(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

I'm writing an essay about the Buffy episode "Doppelgangland." It's about gender. Synonyms for "provocative" and "sexualised", flist?

The essay's actually going really badly. God knows why: it's about how "images and understandings of gender (femininity or masculinity) affect the representation of monstrosity or the abject." So it should be easy as pie - Evil Willow's slutting it up all over the screen. But, argh, there must be more to say - I can't make that take up 3,500 words, and I kinda don't want to. How come all the Buffy scholarship is on Buffy, not Willow? Anyway - this is all by way of asking, if anyone knows any good spots for Buffy meta, especially episodic Buffy meta or Buffy gender meta witrh a focus on pre-Tara Willow, I'd love a tip.

Comments

[kheha.livejournal.com]

Can you incorporate The Wish? I seem to recall vampire!Xander staying relatively sexually normal....? Scary, yes, but not all whorey....

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I haven't gone into Xander, and probably won't since he doesn't really feature in "Doppelgangland", but I do think your point is interesting. Ultimately, I think I would say that it's a function of two things: 1. Xander is one of the heroes of the show because he specifically does not conform to the manly man stereotype. That's why we like him and it's 100% why Joss likes him: even though Xander sometimes worries that he's failing his duties as a man because he's not all butch, viewers of the show know that Xander's desperately important. Therefore, to imply that Xander's repressing violence, especially sexy sexy violence, is antithetical to everything his character's supposed to stand for and 2. Willow, on the other hand, is *definitely* supposed to be repressing these kinds of desires. See: Season 6.