August 2002 Archives - Page 6
Kendra and Lynne Edwards -- desert rat, 20:56:23 08/09/02 Fri
I just got hold of Fighting the Forces, ed. by Rhonda Wilcox and David Lavery. I just read "Slaying in Black and White: Kendra as Tragic Mulatta in Buffy", by Lynne Edwards. I was wondering if anyone else had read it and what they thought.
I'm 'digesting' the paper and just wanting to get other people's thoughts.
[> Fighting the Forces -- Maroon Lagoon, 21:42:50 08/09/02 Fri
Why pay for this stuff in book form when you can get an infinite supply for free off the web?
http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/
[> [> Re: Fighting the Forces -- desert rat, 02:39:27 08/10/02 Sat
I didn't. .... I checked it out of my school library!
[> [> reference -- desert rat, 02:49:34 08/10/02 Sat
Thanks for the web page reference. However, when I tried to visit the page, I kept getting an error. Am I just having bad luck, or is there a typo?
Thank you!
[> [> [> It works for me. -- Maroon Lagoon, 12:24:55 08/10/02 Sat
I'm glad you didn't pay money for the book. That web address works for me in Netscape and Opera.
[> [> [> [> Re: It works for me. -- desert rat, 13:19:34 08/10/02 Sat
Thanks. It works now. Must have been a server or ISP thing.
[> [> [> [> Those academics and their high pay! -- Rahael, 14:19:59 08/10/02 Sat
Why should they get any money? What do they contribute to society anyway?
Okay, now I feel like going out and buying the book.
Rah, feeling irritable.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Those academics and their high pay! -- MaeveRigan, 15:00:11 08/10/02 Sat
Um--the Blood, Text and Fears conference, for one thing. I call that a contribution.
"Slayage," for another (www.slayage.tv, the Online International Journal of Buffy Studies (which seems to be offline, at the moment--does anyone know the what's happened to it?).
These kinds of things help academics justify their mania for Buffy and Angel, which otherwise would be scoffed at by their snotty academic peers and administrators.
[> [> [> [> [> [> I think you misunderstood my sarcasm -- Rahael, 15:02:32 08/10/02 Sat
[> [> [> [> [> Pseudo-academics, you mean? -- Maroon Lagoon, 15:26:48 08/10/02 Sat
Cf. Darby's point about people with no real arguments using trendy pop-culture references to make themselves seem hip.
Subversive queer readings of vampire as text? Uh, huh. If you buy that as legitimate scholarship, I've got a bridge I could sell you.
If it looks like gibberish and it quacks like gibberish, I'm going to make the leap and say, hey, maybe it's gibberish.
[> [> [> [> [> [> my position -- desert rat, 17:43:04 08/10/02 Sat
I would probably buy the book if I had money. As an impoverished grad student trying to get my degree so that I can toil in obscurity and further poverty, I'm happy to use the library.
I've read through a number of the papers in the book, but skipped some. I'll probably read them all in time, but my reactions to the papers thus far vary. I found a paper on the act of speech as a weapon in Buffy to be excellant. I've skipped (for now at least) the "queer readings of vampire as text". As Buffy is my only real frame of reference in meanings associated with vampires, the topics struck me as odd, and of lesser interest to me. However, to be fair, I should see what they have to say before I dismiss these authors.
What I am currently pondering are two papers dealing with Kendra. One author seemed to read a lot into her ethnicity (see thread topic), and seemed to offer evidence that her ethnicity was indeed significant in her casting. Another saw her relationships with Buffy and Giles to be a reflection of her adoption of the patriarchal orientation of Council procedures. I was just wondering if anyone else had read this and had any thoughts on it.
[> [> [> [> [> [> I believe desert rat had a question.... -- mundusmundi, 18:50:27 08/10/02 Sat
...in a legitimate thread that got shanghaied by snarkiness. I can't answer it, as I haven't yet read the book in question, but any other takers?
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> OK, mundus, I'll bite... -- redcat, 22:47:01 08/10/02 Sat
since I've read every article in Wilcox and Lavery's edited anthology, Fighting the Forces (FF), most of the articles on the Slayage
Journal academic website run by the same two author/editors (which does seem to be down, BTW, desert rat - they're due for a
new quarterly round of articles soon, perhaps they're down for posting/maintenance?), and most of the articles in the second hard-
published anthology of Buffy/Angel criticism, _Reading the Vampire Slayer_, ed. by Roz Kaveney.
And I'll also bite, mundus, because I, too, find Maroon Lagoon's original comment to desert rat's sincere question about Lynn Edwards' article, including her (sarcastic, I presume) suggestion of a website to be visited instead of paying to read FF, to be completely and inappropriately abrasive. And I was especially annoyed by her later *really* snarky response to Rahael, in which she implied that cultural studies, queer theory or intentionally subversive readings of texts are not legitimate scholarship, and that people who do this type of work are not true professionals, and thus apparently deserve no financial recompense for their work. I **strongly** disagree with Maroon Lagoon's snide presumptions about the legitimacy of critical cultural studies, literary theory and subversively politicized academic analysis in general, and of the articles in FF in particular. In fact, I find these comments aggravating in the extreme, so aggravating that unless their author can justify them through a carefully reasoned argument, I would not feel remiss in calling them trollish. More importantly, I find them unworthy of a legitimate question asked of members of this board. Given the nature of Maroon Lagoon's response, I think desert rat deserves an especially serious reply to her query.
And finally, I'll bite because, for better or worse, I came to this board several months ago directly because of Wilcox and Lavery's
Slayage Journal website, which included a link to this site's archives in one of its articles. Without what Maroon Lagoon so
patronizingly derides as the "pseudo-academics" of critical Buffy studies, I'd never have found the Masq'd gang or become a
member of this on-line community. So I feel like I owe some contribution in defense of this work and of the possible place of such
analyses on a board like this.
But desert rat, I'm not quite sure which FF article you're referencing in which Kendra's character is analyzed as adopting the
Watcher's Council's patriarchal authority, although this is a common-enough critique of the character. So I'll focus on Edward's
article, "Slaying in Black and White: Kendra as Tragic Mulatta."
I find the article carefully argued, thoughtfully presented and critically sound. Edwards places her work within the critical lineage
of Burke and Barthe (and thus, by extension, Foucault and Baudillard, as well as Campbell). Her main argument is that Kendra's
character reproduces almost all of the specific attributes of the Tragic Mulatta trope, as identified by Black feminist cultural and
literary critics like Hazel Carby and Barbara Christian (*1); and that it thus remains open to critiques that interpret the character
primarily as representative of the problematics of race relations in American culture. She carefully traces the specifics of the
classic trope, most dramatically manifested in Kendra's overt articulation as the light-skinned, aggressively-sexualized, highly-
exoticized, female "Dark Other," and in the cliche of her early death (after only 3 episodes), primarily as a plot device used to
move a white main character's, Buffy's, story of alienation and sacrifice forward in the narrative. Edwards minimally assess the
achingly ironic development of the trope for a post-modernist, post-feminist audience, including Kendra's growth toward an
independent identity during her second visit to Sunnydale, but she also notes that, progressive re-imagining or not, Kendra still
dies "at the end," as the Tragic Mulatta consistently has done throughout American literature written by whites (*2). Further,
Edwards supports her contention that the actual issue of race, as distinct from the show's concern with "otherness," displayed
through its metaphor-rich weekly parade of vampires and demons, is problematic for BtVS. She cites the limited and limiting roles
of Black female characters on the show, i.e., Olivia, who leaves Giles after her first encounter with the demon underworld; the
First Slayer, who can speak only through the intervention of a white woman's (Tara's) voice; and Nikki, the silent New York-
based Black slayer whom Spike kills in the 1970s and whose black leather coat becomes a symbol of his Big Bad Cool factor. (She
also tangentially mentions Forrest, but her focus is on female characters and the show's stated emphasis on issues of female
empowerment.)
However, after laying out her case for interpreting Kendra primarily through the critical lens of racial stereotyping, and especially
through the character's close adherence to each of the specifics of the Tragic Mulatta cliche as it has developed in 20thC American
literature, by her conclusion, Edwards seems to want to excuse Joss Whedon for having relied on this egregious cultural
mythology in his representation of a Black female character, and for having created "marginalized representations" of characters of
color throughout his serial work. Her defense of Whedon rests on the argument that since he is not responsible for the existence
of the cliche or its stereotypic, tropic characteristics in the larger society, he can't really be held accountable for its presence in his
television series. She then argues that to dismiss the characters as merely or primarily racist depictions that perpetuate cultural
stereotypes is to miss the possibility that, because of it mythic nature, BtVS can, as Edwards phrases it, "illustrate and illuminate
historical 'truths' from which black and white viewers can learn to transcend their ordinary existence." (p. 96) This seems like a
rather disingenuous conclusion, a sort of academic "fan-wanking" cop-out intended to rescue a favorite cultural production from
the abandoned dust-heap of critically-slain texts. Edwards' initial case for reading Kendra as a near- classic Tragic Mulatta is too
strong to be side-lined by this type of redemptive denouement.
As for the core of her conclusion, however, there have certainly been vigorous debates on this board as to what attention, if any,
Joss Whedon and the ME writers "should" pay to ethical considerations, progressive social concerns or the impact of their work
on their audience, much less the larger society. These have ranged from fierce denials that Whedon is obligated to reproduce
anything resembling "after-school-special" morality plays, to more measured arguments over the role of the artist as a member of
society and the nature of the artist's responsibilities to their art ("the narrative") versus their responsibilities to their viewers. As
well, members this board have engaged in serious debate over the various possible interpretations of Tara's death, focusing on its
(actual or purported, depending on one's POV) re-enactment of the Evil-Dead-Lesbian cliche, and on the "meaning" of that death
in terms of narrative structure, character development and plot. The bulk of Edwards' critical analysis of Kendra's character and her careful detailing of the ways Whedon's plots "make use of" Kendra in a fashion that re-inscribes the Tragic Mulatta cliche are, IMO, academically and critically valid, in much the same way that the more carefully considered critiques of Tara's death as representative of the EDL cliche are valid. Just as clearly, however, and again only IMO, such an interpretation is not only not the only one available, it is not necessarily the richest nor the strongest interpretation of the show's overall text or the place of Kendra's character in it.
Edwards' analysis, for example, focuses on the earliest appearance of Kendra and the tense relationship that develops between her
and Buffy in her first episode. The ways in which the character's development in the later episodes subverts certain aspects of the
Tragic Mulatta cliche are glossed over in Edwards essay. I think a thoughtful comparison between Kendra's situation and the
Angel episode, "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?" would also allow a fuller reading of Whedon's "take" on the Tragic
Mulatta cliche, perhaps suggesting that he is willing to address criticism over the ways he represented Kendra, especially through
his later depiction of the mulatta character Judy, and might suggest that he has a more textured and less stereotypical approach to
the issue of a Black character's death than Edwards claims.
Further, while I think her article raises important questions about the position of Black characters in BtVS in particular and in
cultural productions such as television and literature as a whole, I would find an analysis that assesses such "othered" characters in
light of the show's broader concerns with otherness and difference more appealing. I think such an analysis might find that the
show and its writers and producers are, indeed, more comfortable creating vampire and demon characters s modeled on white
characters who act AS IF they were characters of color, while actual characters of color more generally do seem to act within a
fairly narrow range of racial stereotypes. Such an analysis would need to assess the character development and plot uses made of
Gunn as well as Kendra, the First Slayer as well as Forrest, and Faith as well as Spike. However, in a show that has as one of its
overt objectives an exploration of "otherness," simplistic conclusions or accusations of crude racism will not likely be able to be
well-supported.
While I am certainly always aware of BtVS's near lily-white (mis-?) representation of American society, having lived for a time on
the North American continent, basically within white culture and certainly mostly around lots and lots of white people, I suspect
that the racially narrow depiction of the show's characters is actually a more realistic reflection of the majority of white
Americans' experience than a more diverse cast list would provide. In that sense, Kendra's story is not so much a cliche as an
expression of a troubling truth. To say that a show is embedded in and reflects a racist culture is not the same thing as saying that
it is itself racist, of course. However, Edwards lays out a good enough case, in terms of Kendra at least, to argue that BtVS in the
early seasons may have unwittingly recreated the Tragic Mulatta cliche, and her own strong evidence for that argument, while it
isn't as complete as it might have been, subverts her final conclusion that we can and should excuse the show for playing into
racist stereotypes just because it's special genre, the myth re-told for a contemporary audience, allows that audience to learn
something good from something bad.
And finally, if Edward's work, as flawed as I think it is in its conlusions (if not its initial analysis), is merely trendy illegitimate scholarship, I'll take it over snarky, unsupported and anti-intellectual comments any day!
*1) I was a bit surprised at Edward's reliance on the somewhat dated (and occasionally sloppy)
work of Donald Bogey. Her footnote notations to the more recent work of Lisa Anderson
suggest that the bulk of the article may have been written before Edwards' had access to
Anderson's texts.
*2) Edward notes the contestation of the trope in literature written by Black women authors,
particularly Zora Neale Hurston and Bebe Moore Campbell.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: OK, mundus, I'll bite... -- Arethusa, 06:39:46 08/11/02 Sun
I would never argue that people shouldn't write and discuss articles attempting to understand and illuminate the less attractive aspects of humanity ingrained in our society. We live place and time when people are still being killed because they are different-a Black man in Texas, a gay man in Wyoming, and so on.
But.
Couldn't one say that because any character displays negative characteristics, or suffers an unhappy fate, its creator is playing into the Fill-in-the-Blank Cliche? We could say Joss uses the Absentee Father Cliche, which proves the hatred American society has for fathers. There are fathers' rights organizations which could easily make that claim. We discussed an article a while ago where the author claimed BtVS emasulated men because women gave the orders and usually saved the day. Is Joss secretely or unknowingly perpetuating the FemiNatzi Cliche so beloved of right-wing conservatives? Willow is Jewish. Do the events of "Grave" perpetuate the stereotype of a Jewish conspiracy to overtake the world? Bethany in AtS's "Untouched" fulfills the cliche of the boderline insane, oversexed and homicidal child abuse victim. Is Wedon perpetuating the Incest Cliche?
I am not debating the validity or importance of Ms. Edwards' article. But I don't see how negative stereotypes can be avoided, if there is someone out there who is looking for them. I made a half-joking reply (that I accidently did not tone down) to a post of Tanker's a while back, accusing him of using anti-female language. He never intended to be sexist and rightly got a little upset.
Should only Black writers write Black characters, and only show them positively? Is Wedon really racist, anti-gay, or so imbued with negative stereotypes that he is unthinkingly perpetuating them before the world? I don't think we should stop asking the questions, but what happened to giving a person like Wedon the benefit of the doubt?
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Fandom and job of cultural critics -- redcat, 11:36:49 08/11/02 Sun
Arethusa,
Your thoughtful post here deserves an equally thoughtful response. For once, I find myself disagreeing with several points you've
made, an unusual occurrence to be sure. But in the spirit of civil and reasoned discussion that I take to be a prime motivator for most
members of this community, I feel compelled to comment on a few of your statements.
Your idea about "giving a person like Wedon the benefit of the doubt," makes sense if one is a either a fan or even just an interested
but casual observer/consumer. While Lynne Edwards probably is a fan, she certainly is not merely a casual observer. She is a social-
cultural critic, a professional academic in the field of critical cultural studies (*1), whose full-time job is to critically think about,
carefully research, thoughtfully write about and (hopefully) inspiringly teach others about what you cite as "the less attractive aspects
of humanity ingrained in our society," such as racism, sexism, classism and colonialism, with the objective of helping to make that
society less racist, less sexist, less classist and less colonialist. The heart of a critic's job is absolutely subversive. A critic can
*never* "stop asking the questions." As a fan, or even as an interested, deeply engaged, thoughtful and careful observer-essayist on
a board like this one, one may well choose to give Whedon the benefit of the doubt. More likely, one will experience his popular-
culture production in simultaneously multiple ways, i.e., as narrative, as embodied metaphor, as character development, as plot, as
visual enactment, as aural reproduction, as emotionally engaging experience, and perhaps as relating to one's own personal life
events or experiences. What such an approach most likely will not be able to do, and what it is exactly the job of the social-cultural
critic to do, is to understand that piece of cultural production, that "text" if you will, as both constructed from and reflective of broad
social and cultural patterns. The text, in its illumination of them, may also contest those patterns, as I personally think Whedon's
work often does. But Edwards' job as a professional, academic critic is to explore and expose those patterns AS A WAY to think
through the nature and power of them in contemporary society that same society in which recently, as you so chillingly note, a
Black man was pulled to his death behind a truck *because* he was Black, and a gay man was strung to a fence and left to die
*because* he was gay. Edwards did not publish her work on a fan-board, even an analytical one like this. She published her essay in
a juried anthology of similar academic critiques, aimed primarily at an academic audience. Oddly enough, as I noted in my discussion
of her article, I believe that Dr. Edwards' stance as a true fan of the show actually caused her to subvert her own scholarship,
through her attempt to excuse Whedon on the grounds that we can all learn how to not be racist by watching his mythic contribution
to the long and nearly unbroken line of Tragic Mulatta figures in American literature, film and television. And it is because of that,
IMO, that her article is ultimately unsatisfactory as an academic analysis. When she writes as a fan, she ceases to be a critic, and her
justification for the existence of the classically Tragic Mulatta character she so carefully outlines in Whedon's early work is almost
laughably inadequate.
Secondly, I'm disturbed by your notion that Edwards somehow created or improperly imposed a "Fill-in-the-Blank" cliche on the
show, that she went looking for something bad and found it. The Tragic Mulatta is a very specific literary and film trope, identified
by a tightly clustered set of specific characteristic attributes that includes a characters' physical, emotional and social identity, her
abilities and goals, the story's narrative structures, plot lines and moral imperatives, and the reactions of other characters to her. The
trope and its cliched uses was identified in American literary criticism about 4 decades before Edwards wrote her essay. Major
critical analyses of it, and of texts in which it appears, have been done by literary critics as famous as Toni Morrison and Audre
Lorde, as well as those who are famous only within specialized disciplines in the academy, like Hazel Carby and Barbara Christian
(who is one of my personal favorites, although Hazel has both a great flair for clothes and a wonderfully dark sense of humor, and is
a fabulous dinner guest!). The trope is neither sloppy in its identification nor fuzzy enough in its boundaries to be applied
indiscriminately across a broad range of literary female characters of color. Edwards articulates the specifics of the trope extremely
well, and clearly identifies specific aspects of Kendra's character, her physical presentation and speech (including her bad Jamaican
accent), the lines she delivers, the plot movements she's involved in, the reactions of other characters to her, her reactions to those
other characters, and her place in the overall narrative, all in support of her contention that the character and her story arc do, indeed,
reflect **very closely** all of the most important attributes of the previously-identified cliche. This is not the same as somebody
claiming that Joss must be anti-Semitic because the show's only Jewish character tried to end the world. Nor is it the same thing as
saying that Joss is "so imbued with negative stereotypes that he is unthinkingly perpetuating them before the world," as you suggest.
Although I personally disagree with Edwards' contention that we should read Joss' use of the trope as morally instructive, I prefer to
trace what I see as a growth in his attitude toward and work with characters of color over the six years of the show. I think, like the
rest of us, great artists are open to change and growth. I'm still not sure what he's doing with Gunn, but he's moved far beyond the
urban, Black, street-tough, gang member his character was originally presented as. Had Kendra not been killed -- which seemed
necessary in purely plot terms to get the "second slayer" out of the way and in narrative terms to send Buffy to LA for the summer in
disgrace, regardless of Kendra's racial identity -- I think we might have seen much more interesting developments of her character
that would have allowed Whedon to play out the trope and truly contest it, as I think he was trying to do with Judy, rather than
merely replay and get stuck within it, as I think Edwards' analysis convincingly demonstrates he did.
If you have problems with the analytical work of Edwards and other academics like her being presented on this board, then please
take that up with me (or with desert rat, who originally brought the topic here). I'm more than willing to discuss what is appropriate
for this board if this is not, and perhaps, given shadowkat's comments (below) on overly academic language being used here, that is
a discussion we should have as a community. But it rankles me to see the entire enterprise of critical cultural analysis, in which I've
professionally been involved for a dozen years, dismissed first by Maroon Lagoon as "pseudo-academics" and now by you as
something that merely plays on negative stereotypes for shock value. If you want to argue that Kendra does not fit the Tragic
Mulatta cliche, or (what is probably a more fruitful exercise) that such an analysis is less interesting or less satisfying or less
informative than a different type of analysis, please, be my guest. Just expect me to keep asking questions, 'cause that's at the heart
of what I do.
(*1) I've never met Dr. Edwards, but a quick Goggle search based on her 2-line bio at the back of Fighting the Forces uncovers the
following: she earned her Ph.D. from U-Penn and now teaches at Ursinus College, a small liberal-arts institution in Pennsylvania;
besides her published work in the fields of communication and popular cultural studies, she is also on the editorial board of a new
peer-reviewed on-line academic journal, "Popular Communication," whose editorial scope provides (quoting from their website) "a
forum for scholarly investigation, analysis, and dialogue on communication symbols, forms, phenomena, and strategic systems of
symbols within the context of contemporary popular culture. Popular Communication will publish articles on all aspects of popular
communication texts, artifacts, audiences, events, and practices, including the Internet, youth culture, representation, fandom, film,
sports, spectacles, the digital revolution, sexuality, advertising/consumer culture, television, radio, music, magazines, and dance. The
journal welcomes diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives.... [It] is intended for scholars, researchers, and educators in
mass communication, advertising, media studies, visual communication, and cultural studies. It will also appeal to readers in family
studies, gender studies, race/ethnic studies, sociology, social psychology, women's studies, American studies, and other disciplines
with an emphasis on or interest in popular communication." As Sophist notes, these are specialized fields using specialized
vocabularies. Entering them has only one requirement, the same one that's true for every field of human endeavor - you gotta learn
the lingo before you can play the game....
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Thank you -- Arethusa, meekly, 12:02:52 08/11/02 Sun
for your very thoughful post. I'll be more careful with my petulant streak in the future. It didn't occur to me that I was writing as a fan until well after I made that post-then it was too late.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Fascinating points in both r'c and arethusa's posts -- shadowkat, 08:34:46 08/11/02 Sun
First - haven't had the pleasure of reading FF b/c isn't in bookstores. Although I have explored slayage.com. Tried submitting to them - but I'm afraid my essays aren't well
academic enough and I'm too busy to edit and make them more so. (Bad excuse I know.)
1. Academia is an odd place. Or at least my experience of it has been. And the response of those of us who have left it or never quite got in, tends at times to be snarky.
But I don't know if that's where MAroon was coming from exactly. I do know - that occassionally I find the academic scholarship on the board to be off-putting, but this has more to do with the tone and use of the words which feel to a layperson as "pretentious" or "outside" the common vernacular. Legalese by the way has the same overall effect - placing a unintentional (or actually intentional from some lawyers' pov) distance between the reader and layperson. This distance may cause someone to make snide comments.
2. Another problem I've encountered with the posting of essays on the internet - which Lagoon points out - is why would anyone buy something they can get for free? I asked a potential agent if I could publish my work - I'd written over 20 essays, 8-10 pages in length and have had numerous requests for them. A couple of people even asked if I was planning on publishing them in a book - they would certainly buy it. The agent said that editors and book publishers as a general rule do not publish work that has been released first on the internet. If people have access to it for free - why buy. And he strongly advised me not to post any portion of the novel I'd written to my site. (He decided not to represent me...so still looking for an agent at this point.) There is a view in the publishing field that work published on the internet is unworthy. This is an elitist old school view that has been disproven by the success of certain self-published works including House of Leaves - an artistic and unique book which was released first as an electronic work on the internet. But as Stephen King discovered one can lose quite a bit of money by publishing something on the internet first.
What traditional trade publishers and writers don't understand about academic scholarship - is that for academics and lots of ex-academics and information junkies -the free-exchange of information and scholarship is often more important than the money. I did not write my Buffy essays for money. If I wanted to make money - I'd write something else -which I've been encouraged to do. I wrote them out of love for the show, a desire to share thoughts and ideas with others similarly obsessed, and a need to figure out a few things about my world. So I chose a tv show to do this exploration - it was my choice to do so.
It does annoy me greatly when people take issue with that.
It sounds like the writers of FF did the same thing. And I have to say I admire them for taking the next step and publishing their work outside the internet.
But I can see why some may take issue with them for doing it.
Onto the far more interesting topics discussed!
1. Kendra - was she really mulatto? For some reason I thought she was African from Kenya? Was I wrong?
Not that it's relevant. I do see an interesting theme
developing in Ats and Btvs. They appear to be attempting to use the ensouled vampire as a metaphor for a mulatto or a person who is excluded from two worlds. I certainly saw that metaphor being emphasized in Are You Now or Have You Ever Been - which by the way was a reference to the MCARTHY
Hearings - where screenwriters and others were dealing with charges of communisim. "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a communist sympathsizer? Supporter of a leftist cause?"
At issue in Angel - very subtle at times - is the question which side are you on? Btvs often asks the same questions of its characters. You are either on my side or against me.
Willow certainly showed this in the last few episodes. In Villains she makes it clear. If you are against me - I destroy you. Angel also makes it clear in Forgiving - you are against me? Stay away. Problem with life is there are usually more than two sides and hey, it's not that simple.
I love Holtz's line to Justine in Loyalty. She asks how Wes and the others can work for a vampire. Holtz says "Life isn't always black and white, Justine. It's not that simple.."
4. The problem with cliches is they are almost impossible to avoide. A fiction teacher of mine once told me that there are no new ideas. Just new ways of expressing them.
Hence the cliche. Some cliches bug me more than others. My personal pet peeve is the bad boyfriend turned rapist cliche/fatal attraction - really hate that one. They sort of redeemed it by not killing the guy at the end and having him seek a soul instead of being dusted. Usually? He's dusted.
While I can see where Edwards comes up with her racist cliches and holds Whedon somewhat responsible. I agree with redcat. I think that is one interpretation and the least interesting. Gunn, Forrest, Trick, Kendra, Olivia, and Nickki
did not come across to me as minorities or blacks or mulattos. They came across as people with histories and concerns, fully realized characters. And all were very different. Trick was actually one of my favorite villains.
He seemed to really get off on being a vampire. And he was different than the other vamps. He was a businessman, made me think of an organized crime boss. Kendra felt like a woman who was raised at birth to follow a calling, a calling her parents and community supported with religious devotion. When i compare Kendra and Buffy what I see is how cultural attitudes can build a personality or individual calling. To Kendra - slaying was her religion. Buffy sees it as a job. Buffy really doesn't have a religion. Kendra sees the world with rules and boundaries and an end zone. Buffy wishes it had them but doesn't see them and takes life and her job on a case by case basis. One of the most interesting Kendra/Buffy scenes is in Giles' Library where they discuss the role of slaying. Kendra tells Buffy Angel is a vampire and should die. Is supposed to die. Buffy says the soul changes things. Kendra doesn't see it. A rigid rules based cultural view contrasted with a more open less rules based view. Forrest is actually very similar to Kendra. He sees the Initiative as a way of life, a calling, nothing should distract you from it. Girls are well just like ice cream, enjoy them but don't let them take you from your calling. Riley is struggling with this concept. Forrest represents part of the reason for that struggle. His race seemed well irrelevant to me. (Of course I'm not black - so perhaps I have the luxury of not seeing that, don't know.) Olivia's purpose was to show why giles has little to no romance in his life. Joss Whedon in his commentaries for HUSH mentions how Olivia is scared off by the horror of it all. She is NOT a "black" character. She is Giles' lover and a person. If she had been played by someone who was white - would anyone have made the criticism?
2. I remember back in undergrad writing a critical analysis on the tv show MASH. My professor at the time criticized me for not being more critical of MASH's improper treatment of women on the show. She felt that the negative representation of women on the show MASH as love objects, sex objects, or objects ridicule should have been addressed more in my essay. I was more interested in the use of Black Humor in a horrible setting - like war and the delicate balance of humor with drama. I really hate knee-jerk "issue" topics. But was getting so tired of getting flamed for forgetting to address them, eventually gave in.
Still tired of seeing the "issue" topic overtake other equally legitimate ones. I think sometimes we can beat an issue into the ground so that the whole piece of work is blotted out by it and those who are not interested or not directly involved with the issue begin to resent the people who are and wish they'd disappear. In college this happened with the Feminist Movement. My friends and colleagues got to the point were the issue was an annoyance. People became sick of their anger. Nothing got accomplished. They got ignored. And a lot of what they were saying, the valid stuff? Got lost.
I'm not saying issues aren't important. I've espoused many in my life. But beating someone over the head with one? Not a great idea. People as a rule don't like being told what to think or do about something. They like to discover it on their own. Part of the reason I love BTVS and ATS so much is it doesn't beat me over the head. The issues when they are there are subtly referred to through metaphor and theme and character development. I still don't know what I think
about some of the stories presented in Season 6, but they all made me think, quite a bit.
And the cliches? I don't mind so much, not as much as I've minded them in other television shows (I've watched a lot of tv in my lifetime). Whedon seems to give them new twists.
The cliche of the father's betrayle in Helpless - was actually quite thrilling. And the bad boy rape scene cliche - actually ended up throwing the rapist on a path to possible maturity and redeemption as opposed to the more predictable big bad route. Cliches sometimes can be useful and at times - their continued use means we haven't solved whatever issues they represent. The cliche still exists because well it's still relevant in our unconscious minds. We still have something to say about it. And the negative cliches? The blots on our media? They also exist because we as a society have yet to take steps to erase or change them. Until we do - they will pop up. Screaming at tv shows and media isn't in my opinion the most constructive way to do it. Creating your own art, creating art that challenges the cliche, working to show the world how the cliche is wrong? While far more difficult and seemingly impossible? Maybe the more constructive approach. Positive action often provides postive results. Negative action often equals negative results.
Anyways not sure if I stayed on topic or not. But thanks for making this thread interesting.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Books and academics (even further OT, but oh well) -- mundusmundi, 09:20:52 08/11/02 Sun
Academia is an odd place.
LOL...you said it. I've been teetering along the fringes of it for several years now myself. Often my responses are contradictory, either defending academics or mocking their pretentions. I don't necessarily disagree with Maroon's comments; I just thought that their tenor was undermining desert rat's sincere atttempt at discussion.
2. Another problem I've encountered with the posting of essays on the internet - which Lagoon points out - is why would anyone buy something they can get for free?
A few years ago I had a debate with an intelligent, visionary older man who sold me my old car. He was involved in computers and prophecized that one day the internet would make books entirely obsolete. Maybe he'll be right in the long run, but at the moment I see numerous obstacles before that prediction becomes a reality.
Personally, I lean toward Rah's feelings about books having sentimental value. Moreover, I think that books are extremely practical. I can only read off a computer monitor for so long before I start going zooey. Particularly if the subject is interesting, I like to be able to carry it around. Go to a cafe and lounge on an easy chair with it. Take it into the restroom where, as everyone knows, all profound thinking occurs.
Aesthetically, I like to feel the pages in my hand. I like turning them. That's why I frequently print posts off this board. And that's why I wouldn't be adverse to spending money on something that originated on the net. Also, if money's an issue, follow desert rat's example and go to the library. (They have DVD's there too, incidentally. If more people took advantage of this, would Blockbuster go out of business?)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Sapere Aude -- Rahael, 09:49:05 08/11/02 Sun
I love them, much the same reasons that Mundus outlines. Every book I buy, I commit the sacrilege of writing in my name, the date and place of purchase. Nearly every place I visit, I buy a book.
There is also a huge problem with the internet - many institutions in Britan are finding that things recorded for posterity in electronic form sometimes become unreadable because the technology used to create them become obsolete. This is one of the biggest problems faced by copyright libraries like the British Library - who are trying to make their collection available electronically. Both forms are vital.
A book's techonology will never be rendered obsolete with the passage of progress.
As for academia, ironically, books on pop culture will probably find a much wider audience than dry as dust traditional academic tomes. A close friend of the family said that his book once published probably paid him about 50 pence an hour for the work he had put in. My tutor's book about church courts in early modern England is a key text for those interested in the field of sexuality, marriage and law, but would no where near find the readership that the essay on subversive queer readings of the show.
Also, it is my understanding that with the huge slash fan fiction genre, that essay may prove more interesting to many hard core fans than anything else in that book.
By the way, Maroon Lagoon, authors still get money every time one of their books get taken out of libraries - at least that is so in Britain. So Desert Rat still contributed money to the authors of that book.
As someone who decided not to do any DPhil at all, than do one in an obscure and uninteresting area that no one else had attempted, I must confirm that there are as many 'ridiculous' and 'pretentious' subjects in the traditional, 'approved' scholarship as there in more easily ridiculed areas. THis is more enforced by the chronic underfunding of academia than anything else.
There's a quote that no book is ever underservedly remembered, though many are undeservedly forgotten. As I used to sit in centuries old libraries, filled with books written by other students who had formerly sat there, (quite possibly the times where I have been happiest) I know that academia still provides a haven for serious thought and questioning that is sometimes missing everywhere else. It is not surprising that many of my favourite posters here have, or still, teach at universities.
Moreover, venture out of the Western world, and you'll find that academics play even more vital roles in maintaining civil society.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: OT - Books -- Brian, 10:45:52 08/11/02 Sun
When its comes down to which medium has lasted the longest and will last the longest, books win.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Teachers and Persons -- mundusmundi, 12:44:29 08/11/02 Sun
There's a quote that no book is ever underservedly remembered, though many are undeservedly forgotten. As I used to sit in centuries old libraries, filled with books written by other students who had formerly sat there, (quite possibly the times where I have been happiest) I know that academia still provides a haven for serious thought and questioning that is sometimes missing everywhere else. It is not surprising that many of my favourite posters here have, or still, teach at universities.
Of course I agree, and not just because I've been a teacher and am about to become a student again. Academia has its share of silliness, but in a way that just reinforces the fact that scholars are as human as everyone else. Worth remembering, often forgotten.
Speaking of quotations, I can't for the life of me recall who wrote this (could have been anyone from Sagan to Bloom), but a famous scholar not long ago addressed the paradoxical attitude that American culture has toward academia. He wrote that we are suspicious of intellectuals, but we are not disappointed when our children become one.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Interesting discussion - Reminds me why I love mm and Rah :-) -- Dedalus, 13:20:07 08/12/02 Mon
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> books are like old friends and good wine - the best of them get better with age -- redcat, 13:44:01 08/11/02 Sun
I love books!!! When I packed up my library to move it across the Pacific last year, the movers kept shaking their heads.
Their office manager politely suggested that I might want to winnow through them when she realized I'd be paying to ship over
4,000 pounds of paper more than 6,000 miles. But every time I go to the used book store to sell a few, I just come home with
many more.... :)
BTW, authors don't get paid in America when their books are checked out of a library, and it's only the tiniest fraction of the
elite at the very tops of their professions, or those who write specifically for general or mass audiences, who actually make any
money off academic writing.
Case in point: my dissertation chair wrote the 4th-best-selling American colonial history text in the history of academic
publishing. Given that the majority of copies of academic books are purchased either by libraries or by undergraduate and
graduate students who are forced to do so as part of their college course work, this means that her text was widely enough
assigned by other professors that nearly 1 out of every 20 college students in the US in the 1990s probably read (or at least
were assigned to read) parts or all of her work. On its 10th anniversary, the publishers brought out a "new" edition, which
included a retrospective "afterword" written by her about the impact of the book on her field, and a new, more brightly-colored
cover. The price went up by almost $2 for the new edition, of which she received an increase in her royalties of about 17 cents.
From the royalties for this book, she has been paid over a period of thirteen years and after the six years of unpaid labor it
took for her to research and write the book -- not quite enough money to hire a local, non-union contractor to remodel the
attic of her house into a personal study, with built-in book shelves, a larger dormer window for light, better electrical
connections for her computer, and a small sleeping platform for her old futon, on which she naps during those long marathon
writing sessions. She's hopeful that after the next four or five years, if the book continues to be assigned in college classrooms,
she might just be able to pay off the loan she had to take out to finish paying off the contractor. But on the day we moved her
desk and library from her living room into that new attic study, we decorated its walls with some of the hundreds of letters
students from all over the country have sent her, thanking her for writing something that helped changed their lives.
No academic does it for the money. It's just too bad the bank won't take those letters against the interest on the loan, eh?
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: books are like old friends and good wine - the best of them get better with age -- shadowkat, 14:04:09 08/11/02 Sun
"No academic does it for the money. It's just too bad the bank won't take those letters against the interest on the loan, eh?"
Very true and something I've learned in the past six years of obtaining rights to academic journal content to disburse in online databases for well little money in royalties.
This is a concept that trade (general mass market book
and magazine) publishers don't understand. Why would someone spend all this time and effort to write something which makes no money?
Well - tenure is one answer. In some universities it is a recquirement to write a certain number of papers and books.
Another - is just the pure absolute pleasure of it. I certainly didn't write my essays for money.
The problem with publishing is well it's not as easy to get something published as you might think. I'd love to publish a book of essays for example - but no buyers. Can't afford to self-publish. And to be honest? Getting more out of the fan mail from the site. Yes- prefer books to electronic.
I own more than I can possibly count. Half reside with my parents because I can't fit them in my apartment. And I buy everything - no genre or type of book escapes my attention.
As for electronic? Print off reams of paper - because not real good at reading all this onscreen without going blind.
So the publishers out there who were terrified that the internet and advent of electronic books would replace print - have been proven wrong. People just can't carry a tiny electronic book or laptop to bed, on the subway, into an airplane or into the bathroom with them conviently. Besides it's tough on the eyes.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: books are like old friends and good wine - the best of them get better with age -- aliera, 05:11:19 08/12/02 Mon
I do the same. The subject 's far from closed on internet publishing though. I do as much if not more research on the internet as at library. There is incredible access on the internet and immediacy, and I think we will have the capability to read in bed or anywhere one day. Then I'll really be in trouble. *grin*
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Specialized vocabulary or jargon? -- Sophist, 09:54:26 08/11/02 Sun
I do know - that occassionally I find the academic scholarship on the board to be off-putting, but this has more to do with the tone and use of the words which feel to a layperson as "pretentious" or "outside" the common vernacular. Legalese by the way has the same overall effect - placing a unintentional (or actually intentional from some lawyers' pov) distance between the reader and layperson. This distance may cause someone to make snide comments.
This seems to be a problem with most specialized fields. In the early years of a new area of study, the participants tend to give words their common usage. The desire for greater precision then results in fine distinctions, the coining of new words, and/or the emphasis on archaic or obscure definitions. After a while, a technical vocabulary separates the practitioners from everybody else. The process seems inevitable, given enough time.
It's easy to see the frustrations this creates. Those on the outside want an explanation in "plain English" (as though there really is such a thing!), without realizing the loss of precision that requires. Many on the inside use the specialized vocabulary to intimidate others (and, perhaps, to hide their own insecurities). The legal profession seems particularly prone to this, but no profession is immune -- just look at the way science popularizers like Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould were sometimes criticized by their "peers".
Part of the criticism of lit crit seems to me to arise from the use of specialized vocabulary in ways that appear strange or even wrong to outsiders. Such writers may suffer more from such criticism because literary analysis has always had a more traditional vocabulary, and people aren't yet used to the change. Part of the criticism, of course, may come from the use of fancy words to hide ridiculous assertions.
Personally, I appreciate the fact that posters here are willing to use a sophisticated vocabulary, because I learn a lot that way. I also don't feel intimidated about asking for an explanation if I don't understand, and I hope that is true for those who read my more obscure posts.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Specialized vocabulary or jargon? -- mundusmundi, 12:33:23 08/11/02 Sun
Personally, I appreciate the fact that posters here are willing to use a sophisticated vocabulary, because I learn a lot that way. I also don't feel intimidated about asking for an explanation if I don't understand, and I hope that is true for those who read my more obscure posts.
I love learning new things, particularly new words. I keep a dictionary and thesaurus beside my desk, because I never know when I'm going to come across a word I haven't seen before.
Also got one of those calendars. Yesterday's word was fanfaronade. Ain't dat kewl?!
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Words, words, beautiful words -- shadowkat, 13:53:00 08/11/02 Sun
Actually have a love of learning new words. Even if I'm not a genuis at spelling them. One of my favorites was redcat's Neurasthenic. Cool.
Then of course there's the slang term I discovered recently - "blog" - I think it means data on the writer
or information on the website person.
I tend to figure out the meanings of words via the context.
And see their use as a necessary technique in writing clearly, concisely and well.
That said - nothing is worse than to use too many long arachic words to get across a point which could be clearer with a few short well-chosen ones. I'm not saying anyone on this board does that!! I've read and learned quite a bit here. But I know from my experience in law school that there are a few words such as herein, wherefore, that it
would be nice to not see again any time soon. ;-)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> "rabble-fish" -- redcat, 15:31:27 08/11/02 Sun
was my calendar's daily word for my solar return a few days ago. Definition: "A fisherman recognizes two general classes of
fish, such as are saleable in the market and such as are not. The latter is termed 'rabble-fish' ...perfectly wholesome, and
therefore the food of the fisherman and his family, but yet not sufficiently esteemed to be sold in the market." (from Joseph
Wright's "English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905").
Hmmm... Seems like a pretty good description of our board. Maybe "Beware the Masq'd Rabble-Fish Gang!" could be our next motto?
...and 'kat, I realize that I tend to get long-winded in my posts and that I sometimes use overly formal sentence construction,
lots of clauses and a complex vocabulary. I'm sorry if you or others find anything I've posted here annoying or off-putting. I
certainly never intended that, but it wouldn't be the first time someone's told me they find my writing or speech disconcerting.
My friends sometimes complain that when I'm on a roll, I talk in paragraphs, with complex sentences, multiple clauses,
parenthetical statements, precise word choice and generally correct grammar. The real problem is that I think in paragraphs,
too. I often speak in my own mind as if I were writing formal text. I'm convinced this is because I learned to read too young,
before I got to learn enough language through verbal speech to make that my knowledge base. The first fully articulated
speech that came out of my mouth (when I was already three - I was a nearly silent infant) was a full sentence with two clauses.
My mother used to swear she could hear the commas. So I apologize for the form of my speech and my sometimes overly
vigorous presence on the board. As for the content of any of my posts, well, they'll have to stand or not on their own
merits, eh?
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Ack...no, you are not off-putting -- shadowkat - bowing head in apology, 20:09:08 08/11/02 Sun
Oh dear. I tried to deflect the possibility of you thinking I meant you personally by saying "NO ONE ON THIS BOARD"
but oh well.
I have learned quite a bit from your prose. I was trying somewhat clumsily to explain the difficulty non-academics have with academics without ruffling feathers. Impossible obviously. Did not mean to offend.
Some of the best writers write as you do...Faulkner, Joyce Carol Oats, Dickens, Austen...while there are others like
the author of the Corrections, which won the National Book Award, that I want to hit. You do NOT write like him.
What I was trying to discuss was the problem with "elitism"
or "exclusiveness" of language in some professions. The legal one being a major violator. Often we throw degrees at each other, forgetting that someone who has none may have something more powerful to say than we do, but is well somewhat put-off or afraid of speaking up. I really don't see that happening here very often. Just look at the posts by non-academics, 15 and 19 year olds. Exegy posted some brillant work and is still an undergraduate. (*This would never have happened if she was put-off by us.) Age and scholarship and experience while important are not the only things that provide us with insight. Again I am NOT saying that you feel this way - please this is NOT in any way directed towards you or sophist or any of the other posters. I'm talking in general terms.
I guess I was trying to explain why some people may react the way they do to language. Writing can elicite the oddest emotions. Without intending to we offend - as I feel I may have offended you. If I have - please accept my heartfelt apology it was not intended. Was merely offering something up for discussion.
Must learn to stick to essays and not write spontaneously.
Gets me into trouble.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> And you didn't ruffle my feathers -- redcat (who mostly has fur anyway), 20:34:54 08/11/02 Sun
shadowkat, you were incredibly polite and sensitive and did not offend me *at all*. I understand that your posts spoke in general terms & were not directed at me. My apology comes from my own musing heart, not your comments. Please know that.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Blogs -- Darby, 07:06:50 08/12/02 Mon
As I understand it, blogs are derived from bloggers, software that allows someone to easily upload their periodic musings, kind of setting up an internet-accessible diary posted like some boards are, from recent to older entries.
I'm fairly addicted to Neil Gaiman's blog at
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/journal.asp
although it seems to be down right now. I haven't checked, but my impression is that there are LOTS of blogs out there.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Blogs -- d'Herblay, 07:20:12 08/12/02 Mon
I think that blogger is derived from blog rather than the other way around. Blog is a truncation of weblog -- a frequently updated logbook posted to the World Wide Web.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> gotta question a few things -- anom, 23:40:10 08/11/02 Sun
"Her main argument is that Kendra's character reproduces almost all of the specific attributes of the Tragic Mulatta trope...and that it thus remains open to critiques that interpret the character primarily as representative of the problematics of race relations in American culture."
What effect does it have that Kendra was not from American culture? I don't think it's mentioned where she's from, but her accent sounds Caribbean, & her Watcher has a non-European name. Not only is she not American, she's been isolated from her own country's culture since her parents sent her, as a small child, for Slayer training.
I'm certainly no scholar on this subject (not on any, in the academic sense), but what I've heard about the Tragic Mulatta theme includes her having feelings of not fitting in anywhere--not in the black world, not in the white world--so that she's torn over her racial identity, & usually a decision about whether to try to "pass." Kendra came across as confident & sure of her role, yet open-minded enough to question & even change her approach--the one she'd been taught since childhood--when Buffy & her own new experiences challenge it. She didn't seem to feel a need to fit in w/either her own culture or America's. And whatever she felt about being the Slayer & about how to be the Slayer had nothing to do w/her race. In other words, her "mulatta" status didn't seem to be an issue for her or for the regular characters, & certainly not the cause of her death. My impression--& it's no more than that, so please let me know if it's wrong--is that that's not the case in the cliché. It's definitely not the case for Judy in Are You Now..., but what that ep does do is clearly show society's racism as the root of the problem. As far as I can see, it's not even a factor for Kendra.
"Kendra's overt articulation as the light-skinned, aggressively-sexualized, highly-exoticized, female 'Dark Other'"....
Well, not all that dark @>). Exoticized, certainly. But Kendra never struck me as "aggressively sexualized." I'm not sure whether you mean that her own sexuality was aggressive (didn't look that way to me) or that she was treated in a sexualized way (beyond that her clothes were kinda tight, I didn't see that either--at least, no more than most of the women on the show).
"She cites the limited and limiting roles of Black female characters on the show, i.e., Olivia, who leaves Giles after her first encounter with the demon underworld; the First Slayer, who can speak only through the intervention of a white woman's (Tara's) voice...."
The First Slayer speaks through Tara at 1st, but later she speaks in her own voice. True, this is at the insistence of Buffy (white), but she does.
As to Olivia, I didn't see any indication that she cut her visit short. We don't know how long she was planning to stay in the 1st place, & at the end of Hush, she's talking calmly about it, almost in musing tones, w/Giles. No freaking out or distancing herself the way Jenny (white) did after her encounter w/Eyghon (which was admittedly more personal). Olivia is one of the few non-regular characters, of any race, who get out of Sunnydale alive.
And that's my main problem w/this reading of Kendra & other black females on BtVS: it seems to ignore the context of what happens to characters in general on the show. Indeed, there are few non-white characters on BtVS, but it takes place in a small California town &, as you said, redcat, may well reflect the populations of many such towns. I've actually been surprised to see as many black characters as are shown (& how few Latino/a characters there've been), & often in nonstereotyped positions--teachers & the guidance counselor at school, etc. True, they often end up killed, but is it any more often than white characters? That's the thing: Large numbers of characters get killed on BtVS, enough so that when it happens to nonwhite characters, it can't necessarily be interpreted as having any relation to their race.
One more thing, redcat: I have no problem w/your defense of academics & academia. But please remember that's not who you're writing for here:
"Edwards places her work within the critical lineage of Burke and Barthe (and thus, by extension, Foucault and Baudillard, as well as Campbell)....Black feminist cultural and literary critics like Hazel Carby and Barbara Christian...."
I recognize the names Foucault & Baudrillard & have some idea that they were instrumental in the development of Postmodernism (which I don't know that much about otherwise, beyond the very basics!) And I think it's safe to assume nearly all the readers of this board know more than the general population about J. Campbell. But I have no idea who Burke & Barthe were (are?), or what opinions Carby & Christian espouse. Ditto for Bogey & Anderson (but not Hurston & B. M. Campbell). I'm not saying this as criticism but to ask for more info on these writers & what they've said that's relevant to this discussion. You cite them as though you expect all of us to know of them, & I doubt I'm the only one who doesn't. (If I am, I'm gonna feel really out of my depth on this board!)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: gotta question a few things -- Rahael, 07:28:36 08/12/02 Mon
"What effect does it have that Kendra was not from American culture? I don't think it's mentioned where she's from, but her accent sounds Caribbean, & her Watcher has a non-European name. Not only is she not American, she's been isolated from her own country's culture since her parents sent her, as a small child, for Slayer training."
It would be a fair question that Kendra not being from an American culture might affect the TMC, except that, of course, she is from an American culture, being created by Joss.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: gotta question a few things -- shadowkat, 09:39:11 08/12/02 Mon
"It would be a fair question that Kendra not being from an American culture might affect the TMC, except that, of course, she is from an American culture, being created by Joss."
Interesting. Can you create a character outside your own culture? Can I as an American write and create a character who is say Russian and is outside my culture? Is that possible? I know there are British writers who have created American characters. British actors who have played them.
Just as there are American actors who have created British characters.
David Lean created and filmed characters who were in Saudia
Arabia in Lawerence of Arabia and Indian characters in India in A PASSAGE OF INDIA. Were those characters outside British culture?
Or is it the fact Whedon created Kendra and place her in the US in a dark fantasy -so since Whedon is American and the show takes place in America, and Whedon created Kendra and placed Kendra in a show taking place in America - therefore Kendra as a character cannot exist outside American culture?
Not sure I'm following the logic here. Because if that's the case - none of the non-American characters created in American media have a validity outside American culture. Or do any of the characters in other countries media that aren't from that country have a validity outside of that countries culture. Sounds very isolationist. Am I misunderstanding you? Slightly confused or perhaps I've only confused myself? ;-)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Joss and minorities -- Rahael, 09:59:20 08/12/02 Mon
What I'm saying is that Joss writes wonderful women characters. He's less good at doing minority characters.
Do you think Kendra is a believable character? Is she rounded? is she complex? Or does she indeed, as someone on the board once commented, appear from the magical land of Jamaican leprechauns?
I find Kendra, Gunn, Forrest et al pretty cardboardy. Even the deligthful Mr Trick is pretty stereotyped.
Funniest of all is Forrest, who manages to be both subservient (interested in following orders, being 'good') while also being insolent and 'uppity' - Riley has to put him in his place and pull rank with him.
I cannot dicuss the tragic Mulatta because I have not read the essay, nor am i familiar with the background research. What I do know is this: Kendra manages to both look down on Buffy (for all the wrong reasons, and which she is taught a good lesson in) and be finally shown to be lesser than her.
All I see is a walking, talking cardboard cut out. Of course great writers can imagine characters and write characters from different cultures. I think Kendra and Forrest are proof that Joss doesn't think very hard about race. He thinks in a very sophisticated way about 'otherness', which enables me, as a non white viewer, to see a lot of my concerns addressed. But I don't look to him to portray realistic and complex versions of people like me.
In short, what I was trying to express in my reply to anom was that Joss can say all he likes that Kendra comes from Africa. I can just laugh and look sceptical.
If you want an American show which portrayed black characters with subtlety and complexity - go to Homicide.
And I thought Tim Minear's Have you Now, where he made race a side issue, and talked about society instead, and the darkness/fear/paranoia that underlies it, a pretty good attempt to have a sophisticated look at 'otherness', into which race was conflated. Judy was a character I could believe in. I'd be interested in redcat's opinion of her, because she was a 'mulatta'. Perhaps there are nuances I didn't catch.
(I very reluctantly talk about race here. I don't really like discussing it)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Joss and minorities -- shadowkat, 12:12:48 08/12/02 Mon
I also try to stay away from the "race" topic. Partly because I don't consider myself qualified to discuss it.
I do experience issues regarding race but from a different
perspective.
In Whedon's defense? I think perhaps he has somewhat the same experience as most Americans who are raised in Suburbs and go to prep schools - a segrationist upbringing. Their interaction with people of other races is usually quite limited. I know mine was in high school and junior high. (It isn't now, quite the reverse - thank god.)
This is an unfortunate occurrence in our society, but let's face it a realistic one. It's a hard task he has - to create characters outside his own experience and tell stories that appeal to people of all races and cultures.
Obviously he's accomplished the second task or well we wouldn't have some of the communication we do on this board.
Whether he has accomplished the first task? I do not believe myself qualified to judge, since the only minority I represent, and it is hardly a real one, is female.
Kendra did annoy me and felt under-developed, but I had more sense of her character early on than Tara - that character didn't really come across as realized until Family, a year and a half later. And I agree about Forrest. But I also found Riley to be a cardboard, two dimensional character, with little purpose outside of being Buffy's "boyfriend" or the stereotypical "all American boy" or as Joss thinks of him in Restless "cowboy guy". What little development he had came later - and he left. Forrest actually had more character IMHO than Riley did or for that matter Graham who had even less.
Trick - I liked. He had much more going for him and was far more interesting than the Annoited One, Luke, or The Master.
He also was far more interesting than the Mayor's Deputy.
Or, once again, Riley. Actually at one point I found Trick more interesting than Angel in Season 3. Wished I had more of him. I guess what I'm trying to point out is it may be a subjective thing?
As to Gunn - he was quite interesting in Season 2, struggling with issues of belonging and living in two worlds. I actually liked him better than Angel in several episodes. He also seemed more developed than Riley ever did.
I don't mean to bash on Riley - I'm merely using him as an example since well you brought him up and because Riley is the "white" all American boy stereotype.
So I guess I remain unconvinced of the argument presented.
Again, maybe that's just because it isn't an argument that affects me on a deep level. Don't know.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> re: Forrest and casting -- ponygirl, 12:56:49 08/12/02 Mon
I liked Forrest! I thought he was pretty interesting, especially the homoerotic subtext between him and Riley. Forrest played the jealousy very well, something which I think moved him beyond the sidekick role into a more well-rounded character.
The real problem IMHO, and one that I do think ME needs to be more aware of, is that they seem to only have one non-white character on the series at a time. Kendra, Mr. Trick, Forrest -- they all end up having a much heavier weight of representation and symbolism. I keep hoping Gunn will be allowed to reconnect with friends or family, or that Los Angeles will finally be able to demonstrate that it is far more multi-cultural than AtS has shown (and I don't mean demons!). Sometimes all this takes is casting people willing to bring in a more diverse range of talent and producers aware enough to call them on it when they don't.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: re: Forrest and casting -- shadowkat, 16:32:31 08/12/02 Mon
From what I've seen of season 7 casting spoilers? They may be trying to rememdy the problem you speak of.
But I agree - they do only have one minority character on the show at a time. In Season 5 it was one of Dawn's friends that we saw in The Body. I liked that girl and wanted to see her again instead of the highly annoying Janice in ALL THE WAY. Sometimes when I see the one minority character I feel as if the show is saying - see NAACP etc - we are fairly representing everyone! sigh.
The further we come, the further we need to go.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: re: and re: -- aliera, 17:52:57 08/12/02 Mon
Now that's amusing in a scary way..."the further we come the further we have to go." I was writing something very similar to you this afternoon regarding perceptions of women in our culture. As much I/we try to be open-minded and I have no sense that the people here don't, it's a very difficult thing. But to see others thinking that way, questioning not just the world but themselves is the opposite of scary. You look at the world around you (and farther away) and worry and wonder and hope people question.
I often feel I err in the other direction of being too empathetic, too emotional sometimes. Not decisive enough or insightful or educated enough to contribute. It is my nature to try to bring things together, to assimilate. Unlike redcat, I didn't have the grace to wait long before starting to post and I also started visiting in the spring. I sometimes jump into threads where I don't belong such as here. Maybe my given name Angela should not be translated as messenger but rather going where angels fear to tread.
Posting boards do have their own pyschology, a result in part of the medium and why people read and post (I am remembering a book on this and in particular The Well) and there are cycles and changes to the groups posting which changes the tone at times; but in general, this board seems one of the more balanced and open I have visited. I too think that's a part of why I return; but mostly to learn and try to understand.
Sometimes it's hard to know how to interpret the posts; but, as someone else here reminded me not too long ago different people may have triggers on certain issues or words that I am unaware of. Just as I don't know when someone will read the post (or if) and what they are going through at that time, how it will 'sound'. Maybe I am too naive and simple; but I think it admirable to try to discuss some of the topics that you as a group attempt here. I think the drifts are interesting and lead to learning things I wouldn't normally come across, and I appreciate that since my job isn't intellectually challenging. I think that to be self-reflective and to really try to be understood is rare and very valuable. And for me, the heart of this board is a safe place, even when, and perhaps mostly when, it's uncomfortable and challenging. I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be challenged.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Echoing the board love! This is an amazing place! -- grateful ponygirl, 07:08:12 08/13/02 Tue
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Can I just re-phrase your last sentence? -- Sophist, 09:00:32 08/13/02 Tue
The further we come, the further we need to go.
I would say it this way: The better you get, the harder it is to improve.
That has always struck me as one of the great ironies of life -- it's such hard work to get better, and then you find you have to work harder yet to improve more.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Diminishing Returns? ;-) -- aliera, 09:21:42 08/13/02 Tue
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> In my case, vanishing. :) -- Sophist, 13:08:44 08/13/02 Tue
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Actually like your phrase better -- shadowkat, 09:46:04 08/13/02 Tue
Mine is or was I think a cliche or overused one.
What's that old saying? We never stop learning and growing and hoping to evolve to a higher plain...?
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> On the other hand... -- Darby, 10:20:43 08/13/02 Tue
I find that in some areas, any improvement I make is partly because I've found a process by which to improve and beyond that I can both improve and refine the improvement process.
Maybe it's because the goals of my vocation, teaching, are too amorphous - you can get better, but you never get it "right" and every semester is a new and different set of challenges. And my avocation, fencing, is something that I continually strive to improve at but while my technique and strategy improve my physical skills (which were never particularly impressive) diminish, so my goals are still mostly to feel like I understand more and can do the fine-motor actions better. Which helps me to teach them.
Or maybe it's that I'm so far from an endpoint that I can't feel the gradual deceleration...that would be a good thing, right-?
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: On the other hand... -- aliera, 12:21:10 08/13/02 Tue
Wasn't there an old story in karate from the founder (what his name? how do I know?) It goes something like this...
Master, what is the secret to your success at such an advanced age?
Well, when I was a young man I would stand toe to toe and defeat my opponents through brute strength. As I got older I realized it was easier to just step aside and let them fall on their face.
...heavily paraphrased...
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Off Topic-Success in Old Age -- Arethusa, 12:51:40 08/13/02 Tue
You Are Old, Father William
by Lewis Carroll
'You are old, Father William', the young man said,
'And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
Do you think, at your age, it is right?'
'In my youth', Father William replied to his son,
'I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.'
'You are old', said the youth, 'as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
Pray, what is the reason of that?'
'In my youth', said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
'I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box -
Allow me to sell you a couple?'
'You are old', said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -
Pray, how did you manage to do it?'
'In my youth', said his father, 'I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.'
'You are old', said the youth, 'one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -
What made you so awfully clever?'
'I have answered three questions, and that is enough,'
Said his father, 'don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!'
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: On the other hand... -- Tymen, 14:41:30 08/13/02 Tue
Another saying:
Old age and treachery beat out youth and skill everytime.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Might have beens... -- Just George, 18:13:29 08/12/02 Mon
A TV show is effected by a number of creative decision-makers. The executive producer/show runner sets the shows overall direction and selects the actors. The writers craft the stories and words. The actors choose how to perform the words. The directors frame the shots. The editors form the shots into a (hopefully) coherent whole. The interactions among these decision-makers are multi-dimensional. The actors may ad-lib new words. The director may choose a shot based on how an actor plays a scene. The writers may change the words based on the strengths or quirks of the actors.
It is my understanding that this has happened many times in BtVS. Reports of the cast "behind the scenes" or at conventions report that Alyson Hannigan occasionally speaks in the fractured syntax some might recognize as "Willow-babble", or that Nicholas Brendon occasionally makes "Xander-like" jokes. Over time, the writers have crafted the characters to better fit the strengths of the actors.
This has a tangential connection to this discussion because of the casting choices in BtVS. According to some sources, Bianca Lawson, the African American actress who played Kendra, was initially selected to play Cordelia. The actress pulled out to work on another project.
Must the race of the protagonists effect the progress of the story? I once heard Will Smith say that his race changes the tone of any movie he is cast in. He plays many parts that could have been played by actors of any race. For example, the fact that Will Smith played Robert Clayton Dean, an African American lawyer being chased by enemies who were predominantly white men increased the tension in his movie "Enemy of the State." At the start of the movie, Dean is prominent, successful, and well to do. While his background is not given in any great detail, Dean is shown to be a rising lawyer in a firm run by older white men. Given the situation in America, it is easy for the audience to assume that Dean's climb up the legal ladder was as hard or harder than those of a white lawyer of similar ability. This makes Dean's success noteworthy and his persecution by the government seem more unfair. It also makes Dean's ultimate triumph more satisfying.
How would Cordelia's character have changed if she were African American and played by Ms. Lawson? We will never know. Would issues of race have been more prominent if an African-American woman had been sitting in the library during all those long exposition scenes in Seasons 1-3? We don't know that either. But, from the evidence, I'd expect that the writers would have modified Cordelia's characterizations based on the strengths and quirks of Ms. Lawson's acting and personal style. Also, the introduction of mixed race interactions might have changed some of the details of specific stories.
Cordelia as played by Charisma Carpenter was a girl with all of the advantages; she was tall, beautiful, rich, popular, and white. Her assent to the top of the social heap seemed almost an entitlement. This made her a target. It seems somehow more acceptable to "put down" someone who seems to have all the advantages.
It seems less acceptable to verbally attack someone who has overcome greater burdens on their way to the top. If Cordelia were African American, her assent to the top of the social ladder might have seemed like something of a triumph in a society tinged by racism. Some of Buffy's put downs of Cordelia might have "felt" wrong or mean spirited. I expect the writers would have had to carefully craft their words to take this into account.
Also, if Cordelia were African American would class have become a bigger issue in the show? In BtVS Cordelia seemed to be the richest girl in the school. She was the only character that carried a cell phone and had a car, while the core Scoobies were shown at home watching Indian musicals on TV because they didn't have enough money to go to the Bronze. Would an African American Cordelia who was the richest girl in school trigger different subconscious reactions in the audience (as Will Smith's successful lawyer did in "Enemy of the State") or would her class status have remained a part of the subtext?
There is also the subject of inter-racial romance. While AtS has downplayed the racial aspects of the Fred/Gunn relationship, the show occasionally acknowledge the subject. Would BtVS have played Cordelia/Xander the same way? What about Cordelia's other relationships? Perhaps to avoid bringing up inter-racial issues, Cordelia's early boyfriends (like the football player killed in "Prophecy Girl") would have been played by an African American actor. Would more of the Cordettes have been women of color if Cordelia was African American? We can only speculate on how any of this would have played out. But, by changing the casting of one central character, we potentially effect the casting (and therefore the racial balance) of other peripheral characters on the show.
This exploration into "might have beens" is not specifically a comment on how minorities have been portrayed on BtVS. The show has been on the air for six years. The episodes are there for each person to see and draw their own conclusions. It is a comment on how different initial decisions made by all the decision makers (including Ms. Lawson) might have changed aspects of the show.
The creators of BtVS embrace some cliches and archetypes. They bust others. They sometimes use cliches and archetypes as shorthand for communicating with the audience. Other times they use these tools as slight of hand to get the audience looking one direction as the creators perform dramatic magic in another. Sometimes the cliches and archetypes are so ingrained that I expect the creators use them subconsciously. The cliches and archetypes can also effect the perceptions of the audience, both consciously and unconsciously.
The issue of race has not been a place where the BtVS creators have done as much "cliche busting" as they have on some other subjects. However, I think the initial casting of Ms. Lawson indicates that Joss and Co. may not be adverse to playing dramatic games in this arena.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Joss and minorities -- Rahael, 13:29:54 08/12/02 Mon
Just because one can argue that Riley was at first a cardboard character (Captain Cardboard) - it's not sterling proof that Kendra wasn't is it?
You obviously think that I'm arguing that Joss is a racist - which is a allegation I absolutely refute. I'm just saying that Kendra was unconvincing. And that Trick was fun, but two dimensional, that Gunn was initially 2 dimensional two. Here comes this black character, and gosh, he belongs in a gang!
The difference was that on AtS Gunn was allowed to live, and grow as a character. Riley was allowed to live and grow as a character, and so was Tara, for a long time.
I totally ascribe the growing complexity of Gunn to members of AtS (cough Tim Minear cough) who have shown on eps that they can address race in a sophisticated way. I saw This old gang of mine as an ep which just got rid of that rather clunking story line that Gunn was a gang member, and did it in a way that made Gunn more complex.
I'm the person who argued and argued till I wanted to leave the board that the black, other experience was included in BtVS, and that it was not just a 'white' show. Because America isn't white. It has a whole lot of people in it who are of very mixed parentage. And Gunn and Forrest are as American as Riley.
I'm not keen to rehash those old arguments here. Just that if people can point to Riley and say, hey cardboard, and to Dawn and say, what a stereotyped picture of teenagehood, why is it more upsetting to say, I haven't come across many deeply complex black characters on Buffy? Because for me, that is not the be all and end all of my enjoyment. 99% of the literature I read is about the white European experience.
Just one final point. I'm not overly thrilled with the argument that demons on the show represent the black other experience. THat one always pushes my button. Fine, other people can look at bloodsucking parasitical vamps, who kill innocent people and murder and torture and say - look Joss is speaking to how alienated black people are! Personally, it's not a parallel that makes me very happy. You know, I think I'm very normal, very human. My otherness exists in the eyes of others, not myself.
And I refuse to believe that Joss, with that wonderful imagination, and that empathy cannot reach beyond barriers to see that black people, even if he hasn't spent much time with them, are as complex, as different as all the other characters on the show. They are just human beings! Not all of us 'talk differently' or 'act differently'. The problem with Kendra was that she was so laughably 'foreign' and 'other'. One of the best black characters on the show, who barely got 10 mins airtime, but who was still fully complex was the black counsellor in (I forget in which ep). He was just a human being. Not 'different'.
I'd rather see Buffy as my role model for dealing with otherness than Spike. To get up and fight back, because all I have left is me, not skulk around the edges of society striking tragic poses.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Joss and minorities -- shadowkat, 16:44:07 08/12/02 Mon
Sounds like I hit a nerve. Sorry didn't mean to. This is why I usually stay away from this topic.
No I do NOT think that you think Joss is a racist. Don't think that at all. I was just commenting on points made that he was falling into stereotypical tendicies of creative artists. Sorry if I didn't make myself clear.
I do agree with you regarding Kendra - she seemed underdeveloped to me. We'll just have to agree to disagree on Riley? I've written three essays with him and he still seems partially developed to me.
I do not see Spike as a representative of minorities or otherness. Actually I've always thought that Angel was more of that symbol. Buffy is an interesting case, she represents both the "in crowd" with her cheerleading and easy popularity in LA and the "outcast". She reminds me
of a friend of mine who started out the school jock, was incredibly popular in junior high than in high school?
Suddenly was an outcast because he was no longer good enough and went another path.
I am sorry if I offended you Rah. Didn't mean to. The other argument you mentioned? I avoided due to how intense it got.
I don't remember the specifics. I usually tend to avoid these types of debates because it is so easy to be misunderstood as I've been a couple of times in this thread.
Trying to play devil's advocate and apparently doing a horrible job.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Joss and minorities -- Rahael, 16:53:01 08/12/02 Mon
Not at all!
I intended that to be my last post on the topic, so was trying to cover all my bases, definitive opinion and everything. The last parts were just my general thoughts on the issue. I was issuing my defence just in case this was cast in the light of "ME can't win". I love Buffy as it is. I think it could be better, and this is one of my pet criticisms. I have no really strong opinion of Riley.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Joss and minorities (S7 Spoilers) -- Dochawk, 15:39:30 08/13/02 Tue
if the casting call sheets are correct Joss is confronting this issue head on. The new Prinicpal Mr. Wood is described as a "hot" and sympathetic black man. (I speculate and noone else agrees with me, that he may be Buffy's new love interest). Also one of Dawn's new friends will be a hispanic boy (there are NO towns in Southern California without a Hispanic population, so it is about time).
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> All things lead to Postmodernism. -- Darby, 11:13:54 08/12/02 Mon
Is Buffy a product of American culture? Well, it's a product of Anglo-American hybrid Joss Whedon and a bunch of American writers, so on one level it has to be.
Can I, as an American, portray another culture to the point at which it no longer owes any part of its portrayal to my cultural background? Is that possible?
Even if Kendra had been achingly researched, the information would have filtered through the ME sensibility, and I'd have to say that she is a product of American culture interpreting another culture. And, if the DVD commentaries are accurate, one highly eccentric dialect coach.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Agree with you on this one. -- shadowkat, 12:14:18 08/12/02 Mon
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: cultural fictions and depictions -- mundusmundi, 14:56:50 08/12/02 Mon
Can you create a character outside your own culture? Can I as an American write and create a character who is say Russian and is outside my culture?
Martin Cruz Smith did it, beginning with Gorky Park, the Arkady Renko series. One of the most convincing, lived-in portraits of a Russian character ever written, IMO. Of course he spent the better part of eight years in Moscow until he got it right.
One could argue that those outside a particular culture may have a vantage point that those on the inside lack. Cruz Smith's American characters are often sketchily drawn, for example (and are even more commonly the bad guys). In movies, the Czech director Milos Forman has made some of the most perceptive movies ever about American life. Ditto Billy Wilder, now that I think about it.
As for Lean, while his movies convincingly depicted locales as diverse as Russia, India and Saudi Arabia, he usually had British and American actors playing the major ethnic roles. With varying results. Alec Guiness made a regal Arab prince in Lawrence of Arabia. But he was embarrassing in A Passage to India, verging, as Pauline Kael said, on Peter Sellers-like parody, especially compared to the real Indian actor seated next to him, Victor Banerjee.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: gotta question a few things -- recat, 10:47:25 08/12/02 Mon
Aloha e anom,
Your response to my post demonstrates some of the difficulties and the strengths of this board community. We are a rather
odd mix, a 'rabble-fish' mix if you will, of academics from disciplines as diverse as evolutionary biology and literary criticism,
along with high-school students, lawyers, plumbers, doctors, novelists, audio technicians, office managers, stay-at-home
mothers, editors, technical writers, college students, teachers, graphic artists, professional witches and who knows what else.
We range in age from 15 to 70, we come from major cities and small towns, live on continents or islands, stay up late or get up
early, and in most cases don't even know each other's real names. The central thing that draws us together, a set of television
shows about heros and demons, often acts, as Arethusa once noted, as a fantasy base from which we take off on flights of
philosophy, science, literature, religion, politics, myth, comics, real life and whatever else strikes our collective fancy. And in
the act of communicating here, we only seem to respond to each other as individuals, one writer answering another, when in
reality our posts are read by dozens of others (perhaps more?), some of whom we will never meet and most of whom never
enter any conversation.
My post discussing Lynne Edwards' article was in response to a question asked about it by a poster I'd not heard of before.
(Although I am myself relatively new to the board, having only started reading here in February, and I didn't make m first post
until early April, so perhaps desert rat is someone you or others know well. ) Her/his question seemed sincere and for awhile,
s/he seemed persistent, even in the face of what I and at least one other regular poster, mundusmundi, took to be a snarky
response about a certain type of academic scholarship rather than a sincere attempt to address desert rat's question. In the few
short months I've been posting here, I've come to feel somewhat protective of this community, and so I picked up on mundus'
call to answer desert rat's post partly in what I think is the same spirit in which he made it, that this is a board known for its
civility and intelligent conversation, and a serious new poster like desert rat deserved better than Maroon Lagoon had given.
Now I've certainly made my share of mistakes on this board, as you personally know quite well. And when I've made
mistakes, I've generally tried to sincerely apologize for them, learn from them and go on. By this morning, I'm feeling that my
response post about Edwards' article is one of those mistakes, a really big one. My problem is that I had forgotten, in the
wonderfully engaged, heady intellectual delight of writing out a serious response to a serious question about an academic
article, that not only is this not a place for professional academic discussions, the article in question probably hasn't been read
by very many posters. In just the tiniest bit of my defense, I also knew, by the time I wrote my response, that the person
originally asking the question was a graduate student with enough background in cultural studies and/or linguistic theory to
(correctly, IMO) positively assess another article in the FF anthology, one on speech acts as weapons in Buffy. So I do
apologize to you and any other readers who were confused or put off by my post to this public board, anom, because I forgot,
for just long enough to allow me to hit that final "approve" button, that desert rat wouldn't be its only, or even its primary,
reader. And since s/he seems to have been put off by the whole thing and hasn't returned to the board since before I posted my
response, I've no idea if s/he ever even read what I wrote to her/him about Edwards' article. What I'm afraid was her/his self-
defensive exit from the community is exactly what I was trying to avoid in the first place. Not only did I apparently fail, I've
now opened a can of worms I had no intention of even bringing to the table.
Your questions about Edwards' article are certainly valid, and your potential criticism of her reading of Kendra's character
through the Tragic Mulatta cliche may very well be supportable. But the fact remains that any problems you have with her
employment of that cliche are with her, not with me. I really don't feel like becoming the champion of either Edwards' work,
about whose strengths and flaws I've already posted my opinion, or of the TM cliche in general. As I noted in my post, I do
not find reading Kendra's character through that cliche to be the most informative, useful or engaging interpretation, although I
think Edwards did a very good job of doing so. If you want to argue with Edwards about her analysis, I really think you should
try to read the article itself (I'm sure the book is available in one of New York's great libraries), and then perhaps either bring it
to the board as a full critique of her particular perspective, or take it up with Dr. Edwards herself (I assume she can be reached
through the Ursinus College website). Each of the points that you mention, i.e., Kendra's physical appearance, her sexualized
presentation, her "foreign" identity, and her sense of being between two worlds, are addressed in specific detail in Edwards'
article. One can agree with her or argue with her, but that should be done based on her own work, not merely on my short
review of it.
I direct you back to her article because it was never my intention to write a full critique of the cliche itself nor its application to
Kendra as Edwards uses it, only -- and only in response to desert rat's direct query to write a review of her article as an
academic argument, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of that article. My own opinion about the character and her
resonance with the TM cliche is probably somewhere between yours than Edwards, which is why I noted that one of the failings of her
article, IMO, is that she doesn't address Kendra's later episodes as closely as she does the earlier one, nor does she push her
race-based analysis to later non-Kendra episodes in which characters like Olivia appear (especially "Restless," in which I think
Olivia's character and her use as a metaphoric device to explore Giles' character is incredibly richly expanded in a just a few
short seconds of screen time). In my opinion, such problems weaken, but do not overturn, her carefully-developed,
interestingly-articulated and thought-provoking argument about race in general (or Kendra or Olivia, in particular) in
BtVS. But each reader of her article should make such a judgement on their own. Doing so from only my review is a risky
business.
As for your other concern, my overly facile maneuver of trying to place Edwards' work, as she does herself, in a particular
academic lineage of (mostly European) linguistic and cultural theorists, and to highlight her use of the work of highly respected
but lesser-known Black feminist literary critics -- well, that *is* clearly inappropriate for this board. There's absolutely no
reason for anyone outside of those working in very specific disciplines in the academy to have heard of any of these folks, or
for me to have assumed that anyone on the board, other than cultural critics or graduate students like desert rat (who I had in
mind when I wrote that opening set of paragraphs about Edward's work), would find such references useful. But at this point,
going into a long and inevitably detailed explanation of how any of their work influenced a particular lineage of intellectual or
theoretical approaches, or how Edwards' employment of their work suggests the rigor of her own work, is really WAAAAY
beyond what I'm prepared to do. So again, I find myself apologizing to you, anom, and to any other readers who might have
felt left out of the conversation. I know how frustrating that can feel, since after all, it's the main feeling I've experienced
reading the long thread on comics and cartoons that's also on the board at the moment, and have certainly felt that way in the
past when matching mole, Darby, mundus, Sophist and many other posters have discussed various theories of evolutionary
biology and the academic politics of that field, or when posters have entered long and detailed discussions of popular culture
phenomenon like Star Wars or non-Buffy television shows.
I know you were just looking or information on these writers, and I fully assume that your intention here is to forward the
conversation about the TM cliche. You are one of the most honorable and reasonable posters on this board. I always read your
posts, because they are inevitably fair, informed, intelligent and very often extremely funny. But I'm tired this morning and not
feeling very much like a professorial academic (I just found out I got turned down for another job and am feeling like a not-
very-smart person this morning - sorry). Plus, the last thing I think most readers here want is another of my long, lectury,
overly-formal explorations of a really off-off-topic subject. And truly, anom, I think you might enjoy reading Edwards' article,
and some of the others in Fighting the Forces. But I was wrong to respond to desert rat as I did. My main complaint was (and
remains) with Maroon Lagoon's dismissal of much of the contemporary academic work that I find the most satisfying and
exciting. I should have stuck to that issue and not tried to do something here more suited to a graduate seminar in cultural
criticism, or rather, I should have tried to send it as a private email post to desert rat. Please forgive me, both for my original
poor judgement and for not now answering your serious queries. You might try a google search on the authors - each of them
would give a huge number of sites, I'm sure.
But I simply haven't the heart or the energy to teach class today and I'm REALLY sorry that I ever tried to do something that sounded like that here.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Please don't apologize -- d'Herblay, 12:07:56 08/12/02 Mon
This is the second time in one thread you have apologized for behavior that, in my opinion, makes the board a better place. I think that no one ever needs to apologize for writing well; I think that no one ever needs to apologize for speaking on a subject which he or she knows a great deal about (or, for that matter, on one which he or she knows very little, or nothing at all, about). I have no qualms with anyone discussing topics which may be above my head. My mental reach often exceeds my intellectual grasp; this board can be quite heavenly indeed.
I don't think that anom was trying to forestall discussion of Edwards's paper; rather, she was trying to encourage it. And with Lynne Edwards, as far as I know (and I would be very surprised if she turned out to be vhD), not present, it is up to us to provide that discussion. (For my part, I suspect that Kendra's country of origin, whatever that may be, has little impact on the applicability of the Tragic Mulatta trope). It would be best if those best qualified to participate in that discussion would not preemptively disqualify themselves. I appreciate the fact that you are not feeling particularly professorial at the moment; should the time arise when you feel that way again, you have eager students here.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Speaking as one author of esoteric posts to another -- Sophist, 12:21:05 08/12/02 Mon
I don't see any need to apologize. I enjoyed your post. I say so even though I remain somewhat skeptical regarding the evidence of stereotype in the particular case of Kendra. (I am tempted to say that such evidence is stronger in the case of W/T. That, however, would be snarky, so I refrain. Hehe.)
A great deal of my enjoyment of the Board arises from reading other posters who have expertise in areas where I have none. Yours are always very well expressed, even when I disagree. Don't feel like you need to hold back. It's like Rah's ability to quote poetry -- I may never have heard the lines before, but they are always apt.
BTW, did anyone else think that Kendra's accent was Irish? Maybe DB could have used her dialect coach.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Echoing D'h and sophist here...please listen to them -- shadowkat, 12:40:22 08/12/02 Mon
Redcat,
As you may have noticed, I've been posting less lately.
If I didn't find your post interesting, well-written and
informative - I would NOT have responded to it.
Your response to Marroon was well-written, informative, and one of the most interesting posts I'd seen on the board for several days. The points you raised inspired me to write a post in response. I wanted to take some of your interesting points and generate more discussion on them - which has happened. I also found Maroon's responses to desert rat to be inappropriate. I was hoping someone would provide more information on an interesting topic that was raised by desert rat. You did and did it well.
I look for your posts when I visit this board and will read threads that you have posted to. I know I am not alone in this. Without you - I would not have learned about the neaurthesentic male in 19th century - which I used in an essay. Without you and Sophist - I would not have learned about the true history of names or numerous other topics.
I've lurked on numerous posting boards and of those boards this is the only one I've stayed with. Why? Because of the academics and other intellectuals who frequent it. The posters here are generally polite and I always learn something new - even if we have a tendency *cough* to go off on rants about stuff we don't like. (I've never seen you do this - you are one of the few who hasn't).
Please continue posting. And stop apologizing. We love your writing - it enriches us or at least me.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Hey, guys, -- redcat, 13:30:38 08/12/02 Mon
I did not apologize to either anom or shadowkat because I was trolling (in the older, non-web sense of that word) for someone
to tell me that something I've done poorly is really OK. I apologized to anom for inappropriately posting an academic review
of an academic text in a non-academic forum when I knew very few posters here would have read it, that act made especially
egregious because it already has been has brought to my attention that I have a tendency to lecture rather than discuss. And I
apologized to shadowkat because I recognized myself in her general comments about language use (and once again, I know
they were NOT aimed at me). As you might note, I have not apologized to Arethusa, one of my very favorite posters of all
time here, because I don't feel I need to. Last time I checked, I was an adult with a pretty fair ability to examine my own
behavior and make my own judgements about it. I stand by my apologies.
But I don't come to this board to be anyone's teacher. Rather, I come here as a colleague and hopefully, in some cases, a
friend. If anyone wants to discuss Edwards' article, read the damn thing. It's publically available that's what published
generally means. If anyone wants to discuss the Tragic Mulatta cliche, do the research, read the work and then decide for
yourself if YOU think it applies to Kendra or BtVS in general. If you then want to bring either of those the article or the
cliche to the board, do so. I'll probably be happy to join the conversation, since by that time I'll (hopefully) be over this snit.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Hey, guys, -- Arethusa, 14:05:00 08/12/02 Mon
This is so totally not fair. How come when I'm in a snit I sound stupid (see above post-no, don't) and when youre in a snit you sound dignified and scholarly? Yet another way I'm learning from you, and glad to do so.
P.S. Thanks for the nice words. I've been feeling pretty foolish lately.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> One rule of thumb. -- Darby, 13:19:57 08/12/02 Mon
I don't recall where I swiped this from, and it's not absolutely true, but it's true a remarkable proportion of the time and removes a lot of pressure:
When reading technical literature, if you run into a term or reference with which you are unfamiliar, just skip it and keep on reading - the omission will have no effect on your ability to understand the piece.
With such an esoteric bunch of people here, it also applies when discussions wander outside my fairly limited knowledge.
And it works most of the time here.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> I find this rule of thumb works very well with character names in Russian novels. -- Sophist, 13:50:05 08/12/02 Mon
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> A belated thank you.... -- mundusmundi, 14:24:18 08/12/02 Mon
...but I'll say it anyway, to you and the others for bringing the thread back on track to what I think desert rat intended. I notice he/she hasn't returned, btw, which is what I feared might happen on account of the original responses. (This sort of thing happened all the time at the old EW movie and TV boards. The contempt spewed at newbies there was unbelievable.) Hopefully, desert rat will come back and participate again.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> About Your Posts -- Finn Mac Cool, 16:05:06 08/13/02 Tue
Redcat,
Why do all of your posts have this weird indentation with
One full line
a few words
One full line
It can make it difficult to read some of your longer posts.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: About Your Posts -- redcat, 19:05:13 08/13/02 Tue
hmmm... my posts don't do that on my screen (and that's certainly not how I write them), but it IS how some other posters' stuff appears to me. Do other folks have a similar problem? Is this a matter of mixing formats between DOS and Mac systems? Or something else entirely? I usually write off-line, and always for the longer posts, because I'm terribly dyslexic and have a special spell-checker set-up that helps with that on my word processing program. I then copy and paste to the Voy system via the regular posting window.
dear goddess, I shudder to think that something not under my control makes my stuff any harder to read than it already is!
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: About Your Posts -- Just George, 00:25:29 08/14/02 Wed
I suspect that your Mac system is putting an end of line (EOL) character in every 255 characters when you cut and paste your post into the text entry field. Macs and PC use different EOL characters (CR vs. LF, I can't remember which uses which). Your Mac browser displays your text just fine, but PC browsers may hiccup on it. The perils of cross platform off line composition.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: About Your Posts -- redcat, 09:40:13 08/14/02 Wed
Thanks for the info. That must be what's happening. I'm on a PC, however, not a Mac. I write off-line in Word Perfect-8 (Coral) because it has the spell-checker adaptability for both Hawaiian words (which have diacritical marks) and adjusts for repetitive dyslexia. Is there something I can do to adjust my computer settings so this is not a problem for others? And if so, can you please explain it in really simple English, because when I say I'm nearly computer illiterate, it's not just a metaphor. Thanks!!
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: About Your Posts -- matching mole, 10:12:02 08/14/02 Wed
You should really get advice from someone who knows a lot more about computers than I do. There is probably some way to set the line length in your word processing program to be the same number of characters as the window on voy but I don't know what that would be.
On my computer (a Mac) most of your lines (in your long post earlier in the thread) go about two thirds of the way across the screen (this may reflect the line length in your word processing software). There are a couple of blocks of lines (usually about half a paragraph) that go all the way across the screen. This doesn't make it difficult to read because the lines are in blocks that are all the same length.
I don't have any problems with long line/short line alternation with any posts on this board. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Actually have had same thing happen with my posts -- shadowkat, 11:37:22 08/14/02 Wed
Actually I have the same thing happen to me and I'm on a PC.
It happens whenever I post spontaneously and often have to spend time wrapping things to get the paragraphs and sentences more even.
It doesn't happen on your shorter one's I noticed. So I think it only occurs on longer posts and has to do with Voy's box.
I know when I write my essays and post them, I often find myself spending 10-15 minutes correcting spacing and paragraphs and trying to make them look better on screen before hitting approve. They look fine in word but Voy translates it weirdly. Don't know the reason for it. But it has made me want to scream at the computer a few times - particularly when I get kicked out before Voy approves it and I have to do the whole thing again.
Oh - understand the dyslexia, have a similar disorder myself - the actual diagnosis was Visual/Auditory Coordination Ephasia or Disorder.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: OK, mundus, I'll bite... -- fresne, 18:29:08 08/13/02 Tue
You know the frustrating thing on a thread like this is that I want to respond to so many different points and places in it. Gall darn it, you're all waaaaay too interesting, which should in no way be taken as an exhortation to write less so.
Well, okay and the other frustration is that I don't really have the time to do the kind of close reading that the discussion deserves. However, this post's detriment is my household chores benefit. So, whatever.
This is less a post on Edward's main contention, which I'm not sure that I have the background to argue for or against, but to some elements that I found distracting when I read the essay low the many months ago. While I'm sure that redcat is correct as to its critical soundness, I had trouble reading the essay. My brain kept returning to a point of negative space. That is to say, I didn't notice a reference to how ME overturned of the viewer's expectations when Kendra was very first introduced.
We, the viewers, were told that Spike had hired assassins to kill Buffy. Dru pulled three cards from her - well it's not a Tarot - seer's deck. Each card represented a figure in the following scenes. The third image was a black cat. We were shown the bug dude, scar face and Kendra arriving in town. To my mind, that would indicate that ME was pushing the viewer to think that Kendra was an assassin, "Oh, look a black character who is an Evil (Evil I say) killer."
Of course, the viewers, and Buffy when she meets Kendra, are wrong. Kendra is not an assassin; she's a Slayer, a "white" hat. Although, the implication that her somewhat skimpy only outfit was picked out by her male Watcher/mentor does give me a bit of pause. Just try and imagine Giles shopping for a similar outfit for Buffy. Nope, brain does not want to go there.
Anyway, this overturning of viewer expectations, (black Kendra isn't Evil with a capital E, but is rather the first of three black slayers introduced in the series), would seem to be relevant to a discussion of race representation and Kendra's role as a tragic Mulatta. What does it mean that ME tricked me into thinking that Kendra was a "black hat" and then ended up having her fight by Buffy's side? I don't know and wanted Edwards to have an opinion on it.
This is not to say that I don't think that ME's casting needs a bit more ethnic diversity. Heck, Smallville, set in Kansas, is rife with heterogeneity, which given my experiences in my mother's home town in South Dakota is pretty funny. However, I find the racial mix of Slayers, or at least the ones whose ethnicity has been mentioned, fairly intriguing - three blacks (Kendra, Nikki, 1st Slayer), two Asians (Boxer Rebellion, Korean/Chicago 30s Slayer), and two Caucasians (Buffy, Faith). I also find it intriguing that all of the minority Slayers, have their speech cut off. Kendra's throat is cut. Nikki is first strangled and then her neck is snapped. The first Slayer existed before speech. The Boxer rebellion Slayer spoke another language, which Spike, a white man, did not understand. The Korean Slayer is represented by another's words, the mannequin of a demon hunter, and is herself long dead. It's one of things that the more I think about it, the more their lack of speech becomes a negative space within the text.
It makes me wonder then if all Slayers, as marginalized female outsiders, aren't all tragic Mulattas, Mixtisas, Eurasians. Half in one world, half in the other. The magic and the real. Girl and Demon. Female/life bringer and fighter/death is their art. Eternal (there is always a Slayer) and yet always dying young. Under the control of the Watcher's Council and yet really owing nothing to them. Wielding a primal power and yet representing order. Carrying out a vital function and yet unable to earn a "living" because of it.
Slayers occupy a liminal space. Twilight. Representing a power rooted neither in darkness nor in light, but in the luminous period in between.
Pausing a momentŠ
And now for something completely different, regarding books, on-line versus paper, ah sweet paper, there's an interesting post over at the Baen website as to why they have a free library for some of their books. Note: It's possible that other publishers have free libraries, etc. I just happen to know about Baens.
http://www.baen.com/library/
It boils down to the idea that giving people free access to books rather than creating a, "Well if I can have it for free, why pay," attitude, results in increased sales, along the lines of , "The first one's free and now you're an addict." As a result of the success of the free library, Baen has started an evil and diabolical web subscription service. Basically, you pay a little and get several serialized novels a month. The interesting thing is that hard copy sales of books on web subscription have increased, rather than decreased. (i.e., people buy the same book twice. Once cheaply on-line and once in hard copy because they liked it.) So, it would seem that, as with most things, the effect of the web on publishing is unpredictable.
fresne - who bought and read both "Fighting the Forces" and "Reading the Vampire Slayer" because I believe that if I support the things that I like with my money, maybe people will make more of same. Not minding e-books, but Quality paperbacks are a scourge. Neither hardcover nor mass paperback they exist in this more expensive and harder to carry around than mass trade, not as sturdy as hardcovers liminal space that just plain irks me.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> wow, fresne--KA, & may i say, BOOM! -- anom, 23:14:01 08/13/02 Tue
On both the silenced Slayers & the multitude of dualities. The 2nd gives me a chance to bring up something I've been thinking about. The First Slayer's attitude is (as she's also called) primitive--no friends, no human connections, just the kill. Sounds pretty violent. But when Buffy & her friends tapped into the collective power of all the Slayers throughout history, most of her fighting was to forestall violence, not meet it w/corresponding or greater violence--an invisible wall against bullets, turning more bullets into doves, reversing Adam's transformer arm. (OK, I'll have to skip the very end of the fight--it doesn't quite fit in.) Buffy seemed to be tapping into something spiritual, a benevolent force. The First Slayer was "created" for a benevolent purpose (at least from the human point of view) but didn't seem to have any of that spiritual element. Buffy was saying spells. It's hard to imagine the First Slayer doing that, even if she could talk.
Comments on a couple of other things:
"We, the viewers, were told that Spike had hired assassins to kill Buffy. Dru pulled three cards from her - well it's not a Tarot - seer's deck. Each card represented a figure in the following scenes. The third image was a black cat. We were shown the bug dude, scar face and Kendra arriving in town."
Maybe one of the cards corresponds to the cop who tried to shoot Buffy. This woul