"It's an ancient sacred text, not a magic 8 ball."
(Wes, To Shanshu in L.A.)
Back in December 2002, I used the public 8 ball to predict the end of Buffy with startling correctness. Buffy did get better, the outlook for Spike was not good and it was too soon to tell if Spike would Shanshu.
The magic 8-ball site is not behaving this year, so instead I took my test to Bob.
I asked "will Spike become a real boy?"
Bob said "as I see it, yes"
(see screen grab)
"will Angel season 5 get any better?"
"Most likely"
(see screen grab)
"will Spike die?"
"better not tell you now"
(see screen grab)
"will Angel be the vampire to shanshu?"
"my reply is no"
(see screen grab)
"is it the end of the world as we know it?"
"you may rely on it"
(see screen grab)
Now to wait to compare Bob's accuracy against the 8-ball's...
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Friday, April 09, 2004
It's my boys. I haven't had this many big, strapping men at my bedside since that night with the varsity lacrosse team.
Fred, Hole in the World
I mentioned before that Angel is a boyz show to Buffy’s grrls. When I was writing that I couldn't immediately find any good articles delineating what I meant.
It’s relatively easy to suggest Buffy is a result of the riotgrrl movements of the early 90s. The series depicts female characters who transcend the cultural gender roles imposed upon them. Each stereotype is shaded with unexpected subtleties and nuances. The popular cheerleader admits that she is lonely in her airbrushed, shallow bubble. The petite blonde girl slays monsters. The geeky girl smashes a demon in the face with a fire extinguisher. The last image seems obvious now, having seen Willow’s multiple transmogrifications, but the first time I saw it, back in 1998, I yelled with delight. The outcast girl wasn’t going to be victimised and rescued by heroes: she was going to fight. There’s no question that all the female characters are punished at some point for their refusal to conform to cliché, and that sometimes the show itself tries a little too hard (I still have issues with Beauty and the Beasts all this time later). It’s also quite easy to google up a lot of stuff about Buffy and feminism.
So why is there relatively little on Angel and constructions of masculinity? Why do I refer to it as a boyz show?
It’s not just that it is named after the male lead, just as Buffy was named after the female lead, although that does play into the notion of male/female series. It’s not even that there are always more male regulars than there are women (again, the opposite of the XX-heavy Buffy). It’s that the series toys with male gender definition. Angel himself is always seeking a role, a title through which he can define himself. It almost doesn’t matter what that role is, so long as it’s clearcut. He doesn’t care if he’s a hero, a villain, a father, a human or a champion, just so long as he can have definition. The male characters start off with clearly defined roles. Wesley was a Watcher: stripped of that he loses his way and tries to be something else (Rogue Demon Hunter). Joining forces with Angel enables him to have a position, a definition. Likewise Gunn knew what he was, until Alanna destroyed his security. He currently admits that he loves being a suit because it gives him an identity – it makes him someone, a person with a role and function in life.
In contrast to the Buffy women, the boyz of Angel struggle when their function is made fluid. Cordelia, a character whose role underwent radical overhauls whilst she was at Sunnydale, accepts the shifting pattern of her identity and moves onwards, secure in herself. Spike likewise accepts that he is both William and Spike, champion and villain. Angel doesn’t. Each time he encounters someone with a similar role as his own, he feels diminished, threatened. It’s there in his dislike of Groo (the stereotype of a hero) and his problem with Spike as illustrated in Soul Purpose (although obviously they have a much deeper problem of just disliking each other intensely). It's with his issues with Holtz and Connor's relationship. It’s in his “I did it first. The whole ‘having a soul thing',” whine at Buffy.
Angel is about the quest for a male identity in a feminine world. The most disruptive and chaotic influences to enter their worlds are women. It is a woman that made Angel, even down to renaming Liam Angelus. It is the same woman who makes him a father, forcing him into a definition connected with another instead of a solo one. It is another woman, Faith, who was responsible for Wesley’s expulsion from the Watcher’s Council and who eventually restores his belief in himself as a Watcher in deed if not in official title. It is a woman who plots Angel Investigations' downfall and turns Wesley into Wes. It is apparently Cordelia who births Jasmine, causing the final collapse of Connor. There are male antagonists, Lindsey and Holtz, but these help provide definition through adversary not destroy it through complicity.
I used to see all this as a parallel and complementary aspect between Buffy and Angel, hence my use of ‘boyz’ to suggest something of modern male identity formation (i.e. taking something from gay notions of gender identity and sexuality). It is only with the destruction of yet another grrl who was one of the boyz that I am starting to wonder if there is something more reactionary at work.
Fred, Hole in the World
I mentioned before that Angel is a boyz show to Buffy’s grrls. When I was writing that I couldn't immediately find any good articles delineating what I meant.
It’s relatively easy to suggest Buffy is a result of the riotgrrl movements of the early 90s. The series depicts female characters who transcend the cultural gender roles imposed upon them. Each stereotype is shaded with unexpected subtleties and nuances. The popular cheerleader admits that she is lonely in her airbrushed, shallow bubble. The petite blonde girl slays monsters. The geeky girl smashes a demon in the face with a fire extinguisher. The last image seems obvious now, having seen Willow’s multiple transmogrifications, but the first time I saw it, back in 1998, I yelled with delight. The outcast girl wasn’t going to be victimised and rescued by heroes: she was going to fight. There’s no question that all the female characters are punished at some point for their refusal to conform to cliché, and that sometimes the show itself tries a little too hard (I still have issues with Beauty and the Beasts all this time later). It’s also quite easy to google up a lot of stuff about Buffy and feminism.
So why is there relatively little on Angel and constructions of masculinity? Why do I refer to it as a boyz show?
It’s not just that it is named after the male lead, just as Buffy was named after the female lead, although that does play into the notion of male/female series. It’s not even that there are always more male regulars than there are women (again, the opposite of the XX-heavy Buffy). It’s that the series toys with male gender definition. Angel himself is always seeking a role, a title through which he can define himself. It almost doesn’t matter what that role is, so long as it’s clearcut. He doesn’t care if he’s a hero, a villain, a father, a human or a champion, just so long as he can have definition. The male characters start off with clearly defined roles. Wesley was a Watcher: stripped of that he loses his way and tries to be something else (Rogue Demon Hunter). Joining forces with Angel enables him to have a position, a definition. Likewise Gunn knew what he was, until Alanna destroyed his security. He currently admits that he loves being a suit because it gives him an identity – it makes him someone, a person with a role and function in life.
In contrast to the Buffy women, the boyz of Angel struggle when their function is made fluid. Cordelia, a character whose role underwent radical overhauls whilst she was at Sunnydale, accepts the shifting pattern of her identity and moves onwards, secure in herself. Spike likewise accepts that he is both William and Spike, champion and villain. Angel doesn’t. Each time he encounters someone with a similar role as his own, he feels diminished, threatened. It’s there in his dislike of Groo (the stereotype of a hero) and his problem with Spike as illustrated in Soul Purpose (although obviously they have a much deeper problem of just disliking each other intensely). It's with his issues with Holtz and Connor's relationship. It’s in his “I did it first. The whole ‘having a soul thing',” whine at Buffy.
Angel is about the quest for a male identity in a feminine world. The most disruptive and chaotic influences to enter their worlds are women. It is a woman that made Angel, even down to renaming Liam Angelus. It is the same woman who makes him a father, forcing him into a definition connected with another instead of a solo one. It is another woman, Faith, who was responsible for Wesley’s expulsion from the Watcher’s Council and who eventually restores his belief in himself as a Watcher in deed if not in official title. It is a woman who plots Angel Investigations' downfall and turns Wesley into Wes. It is apparently Cordelia who births Jasmine, causing the final collapse of Connor. There are male antagonists, Lindsey and Holtz, but these help provide definition through adversary not destroy it through complicity.
I used to see all this as a parallel and complementary aspect between Buffy and Angel, hence my use of ‘boyz’ to suggest something of modern male identity formation (i.e. taking something from gay notions of gender identity and sexuality). It is only with the destruction of yet another grrl who was one of the boyz that I am starting to wonder if there is something more reactionary at work.
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