friend last week. More specifically, we saw Titanic in 3-D on the 100th anniversary of the ship sinking. I wish I could say that we were big enough nerds that we planned this ahead of time, but sadly, it was a coincidence that we discovered after we picked a date.

The 3-D was very well done and enhanced the viewing experience of the film. The sequences of the ship sinking were even more effective than they were the first time around, and at one point I almost leaped out of my seat when it felt like the ship’s furniture was floating towards me. And of course, I cried when the band played “Nearer My God to Thee” over the sequence of the elderly couple, the mom and children, Guggenheim, Victor Garber, and King Theoden preparing to die – my favorite part of the movie by far.

Of course, the movie is not without its flaws. The dialogue is bad, and Billy Zane is terrible, and some of the movie is way too sentimental. I had all of these criticisms when I first saw Titanic as a thirteen-year-old. In fact, I was one of those insufferable snots who loudly talked about how much I HATED that movie, because I thought I was so above liking anything that was commercially popular. (I was a lonely child.)

Eventually, I grew out of that junior hipster phase and admitted that I liked Titanic and not only because Kate Winslet is so beautiful in that movie that I can hardly stand it and I want her hair and all of her dresses! (The flying dress is my favorite, though the jump dress is a very close second.) But as an adult who writes about feminism and social justice issues, I was struck by two cringe-worthy scenes that didn’t cross my mind as a thirteen-year-old.

First, there is a scene where Rose boards the Titanic with her mother and her Cartoon Villain fiance. Old Rose narrates:

“It was the ship of dreams to everyone else. To me it was a slave ship, taking me back to America in chains. Outwardly, I was everything a well brought up girl should be. Inside, I was screaming.”

When watching this scene, my friend and I both cringed and had to stifle awkward, disbelieving laughter. We’ve joked about Rose’s White Girl Problems before, but for some reason, this particular line had never stuck out to me. This time? It was all I could do to not send James Cameron a card with this quote on it and a hand-written “Are you kidding me? Sincerely, Lady T.”

I don’t want to minimize how stifling and horrible it can be for a woman to have to marry an abusive man. Even rich women in the early twentieth century didn’t have a wealth of options for their lives. But to compare it to a slave ship? A SLAVE SHIP? Coming back to America in chains?! Old Rose, you know who was actually brought to America in a slave ship?Slaves.

The other problematic aspect I want to address has to do with David Warner’s character. David Warner plays Billy Zane’s right-hand man who follows Rose around. As written, His character is as much of a Cartoon Villain as Zane’s, except he’s a much better actor and comes across as more genuinely threatening than cartoonish. (On a side note, I’ve always wondered where I’ve seen David Warner before, and I finally looked it up and saw that he was Lysander in this version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream!)

Anyway, his character is wholly irredeemable. He’s mean to Rose and helps frame Jack. But don’t worry – he gets his just desserts. When the ship splits down the middle, he falls into the cracks between the two halves of the ship and is electrocuted to death! Yay!

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it wildly inappropriate to create a scene where you’re supposed to cheer for a villain’s death in a film that depicts a real-life tragedy that ended the lives of fifteen hundred people.

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Blog PostsI Heart (White) New York!

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Theresa Basile

The other night, I watched the series premiere of Girls. It was amusing and it has potential to be a strong show. I’ll write more about it next week after the premiere of Veep, because I want to write about those two shows and Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23 together in one post. For now, I’ll only say that the show seems like a funny portrayal of a group of white women in New York City.

The world really needs another comedy about a group of white friends in New York City. We didn’t already have Friends, How I Met Your Mother, Sex and the City, and numerous other shows where every main character is inexplicably white.

This sarcastic comment is not an argument in favor of tokenism, or putting in a few people of color for the sole purpose of letting the show creators pat themselves on the back for being so liberal and open-minded. I said it because I’m befuddled that so many portrayals of New York City are portrayals of a really white New York City. In the pilot episode of Girls, there are only two people of color, and they each only have one line. One is a driven Asian woman who’s better at her internship than the lead character is, and the other is a crazy homeless black man on the street.

No, really. The stereotyping doesn’t approach the blatant cartoonish racist stereotyping on 2 Broke Girls, but it was jarring to see nonetheless.

Of course, the show could go the route of 2 Broke Girls, a show where the two white women encounter plenty of non-white people. Non-white people who are all lifted directly from the Ethnic Stereotype Playbook. On a show that also takes place in New York.

The extreme whiteness of New York in these New York City television shows is weird enough, but it’s especially weird when compared to other shows set in places other than New York that still manage to include people of color.

Take Glee, for instance – a (terrible) show that takes place in Lima, Ohio. The population of real-life Lima, Ohio is predominantly white, but the McKinley High School choir room contains more people of color than Friends had in its entire run. Lima is 70% white and 2% Hispanic, so having Santana be the only Hispanic person in the glee club is fairly realistic. (That is probably the first and last time you’ll see the words “Glee” and “realistic” in the same paragraph.)

Or look at two NBC shows, Community and Parks and Recreation. One show takes place on a college campus in…Colorado, I think? One takes place in Pawnee, Indiana. Both are set in fictional cities, but both cities seem to be predominantly white. Yet both shows include more than one person of color in its main cast. Community has Troy, Abed, Shirley, and Chang. Parks and Recreation has Ann, Tom, April, and Donna.

Or look at ABC’s Modern Family. This is a show that could easily have a cast that was 100% white. Television shows centered on one immediate family have a logical reason for being monochromatic. Yet Gloria and Manny are part of the family, and Cam and Mitch have an adopted Vietnamese daughter.

I’m noticing a pattern where shows that are not centered in New York City include a few characters of color, while shows centered in one of the most diverse cities in the world tend to focus exclusively on white people.

To be clear, this observation is not an accusation of racism against the people in charge of Friends, Sex and the City, How I Met Your Mother, or Girls. I don’t believe that anyone involved in those shows are/were actively excluding people of color – and frankly, I think erasure is preferable to the blatant stereotyping in 2 Broke Girls. The extreme whiteness of the first three shows, and the extreme whiteness of the pilot episode of Girls, does make me wonder what version of New York City these writers are living in, where people of color are barely a blip on the radar.

Then I put myself in their shoes, and my perspective changed a little – because if I had to write a show loosely based on my own experiences in New York City, the main cast would be almost as white as Girls.

I’m a straight white woman. Most of my closest friends in New York City are straight white women. Not all, but most. We didn’t all grow up in the city and we didn’t grow up with the same problems and struggles, but we’re a pretty white group. We all watched Sex and the City and played the “which one are you?” game, except each one of us claimed to be the Miranda of the group. (Like the humbugs in Abed Nadir’s Eastern Candy Time, we’re attracted to sarcasm.) If I wrote a television show based on me and my group of friends, the show would be almost as white as Friends, How I Met Your Mother, Sex and the City, or the first episode of Girls.

I’m not sure I can criticize show creators too harshly for simply writing what they know.

I’ve also heard the argument that, like Seinfeld, these New York shows should be more self-aware and comment on their lack of diversity. But I’m not sure how that commentary would come across onscreen. To use my real life as an example – I don’t spend a lot of time saying to my friends, “Hey, ever notice how we don’t have any Hispanic friends in the group? We should get on that!”

For the purpose of fairness, I should also point out that Glee, Community, and Parks and Recreation take place in schools and the workplace, while the white New York shows center on groups of friends. I imagine that groups of friends are likely to be more segregated than offices and schools.

In short, I have mixed feelings about shows that depict very white versions of New York City. I feel odd criticizing writers for writing about their own experiences, but I also feel contemptuous of New York-based shows that don’t even try to include people of color as extras, much less as important characters.

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ReviewsBtVS and Consent Issues: Episode 2.05 – “Reptile Boy”

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Theresa Basile

[Note: I’ve decided to begin a series about consent issues in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I will post a new entry in this series every other Tuesday – or perhaps on a weekly basis, if I have the time. In this series, I will look at an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that deals with rape, sexual assault, or consent issues as a main plot point or as a featured event of the episode. I will examine these episodes in chronological order. If, in my writing of this series, you feel that I have skipped an episode that should be a part of this series, feel free to submit a guest post, and I will consider publishing it.]

EPISODE: “Reptile Boy”
INCIDENT: Attempted human sacrifice of young girls
PERPETRATOR: Delta Zeta Kappa fraternity
VICTIM: Buffy Summers, Cordelia Chase, Callie, previous girls

The specifics: Members of the Delta Zeta Kappa fraternity sacrifice a group of girls to a demon named Machida every year. In exchange for this human sacrifice, the fraternity members are blessed with good luck, receiving power, money – everything they ever wanted. They specifically choose high school girls for this sacrifice. The girl at the beginning of the episode, Callie, seems to have been kidnapped, but Buffy and Cordelia were invited to a party. At the party, they drank spiked drinks.

The mind of the perpetrator: Very simply, the guys want power and money and they don’t mind having to sacrifice girls to a large penis-shaped monster in order to do it. They see women as disposable objects and they get angry when women try to fight back or speak directly to the monster.

The victim’s perspective: The three girls in the dungeon – Callie, Buffy, and Cordelia – all seem to react to their imprisonment differently. Callie is broken and bitter, not expecting any of them to escape. Buffy feels personally betrayed by the guy she thought was nice, but already planning an escape route. Cordelia is scared and angry.

What does this episode say about misogyny and rape culture?

I almost skipped this episode because the consent violations aren’t as obvious as they are in, say, “The Pack” or “Seeing Red,” but there’s too much in here about rape culture to not write about.

There’s a scene in the middle of the episode where Buffy, under the influence of a spiked drink, crawls into a room and passes out on a bed. Richard, Cordelia’s date to the party, walks into the room. He leans over to touch Buffy’s body, and it’s clear that he intends to rape her when she’s sleeping. He’s interrupted by Tom, Buffy’s date to the party, and the following conversation ensues:

“Tom: Get away from her!

Richard: I wasn’t doing anything!

Tom: I saw what you were doing.

Richard: I was just having a little fun.

Tom: Well, she’s not here for your fun, you pervert. She’s here for the pleasure of the one we serve.

Richard: In his name.

Tom: And that goes for the other one, too.

[The camera pans to show Cordelia unconscious on the floor.]”

Even before this scene, we knew that Richard was a bad guy and that the Delta Zeta Kappa guys were up to no good, but we were also lead to believe that Buffy’s date, Tom, was the nice guy of the group. We think he’s the only good one of a group of potential rapists, and when he pulls Richard off of Buffy’s unconscious body, our initial inference is confirmed – until we see that Tom is just as bad as the rest, if not worst of all. He was only pretending to be nice to make Buffy trust him. The message is clear: even guys who pretend to be nice and unassuming can be dangerous, and you can’t assume that a self-deprecating “nice” guy is actually a good guy.

Still, I wonder why Tom interferes and stops Richard from molesting Buffy in her sleep. The episode is never clear about the details of the sacrifice, but virgin sacrifices are a pretty common trope in fiction. Does he stop Richard because the demon requires virgins, or does he not want Buffy “spoiled” so close to the ritual?

I think the demon did require a virgin sacrifice, and that’s one reason why the frat brothers went after high school girls instead of any women at their college. It also occurs to me that the show never was explicit about whether or not Cordelia was a virgin. We saw when and how Buffy, Xander, and Willow each had sex for the first time, and there were hints that Cordelia was sexually active, but we don’t know for sure. Whether she’s had sex or not, Cordelia doesn’t seem like a person who would underplay her sexual history to impress a college boy – or would she? What would a high school girl think that a college boy would want from her?

This episode also contains a hazing scene where Xander, punished for crashing a frat party, is forced to dress as a woman and dance in front of everyone else. This is Misogyny 101 right here – the frat boys who sacrifice girls to gain power will also humiliate other men by having them dress as women – because the most humiliating thing in the world is to be a girl. (I also wonder if they choose to humiliate Xander because he seems to be making a good impression on the college women at the party – the women seem amused by him, at least.) We also see later on that this kind of humiliation is not new for Xander, and that this experience has tapped into all of his deep-seated masculinity issues:

“That’s for the wig! That’s for the bra! That’s for the makeup! And that’s for the last sixteen and a half years!”

Meanwhile, Giles and Angel are annoyed that Buffy attended the party in the first place, leaving Willow to tell them both off:

“Well… Well, why do you think she went to that party? Because you gave her the brush-off! (to Giles) And you never let her do anything except work and patrol! And I know she’s the Chosen One, but you’re killing her with the pressure! I mean, she’s sixteen going on forty! (to Angel) And you! I mean, you’re gonna live forever! You don’t have time for a cup of coffee?!”

Buffy is at the end of her rope with the two men in her life: her father figure is forcing a bunch of adult pressures onto her and not giving her enough room to breathe and be a kid, and her boyfriend is treating her too much like a kid and not respecting her as an adult. In both situations, the man is assuming that he knows what’s best for Buffy’s well-being and taking her choices away from her. It seems fitting that Buffy’s best girl friend is the one to clue them in on how unfairly they’re treating her. Appropriately enough, Giles apologizes for pushing too hard, and Angel asks her for that cup of coffee at the end of the episode.

On a final note, can I express how much I loathe Angel in this episode, with his condescending eye-rolling in that scene with Buffy in the cemetery?

“ANGEL: What are you sayin’, you wanna have a date?

BUFFY: No.

ANGEL: You don’t wanna have a date?

BUFFY: Who said ‘date’? I-I-I never said ‘date’.

ANGEL: Right. You just wanna have coffee or somethin’.

BUFFY: (hopefully) Coffee?

ANGEL: I knew this was gonna happen.”

He “knew this was going to happen.” He says this patronizingly, as though Buffy is a silly little girl with unrealistic romantic expectations. Yes, Angel, how silly for Buffy to think that making out with her, following her around, and having a jealous snitty shit-fit over Xander, of all people, was a sign of interest on your part! Is there any wonder why Buffy was attracted to nice, boring Tom who seemed consistent in his interest in her?

I brought this up not just to complain about Angel (although I do enjoy complaining about Angel), but to point out a sad irony about Buffy’s life and romantic expectations. At the end of this episode, Angel seems a good alternative to the Toms of the world, and for the most part, he is – but by the end of the season, Angel will hurt her emotionally far, far worse than Tom ever did.

Finally, I want to comment on the last bit of dialogue in that Buffy/Angel scene in the cemetery:

“ANGEL: This isn’t some fairy tale. When I kiss you, you don’t wake up from a deep sleep and live happily ever after.

BUFFY: No. When you kiss me I wanna die.”

I want to comment on it. I’m sure there’s something to be said about unhealthy expectations of love and how dramatic, painful relationships are romanticized. But someone else is going to have to say it, because I still have no fucking clue what Buffy means. Does she want to die so she and Angel can both be vampires? Is she acknowledging that she knows the relationship is bad for her but still feels that romantic pull? Does Angel have really bad halitosis? WHAT DOES THIS LINE EVEN MEAN?!

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ReviewsSketch Comedy Monday: “Game of Thrones Behind the Scenes”

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Theresa Basile

I’ve written before that the show Game of Thrones might as well be called Game of Tits because of the amount of gratuitous nudity on the show. People in the legitimate press (e.g. critics who get paid to write about the show) have dubbed the use of nudity and prostitutes as “sexposition.”

Fortunately for us, Saturday Night Live and Andy Samberg have taken the time to show us why Game of Thrones has so many shots of naked prostitutes: one of the consultants on the show is thirteen-year-old Adam Friedberg. You can watch the link here.

This clip has confirmed a few things I already know: 1) Andy Samberg is awesome, 2) Game of Thrones is run by thirteen-year-old boys and people with the mindsets of thirteen-year-old boys, and 3) BOOBS.

Game of Thrones is a very good television show, but it is not a great television show, and it will never be a great television show until the writers and producers have a higher estimation of the viewers’ intelligence, and deliver exposition without including a prostitute in the scene. As this SNL sketch indicates, commentary that the story is “so sophisticated!” and the characters “so complex!” falls a little flat, and often sounds laughable, when you have so many unnecessary whorehouse scenes in the series.

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Blog PostsCommunity’s Changing Character Dynamics

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Theresa Basile

Can I take a minute to say how happy I am that Community is back on my television every week? Because I am so happy that Community is back on my television every week. The show is both as delightful and silly as it’s ever been, but the characters are changing and growing while still remaining funny – a feat that can be very hard for sitcoms to pull off.

First, a note on the silliness: I don’t know how the writers and cast do this, but they up the silliness every week. I thought I had seen it all when Abed played Brown Jamie Lee Curtis and Troy and Britta played the two versions of Michael Jackson in “Celebrity Impressionists,” but two episodes later, the show was giving me a Ken Burns-style documentary episode in “Pillows and Blankets,” one of the most inspired silly episodes they’ve ever done.

As for the character dynamics, I’m noticing interesting changes in the group members as individuals, and also in the way they relate to each other.

After wishing for months that the writers would find something interesting to do with Shirley, they’ve gotten her marriage back together, put her on an entrepreneurial path, and seem to have cemented her role as Jeff’s best friend in the group. I was thrilled to see them spending more time together at the carnival after they bonded, then fought, then bonded again in “Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism.” At the same time, the writers haven’t forgotten to make her funny – the reveal that her high-pitched little-girl voice is the “sexy voice” she uses with her husband was perfect, and unexpected, and a little gross, and hilarious.

Jeff, meanwhile, is taking a more active role than ever in trying to become a better person and a better friend. Some of this seems motivated by wanting Annie to like him, but he’s more sincere than ever. In “Pillows and Blankets,” he went all the way back to the Dean’s office to actually find the imaginary friendship hats he made for Troy and Abed, instead of walking around the corner and waiting for a few minutes to make it seem like he left. He really cares about these people – but his ego is still big enough that he wants the documentary filmmakers and audience to be impressed that he’s writing in a  journal now.

Troy and Abed’s friendship took a major hit in the battle between Pillowtown and Blanketsburg. I won’t lie; I almost cried (while still laughing) after Troy read the email that Abed wrote about him, and when Troy sent an angry text back to Abed saying that no one else will ever have enough patience to be his friend. By the end of the episode, their friendship was back on track, but I sensed that a dynamic had shifted, and the next episode proved me right, when Vice Dean Laybourne was back to threaten the Dean to recruit Troy to the Air Conditioning Repair School. I think Troy and Abed will always be best friends and always love each other, but their friendship can’t stay exactly the same as it’s always been – and it shouldn’t. I’m interested to see how their friendship will adapt now that Troy has a potential future career and love interest (more on that in a bit) and Abed still seems content to watch TV and be in the Deamatorium all day. I’m not worried that their friendship will be damaged – but it’s going to change. It has to.

Pierce continues to be a little pathetic but less filled with rage than he did last season, and in some ways he seems to be maturing. In the latest episode his part with Chang was obviously filler, though, and I don’t know how much of this has to do with the Chevy Chase/Dan Harmon real-life feud. (I’m not going to comment on that in length, because reporting that creative people have on-set differences is like reporting that politicians lie. I lean towards Team Harmon because I think Dan Harmon is primarily interested in writing and producing the best show he can and Chevy Chase is primarily interested in Chevy Chase, but they’re both acting like children. Moving on!)

Annie – well, I’m still not sure she has an arc yet. Right now she’s acting as a supporting player in most of the other characters’ storylines and doesn’t seem to have a path of her own. Again, I hope that changes.

Dean and Chang are being used the way they should be: sparingly, with more Dean and less Chang.

Then there’s Britta, and last night’s “Origins of Vampire Mythology” took another step in the right direction with her character, curing her (potentially forever) of her need to seek approval and affection from men who aren’t interested in her. It was one of her more annoying and cliched character traits and I’m glad she seems to have moved on from that.

And, AND, it’s now officially canon that Troy likes Britta, and now she knows, and seems pleased and is on the verge of liking him back, if she doesn’t feel that way already.

Can I talk about how I feel about that? Because I don’t know how I feel about that! I’ve liked the Troy/Britta dynamic since season one’s “Interpretive Dance,” and they seem to have more in common now than they did even back then. At the same time, I can’t imagine what a relationship between them would look like. I feel like she would annoy him if they were alone together for longer than ten minutes, but I also feel like he would really miss her if she left. That could be really amusing to watch.

They do have a lot in common, after all. They both like dancing. They were both Michael Jackson. They’ve called each other “the opposite of Batman.” They both mispronounce words but still use them in the proper context (“Edible” for “Oedipal,” “All tomato” for “ultimatum.”) They could be the best couple ever! Or they could be a disaster.

Imagine if they got together at the same time that Jeff and Annie finally do the same thing. What would happen then?

I’m always wary when sitcoms try too hard to pair people off and focus on romance over friendships and wacky happenstance, but this is a show that could make it work. As always, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

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