Thank you for stopping by to read this! *Does happy dance*
Reading this, I had a sudden awful vision of BtVS without its female friendships. There are many things that set the show apart, but without that, I don't know that anything else can redeem it.
Indeed! One of the things I loved about early seasons Buffy & Willow was how genuine their friendship seemed onscreen, even with all it's problems; I loved the way they were intimate with each other, and even physical (linking arms, hugging etc), which is something I had rarely seen onscreen growing up but I know is part of intimate friendships with other women. When that's missing - when connections between women are missing on a tv show, I notice it immediately and watching btvs makes it that much sharper. I'm watching Crossing Jordan right now, which has a female protagonist, and it's an entertaining show, but that aspect of it is missing. When that happens it feels like a hole, like an ache when I watch it.
not a glib, Buffybot "You're my best friend"
Oh, poor Buffybot; just mentioning her makes me want to cry now. lanoyee reminded me that she's a metaphor for Buffy in more ways than one - chosen or manufactured at the whim of a man, subservient to a predetermined duty, built to serve, then be discarded at will. outer-directed towards the needs of others rather than inner-directed like Ted or Adam. And just as she begins to touch for a moment something close to self-awareness, like a child does - differentiating between the Self and Others (parents) - she dies. Have you ever read mabus101 's "(metem)psychosis", btw? http://mabus101.livejournal.com/125867.html
the complicated reality of what it means to connect with and care for someone.
I'm trying to remember now who said recently that Buffy doesn't much distinguish between "types of loves" - her friends, her family etc. I think that goes back to your own observation "I don't know that we love in amounts. We love in ways." But it's very true generally - we think of lovers/partner relationships as being in their own little catagory, but the fundamentals of relationship dynamics, of being with someone in any sense, are very much the same. I've had relationships as intense as affairs, including the "come down" from the honeymoon phase, the disillusionment. Adding sex/marriage/living together simply adds another layer and deeper complications; difference in degree, not kind.
It sits quietly at the foundation of so much else, and it's only when other layers topple down around it that it becomes particularly visible.
YES, so so much so. This gets at what is central to Tara, her quiet strength. Sometimes she needs to be able to call up the power of the demon she was so afraid of being (Bargaining: "No one messes with my girlfriend"), but quiet doesn't have to mean weak or submissive. There's a lot of ink spilled re: "Willow's growing confidence" but it's Tara's growth I find extraordinary, especially given her family background, where quiet and submissive was a survival strategy.
I love Tara in Who Are You - without ever having met Buffy, she knows her better than her friends do. And she knows her better than she knows herself sometimes
THIS. I could write an entire book about that episode, it's superb and densely-layered. And that aspect of it is one of the best. Tara is already in a sense "a sister" to Buffy, connected in a way that her friends are not; the comments about "Buffy's soul" "jammed in where it doesn't belong" foreshadows Bargaining, and I suspect that it's actually a very accurate description of Faith's soul even in her own body. Buffy and Faith will "meet in the middle" by the end of S7 rather than being on opposite sides of the mirror and WAY is a key episode in their journeys, and Tara holds "the key" to unlocking the mystery in the present.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-06-20 07:50 pm (UTC)Reading this, I had a sudden awful vision of BtVS without its female friendships. There are many things that set the show apart, but without that, I don't know that anything else can redeem it.
Indeed! One of the things I loved about early seasons Buffy & Willow was how genuine their friendship seemed onscreen, even with all it's problems; I loved the way they were intimate with each other, and even physical (linking arms, hugging etc), which is something I had rarely seen onscreen growing up but I know is part of intimate friendships with other women. When that's missing - when connections between women are missing on a tv show, I notice it immediately and watching btvs makes it that much sharper. I'm watching Crossing Jordan right now, which has a female protagonist, and it's an entertaining show, but that aspect of it is missing. When that happens it feels like a hole, like an ache when I watch it.
not a glib, Buffybot "You're my best friend"
Oh, poor Buffybot; just mentioning her makes me want to cry now.
the complicated reality of what it means to connect with and care for someone.
I'm trying to remember now who said recently that Buffy doesn't much distinguish between "types of loves" - her friends, her family etc. I think that goes back to your own observation "I don't know that we love in amounts. We love in ways." But it's very true generally - we think of lovers/partner relationships as being in their own little catagory, but the fundamentals of relationship dynamics, of being with someone in any sense, are very much the same. I've had relationships as intense as affairs, including the "come down" from the honeymoon phase, the disillusionment. Adding sex/marriage/living together simply adds another layer and deeper complications; difference in degree, not kind.
It sits quietly at the foundation of so much else, and it's only when other layers topple down around it that it becomes particularly visible.
YES, so so much so. This gets at what is central to Tara, her quiet strength. Sometimes she needs to be able to call up the power of the demon she was so afraid of being (Bargaining: "No one messes with my girlfriend"), but quiet doesn't have to mean weak or submissive. There's a lot of ink spilled re: "Willow's growing confidence" but it's Tara's growth I find extraordinary, especially given her family background, where quiet and submissive was a survival strategy.
I love Tara in Who Are You - without ever having met Buffy, she knows her better than her friends do. And she knows her better than she knows herself sometimes
THIS. I could write an entire book about that episode, it's superb and densely-layered. And that aspect of it is one of the best. Tara is already in a sense "a sister" to Buffy, connected in a way that her friends are not; the comments about "Buffy's soul" "jammed in where it doesn't belong" foreshadows Bargaining, and I suspect that it's actually a very accurate description of Faith's soul even in her own body. Buffy and Faith will "meet in the middle" by the end of S7 rather than being on opposite sides of the mirror and WAY is a key episode in their journeys, and Tara holds "the key" to unlocking the mystery in the present.