In Buffy the vampire slayer vampiricism is a malicious force that can take over anyone, corrupt them, and cause them to turn on their friends. Xander and Willow's best friend Jessie has this happen to him. The question is what does this monstrousness map to in the “real” world. One likely example is that vampiricicism is a metaphor for older men preying on younger girls. The major characters are mostly teenagers, and all of the villains are ancient vampires that the hero can identify due to out of date fashions. They're trying to fit in with high school students, going to dance clubs with High School sophomores (the main cast) while they (the vampires) are much to old to be socializing with that age group. They then try to lure the young girls outside the club to metaphorically rape them. The leader of the vampires is the oldest and the most vile looking creature who is seeking a chance to go out into the world and take what is his.
Giles is not a problem because he accepts his proper place with the “scoobies”, his role as guardian and father figure. He also has romantic interests with age appropriate women (Jenny Carpenter and briefly Buffy's mother).
Jessie is an interesting case because he was one of the gang until he turned. This clearly symbolizes his growing sexual experience and how after he lost his innocence he was no longer one of the group.
Buffy seems to clearly take the stance that it is wrong for teenagers to have sex before senior year of high school. In later episodes Buffy having sex in her junior year turns out badly. Xander doesn't have a meaningful sexual relationship until his senior year. And Willow and Oz wait till their senior year to make sure they are both ready.
I agree with your claim that the show has a very strong sexual undertone. Adhering to the widely circulated descriptions of the innocent victim, Buffy is presented as a young, blonde, high school student. However though in appearance she certainly encompasses the stereotypical popular blonde, this was entirely intentional as Wheton states that he wanted to crush the pattern of "the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed in every horror movie." As such, though she seemingly embodies the role of the victim, her behavior is in direct defiance with the stereotypical role. After watching the show, I could not help but think back to Winnubst's article and her claim that "there is a recurring dream, a nightmare... of power, violation and purity, of strict and rigid and obsessive fascination with boundaries." Buffy though portrayed as a white female, something Winnubst argues is "designated as the most highly cathected target of "raced" male violence," also symbolizes the interaction of power and purity.
ReplyDeleteConversely, the vampires in Buffy tend to perpetuate the stereotypes of a vampire's appearance and behavior. Indeed, most popular vampire stories have long included significant sexual/erotic undertones and as such, Whedon includes these ideas. However, after rereading Winnubst's article I can't help but think back to her claim that the white male is "the unmarked body." This may be a bit far fetched, but I wonder if this applies to the role that vampires play in our society. If the white man is the "unmarked body," "the protector," then his violation of his dependent, women, or the white woman, seems an unthinkable offense and warrants his removal from the invisible, natural state of white men. Instead of reevaluating the role of white men and society and assigning them a visible role, it almost makes it easier to simply banish the white men that violate the rules and label them as vampires. Thus their actions can no longer reflect on the white men. The violators are thus thrown out of their group, allowing white men to continue operating under the premise that they are the natural, invisible group.
I agree with your point, but wouldn’t limit it to only older men. Younger men also play a part in this behavior (ex. When Jesse returns to the club after becoming a vampire he comes back as a more sexually threatening character, but he is the same age as Cordelia. The date rape overtones are very strong here, especially when he is about to bite her. She is thrown down to the ground and he assumes a threatening position over her. There is nothing subtle about this.)….and don’t forget the female vampire who preys on Jesse in the first place. Clearly this is not just an “older man” phenomenon. Piggybacking on the idea that Buffy’s monsters are stand-ins for adolescent social issues, the sexual undertones are not surprising. What surprises me is that they are so overwhelmingly pro-abstinence. (Don’t get me wrong, I agree with this and support it. I’m just surprised.) I also like the fact that they chose to broach the subject of sexual predators because it is (sadly) very pertinent to the lives of adolescents( and others). By casting these predators as “monsters”, by showing the teenage viewer what a sexual predator looks like (minus the vampire makeup) , it allows for (as Asma suggests) mental role playing that could conceivably help an adolescent recognize one in real life. I agree that Giles does not fit into the group of older men preying on adolescents…but both my husband and I noticed that there were times when he was uncomfortably close to Willow and Buffy. I doubt anything was meant by this. We just noticed it.
ReplyDeleteNice conversation. A few things you might want to consider.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the idea of the naturalized and invisible white male body, and emelnitchenko's idea of ejection from the "in" group is great. Of course, you could turn this on its head, and argue that the show is positing that the demon already resides within each individual in culture (particularly since it is later revealed that Buffy's superpowers partly devolve from having her being impregnated by a "demonic essence"). Complicity in this naturalization is one possible interpretation at stake--vulnerability as the primary problem of mortality, which connects to complicity in the power of the "unmarked" white man as the price you pay to be fully human. The vampire as the unmarked white man revealed--something monstrous, but also something that all of *us* are capable of becoming. After all, the first vampire we see in the series is also a white blonde female. This starts to edge towards a queer reading, because it allows for the fact that not all rapists are men, not all are white, and not all are ultimately recognizable as a potential rapist even if they bear the hallmarks (as we see with Buffy's relationship with Angel later in the series).
In addition, there is in fact an attempted rape in the series. Buffy later dates a vampire named Spike, who does not have a soul, but has ceased vampiric activities and helps the "scoobies". He attempts to assault her one night when she is particularly beaten up from a battle, and she (of course) manages to fight him off, after which he leaves to recover his soul. The fact that an attempted rape is depicted in the series, in spite of the fact that there is already an easy metaphor built into the supernatural aspect of the show, angered a lot of fans.
Now, throw this against other moments in the show (when Buffy has a one night stand with a human, when Buffy's human boyfriend is going to vampire brothels to be fed upon), and you can see the way the series as a whole subverts the desire to find a recognizable monster.