As the scene begins, Willow stands atop a bluff overlooking Sunnydale. She intends to resurrect the buried temple of a powerful female demon in order to end the world. As Xander approaches, Willow tells him:
Willow: You can’t stop this.
Xander: Yeah, I get that. It’s just, where else am I gonna go? You’ve been my best friend my whole life. World gonna end, where else would I want to be?
Willow: (mockingly) Is this the master plan? You’re going to stop me by telling me you love me?
Xander Well, I was going to walk you off a cliff and hand you an anvil, but it seemed kinda cartoony.
Willow: Still making jokes.
Xander I’m not joking. I know you’re in pain. I can’t imagine the pain you’re in. And I know you’re about to do something apocalyptically evil and stupid, and hey, I still want to hang. You’re Willow.
Willow: Don’t call me that.
Xander: First day of kindergarten. You cried because you broke the yellow crayon, and you were too afraid to tell anyone. You’ve come pretty far, ending the world, not a terrific notion. But the thing is, yeah. I love you. I loved crayon-breaky Willow and I love scary veiny Willow. So if I’m going out, it’s here. If you wanna kill the world, well, then start with me. I’ve earned that.
Willow: You think I won’t?
Xander It doesn’t matter. I’ll still love you.49
The scene continues with Willow physically attacking Xander, wounding him with her powerful magic. Xander stays strong throughout the attacks—after every painful electric bolt he is hit with, he repeats his devotion to his best friend by saying, “I love you.” Willow succumbs to the profound power of loving friendship and human compassion as she returns to her true self.
This beautiful and intimate sequence shows us that a compassionate act is a heroic act. Though Willow initially mocks Xander’s heroic intention by asking him, “Is this the master plan? You’re going to stop me by telling me you love me?,” his action has a successful outcome—the day is saved, as is his friend.50
In her essay “Love Saves the World,” Jean Lorrah notes that it shouldn’t surprise us that “only Xander, often considered the weakest of Buffy’s cohorts, can reach and persuade Willow” because he and Willow share a lifelong bond of loving friendship.51 His unexpected heroic deed is partly inspired by his deep affection for Willow, but it’s important to note that Xander gets his courage from Buffy. (He’s told her that “when it’s dark and I’m all alone and I’m scared or freaked out or whatever, I always think, ‘What would Buffy do?’ You’re my hero.”)52 Xander has great respect for female power, and he’s not afraid to incorporate traditionally feminine traits into his behavior and actions—no matter how much he may make deflective jokes to the contrary.
As Lorna Jowett points out in her book Sex and the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan, Xander’s expressions of “emotion, love, and friendship is part of [Whedon and company’s] project of dissociating gender and behavior.” Invoking the group ritual in “Primeval,” she points out that more conventionally the “heart” of a superfamily would be female.53 Stephanie Zacharek echoes this sentiment in an article for Salon when she writes that Xander’s actions “might be Whedon’s way of saying that the best traits of men are sometimes those we associate with women.”54
Compassionate collaboration leads to a realization of potential in the self and in others. The Buffyverse in particular provides a model of heroism that is gender inclusive because the Scoobies show us a world in which men and women work successfully together. Reiss notes that
For Xander, Angel, Buffy, and other characters, self-sacrifice is not a sign of weakness but of strength: their altruism extends from a desire to see justice accomplished for others as well as themselves. It’s not a heroism that is out of reach but an everyday heroism born of compassion.55
Kathleen D. Noble envisioned a hero such as Buffy when she wrote in her book, The Sound of a Silver Horn: Reclaiming the Heroism in Contemporary Women’s Lives, that “the female hero must fuse the best attributes of femininity and masculinity and so create a new archetype of heroism that speaks to both women and men.”56 Buffy’s influence on Xander is proof that the Scoobies are this new archetype. The message of an episode such as “Grave” is that heroes act from a place of compassion and that compassion is a heroic act, regardless of sex or gender.
Generosity, kindness, and tolerance, especially when enhanced by love, transcend stereotypically gendered motivations to offer up twenty-first century models of inclusive and resonant heroisms.
The early Wonder Woman showed women that they didn’t need the love or protection of a man in order to live successful and fulfilling lives—but it also emphasized that women should act lovingly in the world. William Marston’s concept of “love” is problematic as a feminist ideology because his work advocated a reversal of the existing gender hierarchy rather than an egalitarian society. Additionally, his belief that there are essential sex characteristics is a controversial and unproductive dogma. In his utopian fantasy world, men were expected to lovingly submit to a compassionate feminine authority rather than make sacrifices and work with women on equal footing.57 bell hooks rightly stresses that such
sexist thinking obscures the fact that these women [who make everyday sacrifices for others] make a choice to serve [and] give from the space of free will and not because of biological destiny. … When anyone thinks a woman who serves “gives ‘cause that’s what mothers or real women do,” they deny her full humanity and thus fail to see the generosity inherent in her acts.58
As the superwomen in this chapter have shown, selfless compassion, and a giving of self to others, do not necessitate loss of identity or confinement to a biologically determined persona.
Love, as both concept and action in the Whedonverse, Xena’s ancient Greece, and Max Guervera’s Freak Nation, is much more egalitarian. The heroisms—for truly there are many ways to be heroic—of Buffy, Xena, and Max are reciprocal; the superwoman inspires others, who in turn inspire her. And love, when motivated by a spiritual interdependency, can show us how an act of compassion—regardless of who acts and who receives—can change lives, heal past wounds, and even save the world.
NOTES
1. Edgar, Joanne. Quoting Marston, William M. “Wonder Woman Revisited,” Ms. magazine, #1, 1972, 53–54 (emphasis in original).
2. Reynolds, Richard. Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1994, 18.
3. This domestication of the “naughty girl” could easily be read as just another example of popular culture working to put women back in their normative place. But it could also be interpreted as a simplistic approach to narrative typical of the black-and-white moral universe of Golden Age comics. Regardless, on Transformation Island, reformation—though well intended—is more forced rehabilitation than enlightened atonement.
4. Whedon, Joss. “Ten Questions for Joss Whedon.” The New York Times. May 16, 2003.
5. hooks, bell. All About Love: New Visions. New York: William Morrow, 2001, 88.
6. Ibid, 161.
7. “Friend in Need II,” 6.22. Xena, Warrior Princess. Writer R. J. Stewart, director Robert G. Tapert. Original airdate: June 18, 2001.
8. “The Way,” 4.16. Xena, Warrior Princess. Writer R. J. Stewart, director John Fawcett. Original air date: February 22, 1999.
9. Kathleen Kennedy observes in “Love Is the Battlefield” that “Preserving the purity of Gabrielle’s faith in ‘the way of love’ is one of the most important components of Xena’s quest.” Kennedy, Kathleen, Athena’s Daughters: Television’s New Women Warriors. New York: Syracuse University Press, 2003, 43.
10. “The Way,” 4.16. Xena, Warrior Princess. Writer R. J. Stewart, director John Fawcett. Original air date: February 22, 1999.
11. “The Ides of March,” 4.21. Xena, Warrior Princess. Writer R. J. Stewart, director Ken Girotti. Original air date: May 10, 1999.
12. Hlusko, Dana.
“The Way of Friendship Defined.” Whoosh! #45. Accessed online on March 25, 2008: http://www.whoosh.org/issue45/hlusko7.html.
13. Notably, James Cameron was at one time attached to a Spider-Man film project before Dark Angel, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume there is an influence on Max.
14. Jowett, Lorna. “To the Max: Embodying Intersections in Dark Angel.” Reconstruction 5.4, Fall 2005. Accessed online on March 27, 2008. http://reconstruction.eserver.org/054/jowett.shtml.
15. “Pilot,” 1.0. Dark Angel. Writer James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee, director David Nutter. Original air date: October 3, 2000.
16. Both quotes are from “Flushed,” 1.2. Dark Angel. Writer Charles H. Eglee and René Echevarría, director Terrence O’Hara. Original air date: October 17, 2000.
17. “Pilot,” 1.0. Dark Angel. Writer James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee, director David Nutter. Original air date: October 3, 2000.
18. Sara Crosby convincingly argues in “Female Heroes Snapped into Sacrificial Heroines” in the anthology Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture that Max takes on her “heroic identity only after she subordinates her physical power to his political goals and literally begins to work for [Logan].” She suggests that accepting Logan’s moral judgment causes Max to help him “in his crusade for a renewal of patriarchal privilege” and though Dark Angel “sells itself as being all about choice, the choices it gives Max are between patriarchy A [the military] or patriarchy B [Logan’s journalistic obsessions].” Crosby does note that the series had potential for the promotion of “feminist and democratic goals more radically and on more levels than any previous superhero show,” including feminist social justice issues such as class, race, sexuality, and gender hierarchies.
19. “Flushed,” 1.2. Dark Angel. Writer Charles H. Eglee and René Echevarría, director Terrence O’Hara. Original air date: October 17, 2000.
20. Ibid.
21. The amazing feats of a Batman or other traditional heroes lead us to believe that there is a separation between heroes and the rest of us and that amazing feats are for those who are special. Modern superwomen show us that we all have the potential to be special with devotion and effort. Like Wonder Woman before them, Buffy, Max, and Xena inspire small armies of people who accomplish feats they never thought they could. Additionally, rather than adopting mentor-ward relationships that illustrate a clear separation of power, superwomen champion the sharing of it, as well as a mutual exchange of knowledge.
22. See “Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts,” “The Debt Parts I & II,” “A Friend in Need Parts I and II,” and “Destiny,” respectively.
23. “Is There a Doctor in the House?” 1.24. Xena, Warrior Princess. Director T. J. Scott. Original air date: July 29, 1996.
24. Inness, Sherrie A. Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Woman in Popular Culture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998, 168.
25. “Is There a Doctor in the House?” 1.24.
26. “Ten Questions for Joss Whedon.”
27. hooks, All About Love, 133.
28. Ibid, 134.
29. “Family.” 5.6. Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Writer Joss Whedon, director Joss Whedon. Original air date: November 7, 2000.
30. http://www.buffy-vs-angel.com/buffy_tra_84.shtml.
31. Battis, Jes. Blood Relations: Chosen Families in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2005, 147.
32. Ibid, 147.
33. Ibid, 147–8. The created family is a theme Whedon explores in his Angel and Firefly/Serenity franchises as well.
34. Ross, Sharon. “‘Tough Enough’: Female Friendship and Heroism in Xena and Buffy” in Action Chicks: New Image of Tough Women in Popular Culture. Edited by Sherrie A. Inness. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 231.
35. Ibid, 232.
36. “Primeval,” 4.21. Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Writer David Fury, director James A. Contner. Original air date: May 16, 2000.
37. http://uk.geocities.com/slayermagic/Scripts/Episode77Primeval.html.
38. Reiss, Jana. What Would Buffy Do? The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004, 53–4.
39. “Pilot,” 1.0. Dark Angel. Writer James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee, director David Nutter. Original air date: October 3, 2000.
40. hooks, All About Love, 98.
41. Ibid, 217.
42. “Fallen Angel,” 5.1. Xena: Warrior Princess. Writer R. J. Stewart, director John Fawcett. Original air date: September 27, 1999.
43. For more detail, see Taigen Daniel Leighton’s Bodhisattva Archetypes. New York: Penguin, 1998–particularly chapter seven, which explores Avalokiteshvara in detail.
44. Buffy achieves enlightenment in the Season 5 finale, when she sacrifices her life for that of her sister, Dawn. Buffy’s spirit guide had told her that “Love is your gift” and that “death will bring you to your gift.” On one level, “the gift is that of life to Dawn, but as we learn early in Season 6, it turned out to also be a gift to Buffy. She’d fulfilled her Slayer duty and was at peace in Heaven. When she is forced to return to the world, her enlightenment is again delayed. She walks through the world trying to lead and inspire as before, but for most of the season, she’s “just going through the motions.”
45. Steinem, Gloria. Wonder Woman. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972.
46. “The Prom,” 3.20. Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Writer Marti Noxon, director David Solomon. Original air date: May 11, 1999.
47. And it is not just her peers who are motivated or inspired by her Bodhisattva example, but her enemies as well. From Season 4 through to the end of the series, we watch the metamorphosis struggle of the vampire, Spike, whose admiration for Buffy inspires him to become a better man, to seek a soul, and ultimately to sacrifice himself to save humanity.
48. “Grave,” 6.22. Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Writer David Fury, director James A. Contner. Original air date: May 21, 2002.
49. Ibid.
50. Again, notice the cyclic nature of Bodhisattva inspiration. Each of the Scoobies is, at one time or another, a hero in his or her own right, but it is always because of each other. Some have pointed out the Christian allegory in this scene. Simply put, Xander, who is by now a carpenter, saves the world through his selfless love. Yet this scene also directly echoes Jean Grey’s sacrifice of herself in Chris Claremont’s Dark Phoenix Saga, as well as the climactic scene in Return of the Jedi when Luke Skywalker defeats the evil Darth Vader and restores his father Anakin’s humanity with compassion rather than weaponry. The influence of both is evident. Willow is directly referred to as “Dark Phoenix” by another character on the show. And when SFX magazine asked Joss Whedon what movie he would have loved to have written, he answered Return of the Jedi. Ironically, the climactic scene in the film X-Men 3: The Last Stand would cinematically echo the scene between Xander and Willow in “Grave,” although the rewriting of the Dark Phoenix Saga—especially with Jean’s murder rather than sacrifice—would negate all the emotional poignancy that inhabited both the original X-Men story arc, and Whedon’s likely appropriation of it.
51. Lorrah, Jean. “Love Saves the World,” in Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Discuss Their Favorite Television Show. Edited by Yeffeth, Glenn. Dallas: BenBella Books, 2003, 167–75.
52. “The Freshman,” 4.1 Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Writer Joss Whedon, director Joss Whedon. Original air date: October 5, 1999.
53. Jowett, Lorna. Sex and the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005, 134.
54. Zacharek, Stephanie. “Willow, Destroyer of Worlds,” Salon, May 22, 2002. Nancy Holder has written of Buffy that “what was perhaps more interesting than this Wonder Woman redux was the fact that BTVS redefined male power.” She quotes Gail Berman, former president of FOX Entertainment, who said, “We’ll have more Buffys when we have more Xanders.”
55. Reiss, What Would Buffy Do?, 11.
<
br /> 56. Noble, Kathleen, D. The Sound of a Silver Horn: Reclaiming the Heroism in Contemporary Women’s Lives. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994, 194.
57. According to Les Daniels, Marston gave an interview to the New York Times in November of 1937 where he stated that “the next one hundred years will see the beginning of an American matriarchy—a nation of Amazons in the psychological rather than physical sense.” Daniels writes that Marston believed “women could and would use sexual enslavement to achieve [political and economic] domination over men, who would happily submit to their loving authority.” Les Daniels, Wonder Woman: The Complete History. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2004, 19.
58. hooks, All About Love, 142.
Batman, Deviance and Camp
ANDY MEDHURST
Reprinted by permission from Roberta E. Pearson and William Uricchio, eds. The Many Lives of the Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media (Routledge, 1991), 149–163.
Only someone ignorant of the fundamentals of psychiatry and of the psychopathology of sex can fail to realize a subtle atmosphere of homoerotism which pervades the adventure of the mature “Batman” and his young friend “Robin.”
FREDRIC WERTHAM
It’s embarrassing to be solemn and treatise-like about Camp. One runs the risk of having, oneself, produced a very inferior piece of Camp.
SUSAN SONTAG
I’M NOT SURE HOW QUALIFIED I AM TO WRITE THIS ESSAY. BATMAN HASN’T BEEN particularly important in my life since I was seven years old. Back then he was crucial, paramount, unmissable as I sat twice weekly to watch the latest episode on TV. Pure pleasure, except for the annoying fact that my parents didn’t seem to appreciate the thrills on offer. Worse than that, they actually laughed. How could anyone laugh when the Dynamic Duo were about to be turned into Frostie Freezies (pineapple for the Caped Crusader, lime for his chum) by the evil Mr. Freeze?
The Superhero Reader Page 35
