Tag: BTVS

blairhumphrey:

#buffy summers isn’t having any of this patriarchy bullshit #not the ignorant pervy high school jocks or the misogynistic internet nerds #and definitely not the old men who try to control what she does with her powers #she’s gonna kick ass and she’s gonna do it in her pink frilly halter top #and no she does not give a shit if any of that makes a man uncomfortable or insecure #she’s too busy with the apocalypse to worry about your inferiority complex #the gloriousness of buffy summers :’) (via packageofgirlyevil)

buffytags:

themarywidow:

#this show took some turns down some suspect alleys along the way but #as manifestos go the ‘shared power’ theme running through this scene TAKES SOME F*CKING BEATNG #a giant ‘screw you’ to the Batman-esque Saviour complex running though most dude-focussed superhero franchises #’it’s me and only me who must save the helpless!’ vs ‘HERE TAKE THIS – AND USE IT TO SAVE YOURSELF AND OTHERS’ #you don’t hide power and hoard power and swoop in to impose your power on others to ‘save’ them #you share it #you teach it #’are you ready to be strong?’ #[i’m not crying YOU’RE crying] (via harrietvane)

#THIS WAS THE CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT OF ALL SEVEN SEASONS #THIS MOMENT RIGHT HERE #i fucking WAITED for my hogwarts letter #but when i saw this #i was like ‘fuck. I COULD BE A SLAYER’ #ugly empowered weeping

deliverusfromsburb:

espressonist:

deliverusfromsburb:

Haha, I saw someone commenting about how the ‘test’ the watchers give Buffy when she’s depowered is super unfair and rigged and it’s like, yep that’s the point.

Why would they intentionally sabotage the Slayer once she hits eighteen and throw her into a death trap? Because past 18 she’s less likely to follow orders.

That is an interesting point…
But at that point, hadnt she died already and there was Kendra and , subsequently Faith?

So even if she died- it wouldn’t have activated a new slayer, Faith would have to die for that to happen..

That makes her even more disposable (particularly since I don’t think Faith had turned nefarious yet.) Get rid of the spare rebellious one. Particularly since she was noted for being really bad at following the Watchers’ orders. 

Little did they know that Faith was going to get worse.

muchbuffy:

BtVS:

“In every generation one slayer is born. Because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule.”

Yes. A bunch of men enslaved endless generations of young women to do their bidding. Young women, because they’re seen as impressionable and easy to control. Forced to fight humanity’s fight, be destined to die young, and live a horrible life.

Then the men turned into watchers, other powerful men put in place to maintain control over the enslaved women…

But this is where things get a bit more complicated.
Because it was an oppressive system put in place to fight another oppressive system.

Let’s start with the types of evil a slayer fight.
Mostly the demons and vampires are metaphors of sexism in today’s society. Such as men using their physical strength to establish power in a multitude of ways. To be dominant by being typically masculine.

Now lets take a moment to think about a slayers powers. The first and biggest one being the added physical strength, which is seen as a masculine trait. This puts a slayer on even grounds as most evils in a physical fight. But isn’t this fighting fire with fire? Yes. And this is where Buffy Summers come in.

BtVS is a very feminist driven show. But I feel like a lot of people completely missed the point of Why.
It’s not cause Buffy is a women with superpowers, in fact this is an oppressive aspect in a lot of ways. It’s how she uses them that’s empowering.

Buffy is unapologetically girly. Not just her appearance and the way she speaks, but her behavior. She lets her emotions rule her, she sees them as a total asset and not as a weakness.

But these things don’t get any respect. If you’re girly, you’re an airhead. If you’re emotional, you’re irrational. Being feminine is one of the most shameful things you can be according to society. If you want to shame a man, put him in a dress.
Feminism is a lot of things. But part of it is destroying the idea that you’re less worthy of respect due to your feminine traits.
And Buffy Summers takes this idea and crushes it under her stylish yet affordable boots.

There is a big war of emotion vs logic in the Buffyverse. And at the end of the day emotion always wins. Which isn’t just beautiful, it’s feminine.

The council have for thousands of years pushed logic logic logic on their slayers to maintain control over them.
It’s a cold and inhumane way to look at the world. But yet it’s viewed as the correct and respectable choice in most life situations.
This world teaches you to push your empathy aside when it’s one of the most important attributes any human can have.
So while it’s extremely satisfying to see our short and girly Buffy kick big evil butts, the emotional aspect of it don’t get enough recognition. In fact it’s often seen as silly. Isn’t it strange that having a strong moral compass is seen as silly?

Everything around Buffy is trying to control her. Trying to make her feel like she’s supposed to fall in line and push down her feminine and empathic traits. The vampires/demons, the council, the knights of byzantium, evil hell gods, principal snyder, even her friends.
It takes a lot to stand up and fight back. To take charge, stand tall, and demand respect. Especially when you’re a woman, because we’re expected to be submissive and apologetic. The fact that Buffy demands authority continuously without compromising her feminine personality is something to truly admire. And it’s truly rebellious due to social standards and gender roles. It’s also something I believe a lot of us wish we had the courage to do in our own lives.

A slayer is such an interesting thing…
A slayer is a feminist. Created and leashed by misogynistic men in order to fight patriarchy. Not enough to overrule it, of course. But enough to keep it from ending the world, while still being the more powerful force.

Buffy Summers takes this leash, burns it, and turns a vision of Chosen Many into reality. This is the uprising of the feminist movement in the Buffyverse. 

“There is only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil, and that’s us.”

… 

Then in the comics: The slayers end up getting negative associations and a bad reputation. Sounds eerie familiar doesn’t it?

watchers council: the slayer should have no one in her life besides her watcher, a secret identity and nothing to distract her from her destiny
watchers council: but we’re also not gonna pay her so she’ll have to juggle some odd job to survive financially while trying to rid the world of evil
watchers council: we’ll pay her watcher tho ofc

darklabrynth:

buffyconfessions:

What still baffles me to this day is the fact that
Buffy never got paid. Her being a slayer and also having to manage school and a
social life was always such an issue, and even later on it was heavy expected
for her to focus solely on slaying and in season 6 having a job ON TOP of
everything else hindered that, if though she needed a job to survive. Giles was
paid by the watchers council why wasn’t Buffy?

Because the Watcher’s Council thought they owned her. And you don’t pay something you own. As far as they were concerned, they created her, and she belonged to them. She was no more than property.

carry-on-my-wayward-wesley:

No but guys.

I just had a really horrible thought.

Kendra said she left her family before she was old enough to even remember them. If we assume that’s a pretty common thing for Potential Slayers, then think about what lengths the Watchers Council might’ve gone to in order to get ahold of Potentials.

Like, imagine the parents trying to resist having their child taken away, and the Council using a memory spell on them to make them forget they even had a child. Or if it was an immigrant family, picture the Council threatening them with deportation to ensure their silence. That absolutely seems like something they would do.