No problem! And keep in mind I love the show and I love Buffy but race and ethnicity is a Massive Fail on the part of the series and it's creators. Points awarded for trying, but points deducted for not educating themselves sufficiently to avoid stereotypes, conventions and tropes. I also wish I had anywhere near the eloquence necessary for the subject, I am constantly trying to educate myself.And thank you for asking the question, I shall answer as best I can, and hope I don't blunder too badly. It's a question and a conversation well worth having. I'll say first all that I don't think the creators of btvs were "intentionally" racist, any more than I think they were "intentionally" homophobic when they employed old tropes when they killed Tara in S6.
Race is a huge sore spot in the United States, to put in mildly, a huge wound in the national psyche and our greatest shame - we have not achieved anywhere near parity or equality no matter the skin color of our president (and btvs was made pre-Obama) The First Slayer could have been an interesting concept but first of all, she's a concept, a plot device, NOT a person. She repeats an old trope that whites in America, especially liberals, use when they want to show how "enlightened" they are about race.
Did you read the link about the "Magical Negro" I provided? It's a character who is not a person but a plot device who exists only to pass mystical wisdom and guidance onto the story's white protagonists They are rarely a fully-rounded human being in and of themselves. They might be negro, hispanic, asian or native american, but that they are non-white and the protagonists is white is the key thing. It's a trope seen over and over and over in countless American movies and tv shows to such an extent that for decades it was unremarkable. You still see the trope in a recent movie like Silver Linings Playbook - a black character who we see for just a few seconds here and there in the movie suddenly dominates a scene to teach the white protagonists how to dance better and "black it up." (See also Strictly Ballroom.) And its still employed by writers who want to demonstrate that they are "not racists" by throwing a minor character of color into the story, rather than writing stories about the lives of characters of color.
In Restless The First Slayer has no voice of her own, and a white woman has to speak for her. (Tara) POC's are routinely silenced by the narratives written by whites, both in the stories themselves and in historically real life, in terms of being enslaved, denied education, denied their identities. They have had their homelands and their names taken away, their countries have been invaded, colonized, denuded of their riches and resources.
That Tara wears the costume of yet another ethnic culture not her own - she is dressed in a "sari" and earrings that suggest India, rather than as a European or Celtic wiccan, in other words, closer to her own culture. So we have two colonized cultures being - colonized by the narrative. The makeup and "costume" of the First Slayer is the worst white stereotype of "the primitive" and looks like nothing you'll in any African culture. Her movements are animalistic, apelike, she sniffs and prowls like an animal and has no voice. This in in line with the white European concept of African culture as a monolith (one culture) that is essentially primitive, uneducated, unintelligent. Then she violently attacks the white main characters, a reflection of white fears about black people.
Apparently someone pointed out the problem of the First Slayer being voiceless so they changed that for Intervention in S5 but everything else remains unchanged. We only see her one more time, in S7 and then only very briefly when she attacks Buffy in a dream. We do not see her during the Shadowmen ceremony, only a shadow and a scream. The narrative of the Shadowmen, who are depicted as villains - black men gang-raping little girls, taking away their voices and identities - is repeated by the narrative of the series itself.
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branchandroot
Part 1
Date: 2015-05-26 12:55 pm (UTC)Race is a huge sore spot in the United States, to put in mildly, a huge wound in the national psyche and our greatest shame - we have not achieved anywhere near parity or equality no matter the skin color of our president (and btvs was made pre-Obama) The First Slayer could have been an interesting concept but first of all, she's a concept, a plot device, NOT a person. She repeats an old trope that whites in America, especially liberals, use when they want to show how "enlightened" they are about race.
Did you read the link about the "Magical Negro" I provided? It's a character who is not a person but a plot device who exists only to pass mystical wisdom and guidance onto the story's white protagonists They are rarely a fully-rounded human being in and of themselves. They might be negro, hispanic, asian or native american, but that they are non-white and the protagonists is white is the key thing. It's a trope seen over and over and over in countless American movies and tv shows to such an extent that for decades it was unremarkable. You still see the trope in a recent movie like Silver Linings Playbook - a black character who we see for just a few seconds here and there in the movie suddenly dominates a scene to teach the white protagonists how to dance better and "black it up." (See also Strictly Ballroom.) And its still employed by writers who want to demonstrate that they are "not racists" by throwing a minor character of color into the story, rather than writing stories about the lives of characters of color.
In Restless The First Slayer has no voice of her own, and a white woman has to speak for her. (Tara) POC's are routinely silenced by the narratives written by whites, both in the stories themselves and in historically real life, in terms of being enslaved, denied education, denied their identities. They have had their homelands and their names taken away, their countries have been invaded, colonized, denuded of their riches and resources.
That Tara wears the costume of yet another ethnic culture not her own - she is dressed in a "sari" and earrings that suggest India, rather than as a European or Celtic wiccan, in other words, closer to her own culture. So we have two colonized cultures being - colonized by the narrative. The makeup and "costume" of the First Slayer is the worst white stereotype of "the primitive" and looks like nothing you'll in any African culture. Her movements are animalistic, apelike, she sniffs and prowls like an animal and has no voice. This in in line with the white European concept of African culture as a monolith (one culture) that is essentially primitive, uneducated, unintelligent. Then she violently attacks the white main characters, a reflection of white fears about black people.
Apparently someone pointed out the problem of the First Slayer being voiceless so they changed that for Intervention in S5 but everything else remains unchanged. We only see her one more time, in S7 and then only very briefly when she attacks Buffy in a dream. We do not see her during the Shadowmen ceremony, only a shadow and a scream. The narrative of the Shadowmen, who are depicted as villains - black men gang-raping little girls, taking away their voices and identities - is repeated by the narrative of the series itself.
(CONT to Part 2)