Thank you for reading this! (I love "late" comments - knowing that people are still finding my stuff is like catnip to me. but then I can and have commented on the_royal_anna's Buffy/Spike metas written ten years ago; that's one of the wonders of this fandom IMO.
I have no idea why the screencap disappeared so I must have moved it. *ugh* Will fix - maybe add a cap from DT.
On that Bronze scene with Giles looking over Buffy's shoulder, I seem to recall from the DVD commentary Joss being upset that Giles had gotten so close to Buffy. Apparently Joss wanted them to keep to a non-creepy distance but that didn't happen.
I doubt that you're making it up. I have also read (which may be hearsay I admit) that he was very uncomfortable with the love scene in Surprise/Innocence and never directed another love scene (on the show). He was also supposedly surprised by the 'shippy subtext of Faith and Buffy in S3. (this may be part of the reason why the strongest, most overt images AND the death of the assistant Mayor that sunders their friendship, all happen in the same episode. The major Faith arc in the season actually happens quite late in relatively few eps.)
*Warning mention of AR* then there's SR which was not his decision but as exec producer he was the one ultimately responsible (just as he is with the comics, even if he blames some of the WTF-ery on the other writers); and supposedly he was VERY uncomfortable with it because he didn't want the conclusion of other shows like General Hospital i.e. Luke and Laura (he rapes her but they end up getting married and portrayed in the media as a popular romantic couple) and thought it was wrong on a feminist basis. But then there's the very "romantic" subtext of S7 - Showtime, for instance, or the two of them sleeping together in Touched and Chosen. With the fade to black (a callback to W/T in NMR, actually) he said that the audience could decide for themselves that whatever happened, happened. Dude, you think the idea of Buffy and Spike making love ever again is wrong but you leave the possibility open? (So what would he think of people like me who have no problem imagining just that, that I'm not a feminist?) And then the final ILY etc is one of the lushest and most "romantic" scenes I've ever seen anywhere: an orgasmic and spiritual handfasting (another callback to W/T and their handfasting in Hush).
Then there's the fact that sexuality and violation/rape are themes that run throughout the show. But also the fact that sexuality is linked both to evil and to madness (drusilla, after she's cured, begins to express her sexuality and becomes less childlike, more womanly. Sheila in School Hard is the sexually-aware "bad girl/slut" contrasted against good girl Buffy. And don't even get me started on the comics....
I believe - and I've meant to do meta on this but my notes got destroyed so I have to start from scratch - that Joss, for all his claims of a feminist sensibility, has a very Victorian view of female sexuality and the female body. It reminds me of all the images of late 19th century symbolist and art nouveau depictions of women as dangerous, femme fatales who devour men, who shapeshift in to monsters; and of men like the very famous art critic James Ruskin, who was unable to consumate his marriage to Effie Gray because he was so shocked and disgusted on their honeymoon by his first sight of a real woman's body; his only point of reference had been the smooth, perfect, unblemished version in paintings and sculptures of the day.
I still haven't found a "Giles as Big Bad" fic btw.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-10-08 07:43 pm (UTC)I have no idea why the screencap disappeared so I must have moved it. *ugh* Will fix - maybe add a cap from DT.
On that Bronze scene with Giles looking over Buffy's shoulder, I seem to recall from the DVD commentary Joss being upset that Giles had gotten so close to Buffy. Apparently Joss wanted them to keep to a non-creepy distance but that didn't happen.
I doubt that you're making it up. I have also read (which may be hearsay I admit) that he was very uncomfortable with the love scene in Surprise/Innocence and never directed another love scene (on the show). He was also supposedly surprised by the 'shippy subtext of Faith and Buffy in S3. (this may be part of the reason why the strongest, most overt images AND the death of the assistant Mayor that sunders their friendship, all happen in the same episode. The major Faith arc in the season actually happens quite late in relatively few eps.)
*Warning mention of AR* then there's SR which was not his decision but as exec producer he was the one ultimately responsible (just as he is with the comics, even if he blames some of the WTF-ery on the other writers); and supposedly he was VERY uncomfortable with it because he didn't want the conclusion of other shows like General Hospital i.e. Luke and Laura (he rapes her but they end up getting married and portrayed in the media as a popular romantic couple) and thought it was wrong on a feminist basis. But then there's the very "romantic" subtext of S7 - Showtime, for instance, or the two of them sleeping together in Touched and Chosen. With the fade to black (a callback to W/T in NMR, actually) he said that the audience could decide for themselves that whatever happened, happened. Dude, you think the idea of Buffy and Spike making love ever again is wrong but you leave the possibility open? (So what would he think of people like me who have no problem imagining just that, that I'm not a feminist?) And then the final ILY etc is one of the lushest and most "romantic" scenes I've ever seen anywhere: an orgasmic and spiritual handfasting (another callback to W/T and their handfasting in Hush).
Then there's the fact that sexuality and violation/rape are themes that run throughout the show.
But also the fact that sexuality is linked both to evil and to madness (drusilla, after she's cured, begins to express her sexuality and becomes less childlike, more womanly. Sheila in School Hard is the sexually-aware "bad girl/slut" contrasted against good girl Buffy. And don't even get me started on the comics....
I believe - and I've meant to do meta on this but my notes got destroyed so I have to start from scratch - that Joss, for all his claims of a feminist sensibility, has a very Victorian view of female sexuality and the female body. It reminds me of all the images of late 19th century symbolist and art nouveau depictions of women as dangerous, femme fatales who devour men, who shapeshift in to monsters; and of men like the very famous art critic James Ruskin, who was unable to consumate his marriage to Effie Gray because he was so shocked and disgusted on their honeymoon by his first sight of a real woman's body; his only point of reference had been the smooth, perfect, unblemished version in paintings and sculptures of the day.
I still haven't found a "Giles as Big Bad" fic btw.