Asinine academic authors
My delving back into academia is not doing much for my blood pressure. I have no idea what the author of the following extract thought she was watching, but it sure as hell isn’t the same Buffy the Vampire Slayer show that I watched.
Buffy and her friends ask, “Where do we go from here?” as part of their acknowledgement of a communal heroism. They formulate Buffy’s embrace of suicidal guilt and sacrifice as everyone’s problem. They respond by bemoaning that the “path … home” to a feminist community appears “unclear” and uncharted, but they strive to walk it “hand in hand”. As long as they maintain their grip, externalize patriarchal ideology, and justify their tough female hero, they open up space for an alternative to
Apart from the prolix language, two salient points seem to have been missed - the saving of the world by Xander in S6 (let us speak of yellow crayons no more), and the sacrifice of Spike to save the world in S7 - somehow for this writer the males have become invisible. I really loathe academics who pick and choose aspects of a show to fit into their theses with apparent lack of disregard and understanding of the show itself. God, I once attended a Buffy symposium where one presenter continually referred to the musical as One More Time With Feeling! The writer of the above quote does not GET BtVS at all, it's such lazy writing - "oh I only have one thesis, I need to update it, I'll just pick and choose from a popular show, and wrap it around the thesis I wrote 20 years ago". Reminds me a bit of my first 'meeting' with the grandmother of Buffy academic studies, Rhonda Wilcox, and the flagrant display of plagiarism of her writing and incorrect facts in an article in The Guardian newspaper by an incredibly lazy journalist. Rant over, feel much better now.
Re: WTF
:D
Seems like someone who's only watched a few episodes, with academic-bias!glasses firmly in place.
Why don't you write to this person, pointing out what you pointed out to us? Might give you a buzz and blast out some of that high blood pressure angst!
You must write a ``gender in Buffy'' essay -- you must. Just pretend you're writing it for us! You have a very strong idea and you have all the facts at your finger tips and you can write. Those are all the things you need.
I have been very seriously tempted to do just that, but have no real idea of how to contact her.