Tropes vs. Women: #4 The Evil Demon Seductress (example from Btvs!)

[This Year's Girl]

This is from my favourite youtube channel feministfrequency. Really interesting and worth thinking about! Examples from Btvs!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VeCjm1UO4M"]YouTube - ‪Tropes vs. Women: #4 The Evil Demon Seductress‬‏[/ame]

The Evil Demon Seductress is a supernatural creature usually a demon, alien, robot, vampire etc. who is most often disguised as a sexy human female. She uses her sexuality and sexual wiles to manipulate, seduce, kill and often eat poor, hapless men by luring them into her evil web.

This is the fourth of a six part series created for Bitch Magazine. Tropes vs. Women explores the reoccurring stories, themes and representations of women in Hollywood films and TV shows.

For more information and full transcript visit:
http://www.feministfrequency.com


I also recommend watching watching "The smurfette principle" if you want to hear her talk more about Buffy (that time she brings it up as an example others should take after! 🙂) or really any of the videos, they are all great with lots of interesting stuff. My favourites are manic pixie dream girl, why we need veronica mars, retro sexism and the bechdel test for women in movies. Educate yourself! 😀

 

[prophecygrrl]

I love Feminist Frequency! She is so smart and funny. I remember you were the one who first showed me that youtube channel. 😀

I once went through a phase where I only let myself watch movies that passed the Bechdel test, just to see how it would go. It only lasted like, three weeks because unsurprisingly, I couldn't watch very many movies and I got too frustrated... 😛

I never really thought about the Evil Demon Seductress trope, but I agree that it's definitely there. I remembered the praying mantis from Buffy, but when I was watching that episode I was actually more alarmed by the fact that Xander and that other boy were almost raped and the show offered virtually no commentary on it.

I just watched the Smurfette principle video you recommended. Have you seen this, by the way?

http://gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com/261238.html

It's a graphical representation of female relationships in Buffy vs. other sci-fi/genre shows. It's really interesting. Overall I'm glad that Buffy has a lot of female characters who actually relate to each other and have character development. I don't always like their individual character arcs, but at least they're there.

 

[This Year's Girl]

I love Feminist Frequency! She is so smart and funny. I remember you were the one who first showed me that youtube channel. 😀

I once went through a phase where I only let myself watch movies that passed the Bechdel test, just to see how it would go. It only lasted like, three weeks because unsurprisingly, I couldn't watch very many movies and I got too frustrated... 😛

I never really thought about the Evil Demon Seductress trope, but I agree that it's definitely there. I remembered the praying mantis from Buffy, but when I was watching that episode I was actually more alarmed by the fact that Xander and that other boy were almost raped and the show offered virtually no commentary on it.

I'm glad you liked it! I've thought about it before and how I find it very tiring that women often are only allowed to get what they want using their sexuality (and like FF points out - not in a exploring, for-me-kind of way). This is often not the case in Btvs, thank god. Taking it one step further though and relating to some of the things said in the video I do see a problem with Btvs in that matter that when women are "bad" they are still not allowed to be ugly bad like the male villains are - just compare Glory and the master. Or the fact that when Buffy went beer bad all she got was some sort of dreadlocks and dirt smeared in all the right sexy places, and the other guys went cave men ugly as heck. 🙂

Agreed that the attempted rape should've been dealt with, not just brushed off.

Have you seen this, by the way?

http://gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com/261238.html

It's a graphical representation of female relationships in Buffy vs. other sci-fi/genre shows. It's really interesting. Overall I'm glad that Buffy has a lot of female characters who actually relate to each other and have character development. I don't always like their individual character arcs, but at least they're there.

:heart:! WOW. This is the reason why I love Btvs so much, it points out what I haven't been able to explain in words, just how I've felt. When I describe why I love the show so much I usually say "You know when you watch a show and you are always a little disappointed at things that happen? Like characters get ruined or plots that you feel really uneasy about appear? That never happens in Btvs. I don't like all the things going on in it, but I never felt DISAPPOINTED. I always felt like it got ME". Now I know why. This is it. My feminist heart can't take all this happiness! 😀

 

[prophecygrrl]

I'm glad you liked it! I've thought about it before and how I find it very tiring that women often are only allowed to get what they want using their sexuality (and like FF points out - not in a exploring, for-me-kind of way). This is often not the case in Btvs, thank god. Taking it one step further though and relating to some of the things said in the video I do see a problem with Btvs in that matter that when women are "bad" they are still not allowed to be ugly bad like the male villains are - just compare Glory and the master. Or the fact that when Buffy went beer bad all she got was some sort of dreadlocks and dirt smeared in all the right sexy places, and the other guys went cave men ugly as heck. 🙂

ooh, I never really thought about the pretty/sexy "bad" thing. It's very often true though.

And I agree, as much as I'm all for sexual empowerment, that kind of empowerment is often portrayed really negatively. Ultimately, what purpose does it serve? It seems like a lot of the time it's just there for the audience or the narrative, and rarely strengthening the character herself.

:heart:! WOW. This is the reason why I love Btvs so much, it points out what I haven't been able to explain in words, just how I've felt. When I describe why I love the show so much I usually say "You know when you watch a show and you are always a little disappointed at things that happen? Like characters get ruined or plots that you feel really uneasy about appear? That never happens in Btvs. I don't like all the things going on in it, but I never felt DISAPPOINTED. I always felt like it got ME". Now I know why. This is it. My feminist heart can't take all this happiness! 😀

:heart: :heart: :heart:

The first time I saw those charts, I was like WOW. It makes me really love BtVS because shows like this are actually pretty rare. I love it, but we have a lot of work to do. The last graph makes me want to watch Xena, lol. 😀

edit: Oh, and I found more charts, now comparing male relationships within each show. The Buffy one is really interesting, again. The male chart is similar to the female one. Equal representation, I love it. Hehe.

http://gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com/262713.html

 

[Taake]

Well I watched and I'll have to say that I thought the Smurfette principle was more interesting, and in my eyes valid, than the one about the evil demon seductress 🙂

thanks for sharing.