Issues in Buffy

[Skanky Vamp]

The age thing is the same problem with Peter Pan too, the character is well over 60 and has a romance with a pre-teen girl.

 

[thetopher]

At least Peter Pan was literally 'the boy who would not grow up' and so his interest in Wendy was pretty chaste and appropriate for a boy at that age; she crushed on him harder which is why Tinkerbell does what she does.

I mean in the animated film not the garbage re-make.

 

[Kendar]

The issue with vampire ages is that you have two possibilities. We know they don't age physically (David B. and James M. not withstanding).

1) The vampire stays stuck at the same emotional/mental age as well. However, if that were the case then you'd never really have any growth at all. A 10yo who was turned would be perpetually 10 physically AND mentally. An Angel turned at 18 would be a perpetual 18yo.

2) The vampire does age mentally/emotionally. This does NOT mean they become good or anything, but simply that their experiences change them the way experiences change anyone. So thy still "age" mentally. THIS is what makes the 200 or 100 year old vampire with the underage girl creepy.

Note: From a legal standpoint all that would be relevant is the physical ages. Angel and Edward have committed crimes given the ages of their partners.

Likewise, while it would still be gross, Abigail is perfectly legal, and there would be no crime assuming the legal system believed that she was in fact centuries o;d/

The most un-American episode was Doublemeat Palace.

When Willow found out that the meat wasn't real meat, Buffy tells the staff at the local store and only asks for her job back. And then she is still living from hand to mouth, working at a job she hates. She should have entered into a non-disclosure agreement - in exchange for saying nothing, she would get a hefty cash settlement. Then she could actually explain the upscale wardrobe she has during the rest of the season. Buying somebody's silence - didn't that cause enough drama for a certain politician recently (and it's still going on)? Buffy is a show written by an opportunist masquerading as a feminist. Shouldn't Buffy the character be a bit more opportunistic as well?

This would be a significant lawsuit today. Generally speaking*, specifically claiming your product does not contain something it actually does fails to go over well with juries. And any cash settlement Buffy got would be in jeopardy once it came out that the burger was not actually meat free. While normally people don't sue individual fast food workers and instead sue the company, that's often because to worker doesn't have the money to make suing worthwhile. Buffy with a NDA is an exception, and since she knew about it AND would have money, she's a valid target.

*The Burger King Impossible patty lawsuit was dropped because Burger King never said that the patty was grilled on a separate grill, the customer in question never asked, AND they had posted that the patty could be cooked separately if the customer requested.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

specifically claiming your product does not contain something it actually does fails to go over well with juries.

Just depends. Buffalo Wild Wings has attempted to be sued multiple times because a- it's not buffalo, and b- it's not wings. All of the attempts were thrown out for wasting time.

 

[famicommander]

The age thing is the same problem with Peter Pan too, the character is well over 60 and has a romance with a pre-teen girl.

Peter Pan was written by a pedophile.

 

[November]

Edward have committed crimes given the ages of their partners

Edward insisted on waiting until marriage for sexy time. Bella was the little hump bunny in that situation. Edward refused her many times, even on their honeymoon.

Maybe a spin off thread, but the tall dark, respectful is one appeal, while the bad boy, unpredictability is a different appeal. Its in almost every young adult story. A choice of paths, more than simply sexual.

 

[RachM]

The bottom line is this; are you watching/reading vampire fiction? Yes? Then there will be big age gaps. Don't like it? Don't watch or read vampire fiction.

See how simple it is?

 

[nightshade]

Ted.

Everything from the ex wives, to the robotics.

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

It's also worth remembering that being taken seriously as an adult by other adults is a primary teenager motivation, which would include being taken seriously as a woman by marginally older men, as opposed to being lusted after by idiot boys. (This is a show for teenagers, after all. This is not Euphoria.) That's a legitimate motivation, and is very different from adults fetishizing childlike features. But, it does fall in something of a grey area as to how it would be portrayed. But, it's a very different thing than sexualizing under aged actresses for a decade, or whatever was going on with Stephen Collins. Save your disgust for less ambiguous situations.

 

[famicommander]

It's also worth remembering that being taken seriously as an adult by other adults is a primary teenager motivation, which would include being taken seriously as a woman by marginally older men, as opposed to being lusted after by idiot boys. (This is a show for teenagers, after all. This is not Euphoria.) That's a legitimate motivation, and is very different from adults fetishizing childlike features. But, it does fall in something of a grey area as to how it would be portrayed. But, it's a very different thing than sexualizing under aged actresses for a decade, or whatever was going on with Stephen Collins. Save your disgust for less ambiguous situations.

It's not ambiguous at all.

Relationships between underage kids and super old people are wrong 100% of the time. There is no context that makes them okay. The fact that a large chunk of people are willing to do all manner of mental gymnastics to justify it when it happens to be between two attractive actors playing characters they like doesn't add a single iota of ambiguity to the situation.

People overlook it when the characters have charisma, just like Indiana Jones sleeping with a 15 year old girl in the first movie, but it's not ambiguous just because people choose to ignore it. It's disgusting.

 

[silvermoon]

Buffy definitely had some stuff that didn't age that well. I parallel it with the show Friends which I still like. but (triggers)

stuff like the characters casually bashing gay people, or saying that Mr. Gellar liked to walk in on the girls when they were changing? Phucking gross , he's a pervert, yet it's played for laughs. That kind of thing now burns me up with how irresponsible it is, and how for some reason it was all lapped up. fricking disgusting

 

[Plasma]

Buffy definitely had some stuff that didn't age that well. I parallel it with the show Friends which I still like. but (triggers)

stuff like the characters casually bashing gay people, or saying that Mr. Gellar liked to walk in on the girls when they were changing? Phucking gross , he's a pervert, yet it's played for laughs. That kind of thing now burns me up with how irresponsible it is, and how for some reason it was all lapped up. fricking disgusting

I guess there are risqué jokes by today’s standards, but Friends admittedly was pretty progressive at the time. Ross’s wife divorcing him and coming out as lesbian is kinda neat for a time where that wasn’t super normalized yet.

 

[hoponlilmama]

Buffy definitely had some stuff that didn't age that well. I parallel it with the show Friends which I still like. but (triggers)

stuff like the characters casually bashing gay people, or saying that Mr. Gellar liked to walk in on the girls when they were changing? Phucking gross , he's a pervert, yet it's played for laughs. That kind of thing now burns me up with how irresponsible it is, and how for some reason it was all lapped up. fricking disgusting

Oh, yeah.
Some of the jokes just make you cringe now. They've aged very badly, as we're talking about with BTVS (and many older shows) that they're a product of their time.

Many of those jokes wouldn't be acceptable today, and rightly so.

 

[thetopher]

I feel that the vampire/human age difference thing isn't just a unique Buffy thing, it happens in lots of media. It still flies with fandoms even today.

Heroine voluntarily sleeps with serial killer who kills her kind and yet still kinda has a superiority complex after is a uniquely Buffy thing that's weird that so many are okay with, even when they are morally hectoring about everything else on the show.

 

[thetopher]

@famicommander : It's almost like statutory rape and an adult woman sleeping with a bad person because she hates herself are not in any way comparable situations. Or something.
Yeah, cuz you say so? You're clearly no moral arbiter of people's behavior if you simp for serial killer groupies.
Because which would be more morally abhorrent to most people in real life? A guy having sex with a 17 year old (legal in many US states and civilized countries) or a woman having sex with a serial killer?

My point is that your standards have no moral consistency, in any way, and that you ignore/excuse Buffy morally degenerate sexual behavior while constantly bringing up Angel and portraying him as some groomy, rapey scumbag. At. Every. Opportunity.

Stripping away all the metaphor and allegory and genre stuff from a TV show and looking at it with cold realism then you have to accept that Buffy's behavior is way worse.

Like I said, stop pretending that your any better than others when your doing your very own mental gymnastics to fit your bias; otherwise your just coping. 😉

 

[famicommander]

@famicommander : It's almost like statutory rape and an adult woman sleeping with a bad person because she hates herself are not in any way comparable situations. Or something.
Yeah, cuz you say so? You're clearly no moral arbiter of people's behavior if you simp for serial killer groupies.
Because which would be more morally abhorrent to most people in real life? A guy having sex with a 17 year old (legal in many US states and civilized countries) or a woman having sex with a serial killer?

My point is that your standards have no moral consistency, in any way, and that you ignore/excuse Buffy morally degenerate sexual behavior while constantly bringing up Angel and portraying him as some groomy, rapey scumbag. At. Every. Opportunity.

Stripping away all the metaphor and allegory and genre stuff from a TV show and looking at it with cold realism then you have to accept that Buffy's behavior is way worse.

Like I said, stop pretending that your any better than others when your doing your very own mental gymnastics to fit your bias; otherwise your just coping. 😉

What Buffy did was self harm out of a trauma response, she knew it was wrong, and stopped doing it of her own volition.

What Angel did was harmful to Buffy, he knew it, vocalized it, and then did it anyway. Then stalked her after they broke up.

It's not allegorical at all. It's explicitly selling the idea that "perfect happiness" is having sex with an underage girl.

And there is no moral inconsistency at play here. Statutory rape is not in any way comparable to the situation you described, and your conception of sex being an implicit endorsement of everything your partner has ever done in life is narrow and frankly puritanical.

I'm not "portraying" Angel as anything. The show portrayed him as a guy who declared himself in love with a 15 year old girl who didn't know he was there, then followed her around, then peered into her bedroom and bathroom windows at night, then moved to a city to await her arrival, then followed her some more, then vocalized it would be wrong to have a relationship with her, then kissed her and began a relationship with her, then committed statutory rape against her, then broke up with her when she turned 18, then stalked her sporadically up to the end of Angel the series.

I have no idea why you're so dead set on justifying statutory rape, but it seems to be your favorite thing to do. You quite literally just said that an adult having sex with another adult of poor character is worse than an adult having sex with an underage kid. Get a grip.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

It's explicitly selling the idea that "perfect happiness" is having sex with an underage girl.

Yeah, I never really got that explicitly stated idea. Buffy's age had nothing to do with Angel getting his happy.

 

[KaitKat]

I don’t know if this is an issue with made today vs we are older and have better perspective. After all The Vampire Diaries didn’t end that long ago and it absolutely was centered around ships between teenagers and serial killers vs a coming of age story about how the protagonist learns and grows and it was pretty successful. I think in general preteens and teens just don’t see how problematic this stuff is in a fantasy setting then by the time you’re 30 you get it.

The things I can see not being included are small things such as Buffy making fun of Kendra’s accent and echoing the “Chloe was week” “Chloe was an idiot” and “don’t get hit.”

 

[Mott1]

Some good points made here, particularly the 'underage Buffy/Angel' attraction at the beginning. Also I imagine the Scoobies' treatment of Andrew in season 7 would be seen, wrongly, to be homophobic/bullying if it came out now.

I think one thing that wouldn't go down well today was the season 6 degeneration of Willow/Tara into the over-familiar 'mad, sociopathic bereaved lesbian/saintly dead lesbian' couple, which even at the time felt negative. I also think that some fans' belief that Willow is bi/pan, when she several times makes clear she isn't, potentially would have then made her into the 'angry, sexually confused villain girl' cliche instead! Still, I guess no showrunner can please everyone, particularly years into the future...

 

[thetopher]

What Buffy did was self harm out of a trauma response, she knew it was wrong, and stopped doing it of her own volition.

What Angel did was harmful to Buffy, he knew it, vocalized it, and then did it anyway. Then stalked her after they broke up.

See what you did here? You contextualize Buffy's decisions and mind-set, made a judgement about what is depicted on-screen in a way you don't with Angel.

Buffy and Angel sleep together in a moment of blind passion after escaping a near-death experience at the hands of a scabby demon. This is not real life.
Buffy is in the midst of depression and an existential crisis which leads her to sleep with Spike multiple times.

Both these decisions are made., By Buffy. And both of them are unwise, it is explicitly stated by the show that both these things were bad choices. That, again, Buffy made.

Angel spends a century in Hell, he clearly suffers for for what he and Buffy did, way more than Buffy in fact.

It's not allegorical at all. It's explicitly selling the idea that "perfect happiness" is having sex with an underage girl.

I genuinely think that actually what happened on the show went over your head; Buffy's age had nothing to do with Angel's perfect happiness. Nor, in fact, did the sex, you twonk.

And there is no moral inconsistency at play here. Statutory rape is not in any way comparable to the situation you described, and your conception of sex being an implicit endorsement of everything your partner has ever done in life is narrow and frankly puritanical.

Oh, I'm puritanical? You're the one who consistently excuses Buffy's crappy decisions about who she sleeps with? Oh, she's innocent, oh she was groomed, ooh, she's depressed.
Whatever, simping for serial killer groupies is just cope and kinda gross. You can't seem to grasp the concept that Buffy is capable of poor judgement and has agency; how patriarchal of you my dude.

I'm not "portraying" Angel as anything. The show portrayed him as a guy who declared himself in love with a 15 year old girl who didn't know he was there, then followed her around, then peered into her bedroom and bathroom windows at night, then moved to a city to await her arrival, then followed her some more, then vocalized it would be wrong to have a relationship with her, then kissed her and began a relationship with her, then committed statutory rape against her, then broke up with her when she turned 18, then stalked her sporadically up to the end of Angel the series.

The show did not portray him as anything of the kind, you deliberately mis-characterize Angel's actions and motives in a way you would never with Buffy, who sleeps with a serial killer repeatedly and manages to have a moral superiority complex over people who don't do that sort of thing. Incredible selective moral thinking you exhibit.

I have no idea why you're so dead set on justifying statutory rape, but it seems to be your favorite thing to do.

But I can distinguish between a fantasy show and reality, you seem incapable. You're favorite thing to do is to call Angel a pedophile and claiming that somebody sleeping with an obsessive serial killer is morally acceptable.
You're the one with the unhinged obsession dude, of maybe its a kink.

You quite literally just said that an adult having sex with another adult of poor character is worse than an adult having sex with an underage kid. Get a grip.

No, I 'quite literally' didn't otherwise you can simply literally quote where I said that. I did say that most people would be more okay with somebody sleeping with a 17 year old than having sex with a demented serial killer.
See, that's what happens where you make moral equivalencies by comparing a fantasy genre series to actual reality, you goon.