Kitten Night Farts

A new comic is up at The Nib.

The question should be “Why do you write seemingly strong women and then punish them for that strength?” I see a lot of characters in this set who got shit on by Joss not to mention at least one actress he fired for the crime of getting pregnant.

A friend of mine likes to challenge “Joss Whedon, Feminist” acolytes to name a female character on Buffy who doesn’t die or go crazy.

I feel like this game could be expanded to find lead female characters who don’t die, go crazy, or lose a loved one in a gruesome way as part of their suffering. Bonus points if they get to the end without anyone threatening to rape them or trying to rape them. There has to be at least one right?

If we include those, we may as well be playing bingo. Joss Whedon’s female characters’ punishments: collect them all!

Who gets mind wiped? Who gets beaten? Who watches everything she ever loved burn? It’s a game for all ages! Bonus points for the ones who die without ever having gotten to live!

I might have feelings about Kendra. A lot of them.

Goddamit, and now I feel compelled to do an actual tally of his original female characters, albeit offhand and from memory. So:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy - two deaths, one rape threat, one attempted rape, two sexual assaults, one dead parent.

Willow - one rape threat, two breaks with sanity, one dead girlfriend.

Cordelia - damselled about a billion times, one attempted forced marriage.

Anya -  one rape threat, dead.

Tara - dead.

Kendra - dead.

Faith - multiple breaks with sanity.

Ms Calender - dead.

Joyce - dead.

Dawn - one attempted forced marriage, one dead parent.

Darla - dead.

Drusilla - multiple breaks with sanity.

[I don’t know enough about angel, I cut this part]

Firefly

Kaylee - one rape threat.

River - multiple breaks with sanity.

Zoe - one dead husband.

Inara - one threat of sexual assault.

[I don’t know enough about doll house, I cut this part]

I should probably leave this hornet’s nest alone.  But I’m pissed off right now, because today I learned people think Joss Whedon is sexist for putting his female characters through the wringer.

As if a fundamental part of the hero’s journey isn’t suffering, having loved ones die, or dying themselves.  As if he doesn’t do that to EVERYONE he writes.  Here are some of his male characters’ trials, in the same form as above (and this is just the stuff I remember off the top of my head):

And what do I see when I look at the female characters listed above?

For fuck’s sake.  It’s supernatural genre television, not tiptoeing through fields of daisies.  People will die.  People will be threatened.  Sometimes it will happen as a plot device.  If you write a lot of female characters (I saw something earlier like the percentage of women in primetime shows is like 17%, which Whedon obviously blows out of the water), a lot of them are going to have horrible things happen to them.

But what Whedon does that’s so different from most is he writes female characters as people.  He doesn’t portray stereotypical femininity and strength as mutually exclusive.  He shows that physical strength isn’t the only “real” strength they can have.  He gives them diverse personalities and shows how they’re all powerful and weak in their own way.  He lets them grow and evolve organically.  He lets them be compelling villains.  He lets them be sympathetic victims.  He lets them be fearless warriors for good.  Sometimes all three.  He lets them make horrible mistakes and successfully atone for them.  He shows them suffering for plot-related reasons, doesn’t shy away from the after-effects (versus, say, Deanna Troi in TNG - so much of the stuff that happened to her was gratuitous) and shows them getting back up.

Also, don’t you dare pretend Joyce’s death can be reduced to part of some anti-feminist pattern (for three separate characters, no less.  And the fact that Buffy even had a parent in the first place is unusual for the hero archetype).  That kind of thing actually happens in the real world, it was handled with incredible sensitivity and realism, and watching Buffy and Dawn go through the grieving process is something many people relate to intensely.  It’s fantastic writing.  It’s good conflict.  It’s good television.

If anyone is writing off Joss’ female characters, it’s you.  It’s the people who act like these characters are little more than a list of tragic and biased casualties, and fuck everything else they accomplish.

^*slow claps it out*

Oh my God.

Thank you. I have been told a million times that Joss is anti-feminist and every time I’ve tried to argue against that but I haven’t been able to do it this magnificently.

So, why do you write these strong female characters?

Because you’re still asking me that question.  - Joss Whedon [x]

The question should be “Why do you write seemingly strong women and then punish them for that strength?” I see a lot of characters in this set who got shit on by Joss not to mention at least one actress he fired for the crime of getting pregnant.

A friend of mine likes to challenge “Joss Whedon, Feminist” acolytes to name a female character on Buffy who doesn’t die or go crazy.

I feel like this game could be expanded to find lead female characters who don’t die, go crazy, or lose a loved one in a gruesome way as part of their suffering. Bonus points if they get to the end without anyone threatening to rape them or trying to rape them. There has to be at least one right?

If we include those, we may as well be playing bingo. Joss Whedon’s female characters’ punishments: collect them all!

Who gets mind wiped? Who gets beaten? Who watches everything she ever loved burn? It’s a game for all ages! Bonus points for the ones who die without ever having gotten to live!

I might have feelings about Kendra. A lot of them.

Goddamit, and now I feel compelled to do an actual tally of his original female characters, albeit offhand and from memory. So:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy - two deaths, one rape threat, one attempted rape, two sexual assaults, one dead parent.

Willow - one rape threat, two breaks with sanity, one dead girlfriend.

Cordelia - damselled about a billion times, one attempted forced marriage.

Anya -  one rape threat, dead.

Tara - dead.

Kendra - dead.

Faith - multiple breaks with sanity.

Ms Calender - dead.

Joyce - dead.

Dawn - one attempted forced marriage, one dead parent.

Darla - dead.

Drusilla - multiple breaks with sanity.

[I don’t know enough about angel, I cut this part]

Firefly

Kaylee - one rape threat.

River - multiple breaks with sanity.

Zoe - one dead husband.

Inara - one threat of sexual assault.

[I don’t know enough about doll house, I cut this part]

I should probably leave this hornet’s nest alone.  But I’m pissed off right now, because today I learned people think Joss Whedon is sexist for putting his female characters through the wringer.

As if a fundamental part of the hero’s journey isn’t suffering, having loved ones die, or dying themselves.  As if he doesn’t do that to EVERYONE he writes.  Here are some of his male characters’ trials, in the same form as above (and this is just the stuff I remember off the top of my head):

And what do I see when I look at the female characters listed above?

For fuck’s sake.  It’s supernatural genre television, not tiptoeing through fields of daisies.  People will die.  People will be threatened.  Sometimes it will happen as a plot device.  If you write a lot of female characters (I saw something earlier like the percentage of women in primetime shows is like 17%, which Whedon obviously blows out of the water), a lot of them are going to have horrible things happen to them.

But what Whedon does that’s so different from most is he writes female characters as people.  He doesn’t portray stereotypical femininity and strength as mutually exclusive.  He shows that physical strength isn’t the only “real” strength they can have.  He gives them diverse personalities and shows how they’re all powerful and weak in their own way.  He lets them grow and evolve organically.  He lets them be compelling villains.  He lets them be sympathetic victims.  He lets them be fearless warriors for good.  Sometimes all three.  He lets them make horrible mistakes and successfully atone for them.  He shows them suffering for plot-related reasons, doesn’t shy away from the after-effects (versus, say, Deanna Troi in TNG - so much of the stuff that happened to her was gratuitous) and shows them getting back up.

Also, don’t you dare pretend Joyce’s death can be reduced to part of some anti-feminist pattern (for three separate characters, no less.  And the fact that Buffy even had a parent in the first place is unusual for the hero archetype).  That kind of thing actually happens in the real world, it was handled with incredible sensitivity and realism, and watching Buffy and Dawn go through the grieving process is something many people relate to intensely.  It’s fantastic writing.  It’s good conflict.  It’s good television.

If anyone is writing off Joss’ female characters, it’s you.  It’s the people who act like these characters are little more than a list of tragic and biased casualties, and fuck everything else they accomplish.

^*slow claps it out*

Oh my God.

Thank you. I have been told a million times that Joss is anti-feminist and every time I’ve tried to argue against that but I haven’t been able to do it this magnificently.