August 2002 Archives - Page 7
Structural Shifts in BtVS (general spoilers throughout) -- Robert, 13:18:48 08/12/02 Mon
I seen a couple suggestions that season 6 is just part 1 of a two-year story ark. I started thinking about how the different seasons tie together. We have seen a gradual shifting in the structure of show throughout. Originally, Joss Whedon ensured, with good reason, that each season would end as if it were the last.
Season 1 ended with the death of the master and closing the hellmouth. Mr. Whedon added a tie to season 2 with the episode When She Was Bad, with the threatened revivification of the master. However, he left no unresolved story threads leading into the first summer vacation. Mr. Whedon had good reason to ensure that season 1 stood alone. He had little expectation that BtVS would become successful.
Season 2 ended with the banishment of Angel to the hell dimension and the closing of Acathla. There is however the added dimension of Buffy skipping town for parts unknown. While this was a cliff-hanger, Angel's banishment was not, because we were given no expectation that he would survive and return the next season. At the end of Becoming, the story thread of Angel appeared to be fully resolved and concluded. The series still could have ended here, as Buffy's running away could be interpreted as beginning a new life away from Sunnydale and old friends. More importantly, the line between good and evil first began to become fuzzy this season. Buffy was vindictive in When She was Bad. Angel became very bad indeed in Innocence. Most importantly, Principal Snyder, Xander and Joyce, each in their own way, violated and betrayed Buffy's trust in Becoming.
Season 3, like the first season, ends with little in the way of unresolved story threads. The mayor was killed, Wesley was removed as Buffy's watcher, and (of course) the gang graduated from high school. Faith represented a small unresolved thread, because she wasn't dead, merely in a coma from which the doctors said she would never return. Yet, we could sense that Faith wasn't yet written out of the show, though I had expected and hoped for more than we got. We can't have everything. This is the first season where we receive serious and interesting premonitions. It turns out that we are warned of events to take place in seasons 5, 6 and possibly 7. While these premonitions represent unresolved story threads, taken out of context they are meaningless to the viewing public, so they aren't properly cliff-hangers.
Season 4 represents a change in the feel of the show. The nature of the college existence is different from high school. The nature of the interrelationships have changed since high school graduation. Also, the nature of the big bad has changed. It is now the federal government (actually a product of the federal government), instead of a strictly mythical menace. We see our first major stress crack in the friendships of the gang, though it lasts for only about one television hour. Again, this season concludes with no major story threads unresolved. Adam is destroyed, the Initiative is shut down, and the government appears not to know about or care about the slayer. Nevertheless, we are provided many more tantalizing premonitions in the wonderful episode Restless.
Season 5 shifts the show yet again. Buffy vs. Dracula is a strange, though fascinating, episode. Dracula is like no other vampire seen before in BtVS. We are presented with a huge old castle in Sunnydale, which no one ever saw before, and likely will never see again. For the first time, Giles contemplates leaving Sunnydale for Britain – no doubt for the weather. Then there is Dawn. I heard that some people complained that the appearance of Dawn was a continuity error. If they thought so, then they weren't paying attention to the episode. Twice in this episode it is stated that Buffy is an only child and, yet, the episode ends with a sister. It was obvious to me that this was no simple continuity error, but a fascinating twist on an old Hollywood cliché.
Season 5 is also the first season where the viewing public is palpably affected by death. We saw Jenny Calendar killed in Passion in season 2. It was a disgusting, sick murder, but we the viewing public weren't nearly so heavily invested into this character as we were in Joyce Summers. Also, it didn't appear to weigh on Giles to way Buffy's loss has hurt her. Thus, season 5 has upped the stakes. More importantly, the season ended with a fairly serious cliff-hanger. Even more fascinating is that Buffy's death wouldn't be a cliff-hanger if the show had been canceled right there. It would have been a natural conclusion to an already long, successfully running show. We do have the additional thread of Willows increasing use of dark magic, with the foreboding of where this might lead.
Next is season 6; the season of great controversy; the season where the good guys are bad and the bad guys are disgusting or incompetent. The stakes are raised even higher for both the gang and the viewing public. Tara was even more beloved than Joyce. The immediate result of her death was much more dangerous and painful. The stakes were raised also by the violence of Buffy and Spike's relationship and the trainwreck of Xander and Anya's relationship. We are left with many threads in need of resolution, such as Dawn's new role with Buffy, Spike's shiny new soul, Anya's new demon membership badge (the pendant), Willow's shattered life and Amber Benson. What will Ms. Benson be doing in season 7? This is also the first season of BtVS which cannot stand alone. The series must not end here and, fortunately, it doesn't.
This brings me back to my first paragraph. Is season 6 part 1 of a two-part story ark? I don't think so, I think it is part 2 of a trilogy. Just to show what an ignoramus I am, the best analogy I can provide is Star Wars. I beg forgiveness as I am but an engineer and don't know any better. Take a look at the structure of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. Star Wars introduced the characters, the setting and the overall story ark. The Empire Strikes Back raised the stakes and left us with unresolved cliff-hangers. The episode was much darker and more desperate than Star Wars. Return of the Jedi was lighter and easier to watch as it resolves the difficulties of our beloved characters and finished the overall story. Seasons 5, 6, and 7 of BtVS would appear to be following much the same structure.
Season 5 resembles Star Wars in that it ends in such a manner as to serve as either a stand-alone episode or the first part of a trilogy. Likewise, season 6 resembles The Empire Strikes Back. It isn't stand-alone. The viewers are treated to a difficult (sometimes unrewarding) experience as we are shown the middle part of the story. Also, it ended on a positive note, thus leading into the final chapter of the trilogy. I think that season 7 will share much of the structural feel of the Return of the Jedi, except for the ewoks ... I hope.
After BtVS has shown us its last episode, whether it be at the end of season 7 or beyond, I believe that season 6 will look better in the context of the complete story. As I have stated before on this board, season 6 is my favorite and I imagine that season 7 will be even better.
[> Good point. I hope you're right -- Sophist, 13:43:40 08/12/02 Mon
[> Excellent analysis! -- HonorH, 14:24:46 08/12/02 Mon
The SW metaphor, btw, strikes me as thoroughly apropos, particularly as we were presented with the darkening character of Anakin Skywalker at about the same time we were presented with the genesis of Darth Rosenberg. My friend Tanja and I had many long chats on just this subject.
I, too, look back on S6 as an amazing season. It turned a lot of the structure of the show on its head, and that's a good thing. After all, what Big Bad could be worse than a demon god? *Life* can be worse, that's what!
Next season, we'll have a lot of loose threads to tie up. Willow is broken, Anya's a demon, Spike's got a soul, Buffy is training Dawn, and Xander both wrecked his own life and saved the world. Wow!
[> Agree with this, on all points. -- shadowkat, 16:25:54 08/12/02 Mon
[> Agree with you too. -- Caesar Augustus, 16:45:48 08/12/02 Mon
Yes, the seasons are like different episodes of a 3-part (or even 7-part) series.
Addressing the people who claim s6 is part of a two-season arc ... sure there will be continuity links. Of course issues raised in s6 will need to be addressed in s7, but that doesn't make it an arc. Plot continuity has always been there between seasons. The question is whether there will be thematic continuity (or similar tone, if you want to put it that way) and it sounds like s7 will be very different to s6. More positive, traditional Big Bad, etc. ... To suggest it's a two-season arc could ignore a complete change in momentum/focus/tone/theme. The fact that s6 ended as a 'cliffhanger' sets up s7, but doesn't mean s7 will be along the same lines!
Just some random rambling.
[> Good post, Robert and reminder... -- aliera, 16:58:46 08/12/02 Mon
that it is important to look at things not simply in isolation but also part of the whole story. Regardless of the individual season's abilities to stand on their own, they are each a chapter in Buffy's story which is not yet finished. Indeed, it could be far from finished.
Other thoughts you reminded me of...the importance of recognizing others opinions...some of the people I most often look for on this board and whose opinions I enjoy and respect have a much different view of the show than I...and their backgrounds vary, often dramatically...it is this variation which can make reading as eye opening a s what it is...I didn't enjoy the season as much as most; it's part of the reason I came to the boards to try to see things through others eyes. I have felt that there is perhaps something lacking in myself as a viewer and was looking to expand on that, not to try to agree with everyone, for I certainly don't; but, to expand my perspective and understanding. It's also not to say that some of the posts haven't opened my eyes to the flaws and the difficulties of producing a really good work. They have.
The seasons can stand alone, even this one. Spike's story was really the cliff hanger. Like any really contiously good series though, the understanding of the story is more complete if you can experience all of the story. It's also part of the joy of a really good continous work to be able to see the connections, the references, the bones under the skin, to glimpse the long range direction. There's that little jolt of recognition and sometimes a feeling of being part of something?
Thanks for the post.
[> Trilogy Analogy (no significant spoilers) -- Robert, 17:47:44 08/12/02 Mon
I must be incredibly arrogant for answering my own message, but I am reminded of something. When "The Empire Strikes Back" was first released during the summer of 1980, I watched it several times on consecutive weekends. I really liked this movie; much more than for "Star Wars". But when I returned to Cal Poly to start my junior year, I heard quite a number of students complaining about how bad "The Empire Strikes Back" was, and I didn't understand why. There was much more angst and character development, than for the first movie.
I later saw the same phenomenon for another trilogy; "Back to the Future". The critics shit on the second movie of the trilogy, but I thought it showed the characters in wonderfully desparate situations.
I've come to a working conclusion that the middle books or movies in a trilogy are more difficult for people to enjoy. They neither introduce the stories nor resolve them. Often the characters are brought to their lowest points; stressed to their limits, but we don't get to see them prevail. For that, we must wait for the third book or movie. In the case of "Return of the Jedi", that took three agonizing years.
Interestingly, I felt that "Return of the Jedi" was somewhat of a letdown, because the issues which the characters were left with at the conclusion of the second movie were quickly resolved in the first half-hour. The rest of the movie was dedicated to ewoks. Don't flame me. I'm know I exaggerate, but it sure felt that way.
[> [> Re: Trilogy Analogy (no significant spoilers) -- aliera, 05:29:37 08/13/02 Tue
No flames...my favorite was the first movie though. I remember seeing it several times in the theatre, which even then was unusual for me. Not a big movie buff. And a lot of what I like would qualify as guilty pleasures. I liked Graduation Day and The Gift as natural end points. And I saw the events of Entropy->TTG as that mid-story valley with an intitial upswing (but not final) at Grave. I was really hoping for a season eight. I haven't heard anything recently on this?
[> [> [> Re: Season Eight -- Robert, 01:43:08 08/14/02 Wed
>>> "I was really hoping for a season eight. I haven't heard anything recently on this?"
Aliera, so am I, even if it turns out to be "Dawn the Replacement Vampire Slayer". I'm sure Joss can find some way to make it enjoyable.
[> [> Re: Trilogy Analogy (no significant spoilers) -- Just George, 00:18:37 08/14/02 Wed
Robert: I've come to a working conclusion that the middle books or movies in a trilogy are more difficult for people to enjoy. They neither introduce the stories nor resolve them. Often the characters are brought to their lowest points; stressed to their limits, but we don't get to see them prevail. For that, we must wait for the third book or movie.
I suspect that The Lord of the Rings Trilogy of movies could have a similar problem with the middle movie "The Two Towers", due this Fall. It is hard to have a satisfying ending at what is obvious (to the observer) the middle of the story.
As I remember the (minimal) drama theory I learned:
The first act of a play puts the world out of balance (S5: Buffy dies)
The end of the second act is when "all things look bleak" (S6: Everyone is sad)
The third act is about returning the world to balance (S7: Buffy & Everyone are happy?)
This might (possibly? hopefully?) map to S5, S6, and S7. We will see.
[> Famous trilogies? -- Cactus Watcher, 18:00:52 08/12/02 Mon
Excuse the meandering, but this is headed back on-topic. Both Tolstoy's War and Peace and Dostoevsky's Brother's Karamazov were intended as trilogies. In both cases, the first volume was to present a traumatic period in the life of the main character (Pierre Bezukhov in War and Peace, Alyosha in BK). The second volumes were to show a decent into decadence by that character. The third volumes were to lead to redemption. Tolstoy's vision of War and Peace changed as he was writing it. His world view changed dramatically and the trilogy idea was dropped. Dostoevsky died while he was just beginning to work on the second volume of his trilogy.
Starting from Robert's trilogy idea, it would be easy to postulate a progression similar for the last three years of Buffy, a year of great trauma, a year of decadence and a year leading to something representing redemption. I wonder if it will play out that way. I wonder if Joss' vision has changed in the time since he knew there would be a seventh season.
[> Very well thought-out work. Nice suppositions. -- ZachsMind, 20:44:42 08/12/02 Mon
[> Great analysis, but... -- DickBD, 14:37:20 08/13/02 Tue
I wonder why the writers keep apologizing for S6. Is it simply misleading us when they talk about "getting off track"? I must confess that I was uncomfortable with some of the episodes in S6. (Like Giles, I have come to think of the slayer as a daughter, I guess.) Still, some of the episodes were magnificent. "Normal Again" was one of my favorites. But I am busy watching the reruns of Angel to try to determine how some people think that series is better artistically. (Do you still have me on the list for the old tapes, Dochawk?) But I think you are really on to something when you imply that this was the first season the writers knew, with certainty, that there would be a next season.
[> [> Next up, actually -- Dochawk, 15:44:35 08/13/02 Tue
I am finishing something up for Masq, then I will finish your set. Figure about 2 weeks to shipping. Email me an address.
[> [> Artistic Angel -- Robert, 00:38:31 08/14/02 Wed
>>> "But I am busy watching the reruns of Angel to try to determine how some people think that series is better artistically."
I had not heard this about AtS and, though I've seen nearly every episode, I don't know what these people would mean. I don't think either is more artistic than the other.
I can see why one show would be preferred over the other. They are, after all, very different shows. They have different writing staffs, different directors and producers, different look and feel, and (most importantly) different actors and characters. I prefer BtVS over AtS, but this is strictly a personal preference. When I hear people tossing around comments about which show is "more artistic" than the other, I begin to suspect that they are attempting to rationalize there personal preferences. Such rationalizations are not necessary. We are permitted to make personal choices, without any requirement to justify them.
If AtS had been a close copy of BtVS (which I'm sure would have been the TV network's idea of a "safe" decision), then I would probably have become bored with it and ceased to view it. Joss Whedon is showing us his abilities as a designer in being able to do things differently each time. He is fearless in trying out new things. His work on Fray had been quite exciting (even through the issues are so slow in coming). I wait with great anticipation for "Firefly" and the animated series. I'm sure they will be great!
It's a slow day here in the neighborhood... -- Darby, 10:32:16 08/13/02 Tue
...and I really should be working, but I'm gonna do this instead.
Something's gnawing at me and I thought I'd throw it up for a vote / discussion.
To sign or not to sign?
I find that, being elderly and slow of mind, that often as I get toward the bottom of one of the longer posts, I've forgotten who wrote it and I have to scan back up. It has been convenient for me when people put their names at the end of the post, which is often in sight when my memory goes.
But I find myself resistant to put my name at the end - a little voice suggests that there's too much ego in it (not something I project on any of the posters who do it, it's just me when I think about it).
Anyway, does anyone think it matters? Would it help anyone other than me if folks got in the habit of putting their names at the bottom as well as having it at the top? Am I having way too many thoughts?
Darby, whose geezerness warns, "Don't get me started on the closing catchphases, though."
[> Re: It's a slow day here in the neighborhood... -- shadowkat, 10:55:33 08/13/02 Tue
Oh what boredom does to us...
i don't sign my posts because it seems redundant. My names
at the top. And on this board you have to hit on the actual title of each individual post to read it. So when you hit mine you can see who I am.
Or are you talking about the ones with no name? Don't you have to attach a name? This one said name required.
sigh. If we are voting - I vote for not to sign.
[> [> Re: It's a slow day here in the neighborhood... -- Dead Soul, 11:39:28 08/13/02 Tue
If I understood Darby correctly - I think he means the longer posts where you scroll past the point where you can still see the poster's name at the top of the screen.
I know that sometimes I find myself during long posts and if I'm reading, say a day's worth of posts at a time, having to check back at the top to remind myself of whose post I'm reading. Although some people's styles are unmistakable ;) (guess who?).
Dead Soul, signing at the bottom of my post although I never post anything longer than a screen's worth, anyway. Just in case I forget who I am.
[> Hey, Darby (completely OT of anything!) -- redcat, 11:17:05 08/13/02 Tue
I, too, am desparately trying to avoid working today (although my job right now is looking for a job, so maybe that's not such a good idea...). Anyway, I was perusing "Meet the Posters," and saw that you had once posted a thread on 'why space aliens should be humanoid.' Can you post the archive date, if you remember it? Thanks!! It sounds like something I'd love to read on this rainy morning in the rain-forest.....
[> [> Re: Hey, Darby (completely OT of anything!) -- Darby, 12:14:38 08/13/02 Tue
Go to
http://www.ivyweb.com/btvs/board/archives/dec01_p11.html
and do a Control-F for "humanoid" and it should come up as the 2nd hit.
There are a lot of assumptions in it that have rationales, but I'm not sure that I explained all of them. Let me know if something makes no sense.
[> [> [> Thanks! -- rc, 12:45:05 08/13/02 Tue
[> Re: It's a slow day here in the neighborhood... -- Rendyl, 12:22:18 08/13/02 Tue
Hmm..if you are really bored I have an extra paint brush. ;)
I put my little name at the end mainly because the post always looks sort of unfinished if I don't. Those who always wrap up their thoughts neatly probably avoid this problem but since my mind and typing are slightly disjointed I like the name at the end to signify "yes, I am done now". (whether it all makes sense or not is another story)
Sigh. I am supposed to be painting but it is just too blasted hot to do much of anything.
Ren - see, now you know I really meant to end it and not just that I wandered off.
[> [> Re: I like that Rendyl... -- aliera, 13:58:27 08/13/02 Tue
And commiserating with the painting...two gallons of french vanilla and another off-white shade have been giving me dirty looks every night for a while...sigh.
[> [> Re: It's a slow day here in the neighborhood... -- Caroline, 14:09:10 08/13/02 Tue
I completely sympathize about the painting Ren. My summer project (one of them) has been to paint my house and I'm already sick of it - not the painting itself but the clearing out the furniture, cleaning and spackling the walls, taping, dustcloths, washing brushes and buckets for re-use - such a tedious process. Although I am loving the results. I just finished painting my bedroom a rather lovely aqua colour and it makes me feel like I'm floating underwater. But I've done the upstairs hallway (accent wall in lucky shamrock), complemented by some saris as wall covering and the spare bedroom (autumn blaze, otherwise known as orange) - now onto the rest of the house!
[> [> [> Re: It's a slow day here in the neighborhood... -- Rendyl, 15:32:23 08/13/02 Tue
Grin. I will never understand why it is called painting when all my time is spent on prep. We have wooden walls and after finishing the kitchen I have decided to buy stock in a spackle company. (glad to meet another 'color on the walls' person.)
Aliera - I am doing all the trim in delicate white (a fancy way of saying 'hey, this is a three-coats-minimum-white and we will raise the price of it everytime you need more').
Today however I was tackling the back porch. Armed with painting supplies and a big can of 'blast 'em from 40 ft' wasp spray I had hoped to get at least one side done but it was just too hot and Darby never showed up to run wasp/spider interference for me.
There is always tomorrow.
Ren
[> [> [> [> You don't want me running interference. -- Darby, 16:21:17 08/13/02 Tue
As often as not I try to reason with 'em.
And I'll spend many long minutes staring into the eyes of a jumping spider when I get the chance. Try it - if you get close to one it will turn and look back at you with one pair of huge eyes and one pair of smaller eyes (there are more but your can't see them). They are about the most alien creatures you'll meet who seem to regard you when they make eye contact. I have great respect for cephalopods (I trade semaphore signals with cuttlefish at the aquarium, another pasttime I recommend) but their eyes have a blankness about them that doesn't give the impression that anyone's home in there.
I will kill the occasional wasp when it's them or me, but the long-distance squirters are just too unfair a fight!
--Darby, who let my gecko tank get truly disgusting because it was a cricket nursery.
[> [> [> [> [> Have you ever looked deeply into the eyes of a Hawaiian gecko -- redcat, 19:41:23 08/13/02 Tue
when he's hunting? Their faces are like small dragons, fiercely beaked, with intense stripes and swirls that look like some kind of alien warpaint. Their eyes are an amazing kaleidoscope of sharply-edged planes in brilliant blues, greens, purples and blacks. They have small, sharp teeth and are *very* territorial. They can stare directly into your eyes for ten, sometimes fifteen, minutes without moving a muscle, and you *always* know that someone's home.
They do not sell insurance.
redcat, who once lived in a communal house where the consensus vote, after a four-hour debate on animal rights, was to leave the large hairy cane spider who had taken up residence in one corner of the 2nd-floor shower in peace, and to move all eleven of us to the first-floor shower until she either found other accommodations or died of natural causes.
...but whose favorite slogan when smashing cockroaches who deign to cross her kitchen is still "Evolve, F***er!!"
[> [> [> [> [> [> Geckos and roaches -- matching mole, 20:38:52 08/13/02 Tue
rc - Your post set off a rather bizarre train of thought which sort of wandered round to a scenario that could be related to Buffy.
As you may well know the geckos on Hawaii are recent arrivals having been brought there, either deliberately or inadverdantly, since the arrival of Europeans. Geckos are excellent colonists and only the extreme isolation of the hawaiian archipelago (which had no terrestrial vertebrates except for birds and bats before the arrival of humans) kept them from arriving on their own.
With that thought in my mind your discussion of animal rights lead me to an ethical dilemma I hadn't considered before. What would someone who believes strongly in animal rights do if faced with having to prevent the introduction of a potentially devasting non-native species into a fragile environment. For example there is a fairly concerted effort to keep Brown Tree Snakes from being accidentally transported from Guam to the Hawaiian islands on cargo planes. (side note - brown tree snakes are native to southeast Asia and were accidentally brought to Guam in the 1960s (I think) - they have since basically wiped out all native bird species on the island). What would someone who believed passionately in animal rights do if confronted with such a snake in the back yard of their Hawaiian home? Sort of like the whole Giles/Ben issue. Kill or imprison an (innocent) organism or allow it to go free and potentially wipe out what's left of the native Hawaiian bird fauna.
I'm not being snarky here - I think this is an interesting question.
I don't imagine that you use pesticides on your cockroaches, rc, but if you did then you would see them evolve and bloody fast too.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> snakes and airplanes -- rc, 00:30:22 08/14/02 Wed
Interesting question, not snarky at all. The Brown Tree Snake is HUGE problem here. It's reassuring to know that at least a
few biologists outside of the Pacific understand how dangerous their introduction would be.
Still, since most of the very few snakes that have been found here have been apprehended either on a military plane or a military
airport runway (or the grassy area right next to one), I hope that the scenario you suggest won't come to pass. But I imagine
that if one ever did escape and wound up in the back yard of a staunch believer in animal rights, that person might consider
capturing the snake, instead of killing it, and turning it over to the authorities to ship back to SE-Asia. (Thankfully, it would be
pretty noticeable since there are no other snakes here; tree snakes aren't directly dangerous to humans and I hear they're fairly
slow.) The state or federal authorities, however, would most likely simply kill it (or perhaps dissect and study it?), so the net
result would be the same. This is one of the reasons some A-R activists (along with many other kinds of activists) have
worked so hard to get the military to be more careful about their flights in from the base on Guam. Most of the problem stems
from military cargo flights, which comprise the VAST majority of all flights into Honolulu from Guam. The strict A-R solution
rests in the spirit of addressing the problem *before* the snakes can come here and kill the birds, and thus before the humans
have to kill the snakes. Given humans' propensity for not doing the smart thing, though, and for generally being more sloppy
than is good for them, it's almost inevitable that some Brown Tree Snakes will someday be let loose in Hawai'i. The most
realistic AR solution at that point, it would seem to me, would be to save thousands of birds, including entire species of rare
and endangered birds, by killing the few snakes that make it past the airport defenses.
There is no such thing as a perfect morality. Everything has shades of grey. Guess real life is like the Buffyverse, after all...
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Goats and the Galapagos -- Darby, 05:18:27 08/14/02 Wed
I haven't seen any recent follow-ups, but Equador was planning this past spring to bring sharpshooters into one of the Galapagos Islands recently invaded by goats (across a risen land bridge) and try to kill the many thousand that had literally taken the island over.
It's the same dilemma, but that's a lot of dead minding-their-own-business goats.
And what do you do with that many carcasses that wouldn't itself affect the ecosystem?
[> [> [> [> [> Re: You don't want me running interference. -- Rendyl, 21:33:17 08/13/02 Tue
***I will kill the occasional wasp when it's them or me, but the long-distance squirters are just too unfair a fight!***
Heh heh heh...It is -always- them or me. They can build a nest in an afternoon and around here they run in gangs. (The only reason all the spiders are not toast is they do catch some wasps) I am all for a more live and let live scenario but it is just not possible. I can't have my little girl bitten and stung every day so it is war with the wasps and hoping the spiders stay wayyyy up near the ceiling.
At least the fire ants are not overrunning the house.
Ren
[> Your Mouse Needs a Wheel -- neaux, 12:29:53 08/13/02 Tue
I find that the wheely thing on the newer mouses make scrolling a lot less cumbersome and kinda fun.
causes less arthitic pain in my hands too.
(zzzzzippppps up and down the scroll)
Comics as "Literature" and Mainstream Acceptance (OT) -- Dochawk, 14:36:11 08/13/02 Tue
There was a long thread, just archived about Comics and mainstream acceptance. Today's New york Times had a long article about "A Comic Gets Serious on Gay issues". Besides an article in the NYT (can you get more mainstream than that?) about comics on a serious topic, this article could have been written about Buffy a year ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/13/arts/13COMI.html?todaysheadlines
You have to register, but its free.
[> I read the article. The Green Lantern team is doing something admirable with this plotline... -- cjl, 19:37:48 08/13/02 Tue
And yet, I still get a faint whiff of condescension here. The entire tone of the article practically screams to the reading public that for a kiddie book like Green Lantern to tackle an issue like gay bashing in a mature, unflinching fashion is truly extraordinary. "Look, folks--a fish is riding a bicycle. Isn't that amazing?"
We did indeed do an entire sub-thread on this board, devoted to comics like From Hell, Watchmen, Maus, Ghost World, Raw, Cerebus, Sandman, Transmetropolitan, 100 Bullets, and many, MANY others which tackle(d) real world issues in far more interesting and complex ways. If you want a comic book to describe gay life in America, grab a collection of Dykes to Watch Out For or Howard Cruse's graphic novel, Stuck Rubber Baby.
The fact that the Times hasn't printed word 1 about any of these books (with the exception of Maus) confirms the status of comics in the U.S. as a literary stepchild. (Maybe I could move to Japan, where manga gets a little respect.)
OK, end of rant. I shouldn't complain too loudly about this, though. The idea of a readily identifiable, "everyday kind of guy" gay character in superhero land is probably a good thing. And this looks it'll be a lot more grounded and emotionally resonant than that melodramatic plotline in Alpha Flight. (To comics virgins--don't ask.)
has Joss visited his local sidewalk lately? -- can I be Anne?, 16:02:25 08/13/02 Tue
I wish to start this new thread in response to certain comments made by redcat in "OK, mundus, I'll bite..." down below. My post is off topic from the subject of that thread.
"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. "
redcat, these lines practically beg me to picture a bucolic homestead where the lily-white missus is placing a cherry pie on the windowsill to cool. However I'm going to snap out of my Pat Buchannan dream and wonder where the hell do you live? I am a South Asian-American in North Carolina in a community with sizable populations of practically every race. I'm trying to picture other places I've been to in N. America. Hmm..Montreal...NYC...New Orleans...LasVegas...Atlanta...Florida...Texas...Michigan...Toronto..Maine..D.C....Chicago... Is that good enough? All of these places have sizable, visible Black, Latino, Asian and Arab American demographics. I actually can't think of where outside of a country club in South Carolina and television have I seen such a whitewash. Furthermore, I haven't been to Southern California personally but I do not believe for a moment that there are no Latinos(just to note one glaring omission) I mean, come on, has Joss visited his local sidewalk lately?
Hollywood directors and writers are overwhelmingly white and male(this occurs through no fault of their own and many are truly talented) They get to tell their stories and choose the actors that portray them on screen. I am going to go out on a limb here and suppose that many of these directors automatically cast white actors unless the role is specifically for a sassy black sidekick, exotic asian sex object, etc*. That is the world they know and/or the world they saw on TV, growing up in America. What I would like to see more of is for these purveyers and documentors of culture to realize the social responsibility that comes with the privelege of their soapbox. Specifically I would like them to catch up to the curve and cast different races, normal sized women, disabled people, gays, poor people and others who don't see themselves reflected in the media enough. This can actually be done often without altering the story(I don't mean to suggest that they should ever constrain themselves creatively) While the demographics of BTVS may reflct the reality of certain semi-isolated viewers, I allege that BTVS and TV as a whole could stand to alienate less people by being more reflective of most of America.
As an adjunct, redcat, I want to say that your post was concise and it made me think. I thought you made some great arguments, although I wasn't able to read the essay in question so I can't form much of an opinion on the rest of what you wrote. I mean this all in the spirit of discussion and I hope you aren't insulted by any of it.
*I am aware of Gunn and other non streotypical characters. I think it's great that they exist and that there should be more of them, in acccordance with real world standards.
CIBA
[> Butting in (and hoping to tread lightly; is that oxymoronic?) -- Sophist, 16:22:42 08/13/02 Tue
I think you may have misunderstood redcat's post. I don't believe she was arguing that the show should not be more diverse. I think she was merely commenting that the ethnicity of the principal characters probably reflected the experience of white Americans.
I would also add that age is important in discussing this question. I'm 48. I went to segregated schools until I was in 5th grade, and majority white ones all my life. That is not the case at all for my daughters (14 and 19). I have to think their impression of what is "realistic" in high school would be quite different than would that of someone my age who reflected only on his/her own experience.
[> [> Re: Butting in (and hoping to tread lightly; is that oxymoronic?) -- can I be Anne?, 17:01:30 08/13/02 Tue
Thank you for pointing out the age/exposure factor. It's something I had not considered, probably because I'm 19.
Apropos your other comment, perhaps. I reread her post and I see your point, but I want to point out that it's a priveleged position of White Americans that they can assume they are the targeted audience. They are. I know that race isn't the only way one may be mirrored on television. I grew up in poverty and didn't see anything like my family. Maybe that's why I still don't watch a lot of tv.
[> [> [> Re: Butting in (and hoping to tread lightly; is that oxymoronic?) -- shadowkat, 07:19:13 08/14/02 Wed
Agreeing with Sophist. But it has less to do with age I think and possibly more to do with other factors.
I've lived numerous places. When I was young I lived in Chester County in rural area of Pennsylvania. While we were not rich or well-off, we weren't poor either. I had not seen someone of another (non-white) race until I reached 6 grade and was bused an hour and a half away to a new school.
This happened in the 70s. Later when we moved to Johnson
County (a wealthy suburb in Kansas - not far from Kansas City Missouri, although there were people who were quite
poor living in this suburb) - there were a total of two asian-americans and I think a few people from foreign lands.
No african-americans or latinos - at least in the 1980s.
This is in the middle of the country.
It wasn't until college that I met and knew people of diverse backgrounds.
If you travel across sections of the US - you'll see that it is still quite segregated. NYC is highly so, by choice.
I live in an Italian neighborhood (I'm not Italian but the majority of the people around me are), walk six block?
It becomes Middle Eastern - the language even changes.
Another block? African, Jamacian, Carribean. Yes we are diverse, but the diversity is still broken into sections.
As I said on the thread below - the further we come?
the further we need to go. We have come a long way on race
relations, xenophobia, racism, gender relations, sexual
tolerance, etc - when you compare to where we were just a decade ago. But we have a lonnng way to go. And asking questions of what we watch, creating our own art, and
discussing these views - will help us to continue to move down that road. Where it goes? Is anyone's guess. I'm hoping for more tolerance and diversity.
Thanks for the post can I be Anne.
sk
[> [> [> What I find remarkable about Buffy -- Sophist, 08:54:22 08/14/02 Wed
(and thanks to Rah for pointing this out to me) is how strongly the show appeals to a sense of "other", notwithstanding the criticisms of, say, the lack of ethnic diversity or its handling of W/T. It's important that we keep that in mind, and not get too focused on, say, the sexual preferences of the characters on the show. He said self-reflectively.
Redcat's post below and shadowkat's above inspired a few thoughts of my own about location and diversity. I lived in Palo Alto from 3-10. My elementary school classes had 2 ethnically Asian students (one of Japanese ancestry, the other of Chinese). That was the extent of the diversity.
We moved to Riverside when I was 10. Although Riverside integrated its schools the next year, I never saw a non-white student in elementary school. Junior high, however, was a very different story. The largest minority group then, as now, was Hispanic, though there was a moderate African-American population as well. Junior high was quite diverse, though hardly peaceful; ethnic tensions and hormones don't mix well.
I can contrast this with the experience of my daughters growing up in Los Angeles. The neighborhood school was mixed Asian and white. Very few blacks or Hispanics (consistent to this extent with s'kat's comment about isolated neighborhoods). On the other hand, my younger daughter played soccer on teams that had a large number of African-American and Hispanic players. They lived close enough for that, but not for school. Interesting -- I suspect that sports continues to provide the largest forum for exposure to other ethnicities.
S'kat commented on how far we have to go. Perhaps my age is showing, but I'm regularly amazed at how far we've come. I saw the midwest and south in the 60s. The contrast to Los Angeles today is staggering. I hope that's grounds for optimism.
[> [> [> [> Re: What I find remarkable about Buffy -- aliera, 17:24:05 08/14/02 Wed
And I think you alluded to something similar in the other thread which currently resides in Archive 2, that it is *because* of where we're at that we able to recognize how far we've come and how far we have to go. I'm 41, my son is fourteen, but because of our current locale, I find his experiences uncannily similar to my own growing up, not just in areas of race; but sex, and wealth (or lack thereof). So I would agree with both points. Also, change seems to have come relatively quickly to me from a historical POV. Barriers coming down, change at ever increasing speeds sometimes leading to rebalancing or feelings of disorientation or fear and resistance; we live in interesting times. But, I am grateful that I live in these times and not the past. ;-)
[> Re: has Joss visited his local sidewalk lately? (Spoiler S7) -- Dochawk, 16:44:35 08/13/02 Tue
As I wrote on the thread below. This thread hopefully will be mute for S7 with the addition of a black high school principal and a Latino student. Both are significant recurring characters who Joss usually fleshes out pretty well.
[> [> Re: has Joss visited his local sidewalk lately? (Spoiler S7) -- Masq, 16:47:53 08/13/02 Tue
There have been what I would categorize as recognizably Latino students in the background of Sunnydale High scenes from at least season 2. They were not in the numbers I experienced even in my lily white Orange County high school in the 70's (I saw more Latinos and Asians in my high school than I see on btvs), but they are not non-existent as extras on the show.
[> [> Re: has Joss visited his local sidewalk lately? (Spoiler S7) -- Just George, 23:54:06 08/13/02 Tue
One other note. ME originally cast Bianca Lawson (who played Kendra) as Cordelia. The actress turned the part down to play a role in another series. I speculate below in "Re: Might have beens..." that casting a person of color in a central role might have led ME to more diversity in casting peripheral roles (such as Cordelia's boyfriends and the Cordettes.)
[> [> [> Bianca Lawson as Cordelia -- Darby, 05:40:31 08/14/02 Wed
Does anyone know the source of this story? I wonder if it's true...
First, SMG was cast as Cordelia. That I've heard her say directly in interviews.
Second, the girl who in the script appeared to be the byatch and the heroine's nemesis - would Joss or the network have thought that a minority actress in that part wouldn't bring them a lot of flack? It just doesn't make sense to me.
Third, does anyone believe Bianca Lawson could handle the part? She's got a fairly deep resume, but I don't recall ever seeing her in anything else, which is not the forceful presence needed for Cordelia.
And fourth, what other role did she go to? BtVS is her only entry on the Internet Movie Database for 1997. She was in Primary Colors (it couldn't have been much of a part, though), and that might be it.
This strikes me as one of those rumors that become "common knowledge" with no basis in fact.
[> [> [> [> Season 5 DVDs -- Dochawk, 12:26:24 08/14/02 Wed
Hopefully these questions will be answered on the Season 5 DVDs which are supposed to contain a feature n the casting of all the original parts. It was also my understanding that SMG was given the part of Cordy but lobbied for Buffy. When Joss didn't find a Buffy he let her retest and gave her the part. CC was then hired within a week. Hopefully we'll get the official story when the DVD comes out in October (well they come out in Britain and Australia in October).
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Season 5 DVDs -- Just George, 16:07:17 08/14/02 Wed
The story, true or not, is widely repported on the internet. For example:
http://www.buffyguide.com/players/cordelia.shtml
Despite that, she (Charisma Carpenter) got the role (reportedly after Bianca Lawson, who later appeared as Kendra, turned it down).
and
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/5636/kendra.html
Believe it or not, before Bianca became the new slayer she was once cast as Cordelia Chase now played by actress Charisma Carpenter but, she had to give up that role because she was commited to the "Goode Behavior."
[> [> [> [> Here's another account. -- A8, 21:18:53 08/14/02 Wed
From various sources (I've even seen it projected as a pre-movie trivia question while waiting to watch the previews before LOTR), I've read that Katie Holmes was originally offered the part of Buffy, but turned it down because she did not want to leave high school in Ohio at that time.
SMG auditioned and was cast as Cordelia by ME, but as Joss recounts in his comments on the WTTH/Harvest VHS interview, the WB execs lobbied him heavily to cast SMG as Buffy.
I'll trust you guys as to what happened with the casting of Cordelia from that point on.
[> [> [> [> Follow-up -- Darby, 08:39:18 08/15/02 Thu
Like Just George, I did a search for some background, and this definitely has the feel of a single-source rumor where the source is never even hinted at. It's even the only "note" on Bianca Lawson's Internet Movie Database entry, but we all know how reliable the IMDb isn't. And everything on the web, even the non-English mentions, have that sameness of phrasing that indicates a single source.
It sort of has the feel of something an actor or agent might say off the record - "Y'know, they offered me that pretty juicy part but I couldn't take it - other obligations, darling."
I stand by my assertion that BL would not have been a proper Cordy - I'm amazed at how many things she's been in that I've seen but never noticed her in, and I'm good at noticing actors I'm familiar with. And she's pretty distinctive.
- Darby, who will eventually do a website on "common knowledge" but completely wrong science-type items.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Follow-up -- d'Herblay, 10:29:46 08/15/02 Thu
I have no real knowledge of what went into the casting of Buffy; however, I have heard that a great variety of people "had" or "were up for" this or that role. For example, Julie Benz has been mentioned as being seriously considered for the role of Buffy, and that was the role that Charisma Carpenter originally read for. I don't know whether or not there was a time that Bianca Lawson was cast as Cordelia. I do wonder however if people have conflated her auditioning for the part with her having the part.
[> On the Street Where I Live -- Arethusa, 16:56:51 08/13/02 Tue
I live in Houston, Texas. According to the US Census bureau, it is approx. 30% White Non-Hispanic, 40% Hispanic, 12% African-American, and 3% Asian. There is a sizable (east)Indian population, and also mixed race population. The different minority groups tend to create and remain in their own communities, partially becaue we have so many immigrants who depend on their communities for assistance with their unique needs. Houston is also virtually the only major city in the South that voluntarily and peacefully desegregated. Houston is incredibly diverse, and proud of it.
But you can grow up here and virtually never see anyone of a different race, if you want to live that way. The largest public school district is 10% White Non-Hispanic. Most white students go to nearly all-white suburban school districts, private schools, or carefully zoned white schools in wealthy urban neighborhoods. The middle-class whites mostly live in suburban white neighborhoods. Rich whites live in suburban or very wealthy neighborhoods near downtown. There are wealthy minorities, and they live wherever they want, but their percentage is small. One could easily live here and have little meaningful contact with a person of a different race.
I have also lived in Raleigh, NC, Seattle, WA, San Diego, CA, Ft. Walton Beach FL, Austin, TX, Mountain View, CA, and several other places. The same could be said for those places, at least when I lived there in the 60s and 70s.
There's no excuse for someone of Wedon's clout to not have more diverse actors except one-the network has a lot to say about who gets hired, and they are only interested in demographics for selling products. It's all about the fast food, the mascara, the CDs. Everthing else is gravy.
Hoping, but not expecting, that I haven't managed to offend anyone or be academically insufficent.
[> What would be really cool... -- neaux, 17:04:22 08/13/02 Tue
I would love to see Buffy branch out with its Directors.
Who wouldnt want to see an episode of Buffy directed by such talented Big Time Directors as Ang Lee, Robert Rodriguez, and Quinten Tarrenteno.
What is wonderful about these directors is how they cast their characters of all ethnicities.
an episode of Buffy done by Robert Rodriguez would make me Die of excitement.. his work is unbelievable!
[> [> Re: What would be really cool... -- Arethusa, 18:36:36 08/13/02 Tue
I wonder what a Tarentino BtVS would be like. Probably lots of vampire gore and the odd evisceration or two.
Other suggestions, matching who'd I would have like to seen direct, and the episode:
Frank Capra: The Wish
George Cukor: Family
Roger Corman: Buffy vs. Dracula
Jean-Luc Godard: Restless
James Cameron: I Robot, You Jane
John Carpenter: Halloween (of course!)
Billy Wilder: Something Blue
Stanley Donen: Once More, With Feeling
Howard Hawks: As You Were
[> Re: has Joss visited his local sidewalk lately? -- redcat, 23:43:58 08/13/02 Tue
Aloha e can I be Anne?,
Thank you for starting what promises to be an interesting thread. I actually think it is exactly on-topic of the thread below
from which you quote me, but it's sometimes good to start new threads, too, and this one has already generated some
intriguing comments.
However, you have, as Sophist tried to point out to you, terribly mis-read the section of my post you quoted. Your questions
to me make me think you may well have also mis-read the majority of my review of Lynne Edwards' article. However, what
each poster takes from any one post is up to them and I probably cannot restate my review of that article in language that's any
less confusing. I apologize for that. The review was improperly posted to this forum in the first place, since it is written with
a purpose and in a particular academic style more suited to a graduate seminar than a public fan forum.
What I can and must do, never-the-less, is to contest your quite creative but unfortunately inaccurate notion that the quote
above means that I am suggesting either 1) that BtVS should be as white or whiter than it already is, since in fact my feelings,
as clearly expressed in other posts on this board and which are central to my critique of both Edwards' and Whedon's work,
are exactly the opposite; or 2) that I was or have ever suggested that because white Americans can assume they are the target
audience, and because white producers and directors can assume they only have to write for a white audience, that their doing
so is a good thing, because, again, as I think I have made quite clear in both the named post and in other work I've done on this
board, I do *not* think racism is a good thing.
What I *was* saying, as Sophist rightly noted, is that the all-white cast of BtVS main characters seems to me, from my very
limited experience of living around white Americans on the continental US mainland, to mirror what I saw of the usually very
limited experiences that most white people living in those mainly white communities I was in seemed to have with people of
different races and ethnicities. I would add here that racially self-segregated communities were not what I experienced during
the few months that I lived in a large continental-US city in 2001, nor have they been my experience in traveling around the
continental US via major cities. But they were very much in evidence when I rode my motorcycle across 10 western and
northern states during a six-week period in the summer of 1994, taking only back roads and "blue line" roads between
campgrounds, small towns and back-country areas. And to be very clear, I should add that my experience of living in white (or
even mainstream) America has been limited to a period of about seven years living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, while I was in
graduate school there, and another 18 months living in a small, nearly-all-white town in eastern Pennsylvania, while I taught
college there. It is good to see that many other posters, you included, live in a more integrated America. But I do have to say
that coming from a world where white people are not the norm, when I moved to the American mid-west in 1990, I was
incredibly, deeply and continually shocked at the casual racism commonly in evidence, even from well-educated and "liberal"
white Americans, and I continued to be extremely uncomfortable in white American culture for the entire time I lived in it
*primarily* because of the levels of both overt and socially-structured racism that seemed to me to be so evident in it.
As to your "where in the hell do I live?" question, well, I live in what is probably the single most ethnically diverse place on
earth. But if you saw me, you would probably think that I am white, even though a big chunk of my family's history and a
certain poignant sharp edge in our internal traumas - come from the fact that my dad's mother is half-Cherokee. She grew up
with an Indian mother who spoke little English, but who could read and write in the Cherokee syllabary. My grandmother's
father was an illiterate 6' 7" red-haired Irish immigrant who beat his wife every time she birthed a no-good girl baby, got drunk
every time she birthed a boy (she had 10 kids, five of each), and beat her and his children if he caught them speaking "that
damn Injun" in the house. My aunt remembers her mother and sisters shifting easily from Cherokee to English in mid-sentence
when they heard his bootstep on the porch. My father grew up being beaten, and was once knifed in the play yard of his west
Texas school, for looking "too Injun to be so smart."
My dad left his grandparent's Texas farm as soon as he could and I grew up in a small agricultural town on an island in the
middle of the Pacific where people who look like me only comprised about 8% of the population when I was a kid, back in the
50s. I've recently moved back home after living for most of a decade on the North American continent. The white population
here is up to 22% now, and sometimes I feel a bit invaded. Here at home, though, I'm not really "white." I'm something called
"haole," "local haole" to be exact. That means that I look like the 6 million American, European and Canadian tourists who
flood here every year (that's six "visitors" for each of us who call this paradise home, six people who never seem to know how
to conserve water -- a critically important act when one lives on an island -- and who generally treat the local people like
servants because they have money and we don't). But I'm not actually the same as them and other local folks understand that.
For one thing, I speak local pidgen in five different dialects, even, and I can flip between any of them and "good English" as
easily as my grandmother could between her mother-tongue and her father's. More importantly, I understand deep in my
bones the subtle local customs that separate those who belong here from those who don't, the local ways of thinking and being,
of knowing and relating respectfully to each other and the 'aina, the land, that are not part of Hollywood's depictions of our
sunny beaches or its versions of our Native people as sexy and always- welcoming. As far as I can tell, most of our ways have
no place in white American culture at all.
But even though white people are now up to almost 1/4 of the population here, and even though American culture sometimes
seems all pervasive, racial issues of black and white simply don't exist as part of the local social and cultural world. After all,
less than 1Ž2 of one percent of the population is African-American, and a goodly chunk of the white folks aren't really "white,"
they're local haole, like me, people with long histories here, families on multiple islands, roots that go deep into the lava, and
dreams that stretch far into our shared island-centered future.
No, our local racial and ethnic issues here are far more complex, far more interwoven, than those suggested by simple debates
over whether or not most white Americans live in ethnically diverse or racially self-segregated communities. Nearly 24% of
our state's population are descended from the indigenous Natives, whose constitutional monarchy and beloved Queen were
illegally overthrown a century ago by an armed cabal of white American businessmen and two companies of very heavily armed
US Marines and Navy Bluejackets from the American warship, the USS Boston. Now the Americans' President wants to take
away what little is left of those Natives' land resources and economic base, on the grounds that protecting them is "racial
preference." They comprise more than 40% of our prison population, die 12 years earlier on the average than their non-Native
neighbors, and earn less than 2% of our state university's post-graduate degrees even though that university sits on stolen
land that once belonged to their Queen. More than 15% of them are homeless in their own land, and the child poverty rate for
them is almost double that for any other group.
Another 25% of our population have ancestors who came from a small set of islands on the other side of the ocean from us.
They used to be an oppressed minority ethnicity here, but now, people with sur-names from that group control about 70% of
the 17% of the total land base here that is not already owned either by the government or one of 7 large white-American-
controlled private estates. Members of this group also own more than half of all local businesses. On some islands, they
control as much as 90% of the local government, and state-wide, hold more than 60% of all government jobs, so perhaps it's
not so odd that they account for less than 10% of our prison population.
That leaves just under 30% of the population to be divided between the other eleven major and nineteen minor ethnic groups
that the state bureaucrats count each year, only one of which is Black and none of which originated in either white Europe or
white America. And add into the mix the fact that we are a highly inter-marrying bunch. By the 1990 census, one out of every
five children under the age of six had ancestors from at least three different major ethnic groups (which suggests two or more
generations of ethnic inter-marriage), and one in ten had at least five different ethnic heritages. The compilation isn't quite done
yet on the 2000 census, but state demographers are already noting the upswing in inter-ethnic and inter-racial marriage here by
a factor of at least two.
None of which means that racism and ethnic prejudice aren't part of our everyday experience. It's just more subtle, harder to
see from the outside, perhaps. My best friend in elementary school (I was the only haole kid in my class, BTW) was half-
Okinawan and half-Japanese. Her Japanese grandfather made her Okinawan mother and the Japanese son who had "disgraced"
the family by marrying her live in the worst house of any of his five sons, and I spent many an afternoon with her helping her
mom do the laundry for all six men, who worked as laborers in the cane fields (as did the parents or grandparents of many of
my friends). Those red-dirt-encrusted shirts and pants were her mother's eternal punishment for having had the gall to marry
"above her station." They might have been a poor family, but they still had a wealth of prejudice.
And my ex-partner, who's been a friend since we were in kindergarten together, is Korean-American. When her father died a
few years ago, a Chinese-American co-worker made a racist comment about her Korean heritage and her Palauan-American
boss laughed and told her she only thought it wasn't funny because it was true, all Koreans *were* like the joke. She quit the
job the day of her father's funeral. I once had the part-Hawaiian manager of a small health food store where I worked tell me
he wouldn't hire a fully-qualified Filipina bookkeeper because of her race. Personally, I've been beaten up, spit on, had a coke
thrown down my back, had my car run off the road, had a haku lei (that had been hand-made for me by a dear elderly Native
friend) torn off my head, not been given jobs I was qualified for, been turned down for houses and apartments, been asked to
leave stores, and have been called many, many derogatory names, most of them starting with the F-word, all because I look like
the kind of people that many locals here see as their enemy. I once overheard a friend of mine say to a friend of his, "she's OK,
she only looks like that (meaning white)," before that friend would let me in his house.
And being a realist, I'm glad that my nieces, the humans I love the most in all the world now, will have it somewhat easier than
my siblings or I did. Their skin is a wonderful, rich chocolate brown, their black eyes are gracefully almond-shaped, and the
red curl in their hair is an accent, not a blazon. They won't ever have to prove they belong by knowing how to speak or when
to be silent, and if they do ever act badly, it won't be sneeringly thrown in their faces that such behavior is the best that can be
expected from someone as greedy, uncultured, unsophisticated, rude, insensitive, loud, clumsy (shall I go on?) as white people
all are.
So, where the hell do I live? I live in world where black and white are not at issue, but where racism is alive and well. I live in
a world where I have to dance across cracks in the lava as the social and cultural realities of identity shift beneath my feet in a
time of changing global priorities. I live in a world where people may assume I am one thing because of what I look like or
how I speak, or may assume I am something else entirely based on the same criteria, and I have no control over any of it. I live
in Nu'uanu in the ahupua'a of Honolulu on the island of O'ahu in the nation of Hawai'i that your American government still
calls one of its states. I live in a colonized nation, am the daughter of one of its colonizers, and am the great-granddaughter of
a man who beat his wife because of the color of her skin. I've worked for Native Hawaiian sovereignty and to rid our islands
and this planet of nuclear weapons for many, many years. When I'm allowed to, I teach college courses that hopefully help
people your age find ways to change their world into one less racist, less sexist, less colonialist and more fair. It's good work,
ethical work, and I do it with care and compassion and faith in the future.
But it seems, no matter how careful I am, that I have little control over how people interpret my writing on this board. I wrote
a sentence that was intended as a subtle critique of both the racial politics of BtVS and America at large. For it, I get accused
of being a racist. Ah well, perhaps it's time I took a break from the board, after all. But I'm grateful, CIBA, that you at least
read my original post. I just wish you'd understood what I was saying.
Malama pono a hui hou,
redcat
[> [> Re: Why no average-looking or fat people? -- Liam, 06:19:31 08/14/02 Wed
I'm very interested in the discussion about the lack of ethnic diversity in terms of the actors playing human Buffyverse characters; and I was, redcat, very interested in what you said about racism, you showing that it is not confined to just something whites do to non-whites.
There is, however, another problem I feel we should also be talking about: why do we not see more average-looking or fat actors portraying characters in 'Buffy', or indeed in any other non-comedy movie or TV show? Even when we get characters portrayed by non-whites, they are still good-looking and skinny.
One of the reasons why I liked Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia) and Amber Benson (Tara) was because they looked (by Hollywood standards) more 'normal', compared to SMG (from season 4 on) and AH.
If people feel (something I agree with) that actors seen should, in ethnic terms, be more reflective of the US population as a whole, the same should be true regarding looks and physique.
[> [> [> The "Great" Amber Benson debacle <<Shudder>> (Well Prior to dying it was for some reason a debate) -- Dochawk, 13:01:00 08/14/02 Wed
When Amber Benson first joined Buffy as a recurring character she used to go the Bronze like the writers. But suddenly she was faced with a great debate over whether she was fat and whethter she should even be on television. It was vicious. Amber is 5'4", 118 pounds and viewers had the warped impression she was fat. And Charisma is less than appropriate weight (we won't talk about SMG/AH/AA/ED/MT/EC all of whom are very thin). Thin sells, fat doesn't. Can you think of a young woman (under 30) on a major tv series who represents the average american woman? Nope, won't sell. Men want to see their fantasies on TV and Madison Avenue has sold them a bill of goods regarding weight. A black character will look more like Halle Berry than Oprah. Its truly a problem as we are teaching a generation of american girls that you can't be too thin.
[> [> [> [> SMG too skinny -- Rook, 14:10:00 08/14/02 Wed
Is it just me, or was SMG 10x more cute during season 1, when she was a little bit chubby? (Chubby for TV, at least).
IMO, season 1 SMG was a bombshell...since about the middle of season 4 she's just wasted away, to the point now that I don't even find her attractive.
I only started watching after getting the Season 1 DvDs, and since I wanted to watch everything in order, I didn't manage to watch the rest until the beginning of this Summer. I did watch part (about 5 minutes) of DMP before I'd seen any of the rest of season 6, and I honestly believed that they'd replaced SMG with a different actress, because the person they were calling Buffy did not look at all like any picture of SMG I'd ever seen.
To steal a line from Spike: She looks like a living skeleton. Like famine pictures from those dusty countries, only not half as funny.
[> [> [> [> [> I don't think it's appropriate to make personal comments about the actors -- Sophist, 16:44:53 08/14/02 Wed
It's fine to discuss the issue of weight in general terms (like Arethusa does below). Comments about SMG's personal appearance are just the flip side of the behavior towards Amber Benson that Doc criticized.
FWIW, I think SMG was beautiful in S1 and remains so now. I also think that a little perspective is in order in discussions about weight. SMG is listed at 5'2", and at that she must have been measured on a tall day. Her weight is given as 100lbs. For comparison, my daughter is 5'1" and 98lbs. I assure you that my daughter is not "emaciated". She is an athlete in outstanding physical condition.
Actors do watch what they eat, and they have money for personal trainers, etc. There undoubtedly are cases of actors trying to maintain unrealistic weights, but I see no reason to believe that SMG is one of them.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Yes, she is very beautiful -- Raccoon, 17:09:09 08/14/02 Wed
but I do find it painful to watch how her weight is continually decreasing from year to year. It's actually quite obvious that SMG weighs more at the beginning of each season and then loses weight throughout - I think it's more of a testament of how hard she works than of a possible eating disorder. I do however think that she, as other actresses, adheres to a strict diet and workout program.
That said, I think it's important to address Hollywood's ideal of physical perfection, which is impossible to attain except for the lucky few. I've suffered from and counselled kids with eating disorders, and it's both illuminating and frightening to see how much import kids today put on celebrities' physical appearances; much more so than back in my day. I've had girls crying because this-and-this celebrity says "that [these actresses] eat burgers all the time, so why can't I without gaining weight?" Teaching these kids that they are beautiful no matter what is very hard.
I don't know how old your daughter is, but I do know that age is a crucial factor when it comes to body weight and body fat. Once you reach your twenties, a girl's metabolism starts changing. Most Hollywood stars are not naturally that skinny. Also, the camera does pack on pounds, so as a general rule they are much thinner in person than on screen. I suffered from anorexia as a teen. I'm 5'9 and of a slight build. I look at photos taken then and see that I *do* look like today's model ideal. I also remember that I was too weak to walk the stairs without assistance.
I don't mean to criticize anybody; some people are indeed naturally fit and skinny. My problem occurs when I see that many young girls are not, yet they torture themselves to fit the norm. I'm glad that your daughter is fit and happy with her body. It's impossibly painful for a parent to have a child who is not.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Yes, she is very beautiful -- shadowkat, 18:44:55 08/14/02 Wed
Weight is a tough topic. We forget that the actors work 18 hour days. They get to the set at 4 am and may be shooting until 10 or 12 midnight. SMG in interviews has said she is a work-aholic (which for the life of me I can't seem to spell). This season she was filming Scooby Doo, Buffy and getting married and dealing with press junkets. That is a lot of stress. And not much time to eat.
My brother is 6'5 and weighs maybe 175 pounds. He is not aneorxic nor on a diet. He just has a fast metabolism. I on the other hand have always struggled with my weight and
have always been above the wieght I wanted to be. But most of my weight is in my bones - I'm big boned. My brother is small boned.
While I felt the actresses with the exception of AB and MT had all lost way too much weight and were beginning look like skeletons this year - I reminded myself of how hard these people work and how part of this is due to work habits and long hours. Also we have no idea how much of it was also due to character? Buffy was supposed to have just climbed out of a grave and was hardly in a eating mood.
Being very thin fit her character. Just as JM has gone on record stating that he purposely lost weight in order to better portray a vampire - as a metaphor for hunger. He needs to look hungry.
So agreeing with Sophist - we need to be careful on how we discuss the actors weights. And I agree with Racoon - we need to be careful in our attempts to emulate the actors weights ourselves. For the same reasons I should not go out and die my hair and get plastic surgery to look like an actress on BTVS, I should similarily not attempt to lose weight to fit the physique of a small boned woman who is 5'2 while I'm a big boned 6ft. Our differences are what makes us attractive and unique. If we all looked alike?
Same weight. Same skin. Same body type. It would be a horribly plastic boring world.
SK
[> [> [> [> [> [> Keep in mind though the old maxim that the television adds 10 pounds. -- A8, 21:28:15 08/14/02 Wed
Which means that SMG and AH (and I suppose JM, for that matter) are mere wisps, while AB probably is probably a perfectly healthy weight for her height. The discussion, I suppose, is fairly pointless unless any of these characters get so thin that they are unwatchable or their appearance distracts the viewers from following the storyline. That doesn't seem too likely to me.
That reminds me of the joke on "Friends" where they are watching old home movies in which Courteney Cox's character, at the time of the high school prom, was overweight. She explains that "the camera adds 10 pounds" and one of the other characters asks her "how many cameras were on you?"
[> [> [> [> Dying to be thin -- Arethusa, 14:59:27 08/14/02 Wed
When I was much younger, a photographer recomended me to a local modeling agency. The agent told me I wasn't pretty enough for print work, but I might get runway work if I lost weight. For my height of 5'9'', he said I should weigh about 115 pounds. I would have had to literally starve myself down to skin and bones to do that. It's criminally insane to present these tiny emaciated women as the ideal female form.
[> [> [> And to add insult to injury... -- Raccoon, 16:23:20 08/14/02 Wed
JW originally hesitated to hire Amber Benson, according to the S4 DVD commentary, because he thought her body too "womanly". It took Marti Noxon to convince him that AB was the only actress for the job.
This took my admiration for JW down a few notches and upped my regard for MN. Which was probably a good thing.
[> [> [> [> Interesting thing about media's perception and reality -- shadowkat, 19:12:22 08/14/02 Wed
What I find interesting about this whole subject, particularly the one regarding Amber is the majority of men I've spoken with on the boards and off consider Amber Benson to be the most attractive woman on Btvs. More than one guy has told me that they actually prefer Amber.
One guy told me that all you have to do is go into an adult mag store to see what men really prefer. And it isn't stick thin shapeless women. They want shape.
So maybe the media has it wrong? I've begun to wonder if the people who create our entertainment understand those who watch, read, or listen to it. JW readily admits he creates TV doesn't watch it, hasn't seen the other shows. You create or you watch he says. Hmmm reminds me of John Maxim who writes fiction novels but refuses to read them because he's afraid of stealing ideas. (My creative writing teachers told me to read as much as possible - that's how you get better. )If everyone who creates Television doesn't watch it - Maybe this explains why the Emmy nominations make no sense? Or why we have so little worth watching half the time? Shouldn't you view the medium that you are working in? Learn from watching others art? See the best and the worst of it? Learn from others mistakes? Instead of creating yours in a vaccum. Could that be the cause of cliches? The cause of not understanding that maybe just maybe your audience has different tastes than you think?
That you are out of sync with them on some major level? Or that your art isn't as innovative as you think? (I'm not saying BTVS is any of these things! Of course I think it's innovative and wonderful or I wouldn't be spending time on a posting board writing about it. Just asking questions.)
I don't know. But I have been wondering about this. Maybe I'm just generalising. As I said in an early post on this topic - it's such a hard issue to discuss without offending someone.
I know I've struggled with my image most of my life. I'm 6ft and over 180 pds.
No way I could ever hope to be 120 or below. My bones weigh 120. Yet - I've seen descriptions of characters and models
who are six foot and 135 or 145. And on the internet dating
personels? People ask for a person who is no heavier than 150.
SK
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Interesting thing about media's perception and reality -- Rook, 20:33:41 08/14/02 Wed
As far as Amber goes, she's definitely attractive...I find AH prettier, though, even though she may not be the TV exec's idea of beauty. I think Amber was intentionally "unprettied" though, in terms of costume, makeup and hairstyle, just to fit the character, so we never saw her at her best. On the season 1 DVD Joss talks about wanting to do this with Willow, but the execs made him dress her more attractively than he wanted to. Speaking of Willow, I find it hard to believe that he'd balk at casting someone overweight, since the first girl cast as Willow was not thin (She also played the part much more flat and depressed than AH, if you've ever seen the unaired pilot), and Joss indicates that the casting decision wasn't entirely his in the end, that he compromised with the studio on AH...not that he's being negative about AH, just that she wasn't his forst choice.
As far as watching TV goes...I don't think it makes much of a difference...if you can get a show like Buffy from someone who doesn't watch it, then it doesn't strike me that it should be a requirement for making it.
[> [> [> [> "Wild at Heart" didn't give a good message, though... -- KdS, 00:57:06 08/16/02 Fri
The relatively voluptuous, diet-denouncing Veruca turned out to be an appetite-driven psychopath. Just beware, girls, it may start with full-fat vinaigrette, but before you know it you'll be eating your lust object's girlfriend... (and not in the good way)
On a more serious note, just after reading this topic yesterday I listened to the radio and heard of a distinctly scary survey over here in Britain. Apparently, just over a quarter of fifteen-year-old girls considered of appropriate weight are consciously dieting and around a tenth of those considered underweight. Ecch.
[> [> Thank you for a wonderful post, redcat. -- ponygirl, 06:39:56 08/14/02 Wed
[> [> Re: has Joss visited his local sidewalk lately? -- can I be Anne?, 09:55:00 08/14/02 Wed
Thank you for a very enlightening response, redcat. I want to say, though, that I absolutely did not think that you or your statements were racist. I'm sorry I came across that way. I know it's a terrible thing to hear. I did make some unfair assumptions about your background, so thanks for the education.
Much of my post(I realize now that it wasn't made clear) was not a response to your statement at all. I started with a snarky response, then realized what you said just reminded me of the really important issue. I think this quote sums up what I went on to say:
"While the demographics of BTVS may reflct the reality of certain semi-isolated viewers, I allege that BTVS and TV as a whole could stand to alienate less people by being more reflective of most of America."
Again, I know I didn't make it clear that when I started griping about the lack of diversity on television, I was bringing up another issue that I wanted to see a dialogue on. I don't hold you responsible for the problem.
"Your questions to me make me think you may well have also mis-read the majority of my review of Lynne Edwards' article. "
This statement confuses me. I'll quote myself again:
"I thought you made some great arguments, although I wasn't able to read the essay in question so I can't form much of an opinion on the rest of what you wrote. "
I really don't know what else to say. I can't judge your criticism of a work I'm not familiar with.
Ultimately, I hope we can be at more of an understanding, now. I have a lot of respect for your writing on this board and I really hope this experience hasn't burned you out. Thanks for hearing me out.
CIBA
[> [> Re: has Joss visited his local sidewalk lately? -- Elenphant, 22:20:14 08/14/02 Wed
I understand exactly why you are upset right here. But I'd like to point out to you that you jumped down my throat in an earlier thread the same way you feel some posters replying to you have done. Just to share with you, I'm from Bangladesh, and grew up in a homogeneously white northeastern town in the US. What I said earlier was said from a similar perspective as the comment of yours this thread originally refers to. In my experience, there is indeed a great portion of this country which has not had much interaction with diverse populations. Sad to say, and frustrating for me personally to grow up within, but true.
-Elenphant
[> [> [> Re: has Joss visited his local sidewalk lately? -- Rahael, 04:39:18 08/15/02 Thu
I am sorry you felt we 'jumped down your throat'.
There's no need to pick on redcat alone here.
After all, she wrote an essay in response to a question by another poster, an attempt to discuss a critique of BtVS. She was then criticised for the manner in which she wrote it and what she wrote. She was made to be the reprentative of that critique. Her original post was a subtle, and sophisticated critique of a critique, and a complex discussion of race in BtVS.
And, to speak more generally.
I'm very sorry that this has happened because I prefer to see complex posts on this subject, which usually only gets soap box rants and inflammatory discussions.
There are more stances on the race debate than the neat categories of 'nazi' or 'apologist' or 'colourblind'. I thought redcat, that your response to CIBA was a beautifully written post. It illustrated the complex phenomenon of race and self identity.
And this was going to be my doorway into a look at how BtVS might still provide food for thought for people like me. Because BtVS, while it doesn't tackle the subject of race, and does tend to fall into the 'white is a default normality' mould, it still makes a striking point, which is very welcome to me.
It tackles what a complex phenomenon it is to be 'human'. What it constitutes to be a 'man' 'woman' 'demon' 'a ball of green light'. Is Dawn really a young white woman? Isn't she really a ball of green light, struggling to find out what it means to be human? Is Buffy really just a white Californian girl? or is the Slayer as Black as the first Slayer? Or as Chinese as the Chinese Slayer? As black as Nicky? Who is Buffy? Isn't she all of those things?
BtVS consistently unpicks the idea that 'self identity' is an unchanging, static thing that we can be sure of.
It portrays it as fundamentally unstable, and this is valuable contribution at a time when we hesitate to ascribe humanity itself as a quality to those groups we despise.
[> [> [> Some thoughts on emotion and reason -- redcat, 06:06:49 08/15/02 Thu
Aloha e Elenphant,
I'm glad that you are still engaged on the board and, like Rahael, I'm sorry that you feel anyone
on this board "jumped down your throat." However, I have to contest that characterization of
my original post to you, currently in archive #3 (8/08/02), and would like to ask if you have
gone back and read the three responses to your post to Darby, Rahael and myself of 8/12/02,
currently posted in archive #2. Having now re-read, for the third time, the complete original
exchange and all four later response posts, I can certainly understand that you felt criticized for
comments you made in your original post. But I re-iterate that I was not attacking you
personally nor jumping down anyone's bodily orifices, virtual or not. What I did do was write a
reasoned, informed response to an argument that you had made about the linearity of human
moral progress.
Here is your paragraph to which I was primarily responding:
"Also, one should keep in mind that she [Anya] was human during a time when there were
fewer shades of grey. Ancient traditions and thought was much more primal and absolute in its
view of things. It isn't that the grey wasn't there - it wasn't acknowledged or taken into
consideration in things like law (I sort of think of a vengeance demon as a lawyer - one who is
called upon to exact revenge - for often that's what suits really are at their base). The modern
consideration for the grey in things comes from, I think, a way of thinking that was started by
the Athenian philosophers (then later by the European Enlightenment), etc."
And here is the last sentence in my original response post's fourth paragraph, which opens my
critique of that view, and the first sentence in my closing paragraph of that critique:
"Now, I hate to welcome a new poster by disagreeing with an off-topic point in an otherwise
interesting and on-topic thread, but neither of these assumptions seem valid to me." [and]
"Now I''m sure you didn't mean any of this by your off-hand musings, and my disagreements
with you on these minor points do not detract from my enjoyment of you posts in general."
Neither of these two sentences, **nor any of the others in my post**, it seems to me, can be
interpreted as my either intending to assault you, or actually doing so. In fact, I believe (even
on re-reading) that interpreting ANYTHING I wrote in my post as a personal attack on you is an
over-reaction. I understand your emotional response to having three posters disagree with
you. All three of us, however, wrote responses to your "sorry to have offended" post that were
intended to reach out to you and help heal any bridges that had been broken in the process of
us having an intellectual disagreement with you. I firmly believe each of those posts was
sincere and meant in the spirit of building community on this board. I hope that you can take
them in that spirit. And although I am sad for you that you felt hurt, I do not apologize for that
intellectual disagreement.
Further, I fail to see how your original post on ancient notions of moral grey has much of
anything to do with my critique of the experience of contemporary white Americans who live in
racially self-segregated communities ‹ although now that I write that sentence, I begin to see
all kinds of connections, so maybe you're right about this and I just need to expand my
exegetical boundaries....
And finally, I personally do not feel that "some posters" "jumped down [my] throat." Anom
(rightly, I believe) critiqued what she saw as my posting an overly-academic review of an
academic article on a non-academic posting board. Shadowkat made general comments
about the use of distancing or overly-complex academic language in multiple posts on the
board, in which I recognized some of my own writing-craft patterns. I apologized to each of
them in turn as I recognized the validity of their critiques.
I passionately refuted what I read as CIBA's accusation that I was being racist and writing from
the position of assumed white privilege in my review of Edwards' article. I also made it clear in
my response that she had mis-read the particular sentence of mine with which she began her
post (above). In response to that, CIBA has apologized for what I, and others, had read as
that accusation of racism, explaining that she had not made clear in her post that she was
*primarily* commenting on the racial politics of American media, just as I originally was, and
not on my review essay. I'm still trying to decide if I owe her an apology for not having given
her the benefit of the doubt about what seemed to me to be her accusatory response to my
work.
It is quite interesting to me that the discussion of a review of an academic article which argues
that BtVS may have unsophisticatedly re-inscribed a common racist trope of American
literature and film has generated discussions about the difference between being a fan
and being a professional academic critic, language use and writing craft, the nature of this
board community, and what constitutes an intellectual disagreement versus what constitutes a
personal attack, as well as the beginnings of what promises to be a fascinating and wide-
ranging discussion of American (perhaps global) racial politics, notions of racial, ethnic and
national self-identification, and how well or how poorly BtVS incorporates race in its
discussions of "otherness," along with a fresne's amazingly rich and poetic rumination on the
idea of Slayers as the "mulatta" incarnate.
So no matter how upset I may get at someone's mis-reading of my posts, or how many times I
have to apologize for writing posts that are apparently so easy to mis-read or just too difficult to
read at all, I keep coming back here. And I hope you do, too. There is more here than meets
the skimming eye.
malama pono,
redcat
[> [> [> [> Re: Some thoughts on emotion and reason -- Caroline, 06:44:32 08/15/02 Thu
There are several points I would like to make.
redcat:
Please don't stop posting your wonderful posts. This board has many people with a wide diversity of backgrounds and interests and I learn from and am enriched by all of you. Some of your stuff does contain jargon from a particular discipline that many of us may not be familiar with but we can click on google and do research! If people want explanation they can make a request for more. I know how wonderful it is for someone to ask for another poster's ideas on the subject and I hope that we don't start to censor form or substance because that would truly be a loss for this board. And if there are some discussions like the one on evolutionary biology that I'm not qualified to really take part in - that's okay because we are not all coming from the same place and that's a good thing.
However, I think that it's a good idea when communicating in this medium for all of us to remember that we communicate here without the benefit of intonation, body language, etc and that puts a huge onus on our written words to communicate the subtleties of our intent. I've often seen sarcasm or irony misinterpreted and that's because it can be difficult for others to get on the same wavelength without all the supporting evidence that face-to-face contact provides. Therefore as a matter of policy, I assume that people here are not deliberately trying to offend me and if I do feel slighted in some way, I seek clarification from the poster in a 'Do you mean this?' type of post. It creates some perspective and let's the other person think more deeply about how they've expressed something. (Only on one occasion have I actually seen someone come in here an behave like a bull in a china shop.) There are many people on this board with whom I have disagreed yet still maintain cordial relations. I may be a bit perverse but I actually like engaging with the people who disagree with me because I learn a lot from them. But my policy also serves to keep my emotional barometer at an even keel (how's that for a good mixing of metaphors?).
[> [> [> [> [> Sounds like a good policy. -- rc, 07:15:04 08/15/02 Thu
I'll try to adopt it in the future. Thanks for your POV.
[> [> a big mess -- matchng mole, 10:23:41 08/15/02 Thu
I've resisted posting on this thread and several others for quite some time, being kind of busy with the imminent onset of the fall semester and all. But this discussion dovetails too well with several others in the last week or so. Discussions of cliches, stereotypes, tropes, race, weight and self image, television, and the Hawaiian islands (I hope redcat will forgive me if I don't include all the apostrophes that I should). I may even relate some of this to BtVS and AtS.
I'll start by talking a little bit about the Hawaiian islands from a different perspective than that of rc, that of an evolutionary biologist. I should begin by saying that my direct experience of the archipelago is limited to a week in 1991 spent on Hawaii (the big island). But it was a memorable week and I've read quite a bit and listened to quite a few people talk about Hawaiian biology. The Hawaiian islands are the most isolated archipelago on earth. It is very difficult for plants and animals to get to them from elsewhere. Before the arrival of humans, immigrants from elsewhere were rare. As a result the native fauna and flora of the islands began with very few species. In the isolated, mountainous, and ever changing terrain more and more species evolved from the few hardy ancestors that made it across the ocean. Among the most spectacular and obvious to humans are/were the Hawaiian honeycreepers, a group of forest living birds. The honeycreepers include birds that resemble warblers and sparrows as well as more exotic looking species such as the I'iwi and the Akiapola'au which have long, highly curved bills. Even more spectacular in terms of number of species although less obvious to most people are the Hawaiian 'fruit' flies in the genus Drosophila. Drosophila includes the common supermarket species which are also used widely be geneticists. The group as a whole consists of between 500 and 1,000 species worldwide of which approximately half are found only in the Hawaiian islands. They include 'giant' species that are many times the size of normal fruit flies including some with ornamented wings and one species with a hammer shaped head (like the sharks). There are numerous other examples of insects, spiders, and plants in which colonists have evolved numerous species unique to the Hawaiian islands.
What's the point of all this? Several. First is that this diversity can be all around you and yet you can be blind to it. Of the six million tourists that redcat mentions I'll bet only a tiny fraction are aware of the biological uniqueness of the place they're visiting. I think that the racial blandness of a lot of TV reflects a similar phenomenon. The sidewalk may have a lot more different kinds of people on it than it used to but that may not have a very significant impact on a lot of people. I live in a community of about 100,000 people in the rural midwest of the U.S. It has a large university with over 30,000 students in the middle of it. I was quite pleasantly surprised to see how racially diverse my new home was when I arrived here. Even outside of the university community we have substantial African American and Asian populations and a small but growing Latino population. But the fact of the matter is that my day to day interactions are largely with members of my 'own race'. This isn't something that I sought out, in fact I am somewhat ashamed that I don't do more involve myself in my community. But it is a fact and I suspect that this is a very common situation among white North Americans and the vision of America that we see on television reflects that. Seeing people of other races and from other cultures at the mall or on the street is not the same as actually knowing them.
My second point is that diversity is fragile. Most of the species of Hawaiian honeycreepers are endangered or extinct. This process began with the arrival of the Polynesians (and their pigs and rats), continued with arrival of Europeans and was greatly accelerated by the deliberate and malicious introduction of malaria to the islands. The native birds had no resistance to malaria and were completely exterminated from lower elevations throughout the islands. Higher up it was too cold for mosquitoes and some of the species survived. Today the coastal areas of the Hawaiian islands (at least the wet parts) are lush and green and home to a wide variety of plants and animals. Geckos, mynahs, toads, mongeese (mongooses?), and so on. These organisms were brought here by humans, either deliberately or by accident from all over the tropics. It is an inviting and appealing place but in comparison to the remaining patches of native habitat in the mountains it is completely undistinctive. Television seems to promote the same sort of lack of distinctiveness. American television seems to overwhelmingly concentrate on white, middle class to upper middle class folks from southern California, New York and a handful of other places. The economic decision seems to be to target the portion of the audience that has the most money to spend. And the artistic decision seems to be that people want to see stories about other people that are, in some sense, idealized versions of themselves.
Maybe I'm a freak or something but what I want, from TV (and any other kind of art) is in part, a window to the world. If I travel to some remote part of the world I'm not doing it to convince myself that people are the same all over. I'm doing it largely because things (animals, plants, people, landscape) are going to be different where I'm going. Similarly an important motivation for my choosing my career as a biologist and for reading fiction is to increase my knowledge of and my appreciation for the diversity of life, human and non-human on the planet. I want to experience as much of Darwin's 'Tangled Bank' as I can. As Rahael has said, the sense of otherness in BtVS is a powerful part of its appeal. The hidden world of the Hellmouth and the fact that only a few are aware of it seems like a powerful metaphor for what I'm talking about. I think that one of my problems with season six (which I would say is my problem and not season six's) is that the internalization of the demon theme goes against my particular biases and tendency to romanticize diversity.
So how do cliches and symbols fit into all this? Well they are information directed at us, telling us how to think and to feel about events in a story or a painting or a real life situation. They are powerful and their power makes them hazardous (there's a cliche right there). In an earlier thread I mentioned the Brown Tree Snake as a species that could easily be transported to Hawaii and wreak havoc on the remaining native bird species. This is potent symbolism. Most people like birds and a lot of people don't like snakes. And speaking as someone who finds snakes in general quite beautiful I have to say that Brown Tree Snakes are not very attractive. So it is easy to think of them as evil. But the fact is that an individual BTS is just doing what most other organisms on earth are doing - trying to survive and reproduce. Its actions aren't evil but in the context of pacific islands they have very unfortunate consequences. The demons in BtVS don't have that complication. They are fictional creations which can take any form the writers want.
But in the real world and in the Whedonverse actions have consequences and words can mean more than they say. When most people think of racism they think of segregation, arpatheid, lynching, cross burning, other hate crimes. These are clearly immoral acts. Failing to think very much about people different from yourself is not a clearly immoral act but in the grand scheme of things it is probably more damaging because far more people do it. People think in cliches/symbols a lot of the time and getting past that is the most difficult thing in the world. Both the intent and the consequences of an action are important and I think in reacting both should be kept in mind.
Finally (huge sigh of relief from any audience that may be left) - There may be no right answers. With issues of race of personal self image and other things I think a lot of people really long to find a pc attitude that will satisfy everyone. They want a right answer. Often there are no right answers. Back on Hawaii conservationists are at times in conflict with elements in the native Hawaiian population (feel fre to correct any inaccuracies redcat). Pig hunting is apparently an important part of Hawaiian culture and for pig hunting you need tracts of forest with pigs in them. However the pigs do a great deal of damage to native vegetation and conservationists go to a fair amount of effort to keep pigs out of preserves and remove any pigs that get in. Both sides have laudable goals that happen to be in conflict with one another. Similarly inmy native country there has been a long standing debate about the role of one province, Quebec. The province seeks to expand its powers to protect the French language and culture. Many others feel that these powers infringe on the rights of individuals (and of other governments in Canada) to do what they think best. Despite the rhetoric I don't think there is a right or wrong answer. Just two conflicting visions.
Several months ago during a discussion of postmodernism on the board I asked why (as had been postulated) the anonymity of the internet might yield better dialogues about important issues. This seemed (and still seems) completely wrong to me but now I understand the other point of view. And I really appreciate the commentary of people like Rahael and redcat who intermingle their personal histories with their thoughts and ideas.
This is probably a huge mess but I don't have time to do anything about it. Also note that this is not a reply to any particular post but to the entire thread.
matching mole sitting in a tangled bank of his own creation
[> [> [> Re: -- aliera, 10:45:53 08/15/02 Thu
Actually I was wishing it were longer ;-)
[> [> [> [> Me too!! -- Rahael, 12:25:12 08/15/02 Thu
[> [> [> Not a mess, but a bank of tangled wonder.. -- redcat, 12:43:29 08/15/02 Thu
Great post, mm!! As usual, your intellectual clarity helps me sort out some of the tangle I seem
to have been helping to create lately. Thanks!
And BTW, you get an almost perfect "A-" for using Hawaiian diacritical markers correctly. The
"okina," the backwards apostrophe (that Voy systems apparently will not let me ever use,
leaving me to use the incorrect but still feasible regular apostrophe) represents a glottal
stop and is placed before and between vowels in certain words in which the Hawaiian dialect
of proto-Polynesian eclipses an internal vowel. Voy also won't let me post anything using the
"kahako," which is normally printed as a horizontal line over certain vowels, indicating that they
should be pronounced as "long" vowels. Not using the diacritical marks can dramatically
change the meaning of words, but all 19thC printed Hawaiian and most 20thC printed
Hawaiian up until the late 1970s did not print the diacritics, which makes translating century-old
political newspapers and chant lyrics a wonderful exercise in humility, as well as forcing those
of us who use the language to adopt a certain flexibility of style. :)
The okina is used in the word Hawai'i, for example, because the original proto-Polynesian word
was probably Hawai-iki or possibly Kawai-iki, which is the name in Marquesian Polynesian for a
mythical group of inhabitable islands somewhere to the far north of Nu'uhiwa (the Marquesas
Islands), about where Hawai'i actually is. The word "Hawaiian" uses no such okina because it
is not a Hawaiian word. It's an English one, just as "French," "Japanese" and "German" are.
The equivalent in the Hawaiian language is "Ka 'olelo makuahine o na po'e e Hawai'i nei," or
sometimes one see it as "Ka 'olelo makuahine o na po'e e keia moku," either of which takes a
lot longer to type than simply removing the okina and adding two letters to the name of the
chain (which, as you probably already know, is not really the Hawaiian name of the island
chain at all, but just the name of the first island on which a European, Captain Cook, landed.
When he asked what the name of the place was, the local fishermen said "Hawai'i," probably
meaning to distinguish it from Maui, which can be seen from the Kona coast on a clear day. I
just thank the goddess Pele they didn't say Kealakekua, which was the name of the bay in
which Cook's ship was anchored, or we'd probably have been renamed something like
Cooksland in pretty short order).
And I want to thank you for what you said about the fragility of the Hawaiian eco-system and
its extremely rare and terribly endangered indigenous and native bird, insect and plant species.
In the 37 (out of a total of 48) years that I've lived here, I've seen exactly one I'iwi
honeycreeper and never an 'Akiapola'au, even though I lived near their habitation in the
Volcano rainforest area of the Big Island for many years and often sought them out. But one
day many years ago, while I was sitting quietly in that forest chanting softly under my breath
and moving into a deep meditation, a single bird hovered over a flower growing in a tree about
30 feet from where I sat. I don't know why I opened my eyes just then, or why I looked at that
part of that particular tree, but the I'iwi's flashing red wings and elegant long curved beak
literally took my breath away. As tears began to roll down my cheeks, I shifted my chant to a
soft prayer for their survival. The Brown Tree Snakes are not their major threat, we humans
are, as we have always been. I'm very grateful that people from your country are helping
people from mine learn how to take better care of our forests.
The Native Hawaiian pig hunters and the (mostly local haole and local Hawai'i-Japanese)
environmentalists have worked out many of their difficulties since you were here in the early
1990s. Tensions still exist, of course, but both groups have realized they share similar goals
and have protection of the same precious islands and culture at stake. They are less enemies
now than colleagues, and groups from both sides often present testimony together in state and
federal land-use and zoning hearings, attempting to stop the encroachment of hotels, resorts
and golf courses into those wilderness areas that remain.
And finally, matching mole, if you and your family ever get a chance to return here, I'd love to
help host that visit. One place I'd like to take you and your wife that I think you'd really enjoy is
a remote area of O'ahu's northwest shore. Recently, state officials, Hawaiian activists and
environmentalists have joined together to protect that area of coastline because a small
number of native and indigenous plant and insect species have, against all odds, continued to
flourish there. A four-mile hiking trail through the area both restricts the potential for human
damage to those plants and allows hikers to see, even if not to touch, these rare and
endangered species. The state helped by closing off the road that used to run through the
area or rather, they simply decided not to re-build the road after it had, once again, been
washed out by a fierce ocean's winter storm. Hawaiian activists and youth groups provide the
labor to keep the area free of infestations from non-indigenous species, and trained
environmentalists help by educating the public and those Native youth groups about the plants
and the importance of protecting them. As one of the tiny fraction of visitors who actually DO
want to learn something about this place, rather than the millions who just treat it as an
expensive get-away from their regular lives, I'd love to show you and your family "my" Hawai'i,
a place of dazzling beauty and tragic loss, amazing diversity and colonialist hegemony. If you
want to immerse yourself in a tangled bank, this is surely the place to do it.
Aloha E Komo Mai Hoalauna Welcome, my friend. We have much to learn from each other.
redcat
[> [> [> [> Thanks redcat, Aliera, and Rahael -- matching mole, 14:07:06 08/15/02 Thu
for your kind words. The mess was mostly not finishing off a lot of my ideas or discussing things more in relation to Buffy/Angel.
And thanks redcat for your invitation to return to the Hawai'ian islands. We have talked about going back sometime. My wife went back for a workshop a couple of years later, developing a conservation plan for the Hawai'ian Crow (sorry I don't know its Hawai'ian name) which is where she heard about the pig hunting issue. She actually saw an 'Akiapola'au on that trip on the one day she wasn't confined to the hotel running population viabilility analyses. On our original 1991 trip we were attending a conference in Hilo and went on a couple of excursions into native forests sponsered by the meeting. I saw a couple of I'iwi but nothing quite like the experience you describe. The spot you describe sounds wonderful.
I do have a completely off topic Hawai'ian question for you. One thing that astounded me when I was getting ready for the trip was my discovery that there was no ferry service between the islands (e.g. a Maui to Hawai'i ferry). I mentioned this to someone who went there regularly to do research and she seemed equally astounded in the opposite direction (why take a boat when you can fly). It seems like a good idea to me for at least three reasons: 1) fun - I like travelling by boat a lot more than by plane, 2) cost - presumably would be cheaper allowing the economically disadvantaged more mobility, and 3) convenience - would allow you to take your car with you when travelling between islands.
Has there ever been any discussion of this?
[> [> [> [> [> of birds and barges...(but where, oh, where is Buffy?) -- redcat, 15:09:04 08/15/02 Thu
mm,
I'm so jealous, you've seen multiple I'iwi and your wife an 'Akiapola'au!! You're very lucky. The crow is probably the 'Alala.
There is a cargo barge service between the islands, but it's actually very expensive and one usually uses it only when moving from one island to another and the car is part of a load of household goods. A single car might cost between $300-$500 to move between Maui and Hawai'i Island. Cars more generally move between the islands when an O'ahu car dealer ships a bunch of cars and trucks to an outer island. This happens only once a year for the people at Kalaupapa, Moloka'i, for example. They call it "Boat Day" since *everything* they get from the outside world comes on that one barge. They throw a huge lu'au at the dock and everyone from the valley helps unload, then feasts on pig, poi and beer fresh off the boat. From Honolulu to Kaua'i, Maui, Kona or Hilo, car/truck cargo barges usually come only 3-4 times a year, although there are weekly or bi-weekly cargo barges for the smaller stuff. There are always great sales at the dealerships the week before the "car-barge" comes! [Completely off-topic side note: You should SEE the lines of folks waiting for the off-loading of the one -- and only one -- shipload of Christmas trees that come in early December every year. Families put their orders in months in advance, 'cause when the trees are gone, they're gone. Living on islands is very different than living on continents.]
And a commuter hydrofoil ferry service was attempted once (I think about ten years ago, but it might have been in the late-80's?) between O'ahu and Maui, the two most populous islands. The problem is that the route from Lahaina to Honolulu must traverse either the conjunction where the Pailolo and the 'Au'au Channels smash into one another, which is **extremely** rough water, OR go south around Lana'i Island and cross sideways to the current of the Keala I Kahiki Channel, after which you immediately get dumped out right into the worst part of the currents of the outside half of the Kaiwi Channel before you can come into Honolulu or Pearl Harbors. The ride was so rough that the hydrafoil company lost a HUGE amount of money. Word of mouth spread pretty rapidly that the trip, which, depending on ocean conditions, could take up to an hour and a half, was likely to require large amounts of Dramamine. A plane takes about 27 minutes and there are about 40 flights a day between the two local airlines. Even the inter-island barge service tacks on an extra charge for dealing with the rough water between Maui and the Big Island. The 'Alenuihaha Channel between those islands is the deepest channel between any two inhabited islands in the world (I think it goes down about 14 miles) and the water leaving and entering it is exceptionally rough. Takes the barge about 4 days to traverse Honolulu to Lahaina or Lihu'e, maybe 5 or 6 to Kona, and a week to Hilo.
And to think, Native Hawaiians, both men and women, used to regularly SURF between the islands -- sometimes a distance of over a hundred miles of open, rough water -- just to visit friends and family. And they did it on hardwood surfboards that weighed about 60 pounds and didn't have nylon leashes...
BTW, apropos of a different thread, "Blue Crush" was filmed mostly on O'ahu's North Shore. The filming crew caused an even bigger tie-up in the traffic than is usual out there during big surf, but the local "vibe" was that they had actually been pretty polite and shared waves with the local surfers, and were respectful of the 'aina and the people. It may not be the most "feminist" film out there, but at least they acted better towards the place they were filming than most movie crews do here.
[[PS - "Hawaiian" doesn't need the okina, only "Hawai'i" does. Sorry my post was so confusing on this issue!]]
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: of birds and barges...(but where, oh, where is Buffy?) -- Cleanthes, 22:24:40 08/15/02 Thu
The 'Alenuihaha Channel between those islands is the deepest channel between any two inhabited islands in the world (I think it goes down about 14 miles) and the water leaving and entering it is exceptionally rough.
I'm guessing this "14 miles" down is hyperbole? The Mariana Trench (near Guam) is the deepest water on earth and is 35,799 feet (10,991 m) deep. That's a bit less than 6.8 miles deep.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Like Joss, I suck at real math (but I'm good at demography & dates, do they count?) -- rc, 05:40:00 08/16/02 Fri
You're absolutely right, of course. Don't know why that 14 mile figure got stuck in my brain, but it's been summarily booted now, thanks. The Alenuihaha Channel is 6810 feet/2076 meters or about 1.3 miles deep (yeah, goggle!). Doesn't make it any smoother to cross, which I've done on small boats twice, but will (please, dear goddess, please) never do again.
[> [> [> Thank you, redcat and matching mole, for your wonderful posts.. -- Raccoon, 17:11:20 08/15/02 Thu
[> Re: has Joss visited his local sidewalk lately? -- skpe, 07:01:59 08/14/02 Wed
I would like to respectfully offer a contrary view. I think that as a 'white' man the only cast that joss would be allowed to tell his stories the way he wants to tell them
is an all 'white' one. Were he to treat a member of a 'significant minority' the way the characters in S6 have been treated would bring howls of 'racial insensitivity' and ' cultural stereotyping'. just look at the W/T controversy and tell me I am wrong.
[> [> W/T and politics of representation -- can I be Anne?, 14:06:17 08/14/02 Wed
Consider if Warren were played by a black actor. He would be the only black person on BTVS at that moment. He would also reflect the nasty stereotype of the lustful and predatory black man who preys on white women. I think many fans would be up in arms. As it is, we aren't because white guys on tv outnumber black guys on tv by about 75 to 1 and Warrens behavior this past season reflects on nobody but himself. He doesn't have a responsibility to his group like he would if he were the only one on the show or one of a few in all of television.
Likewise Willow and Tara were the only lesbian couple represented on television. If there were other lesbians on the showand other minorities, each one they give us wouldn't be saddled with the responsibility of representation. As it is, they can have minorities who are not cardboard cliches(Forrest from S4 or Carla from Scrubs) There is no controversy and the fans are happy.
[> [> Re: has Joss visited his local sidewalk lately? -- yabyumpan, 14:54:41 08/14/02 Wed
I'm not going to join in the discussion, living in the UK I don't think I can comment on racial issues in the US but I recomend this very funny piece of fiction. It's a parody of how black men are portrayed in popular TV shows, including Gunn.
http://www.thechicagoloop.net/yahtzee/chivalry/Chivfic/LCBlues.htm
OT Question w/ Xena Spoiler. Warning: Rob- Do Not Read!! -- Wisewoman, 16:45:05 08/13/02 Tue
I so do not want to get into the dead-evil-lesbian cliche thing again but I have a question and hopefully someone will be able to answer it quickly and we won't drive Rob insane!
I never watched Xena, Warrior Princess, but I have read that the implication was that she was involved in a lesbian relationship with another character (Gabrielle?). Then I heard the when the series ended Xena was decapitated and died (doh! well of course she died!).
So, this is my question: did the writers/directors/producers of Xena face the same kind of audience backlash that Joss and ME did when they killed off a lesbian character? If not, why not?
;o) Wisewoman--Hi Darby! I'm old, I forget too...
[> Oh, believe me, yes. -- HonorH, 17:34:43 08/13/02 Tue
Actually, they were reamed to shreds. Gabrielle and Xena's relationship was never "official" in its sexuality, but the subtext ran thick. When they killed Xena off, the fan backlash was furious. But then, many Xena fans had been in hate with the producers since mid-third season, so one wonders if TPTB-Xena could have done anything to remedy the situation. All I know is, they only managed to make it worse.
[> [> Thanks, Honor! ;o) -- dubdub, 19:55:13 08/13/02 Tue
[> [> Re: Oh, believe me, yes. -- Robert, 00:54:15 08/14/02 Wed
>> "But then, many Xena fans had been in hate with the producers since mid-third season, ..."
HonorH, can you tell me why? I fell away from watching Xena at about this point, but I am most curious why the fans would hate the producers.
[> [> [> Re: Oh, believe me, yes. -- HonorH, 17:56:27 08/14/02 Wed
A lot of fans felt that the "Rift" arc was handled poorly and didn't take well to Xena's physical abuse of Gabrielle in "The Bitter Suite." They also felt that the producers were trying to have it every way--string along the lesbian fans with the occasional subtext while never committing to a romantic relationship between the two leads. I watched until the fifth season, when I felt the show had really gone astray--for instance, Xena's mysterious pregnancy and equally mysterious child were treated as automatically good, with no mention being made of Gabrielle's mystery pregnancy/child. Continuity pretty much went out the window, too. It was too distracting, so I quit watching.
[> [> [> [> Re: Oh, believe me, yes. -- Rob, 22:21:02 08/14/02 Wed
That's something I always disagreed with. My favorite season is the third, and my favorite part was the Rift, which I thought was the first time the characters were really developed to their highest potential. And I've had thousands of arguments with people at "Xena" sites over this, so I really don't want to get into that...but the abuse of Gab at the beginning of "Bitter Suite" was shocking. But that was the point. Gabrielle, Xena's best friend, the person who keeps her sane, betrayed her, resulting in the death of Xena's son. Xena basically flipped out and returned to her old, former evil ways...for a short time that is. And that was why she treated Gabrielle that way. And while the abuse wasn't warranted, one could argue that Xena's reasoning behind it was. Gabrielle did lie to her; that lie did lead Xena's son, Solon, to be killed. If I remember correctly, Gabrielle even left Hope (her demon daughter) with Solon in the first place; moments later Hope killed him. So, to make a long story short, or long argument short, or whatever...I always became annoyed with the fans who trashed the show every time Xena and Gab's relationship didn't go their way. The fact was that these were two very different women from very different backgrounds with very different idealogies...this Rift basically had to happen, or a whole mess of unspoken emotion would have continued on and possibly caused trouble later. I don't think Xena and Gab have to be always lovey-dovey. I'm glad the writers put in the Rift, and I'm also glad that it lasted for the majority of the season (and its effects were seen even years later). It wasn't a one-episode argument where everything's better at the end. It took months for full healing, much like Buffy's depression this year.
Rob
[> [> I wonder why all the fuss. -- Cactus Watcher, 06:18:20 08/14/02 Wed
I only watched Xena the first few years, because it got to be repetitive,