And Now, A Rant.
And what will this rant be about? Well, nothing particularly timely or relevant, so if you were hoping for that, I am sorry to disappoint. But I've been telling mildmay that I'd rant about this for a while now, and it really is pretty annoying, so timely or not, why not go with it?
The subject of this diatribe?
Xander
As in, that character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
See, I told you it wasn't timely. See, I didn't watch BtVS when it originally aired past the first season or so, give or take the rare episode I might catch at someone else's house or that just happened to be on. At the time, Buffy just wasn't all that interesting, and Xander really wasn't even a blip on my radar.
I actually ended up watching Angel in syndication first. They show it on TNT in the wee hours of the morning, when I am often awake and bored, and I got sucked in. I actually liked Angel better than what I'd seen of Buffy at that point (and really, still do, come to mention it), even if Angel himself wasn't the most thrilling of characters. But, having seen that, I started watching Buffy reruns on Logo.
And. Well, there are a lot of things I could say about it. So many. And so many of them so untimely that it's just crazy, so for the most part, I'll keep them to myself. But like I said, this one is particularly annoying.
Why, you might ask if you read this far out of some morbid curiosity, do you find Xander so offensive? He's just a goofy loser sort of side kick, isn't he? Surely he doesn't compare to some of the other feats of terrible writing? Surely we can come up with a whole list of more problematic themes/characters/plot devices than him! He seems so innocuous.
Or, well, you probably don't say that if you're reading this, because if you are reading this far, you're probably mildmay, in which case Xander's character makes you want to chew the furniture. But for the sake of rhetoric, let's pretend you said something like that.
The fact that remains is that Xander is generally written in such a way that it's fairly clear that the writers and narrative both take him and his "foibles" for innocuous. Oh, he's a bit of an idiot. A bit of an annoyance. But we'll make him the butt monkey of a few syphilis related jokes, and it'll all work out karmically. But as hilarious as syphilis is (or maybe that's just me), there's a lot more to it than that.
What is it? Xander is a Nice Guy. And not just the kind of Nice Guy who says he's a nice guy, then gets all butthurt and bent out of shape when girls fail to realize it and end up with jerks. Oh, he's that too, and it shows in his raging sense of entitlement to a say in the love lives of his female friends. But he is also an even more insidious kind of Nice Guy.
He's the Nice Guy who thinks he can't be sexist, because he's nice, and he respects women, look, he has female friends!
Who, you know, he meddles in the lives of. Who he gets jealous about. Who inspire great degrees of hypocrisy in him. Who he knows what's best for. Who, when he actually does end up in a relationship with them, he treats like shit.
Now, all of these could easily be flaws. And that would be hot, if they were. But they're really not. The narrative never really addresses them as flaws. The only people who act like they're flaws tend to be the women he's hurt, who are themselves being portrayed in a very flawed light.
Don't believe me?
Well, how about Cordelia? After her reactions to Xander's proprietary behavior toward Buffy and Xander's making out with Willow, what happens? A vengeance demon shows up. Yeah, this screams that she's the sympathetic wronged party. She makes a wish about Buffy instead of Xander. Again, not really giving us the feeling of sympathy for her that she really deserves, all things considered. Cordelia's feelings and reactions seem, to me, pretty valid, but at the same time the writing seems to dismiss them quickly because she is who she is. What, she's unpleasant! She's a flake! She's vindictive!
She's one of the popular mean girls, so why should she get to be hurt by a betrayal of trust and her boyfriend's extremely over proprietary actions toward another girl.
Now, I'm not saying that Cordie isn't sort of bitchy. But here's the very important difference: the writers and narrative seem to know it. It's pretty much laid out there. Look, she's flawed. Her flaws are treated like flaws. Xander's aren't. Or at best, when they are, they don't have the fallout they ought to.
And this is hardly the only example. No, really. How about Anya? She gets dumped at the alter by him, and his actions are hardly treated as wrong or insensitive. He's just a poor, bumbling Nice Guy who's not sure he can handle it. And then Anya went and became a again demon over it.
Wait, wtf, is this a pattern with him? That the women who would be entirely justified in being hurt and angry with him end up in this evil, irrational scorned woman place?
Oh, but Anya also slept with Spike! And Xander gets to get all the fuck hurt by that! After he left her at the alter.
Xander being hurt? Okay, yes, that's not really douchy in itself, per se. I mean, it's kind of hypocritical, but as an emotional reaction... But the way he's hurt and the way he expresses his hurt? Is never really addressed as wrong or inappropriate. Anya let someone that disgusting touch her, how dare she. And clearly it was done to hurt him! Except, you know, it wasn't.
He makes the whole thing all about him, which makes him distasteful and annoying as a character. Anya is the only character who actually calls him on it, and what does he do? He makes it about him blaming himself for Buffy and Tara getting shot. Way to go. Way to fucking go. Clearly you ought to be angsting about not protecting the women in your life instead of, you know, ever owning the fact he was a fuck up with Anya in his personal life.
Now, you can argue that these things are meant to be seen as flaws, but the writers--as I've said--never treat them as flaws in a way I can see as a viewer. Anya's flaws, Cordelia's flaws, Willow's flaws, Spike's flaws, the narrative has no problem pointing out to us that those are flaws and having the characters have to deal with fallout from them. Sometimes disproportionate amounts of fallout.
Anya certainly doesn't escape having to deal with the shit that comes out of her going back to the vengeance demon thing for a while. Oh, she definitely does not.
But Xander? Xander gets to end his arc of fail by saving Willow with the power of love and friendship. And right about there, I just vomited a little in my mouth.
It doesn't end there. Xander is a constant fixture of influence in Buffy's love life, moralizing and deciding who really deserves Buffy. Riley? Have some Xander words of advice. Spike or Angel? Protective man type needs to disapprove! And even puts Buffy in a position where she doesn't know that Willow is trying to put Angel's soul back in. And oh, yeah, he blurts out Spike's attempted rape to Dawn--which leads to plenty of Spike having to face reactions and playing out events as a result of his actions while he didn't have a soul, but leads to little more than a dirty look for Xander for his butting in and deciding how to disclose information about his female friend's attempted rape.
A real serious problem with Buffy and Angel both--and Firefly as well--is that they only seem to recognize sexism and misogynistic attitudes or actions when they're laid out there in a "jerk" way. As long as they come from a guy that the writers seem to believe is sympathetic, they're every bit as invisible as they are in any other series you might want to name. There's this vague sort of understanding that sexism exists and is bad, but you only see it in it's obvious, and from an obviously evil character, when it's acted out in the most stereotypical ways.
It ignores the well-meaning kind of sexism. The sort of that doesn't mean to be sexist or display its sexism openly. The attitudes that are controlling, patronizing, undermining, invalidating and frustrating, but not openly hateful. The kind that only has your best interests at heart, until that means having to suck it up and let a woman be in control of her own life and emotions, or admitting that you are a fuckup with baggage of your own.
Xander is that kind of sexism distilled and poured into the mold of the stereotypical endearing slacker.
The subject of this diatribe?
Xander
As in, that character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
See, I told you it wasn't timely. See, I didn't watch BtVS when it originally aired past the first season or so, give or take the rare episode I might catch at someone else's house or that just happened to be on. At the time, Buffy just wasn't all that interesting, and Xander really wasn't even a blip on my radar.
I actually ended up watching Angel in syndication first. They show it on TNT in the wee hours of the morning, when I am often awake and bored, and I got sucked in. I actually liked Angel better than what I'd seen of Buffy at that point (and really, still do, come to mention it), even if Angel himself wasn't the most thrilling of characters. But, having seen that, I started watching Buffy reruns on Logo.
And. Well, there are a lot of things I could say about it. So many. And so many of them so untimely that it's just crazy, so for the most part, I'll keep them to myself. But like I said, this one is particularly annoying.
Why, you might ask if you read this far out of some morbid curiosity, do you find Xander so offensive? He's just a goofy loser sort of side kick, isn't he? Surely he doesn't compare to some of the other feats of terrible writing? Surely we can come up with a whole list of more problematic themes/characters/plot devices than him! He seems so innocuous.
Or, well, you probably don't say that if you're reading this, because if you are reading this far, you're probably mildmay, in which case Xander's character makes you want to chew the furniture. But for the sake of rhetoric, let's pretend you said something like that.
The fact that remains is that Xander is generally written in such a way that it's fairly clear that the writers and narrative both take him and his "foibles" for innocuous. Oh, he's a bit of an idiot. A bit of an annoyance. But we'll make him the butt monkey of a few syphilis related jokes, and it'll all work out karmically. But as hilarious as syphilis is (or maybe that's just me), there's a lot more to it than that.
What is it? Xander is a Nice Guy. And not just the kind of Nice Guy who says he's a nice guy, then gets all butthurt and bent out of shape when girls fail to realize it and end up with jerks. Oh, he's that too, and it shows in his raging sense of entitlement to a say in the love lives of his female friends. But he is also an even more insidious kind of Nice Guy.
He's the Nice Guy who thinks he can't be sexist, because he's nice, and he respects women, look, he has female friends!
Who, you know, he meddles in the lives of. Who he gets jealous about. Who inspire great degrees of hypocrisy in him. Who he knows what's best for. Who, when he actually does end up in a relationship with them, he treats like shit.
Now, all of these could easily be flaws. And that would be hot, if they were. But they're really not. The narrative never really addresses them as flaws. The only people who act like they're flaws tend to be the women he's hurt, who are themselves being portrayed in a very flawed light.
Don't believe me?
Well, how about Cordelia? After her reactions to Xander's proprietary behavior toward Buffy and Xander's making out with Willow, what happens? A vengeance demon shows up. Yeah, this screams that she's the sympathetic wronged party. She makes a wish about Buffy instead of Xander. Again, not really giving us the feeling of sympathy for her that she really deserves, all things considered. Cordelia's feelings and reactions seem, to me, pretty valid, but at the same time the writing seems to dismiss them quickly because she is who she is. What, she's unpleasant! She's a flake! She's vindictive!
She's one of the popular mean girls, so why should she get to be hurt by a betrayal of trust and her boyfriend's extremely over proprietary actions toward another girl.
Now, I'm not saying that Cordie isn't sort of bitchy. But here's the very important difference: the writers and narrative seem to know it. It's pretty much laid out there. Look, she's flawed. Her flaws are treated like flaws. Xander's aren't. Or at best, when they are, they don't have the fallout they ought to.
And this is hardly the only example. No, really. How about Anya? She gets dumped at the alter by him, and his actions are hardly treated as wrong or insensitive. He's just a poor, bumbling Nice Guy who's not sure he can handle it. And then Anya went and became a again demon over it.
Wait, wtf, is this a pattern with him? That the women who would be entirely justified in being hurt and angry with him end up in this evil, irrational scorned woman place?
Oh, but Anya also slept with Spike! And Xander gets to get all the fuck hurt by that! After he left her at the alter.
Xander being hurt? Okay, yes, that's not really douchy in itself, per se. I mean, it's kind of hypocritical, but as an emotional reaction... But the way he's hurt and the way he expresses his hurt? Is never really addressed as wrong or inappropriate. Anya let someone that disgusting touch her, how dare she. And clearly it was done to hurt him! Except, you know, it wasn't.
He makes the whole thing all about him, which makes him distasteful and annoying as a character. Anya is the only character who actually calls him on it, and what does he do? He makes it about him blaming himself for Buffy and Tara getting shot. Way to go. Way to fucking go. Clearly you ought to be angsting about not protecting the women in your life instead of, you know, ever owning the fact he was a fuck up with Anya in his personal life.
Now, you can argue that these things are meant to be seen as flaws, but the writers--as I've said--never treat them as flaws in a way I can see as a viewer. Anya's flaws, Cordelia's flaws, Willow's flaws, Spike's flaws, the narrative has no problem pointing out to us that those are flaws and having the characters have to deal with fallout from them. Sometimes disproportionate amounts of fallout.
Anya certainly doesn't escape having to deal with the shit that comes out of her going back to the vengeance demon thing for a while. Oh, she definitely does not.
But Xander? Xander gets to end his arc of fail by saving Willow with the power of love and friendship. And right about there, I just vomited a little in my mouth.
It doesn't end there. Xander is a constant fixture of influence in Buffy's love life, moralizing and deciding who really deserves Buffy. Riley? Have some Xander words of advice. Spike or Angel? Protective man type needs to disapprove! And even puts Buffy in a position where she doesn't know that Willow is trying to put Angel's soul back in. And oh, yeah, he blurts out Spike's attempted rape to Dawn--which leads to plenty of Spike having to face reactions and playing out events as a result of his actions while he didn't have a soul, but leads to little more than a dirty look for Xander for his butting in and deciding how to disclose information about his female friend's attempted rape.
A real serious problem with Buffy and Angel both--and Firefly as well--is that they only seem to recognize sexism and misogynistic attitudes or actions when they're laid out there in a "jerk" way. As long as they come from a guy that the writers seem to believe is sympathetic, they're every bit as invisible as they are in any other series you might want to name. There's this vague sort of understanding that sexism exists and is bad, but you only see it in it's obvious, and from an obviously evil character, when it's acted out in the most stereotypical ways.
It ignores the well-meaning kind of sexism. The sort of that doesn't mean to be sexist or display its sexism openly. The attitudes that are controlling, patronizing, undermining, invalidating and frustrating, but not openly hateful. The kind that only has your best interests at heart, until that means having to suck it up and let a woman be in control of her own life and emotions, or admitting that you are a fuckup with baggage of your own.
Xander is that kind of sexism distilled and poured into the mold of the stereotypical endearing slacker.