Xander hatred and Anya love is just misandry

[burrunjor]

I'm NOT an MRA to be clear LOL. I have spoken out against A LOT of misogyny in the genre like the horrific treatment of Gina Carano. (Indeed she even started following me she appreciated it so much.)

Still I like to be fair and call it out on both sides and so yeah even though Xander is far from my favourite, let's flip the love for Anya and hatred for Xander we see on sites like Reddit and X into reverse shall we? (Obviously I'm not saying anyone who likes Anya is like this. Emma Caulfield is very charismatic and it's easy to forget Anya is a murderer and Xander in contrast can be annoying and undermine serious moments with his unfunny quips so yeah that's fair, I'm more just talking about the ones that try and turn it into an ideology, which we don't see here as much, but since I'm banned for life on reddit for defending Gina Carano, I can't post it there, and there'd be no point anyway.

"I HATE that ugly dorky bitch Alexandria. She's so awful compared to the slutty, cleavagy, bad girl Faith. I mean yeah Faith may try and SA people, but she feels a bit bad about it and is dreamy. Alexandria getting upset over the main guy Scruffy not having feelings for her for like 1 minute with a lame sarcastic remark, she apologises for and then moving on and saving Scruffy later that episode still makes her an entitled bitch. Ugly dorky girls like her should know their place. I HATE nice girls who think they're entitled to me by nursing a secret crush." (btw compare Xanders reaction to Buffy saying no, to Chloe's reaction to Clark not feeling the same way at the end of season 2 where she has a meltdown and sells his secrets to resident supervillain Lionel Luther and see how the fandom adored Chloe until Alison Mack's real life drama to see the double standard.) "Meanwhile here is Alexandria's love interest who is a guy that devoted himself to slaughtering ONLY women because his wife cheated on him and even with a soul he remembers fondly how he used to torture, kill and in some cases condemn women to an eternity of torture for being sluts and whores. Oh I LOVE him, oh he deserved better than that dorky bitch Alexandria. Her leaving him at the alter because she has a lifetime of abuse from her parents that has never been addressed by her (indeed people mocked her for it, including a former boyfriend.) That is clearly worse than him torturing scores of innocent women."

Yeah that's how messed up the Xander hatred can look.

 

[Stake fodder]

Admittedly, I am unfamiliar with the Reddit and X threads for this show, but all I can say is that like tends to attract like, so if one person or a few start posting along some line of thought, others will pile in, and the resulting discussion will become ever more extreme. I would guess that's what is happening on the thread you saw. I agree that the hatred for Xander in the post you gender-reversed seems extreme, and I'm thinking the original poster probably has some personal issues with the men in her own life that Xander triggers.

 

[KaitKat]

It would be one thing if people could say that in real life Xander would be a pretty great friend to have and Anya would be a sociopath but because it’s television it’s okay to find Anya funny and endearing but instead Reddit is filled with gems like well Xander is the worst villain in the show because he’s so realistic we all know someone like him.

Also the Smallville fandom was nuts about Chloe in the day, some of them still are and defend the actress out of love for the character. I swear they used Willow as a mold, cute, quickly, computer wiz, in love with her guy best friend. I can remember seeing on a Smallville thread that Chloe was Clark’s Xander and I just had to nope out of that, it’s such a misunderstanding of both characters.

 

[November]

Anya would be a sociopath

Wait, what? Anya always reminded me of my sisters. Minus the murder bit (although in another time, it might have been a different story to be honest).

Xander hatred and Anya love is just misandry​

I'd agree, my own personal dislike for Xander is misandry.

 

[thetopher]

I've noticed more and more that a lot of societal critiques don't pass the gender swap test. More and more these days actually.

I'm trying to imagine how much the fandom would hate Anson, the male vengeance demon who targets wronged men so he can inflict harm on deceitful women. Oh, but he loses his powers and ends up focusing his obsession, his sexual fantasies on the dorky just-out-of-high school Alexa.
He pretty much demanded that they go to Prom together, and suddenly he turns up at her door unannounced, demands to know where their relationship is going, says that he dreams about having sex with her, then strips naked and demands that they do the deed. The stuttering Alexa goes along with it but is still kinda weirded out by the clingy, awkward Anson.
Anson forces his way into the friend group, often turns up unannounced, is rude to Alexas friends, clearly doesn't like them that much, reminisces about the days when he had powers and could inflict pain upon women. Anson is occasionally useful but used for mostly loud comic relief.

Yeah, I don't see Anson lasting past S4 personally.

And yeah, a female Xander would be treated much kinder by the fandom, cuz the (presumably) handsome and superpowered Buddy doesn't see how awesome they are, he's just interested in to those hot, slutty vampires. Urgh, men.
😛