Chosen and the empowerment metaphor urmm a slight issue

[Btvs fan]

Ok so we all know about Buffy empowering the girls with Slayer power with a voice over of how they get to choose. It then flips to montage of Girls getting powered up, who didn't get to choose 😕

Before that in Get it Done E15, a bunch of black men chain up Buffy and try to infect her with a black demon mist. Leaving aside the racist stereotypes in that scene, it's played as a rape metaphor. Now in E22 with Buffy basically doing the same thing minus the chains it's now an empowerment metaphor...

Anyone else have a slight issue with this. Could Joss have done the Empowerment trope a bit differently without the above issues being an issue at all ?

 

[white avenger]

a bunch of black men chain up Buffy and try to infect her with a black demon mist.

The First Slayer and the Shadow Men who created her were located in Africa, so it would seem strange if they weren't black men, though I do agree about the rape metaphor. It's a not uncommon plot device in the Buffyverse, whether it's robbing someone of their identities or memories, or the very image of a vampire feeding on a human. Male vampires feed almost exclusively on female victims, and on the fewoccasions where we actually saw a female vampirefeed, her victim was usually male.

Now in E22 with Buffy basically doing the same thing minus the chains it's now an empowerment metaphor...

I always thought that Buffy's actions there were irresponsible, to say the least, Empowering all those girls, all over the world, without any warning before it was done, or guidance afterward was the equivalent of giving an untrained child a loaded gun to play with. In her defense, I can imagine two possible reasons for her decision and actions. One (and this is my favorite) Buffy didn't really know how many girls would be affected by the Activation spell. Remember, Giles had told her, "Only a handfull of Potentials remain, and they are all on their way to Sunnydale." Most likely, Buffy actually thought that all, or most, of the Potentials in the world were right there with her at that time. Or, two, time was of the essence, the fate of the world was at stake, and there simply was no way for Willow to make the Activation spell selectively limited to the girls there in Sunnydale. In that case, there would have been only two choices. Take the chance that some of the new Slayers might not want their powers, or might use them indiscriminately, or allow the First Evil to overrun the world. Activating the Potentials was the lesser of two evils.

Of course, those are just my efforts to give an explanation to something that Joss chose not to explain, but they work for me...

I've also got a great theory about the Immortal, but we'll never know, one wayor the other, whether Joss ever worked that one out for himself, so it really doesn't matter now.

 

[Btvs fan]

The First Slayer and the Shadow Men who created her were located in Africa, so it would seem strange if they weren't black men, though I do agree about the rape metaphor. It's a not uncommon plot device in the Buffyverse, whether it's robbing someone of their identities or memories, or the very image of a vampire feeding on a human. Male vampires feed almost exclusively on female victims, and on the fewoccasions where we actually saw a female vampirefeed, her victim was usually male.



I always thought that Buffy's actions there were irresponsible, to say the least, Empowering all those girls, all over the world, without any warning before it was done, or guidance afterward was the equivalent of giving an untrained child a loaded gun to play with. In her defense, I can imagine two possible reasons for her decision and actions. One (and this is my favorite) Buffy didn't really know how many girls would be affected by the Activation spell. Remember, Giles had told her, "Only a handfull of Potentials remain, and they are all on their way to Sunnydale." Most likely, Buffy actually thought that all, or most, of the Potentials in the world were right there with her at that time. Or, two, time was of the essence, the fate of the world was at stake, and there simply was no way for Willow to make the Activation spell selectively limited to the girls there in Sunnydale. In that case, there would have been only two choices. Take the chance that some of the new Slayers might not want their powers, or might use them indiscriminately, or allow the First Evil to overrun the world. Activating the Potentials was the lesser of two evils.

Of course, those are just my efforts to give an explanation to something that Joss chose not to explain, but they work for me...

I've also got a great theory about the Immortal, but we'll never know, one wayor the other, whether Joss ever worked that one out for himself, so it really doesn't matter now.

I still don't get how Joss could have Buffy talk about giving a choice then showing a load of girls not being given a choice, it's such a weird juxtaposition!

 

[one eyed chicklet]

I disagree about the racial stereotype part. The first slayer was African and she was turned into a slayer there, it would be weird if they were any other ethnicity. The difference is, is that Buffy just activated something that was already a part of them, whereas those guys who created the first slayer were trying to change her identity to part demon. This part demon thing may have other affects on her and as someone who kills demons, its not really that great when someone is trying to force you to be one.

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

The race thing is clearly an issue. I get what they're going for. Africa is the cradle of humanity and civilisation, but the idea of Buffy evolving from a barbarous black predecessor ... looks bad.

As for activating the potentials ... Buffy does not infuse them with power. She merely activates what was already there. The Shadow Men did not want the slayers to become too powerful, so they ensured that only one potential could be active at one time. That is why Buffy does not lose her power after Kendra, who is already in training, activates.

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

Yeah, it was a catch 22 regarding the Shadowmen. If you showed them as white people, you were "whitewashing," if you show them as blacks, you are invoking ancient, hurtful stereotypes. But to the gist of your statement, yes, that has always been one of the criticisms of Feminism. It's an elite movement, it reflects an elite worldview. If you look at the earliest feminists, the movement was over-represented by Jews, Marxists and Academics. The sorts of people who fancy themselves as "light-bringers" If you are one of those groups, you already have a predisposition to force things on people for their own good, as this is what the elite does, irregardless of gender or sex. This is why working class women's movements sprung up, most notably Womanism, Mujeristism and bunch of other things you only find in a 500 level course catalog. Also consider, was it power, or the calling that Buffy placed upon those girls. Has by encumbering them with great power, Buffy has also placed great responsibility upon them?

 

[Btvs fan]

The race thing is clearly an issue. I get what they're going for. Africa is the cradle of humanity and civilisation, but the idea of Buffy evolving from a barbarous black predecessor ... looks bad.

As for activating the potentials ... Buffy does not infuse them with power. She merely activates what was already there. The Shadow Men did not want the slayers to become too powerful, so they ensured that only one potential could be active at one time. That is why Buffy does not lose her power after Kendra, who is already in training, activates.

I get that it probably wasn't intentional (I hope it wasn't anyway) but the race thing does not look good. Add on the other iffy thing things the show has done over the years ie Kendra and her Jar Jar accent and it's a bit uncomfortable.

Maybe she did only activate what was already there but she forced something (which she herself has often moaned about) on a lot of girls without giving them the option to choose. Yet because Buffy does it that automatically makes it empowering !!

I mean the parallels between Dana from Damage and Drusilla are actually kind of scary if you think about it. Both were raped/tortured driven insane then both had it dialed up by 11 by being forced into being a Vampire/Slayer and becoming monsters 🤔

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

Yeah, it was a catch 22 regarding the Shadowmen.

No, it's not a catch 22. They could have avoided this criticism by portraying the present day PoCs better. Instead, they chose to have Buffy make fun of Sineya's work-inappropriate hair, use Kendra merely to show the superiority of 'Murica to wherever Kendra is supposed to be from, and let characters like Wesley and Spike upstage and humiliate black characters like Gunn and Robin.

What is a catch 22 is that you need to be part of an elite to have a voice, so if you get that voice, you are by definition of the "elite" and not of the "people." There are many feminists and anti-racism people who are not academics or journalists or pop stars, but you haven't heard about them, because they are not famous.

And academics and ... Jews are people too. They live regular lives with ordinary concerns. Being an academic is usually not as glamorous as people make it out to be, though having tenure at Harvard is probably pretty sweet.

As for Marxism ... Marxism has created a language that is used by many people today to talk about power relations, even by people who are not Communists or Socialists.

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

@Btvs fan We refer to our system as a social-democracy in Norway. I would say it is more capitalist than socialist. There are a few restrictions on the free market (in some areas) and certain services are run by the government. It is very different from what Karl Marx referred to as the socialist state (the last stage before communist anarchy). We're a small nation, so there are certain areas, such as the state enforced train-monopoly, that makes sense here but wouldn't necisserily elsewhere.

Britain also had aspirations about creating a welfare state once upon a time, but they were never socialist.

 

[white avenger]

I still don't get how Joss could have Buffy talk about giving a choice then showing a load of girls not being given a choice, it's such a weird juxtaposition!

True, but it does have dramatic effect, which was, no doubt, what Joss was shooting for at that moment. Maybe by that time, it was supposed to be Buffy finally realizing that "It's the mission that matters," as Nikki told little Robin. Or maybe, as I said earlier, she just felt that she had no other choice at that moment. It wouldn't be the first time that Joss more or less painted himself into a corner with a story line, leaving some plot element unexplained in the hope that the fans will just let it go. He did it as far back as the mantis egg sack in season 1, and continued it right up to the cliffhanger ending scene on "Angel." It's lazy writing, certainly, but, blasphemous as this might seem to some, Joss has definitely had his slack moments, the most recent being the butcher job that he did on "Justice League."

In his defense, though, he did make a small effort to clear up that one faux pas by explaining in the first issue of Dark Horse's Season 8 that about half of the discovered new Slayers throughout the world had opted not to accept the duties. It was never mentioned after that as to whether Willow found some way to de-power those girls or not, however, so maybe there area couple of thousand super powered women out there somewhere who may, or may not be, using their new gifts in some non-Slayer fashion. We'll never know now, of course, since that story line is officially ended.

For now, at least...

 

[Btvs fan]

True, but it does have dramatic effect, which was, no doubt, what Joss was shooting for at that moment. Maybe by that time, it was supposed to be Buffy finally realizing that "It's the mission that matters," as Nikki told little Robin. Or maybe, as I said earlier, she just felt that she had no other choice at that moment. It wouldn't be the first time that Joss more or less painted himself into a corner with a story line, leaving some plot element unexplained in the hope that the fans will just let it go. He did it as far back as the mantis egg sack in season 1, and continued it right up to the cliffhanger ending scene on "Angel." It's lazy writing, certainly, but, blasphemous as this might seem to some, Joss has definitely had his slack moments, the most recent being the butcher job that he did on "Justice League."

In his defense, though, he did make a small effort to clear up that one faux pas by explaining in the first issue of Dark Horse's Season 8 that about half of the discovered new Slayers throughout the world had opted not to accept the duties. It was never mentioned after that as to whether Willow found some way to de-power those girls or not, however, so maybe there area couple of thousand super powered women out there somewhere who may, or may not be, using their new gifts in some non-Slayer fashion. We'll never know now, of course, since that story line is officially ended.

For now, at least...

It was the same issue with the uber Vamps. One was such a struggle for Buffy yet by Chosen she and all the other Slayers and non Slayers are dusting them like they're nothing. Though to be fair on the commentary his "don't tell people that" had him admit it.

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

No, it's not a catch 22. They could have avoided this criticism by portraying the present day PoCs better. Instead, they chose to have Buffy make fun of Sineya's work-inappropriate hair, use Kendra merely to show the superiority of 'Murica to wherever Kendra is supposed to be from, and let characters like Wesley and Spike upstage and humiliate black characters like Gunn and Robin.

What is a catch 22 is that you need to be part of an elite to have a voice, so if you get that voice, you are by definition of the "elite" and not of the "people." There are many feminists and anti-racism people who are not academics or journalists or pop stars, but you haven't heard about them, because they are not famous.

And academics and ... Jews are people too. They live regular lives with ordinary concerns. Being an academic is usually not as glamorous as people make it out to be, though having tenure at Harvard is probably pretty sweet.

As for Marxism ... Marxism has created a language that is used by many people today to talk about power relations, even by people who are not Communists or Socialists.

Re: Shadowmen: Okay, so if Buffy cast black actors in racially aware complex roles, they would have avoided the criticism of using Africans to play the Shadowmen. I'll raise, "Bury your Gays," where any credit for showing Tara and Willow is washed away because of an obscure trope. Some people like having something to complain about.

Re: Feminism: Simone De Beauvoir, author of "The Second Sex," was the mother of Postwar feminism, and an academic. Betty Friedan, author of the "The Feminine Mystique," first president of NOW, mother of Second Wave Feminism, was from an Jewish family, and dabbled in Marxism and academia. Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms. Magazine, is Jewish on her Father's side, is a honorary co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America. The Common thread is that Jews, Academics and Marxists are all strong believers in that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, but by believing it is the only thing that ever has, it creates an intellectual blind spot, see the aforementioned "Womanist," which criticized feminism on the basis of class and race by black women.

 

[DeadlyDuo]

use Kendra merely to show the superiority of 'Murica to wherever Kendra is supposed to be from

I disagree. Kendra's role alongside Faith's was to show why Buffy was right to try and find a balance between slaying and a social life. Kendra was too by the book whilst Faith was irresponsible. Buffy was the middle ground.

and let characters like Wesley and Spike upstage and humiliate black characters like Gunn and Robin.

I don't think skin colour ever figured in to it, it's just the way the story went.

Robin was a manipulative character eg because Buffy wouldn't let him kill Spike, he then stabbed her in the back by suggesting she take the potentials to the vineyard then partaking in the mutiny against her. Even in what should've have been an emotional confrontation with Spike, he was too cold and calculated and sneaky. It was pre-meditated not reactionary.

I don't see why Robin shouldn't get a comeuppance just because he's black.

It was the same issue with the uber Vamps. One was such a struggle for Buffy yet by Chosen she and all the other Slayers and non Slayers are dusting them like they're nothing. Though to be fair on the commentary his "don't tell people that" had him admit it.

There are a lot of inconsistencies during the show.

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

I'll raise, "Bury your Gays," where any credit for showing Tara and Willow is washed away because of an obscure trope. Some people like having something to complain about.

BtVS is still celebrated for its depiction of Willow and Tara. It still gets ton of credit. People may criticise certain aspect of the depiction, but that does not mean that they, or the larger public, have written off the show completely. Far from it.

And I don't get why you call "Bury Your Gays" an obscure trope. Tropes are tropes, because they are common. There are several examples just in the Buffyverse.

Re: Feminism: Simone De Beauvoir, author of "The Second Sex," was the mother of Postwar feminism, and an academic. Betty Friedan, author of the "The Feminine Mystique," first president of NOW, mother of Second Wave Feminism, was from an Jewish family, and dabbled in Marxism and academia. Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms. Magazine, is Jewish on her Father's side, is a honorary co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America. The Common thread is that Jews, Academics and Marxists are all strong believers in that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, but by believing it is the only thing that ever has, it creates an intellectual blind spot, see the aforementioned "Womanist," which criticized feminism on the basis of class and race by black women.

You know that mother of Postwar feminism is not an official title, right? These are just a handful of very famous writers.

Every theorist is by default an academian. Even a theorist who is not employed within academia is an academic. Every famous theologian, capitalist theorist, physicist or mathematician is an academic. If your write a theoretical book and it is a success, you are now a successful academic.

By the time BtVS aired, we were long into the era that is most often called Third Wave Feminism, which consisted of theorists who tried to include as many perspectives as possible. However, the problem still remains; You have to be an academic or a journalist or something similar to be part of the discussion.

Some academics believe, as you say, that academics should serve as philosopher kings. However, this is the type of thinking that feminists and Marxists are the quickest to criticise. You could say that this is a paradox within this two ideologies, because you cannot be a feminist or Marxist academic without assuming a position of institutionalised privilege.

But feminism is not a Jewish/Marxist conspiracy. It is a belief in common dignity that is held by all kinds of people, both those who write influential books and those who read them ... and those that may do neither, but still hold to similar beliefs.

 

[Btvs fan]

There are a lot of inconsistencies during the show.

True but the empowerment one is the big one. (Though magic going from a Lesbian metaphor to a Drug metaphor is a close 2nd) It's meant to cap off the series and the shows message. So Joss having Buffy talk about giving a choice while showing girls not being given a choice is a big thing imo. It's not the same as Teachers Pet as a comparison.

Though I do like @white avenger retcon and it works, it should not need to be necessary. I think it would've worked best if he had stuck to empowering those Potentials in Buffys house. Then they could say they are going to go around giving the choice to other Potentials who have not been empowered. It would've worked just as well and still be ended with Buffy and her smile.

 

[thrasherpix]

It was the same issue with the uber Vamps. One was such a struggle for Buffy yet by Chosen she and all the other Slayers and non Slayers are dusting them like they're nothing. Though to be fair on the commentary his "don't tell people that" had him admit it.

I actually didn't have too much of a problem with that. Well I did with how easy they were falling to ordinary humans before they became Slayers, but not that they were so much weaker than the first one we saw.

The way I saw it, the first ubervamp was a "champion of evil" so to speak, just the thing to send against Buffy. You don't send a grunt behind enemy lines, you send in the best and deadliest, and not all ubervamps are going to be as strong and cunning as each other unless they're clones off an assembly line. The fact that he fed off Spike would also give him strength, and possibly the First also empowering him somewhat as well (in addition to being specifically Chosen for the job in the first place).

I was actually surprised (though shouldn't have been) when Joss said something along the lines of his forgetting how strong the first one was and not making the later ones as strong. But headcanon for the win! 😛

 

[white avenger]

It was the same issue with the uber Vamps. One was such a struggle for Buffy yet by Chosen she and all the other Slayers and non Slayers are dusting them like they're nothing. Though to be fair on the commentary his "don't tell people that" had him admit it.

Most likely, and this is just another of my guesses, the original ubervamp was the champion of its race, the baddest of the bad, the alpha, maybe even the actual ubervamp equivalent of the Slayer. It stands to reason that the First Evil would send its strongest warrior out to make first contact.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

Season 7 opens with potentials being chased by bringers in Europe and in spite of their athleticism and ingenuity, all of them are killed. "Promoting" the potentials to slayer status mitigates this and I doubt there would be one potential in the world who would object to having extra strength, speed and recovery capability. If someone were to give this upgrade to me, I would thank her profusely and not complain, especially is someone was trying to kill me. With the number of new slayers being called, there exists for the first time the option of serving as a slayer or not. We see the montage of potentials all over the world getting activated and enjoying it. This is not the same as the rape metaphor in "Get It Done". No one is chained up and no swirling mass of demon essence is forced into anyone. These girls are already potentials meaning the distinction between them and other girls by "demon infusion" has already occurred. Willow and Buffy are not creating new potentials or doing the work of the shadow men, that has already been done by the fact that they are potentials.

The fact that this occurs in Africa indicates that the line of slayers dates back to the cradle of humanity and most people there were black. If there is a trope of black men being inhumane to women, this is not part of it. It simply shows the antiquity of the slayer as a soldier in the battle against evil. Empowering all the potentials was one of the few good decisions made by Buffy in Season 7.

 

[Btvs fan]

Season 7 opens with potentials being chased by bringers in Europe and in spite of their athleticism and ingenuity, all of them are killed. "Promoting" the potentials to slayer status mitigates this and I doubt there would be one potential in the world who would object to having extra strength, speed and recovery capability. If someone were to give this upgrade to me, I would thank her profusely and not complain, especially is someone was trying to kill me. With the number of new slayers being called, there exists for the first time the option of serving as a slayer or not. We see the montage of potentials all over the world getting activated and enjoying it. This is not the same as the rape metaphor in "Get It Done". No one is chained up and no swirling mass of demon essence is forced into anyone. These girls are already potentials meaning the distinction between them and other girls by "demon infusion" has already occurred. Willow and Buffy are not creating new potentials or doing the work of the shadow men, that has already been done by the fact that they are potentials.

The fact that this occurs in Africa indicates that the line of slayers dates back to the cradle of humanity and most people there were black. If there is a trope of black men being inhumane to women, this is not part of it. It simply shows the antiquity of the slayer as a soldier in the battle against evil. Empowering all the potentials was one of the few good decisions made by Buffy in Season 7.

Dana proves that isn't true though. Don't get me wrong even if Buffy had known about Dana before hand and what would happen to her she should still have done it. But there is no choice there.

 

[GraceK]

Buffy just irritates me this season and one the major reasons is her hypocrisy. She refuses to take the extra power the shadow men give her, and she’s so self righteous about it , it borders on laughable. She beats them up and gives this speech about how they rapists and feminism blah blah , but then she expects Spike to “ man up” and be a badass again because she needs strong warriors and expects girls with no powers to get in line and start fighting better cause their enemies outnumber them. Then has Willow do that spell at the end which is get out of jail free card to embew thousands of girls all over the world with the same power she has without giving them a choice, including the ones who may be crazy or suicidal. Sugarcoat it all you want, she does the exact the same thing to all the girls that the shadow men did to her, only she had the strength to turn them down. The only ones who had a choice where those girls in the room.

She knows she’s in a war she feels she can’t win and when she’s offered more power for herself, she can’t make the sacrifice to be
More powerful. But she expects everyone around her to make sacrifices. It’s annoying.