Buffy and Xander as Role Models
"Xander is as important a role model as Buffy and people will never really get that, I think, most of 'em. But, the fact of the matter is that I had a two-fold intent, which was to create a role model in the idea of a girl who's a genuine leader and the role model in a man who is not only comfortable, but turned on by that," said by Joss Whedon.
Joss intended for Buffy and Xander to be role models for girls and boys to show that girls can be leaders and boys can be supporters. Now both Buffy and Xander had to go through a lot of struggles to be able to accept their roles. They did not choose to be who they are, fought against it, disliked themselves because of it, and perhaps that made a lot of fans hesitate to consider them role models. Because the characters felt ashamed of whom they were and wanted to be somebody else, when in fact, those feelings made them more human and relatable.
Criticism:
Buffy:
It's noticeable how Buffy is usually put on a high pedestal; she has the burden of being the star of the show. Every mistake she makes even if it's little is a big deal, and not because she's better than that or that she should know better, but also because the outcome of her mistakes is usually larger than the other characters. Everything revolves around her: Bad guys are out there to get her, good guys seek her for protection, and she's the one the monks chose to protect the key. She's the first name that pops in other's heads when danger occurs and that puts a lot of pressure on her. She's the leader, she's the one with the answers, she's the one who'll get it right and save the world.
She's held to a higher standard and pressured by the characters and viewers to do the right thing. That makes her feel lonely and vulnerable and no wonder why she feels she has to hide her real feelings and desires from others. It's hard to understand what it feels like to have the burden of the world on your shoulders, to patrol every night for the safety of others, to screw up your normal life and your friends' normal life because the monsters are interfering, to drive people away because of something you can't change and that thing is who you are.
And that leads to Buffy being constantly judged and seen as the Slayer and not a person. She's not allowed to be a real human being who has desires that doesn't meet with everyone's approval and makes mistakes and make them again and again and again. As the hero and the role model of a lot of young girls, she has to be perfect, which may work in a children's story, but not so much a serious TV show.
Xander:
Xander's curse is being nothing but a normal guy. Viewers are quick to point out his flaws because he's the "everyman" whose flaws are very common and more often than not hit too close to home.
As Gum_Gnome33 pointed out, "I believe that Xander's human flaws are magnified by the writers, who intentionally use him as an example of what your average "Joe Human" would look like in an often morally grey world, in the midst of a bunch of super-powerful, mission oriented people. The writers portray Xander as so incredibly human that his inconsistencies and hypocritical tendencies really stand out--and they're meant to--in order to depict what it would be like for an ordinary guy who is faced with a ton of ethical stickiness."
The lack of superpowers is also a factor: Having superpowers gives one a great responsibility and a burden. Most characters have superpowers (Buffy, Willow, Spike… etc) and a responsibility (Giles, Buffy, Angel…etc). It's easier to blame their failures on their superpowers or the huge burden on their shoulders. When Xander screws up, he isn't entitled to the same excuses that an extremely powerful hero in the 'verse gets to wear. That also leads to belittling Xander's mistakes and not taking them or him seriously by the writers. And that leads to an outrage from viewers who consider it unfair that other characters must deal with the consequences of their actions while Xander gets out scott-free.
Xander also plays the traditional female role in novels and TV shows, so we rarely get to understand his POV, rarely get a sympathetic look at his issues and flaws, rarely get into his head and see what's going on in there. Not only that, but his character development is extremely subtle and unflashy that it's hard to fathom if he'd actually learned from his mistakes. So that makes it harder to sympathize with him or understand where he's coming from.
Feminism:
Buffy:
Buffy started out as a 16 year old who wanted to be a "normal" girl which included gossiping about boys. Dating boys was highly important and not getting a guy was the end of the world. Girls struggle with independence in a society that considers them incomplete without a boyfriend, and Buffy didn't reject the gender norms. As a teenager, Buffy was pressured to accept society's expectations and rejecting them was not as easy as it seems, I'm not even sure she wanted to reject them in the high school years as she looked content with following them.
There are a lot of complaints about Buffy's role as a Feminist Icon, she's not tough, and we're not talking superpowers here, 'cause if Buffy's strength is measured by superpowers then that isn't really accepting women's strength. Which leads to "Buffy may be physically strong, but emotionally and mentally weak. She lets her friends run her life and always seeks male approval."
There's something I dislike about the expectations demanded from Buffy, like turning her into a robot who preaches feminist values. Buffy is a three-dimensional character before being a symbol for Feminism. Without flaws and weaknesses she wouldn't be relatable or likable. She's emotionally weak? Why? Because she cried over Angel dumping her? Because she ran after Riley shouting his name as he flew away in his helicopter? Because she was pleading Spike to stop instead of kicking him off her instantly in the bathroom scene? Buffy was written as a human being displaying human emotions and sometimes she'd be taken aback by something and it'd bite her. She'd be too shocked to think and would slip and cry. I'm glad she wasn't written as a two-dimensional character just to be what some consider the perfect Feminist Icon.
I'm rocking my brain trying to think of a moment in which Buffy had let her friends run her life, but all I think about are moments of Buffy doing whatever she wanted regardless of what they thought. I'm also not sure about her seeking male approval, is dressing up for a date equals seeking male approval? Or does it mean playing damsel to their macho-ness? Buffy who scoffed at Spike's "If they get in, I don't know if I can protect you." Buffy who refused to change for Riley and told him frankly this is the package. Take it or leave it.
What I love about Buffy is that while she has superpowers she stills keeps to the social norms, and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it makes her a better role model than the other superheroes of TV shows who are defined mostly by the mission. Buffy has them both, the normal life and the mission. Sure, it's hard to fit them both together, but it's admirable how much she tries to run them both without rejecting the other. And that's what makes her a Feminist Icon.
Xander:
Xander started out as a 16 year old boy who disliked himself because of social constructs of masculinity. Society pressures Xander to be macho, an athlete, have sex at an early age, all things that are not Xander. Just like Buffy, Xander was drawn to the gender norms and didn't want to be laughed at or belittled because he didn't meet the high expectations demanded from guys. Despite the accusations of Xander's sexism and misogyny, I think he does translate as a role model much better than the other male characters, because he started out like most teenage boys who are into masculine ideals and after a long process of disappointments and failure to fulfill them, he began adapting and accepting his role as a supporting character. That doesn't make him less of a role model just like it doesn't make Buffy less of a role model that she rejected being a Slayer for so long. Boys like Xander can learn that there's nothing wrong with being a sidekick by watching Xander following Buffy's lead willingly from the start as well as watching him give up trying to be the masculine badass hero (Angel, Riley and Spike) and be content with the fact that he has limits.
Xander has been accused of being sexist, misogynistic, abusive of his girlfriends, and threatened by Buffy's strength. Xander's sexism was a result of society pressures, a result of being ridiculed by boys and girls because he was "less than a man", being beaten up because he wasn't in the football team, probably ridiculed for being friends with girls. Xander –as well as the other protagonists- have their sexist moments, but they're not sexists by definition: would an extremely sexist guy's first thought in the middle of a crisis be getting a girl to fix it? Would an extremely sexist guy consider a girl his hero and role model? Would an extremely sexist guy elect another woman to be the leader after the death of an earlier female leader and not elect himself or another male? I reject the claim that Xander is sexist, and would say he had his sexist moments like every other character, but he's not a sexist character.
Now Xander the misogynistic and his abusive streak and the comments about him treating the women in his life like his harem: Xander doesn't hate women. He can be a jerk, he puts Buffy on a high pedestal, but he doesn't hate women. I'm even shocked someone would even state that as a fact. As for Xander the abusive jerk, his relationship with Cordelia was equal on the insults and jabs. Sometimes she started it, sometimes he started it, and sometimes they started it together. Anya came to his life as a woman who knew nothing about human costumes, in order to help her fit in and get her out of trouble, Xander started teaching her how humans communicate. Anya didn't adapt to human behavior well and sometimes didn't get what was going on around her to the point of coming off as stupid, which frustrated Xander and drove him to be harsher and conceding. He wasn't the best boyfriend, but he wasn't abusive whether physically or verbally, leaving his lowest moment where he slut-shamed Anya in Entropy aside.
Buffy and Willow as Xander's harem: "They could never date anyone unless that one meets with Xander's approval or is Xander himself." I think Xander's feelings toward Buffy and Willow in the high school years were far more complicated than that. When it came to Buffy, he had feelings for her, I'd even say he was in love with her, of course he'd be jealous of every guy she was going to notice and go out with. With Willow, she was his best friend who was by his side since they were five. She was his family. Being with Oz meant that Willow wouldn't be around like before and there were also jealous feelings at play: "Oh, no, my life's not too complicated." This is not me excusing Xander's behavior, but pointing out that he was a 17 year old boy with complicated emotions that once he worked through his confusion, he'd be a better friend. Let's look at older Xander: Buffy dated Scott Hope, Riley, showed interest in Ben, went on a date with Wood, and Xander never even asked about them and their intentions. The only guy he had problems with was Spike. As for Willow, he became friends with her boyfriend Oz, and had nothing to say about Tara and Kennedy. Why? Because he matured and moved on.
There was another claim that Xander only approved of Riley because somehow he was a stand-in guy for Xander and dating Riley meant that Xander could end up with Buffy, which never really made sense to me. Couldn't it possibly be that Xander liked Riley because he was a very nice guy? Why the need to complicate things to arguments that made no sense whatsoever?
Being threatened by Buffy's strength and using the comment "I'm inadequate. That's fine. I'm less than a man" as an example: I've always seen that comment as a dig on Xander's uselessness, rather than dissatisfaction that a girl was stronger than him. As later shown when Xander found Jesse, he reassured him that Buffy was a superhero that would save them. Why would Xander say that if he really had a problem with Buffy's power? That comment never read as Xander being intimidated by a girl being stronger than him to me.
I think Xander liked Buffy's strength and aside from that moment with Larry which was mostly about the fear of the reaction of the students in school, he'd always welcomed Buffy coming to his rescue. I remember when Xander was trapped in Buffy's basement with Cordelia, who insisted he'd do something and his answer was to wait for Buffy to save them. Xander didn't mind Buffy being the hero, but for a while he wanted to be a hero, too. Because heroes earned respect and love, something Xander didn't have. That comment in The Harvest was about Xander, not Buffy. That's how I see it. Besides, Willow was the one who had problems with being Buffy's sidekick, not Xander. He'd usually been content with being obedient.
I'm going to quote two paragraphs from two different essays that I really love:
"Xander’s journey to being a genuinely subversive image of masculinity takes the entire series, he stumbles in it and he’s never perfect. But when faced with female strength–when confronted with the feminist reality that women are at least equal to him, and that some are his superiors in some areas–he doesn’t try to dominate it, he doesn’t try to deny it, and he doesn’t try to ignore it. He adapts, and he gains a depth of friendship, love and self-awareness that goes way beyond that which is allowed to strong men in conventional pop culture." Can be found here.
"Perhaps my favorite thing about Xander is the fact that he is friends with a girl he has a crush on. In many shows - and in many instances in life - the relationship between a guy and his crush is not a true friendship. Instead of seeing Buffy as "a girl to hang out with on a pursuit of potential future bliss", Xander simply sees her as "my best friend whom I also have a crush on". The differences between the two positions is huge. Xander reacts less than well to Buffy's rejection, yes. But he gets over it, in the very same episode and in the very same day. He deals with her rejection without losing her friendship. He handles the fact that she likes another guy, and continues to do best friendly things with her like watch Indian musicals and hanging out at the local club and at her house and in general. Instead of disappearing or believing that Buffy "owed" him something for the friendship ( unlike Jeff Fecke's Nice Guy ®, who believes girls "used him for emotional intimacy without reciprocating, in kind, with physical intimacy"), Xander stayed Buffy's friend because he values her as something more than a potential girlfriend. He values her as a person, and he loves her both romantically and platonically. And that is seriously feminist, and kind of radical for most forms of media." Can be found here.
Joss wrote Buffy and Xander as role models and they've been my role models before I knew about this fact. Buffy is my role model because she mixed her two worlds and defined herself as Buffy and not "the girl" or "the Slayer." Xander is my role model for standing shoulder to shoulder with superpowered people despite the lack of superpowers and because he knows his own strengths and weaknesses and accepts his limits.
"Xander is as important a role model as Buffy and people will never really get that, I think, most of 'em. But, the fact of the matter is that I had a two-fold intent, which was to create a role model in the idea of a girl who's a genuine leader and the role model in a man who is not only comfortable, but turned on by that," said by Joss Whedon.
Joss intended for Buffy and Xander to be role models for girls and boys to show that girls can be leaders and boys can be supporters. Now both Buffy and Xander had to go through a lot of struggles to be able to accept their roles. They did not choose to be who they are, fought against it, disliked themselves because of it, and perhaps that made a lot of fans hesitate to consider them role models. Because the characters felt ashamed of whom they were and wanted to be somebody else, when in fact, those feelings made them more human and relatable.
Criticism:
Buffy:
It's noticeable how Buffy is usually put on a high pedestal; she has the burden of being the star of the show. Every mistake she makes even if it's little is a big deal, and not because she's better than that or that she should know better, but also because the outcome of her mistakes is usually larger than the other characters. Everything revolves around her: Bad guys are out there to get her, good guys seek her for protection, and she's the one the monks chose to protect the key. She's the first name that pops in other's heads when danger occurs and that puts a lot of pressure on her. She's the leader, she's the one with the answers, she's the one who'll get it right and save the world.
She's held to a higher standard and pressured by the characters and viewers to do the right thing. That makes her feel lonely and vulnerable and no wonder why she feels she has to hide her real feelings and desires from others. It's hard to understand what it feels like to have the burden of the world on your shoulders, to patrol every night for the safety of others, to screw up your normal life and your friends' normal life because the monsters are interfering, to drive people away because of something you can't change and that thing is who you are.
And that leads to Buffy being constantly judged and seen as the Slayer and not a person. She's not allowed to be a real human being who has desires that doesn't meet with everyone's approval and makes mistakes and make them again and again and again. As the hero and the role model of a lot of young girls, she has to be perfect, which may work in a children's story, but not so much a serious TV show.
Xander:
Xander's curse is being nothing but a normal guy. Viewers are quick to point out his flaws because he's the "everyman" whose flaws are very common and more often than not hit too close to home.
As Gum_Gnome33 pointed out, "I believe that Xander's human flaws are magnified by the writers, who intentionally use him as an example of what your average "Joe Human" would look like in an often morally grey world, in the midst of a bunch of super-powerful, mission oriented people. The writers portray Xander as so incredibly human that his inconsistencies and hypocritical tendencies really stand out--and they're meant to--in order to depict what it would be like for an ordinary guy who is faced with a ton of ethical stickiness."
The lack of superpowers is also a factor: Having superpowers gives one a great responsibility and a burden. Most characters have superpowers (Buffy, Willow, Spike… etc) and a responsibility (Giles, Buffy, Angel…etc). It's easier to blame their failures on their superpowers or the huge burden on their shoulders. When Xander screws up, he isn't entitled to the same excuses that an extremely powerful hero in the 'verse gets to wear. That also leads to belittling Xander's mistakes and not taking them or him seriously by the writers. And that leads to an outrage from viewers who consider it unfair that other characters must deal with the consequences of their actions while Xander gets out scott-free.
Xander also plays the traditional female role in novels and TV shows, so we rarely get to understand his POV, rarely get a sympathetic look at his issues and flaws, rarely get into his head and see what's going on in there. Not only that, but his character development is extremely subtle and unflashy that it's hard to fathom if he'd actually learned from his mistakes. So that makes it harder to sympathize with him or understand where he's coming from.
Feminism:
Buffy:
Buffy started out as a 16 year old who wanted to be a "normal" girl which included gossiping about boys. Dating boys was highly important and not getting a guy was the end of the world. Girls struggle with independence in a society that considers them incomplete without a boyfriend, and Buffy didn't reject the gender norms. As a teenager, Buffy was pressured to accept society's expectations and rejecting them was not as easy as it seems, I'm not even sure she wanted to reject them in the high school years as she looked content with following them.
There are a lot of complaints about Buffy's role as a Feminist Icon, she's not tough, and we're not talking superpowers here, 'cause if Buffy's strength is measured by superpowers then that isn't really accepting women's strength. Which leads to "Buffy may be physically strong, but emotionally and mentally weak. She lets her friends run her life and always seeks male approval."
There's something I dislike about the expectations demanded from Buffy, like turning her into a robot who preaches feminist values. Buffy is a three-dimensional character before being a symbol for Feminism. Without flaws and weaknesses she wouldn't be relatable or likable. She's emotionally weak? Why? Because she cried over Angel dumping her? Because she ran after Riley shouting his name as he flew away in his helicopter? Because she was pleading Spike to stop instead of kicking him off her instantly in the bathroom scene? Buffy was written as a human being displaying human emotions and sometimes she'd be taken aback by something and it'd bite her. She'd be too shocked to think and would slip and cry. I'm glad she wasn't written as a two-dimensional character just to be what some consider the perfect Feminist Icon.
I'm rocking my brain trying to think of a moment in which Buffy had let her friends run her life, but all I think about are moments of Buffy doing whatever she wanted regardless of what they thought. I'm also not sure about her seeking male approval, is dressing up for a date equals seeking male approval? Or does it mean playing damsel to their macho-ness? Buffy who scoffed at Spike's "If they get in, I don't know if I can protect you." Buffy who refused to change for Riley and told him frankly this is the package. Take it or leave it.
What I love about Buffy is that while she has superpowers she stills keeps to the social norms, and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it makes her a better role model than the other superheroes of TV shows who are defined mostly by the mission. Buffy has them both, the normal life and the mission. Sure, it's hard to fit them both together, but it's admirable how much she tries to run them both without rejecting the other. And that's what makes her a Feminist Icon.
Xander:
Xander started out as a 16 year old boy who disliked himself because of social constructs of masculinity. Society pressures Xander to be macho, an athlete, have sex at an early age, all things that are not Xander. Just like Buffy, Xander was drawn to the gender norms and didn't want to be laughed at or belittled because he didn't meet the high expectations demanded from guys. Despite the accusations of Xander's sexism and misogyny, I think he does translate as a role model much better than the other male characters, because he started out like most teenage boys who are into masculine ideals and after a long process of disappointments and failure to fulfill them, he began adapting and accepting his role as a supporting character. That doesn't make him less of a role model just like it doesn't make Buffy less of a role model that she rejected being a Slayer for so long. Boys like Xander can learn that there's nothing wrong with being a sidekick by watching Xander following Buffy's lead willingly from the start as well as watching him give up trying to be the masculine badass hero (Angel, Riley and Spike) and be content with the fact that he has limits.
Xander has been accused of being sexist, misogynistic, abusive of his girlfriends, and threatened by Buffy's strength. Xander's sexism was a result of society pressures, a result of being ridiculed by boys and girls because he was "less than a man", being beaten up because he wasn't in the football team, probably ridiculed for being friends with girls. Xander –as well as the other protagonists- have their sexist moments, but they're not sexists by definition: would an extremely sexist guy's first thought in the middle of a crisis be getting a girl to fix it? Would an extremely sexist guy consider a girl his hero and role model? Would an extremely sexist guy elect another woman to be the leader after the death of an earlier female leader and not elect himself or another male? I reject the claim that Xander is sexist, and would say he had his sexist moments like every other character, but he's not a sexist character.
Now Xander the misogynistic and his abusive streak and the comments about him treating the women in his life like his harem: Xander doesn't hate women. He can be a jerk, he puts Buffy on a high pedestal, but he doesn't hate women. I'm even shocked someone would even state that as a fact. As for Xander the abusive jerk, his relationship with Cordelia was equal on the insults and jabs. Sometimes she started it, sometimes he started it, and sometimes they started it together. Anya came to his life as a woman who knew nothing about human costumes, in order to help her fit in and get her out of trouble, Xander started teaching her how humans communicate. Anya didn't adapt to human behavior well and sometimes didn't get what was going on around her to the point of coming off as stupid, which frustrated Xander and drove him to be harsher and conceding. He wasn't the best boyfriend, but he wasn't abusive whether physically or verbally, leaving his lowest moment where he slut-shamed Anya in Entropy aside.
Buffy and Willow as Xander's harem: "They could never date anyone unless that one meets with Xander's approval or is Xander himself." I think Xander's feelings toward Buffy and Willow in the high school years were far more complicated than that. When it came to Buffy, he had feelings for her, I'd even say he was in love with her, of course he'd be jealous of every guy she was going to notice and go out with. With Willow, she was his best friend who was by his side since they were five. She was his family. Being with Oz meant that Willow wouldn't be around like before and there were also jealous feelings at play: "Oh, no, my life's not too complicated." This is not me excusing Xander's behavior, but pointing out that he was a 17 year old boy with complicated emotions that once he worked through his confusion, he'd be a better friend. Let's look at older Xander: Buffy dated Scott Hope, Riley, showed interest in Ben, went on a date with Wood, and Xander never even asked about them and their intentions. The only guy he had problems with was Spike. As for Willow, he became friends with her boyfriend Oz, and had nothing to say about Tara and Kennedy. Why? Because he matured and moved on.
There was another claim that Xander only approved of Riley because somehow he was a stand-in guy for Xander and dating Riley meant that Xander could end up with Buffy, which never really made sense to me. Couldn't it possibly be that Xander liked Riley because he was a very nice guy? Why the need to complicate things to arguments that made no sense whatsoever?
Being threatened by Buffy's strength and using the comment "I'm inadequate. That's fine. I'm less than a man" as an example: I've always seen that comment as a dig on Xander's uselessness, rather than dissatisfaction that a girl was stronger than him. As later shown when Xander found Jesse, he reassured him that Buffy was a superhero that would save them. Why would Xander say that if he really had a problem with Buffy's power? That comment never read as Xander being intimidated by a girl being stronger than him to me.
I think Xander liked Buffy's strength and aside from that moment with Larry which was mostly about the fear of the reaction of the students in school, he'd always welcomed Buffy coming to his rescue. I remember when Xander was trapped in Buffy's basement with Cordelia, who insisted he'd do something and his answer was to wait for Buffy to save them. Xander didn't mind Buffy being the hero, but for a while he wanted to be a hero, too. Because heroes earned respect and love, something Xander didn't have. That comment in The Harvest was about Xander, not Buffy. That's how I see it. Besides, Willow was the one who had problems with being Buffy's sidekick, not Xander. He'd usually been content with being obedient.
I'm going to quote two paragraphs from two different essays that I really love:
"Xander’s journey to being a genuinely subversive image of masculinity takes the entire series, he stumbles in it and he’s never perfect. But when faced with female strength–when confronted with the feminist reality that women are at least equal to him, and that some are his superiors in some areas–he doesn’t try to dominate it, he doesn’t try to deny it, and he doesn’t try to ignore it. He adapts, and he gains a depth of friendship, love and self-awareness that goes way beyond that which is allowed to strong men in conventional pop culture." Can be found here.
"Perhaps my favorite thing about Xander is the fact that he is friends with a girl he has a crush on. In many shows - and in many instances in life - the relationship between a guy and his crush is not a true friendship. Instead of seeing Buffy as "a girl to hang out with on a pursuit of potential future bliss", Xander simply sees her as "my best friend whom I also have a crush on". The differences between the two positions is huge. Xander reacts less than well to Buffy's rejection, yes. But he gets over it, in the very same episode and in the very same day. He deals with her rejection without losing her friendship. He handles the fact that she likes another guy, and continues to do best friendly things with her like watch Indian musicals and hanging out at the local club and at her house and in general. Instead of disappearing or believing that Buffy "owed" him something for the friendship ( unlike Jeff Fecke's Nice Guy ®, who believes girls "used him for emotional intimacy without reciprocating, in kind, with physical intimacy"), Xander stayed Buffy's friend because he values her as something more than a potential girlfriend. He values her as a person, and he loves her both romantically and platonically. And that is seriously feminist, and kind of radical for most forms of media." Can be found here.
Joss wrote Buffy and Xander as role models and they've been my role models before I knew about this fact. Buffy is my role model because she mixed her two worlds and defined herself as Buffy and not "the girl" or "the Slayer." Xander is my role model for standing shoulder to shoulder with superpowered people despite the lack of superpowers and because he knows his own strengths and weaknesses and accepts his limits.
