(no subject)
Jun. 9th, 2003 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rusty_haloI'm going to write up a full con report in a bit, but first I have to get this rant off my chest. (I really apologize for the rant. I'm trying to be a more positive person and I don't want to be known as someone who is always bitching. But this has been upsetting me very badly all weekend and I'm hoping I'll feel better if I get it all written and posted. I promise to write a con report covering all the positive stuff in just a bit.)
James Marsters didn't say a single positive thing about Spike all weekend.
He said:
The Spike/Dawn friendship was supposed to horrify us because poor little Dawn was getting corrupted by Big Bad Spike.
It's our fault that Spike tried to rape Buffy. If we had just hated Spike in season six like we were supposed to, the writers wouldn't have had to write the bathroom scene to show us that we were wrong. (Yes, he actually said this).
The Buffyverse is a very black and white moral place (I agree with that). Spike didn't fit in (I agree with that--because Spike was too complex, realistic, and GRAY for the simplistic black & white moral structure of the Buffyverse). But according to James, Spike didn't fit because he was EEEEVIL, on the "black" side, yet the audience sympathized with him. Basically, we women were too blinded by James' abs and cheekbones to see the "truth" of how rotten and bad Spike was.
He wishes he'd played soulless Spike darker, instead of subverting the writing by being too sympathetic. (Which is bullshit -- David Fury just did an interview saying that Spike was always "special" and "unique" even without a soul. That's the WRITING, not the acting. And Drew Greenberg just did an interview explaining that the scene in "Smashed" when Spike tries to bite the woman is meant to be ambiguous--Spike wants to WANT to bite her, but he doesn't actually want to bite her. That's the man who WROTE the episode. So James is WRONG when he says it's entirely his fault that the audience sympathized with Spike.)
Spike was absolutely right when he said that Buffy didn't love him. Buffy loves Angel, end of story. (Oh, yeah, that's so feminist--the idea that a woman's high school crush is the only man she'll ever be able to love in her life?)
In his opinion, Spike and Buffy didn't have sex the night before the battle in "Chosen." Because "Spike wouldn't have started anything at that point." (Oh? Because it was BUFFY who came down the stairs into Spike's room, not the other way around. But of course, it's always the man who is responsible for what happens sexually; woman are too pure and perfect to be held responsible for THEIR behavior.)
Repeat after James: "If a man is bad, he'll be bad to you." "You don't want to hear it, but it's true."
Okay, you know what? I'm an adult woman. I don't need some TV actor giving me advice on my love life. I can't get over the ridiculous, stupid, condescending attitude that James Marsters has toward women. He idealizes women--this is not a good thing. This is not a feminist thing. When men idealize women, they create this fantasy picture of what a woman is that has absolutely nothing to do with WHO she is as a person, as an individual human being. This idealized portrait of a woman also takes away a woman's responsibility for her own actions, because she's just a sweet little lady--she could never do anything wrong. She has to be PROTECTED by the big strong men around her -- from the other scary BAD men that the GOOD men don't approve of. (And this also goes with ASH's comment that Giles was right to try to kill Spike because any parent would want to protect their daughter from an abusive relationship. Hello! Yeah, it was an abusive relationship--in which BUFFY was the abuser! But oh, no, she's just a poor meek little woman! Nothing's ever her fault.)
And people kept defending him, going "Oh, he just doesn't want to teach women to idealize men who treat them badly." Yeah, but that's not what happened with Spike and Buffy! I was IN a shitty relationship where I was getting used. I know exactly how they work. And who did I identify with? SPIKE. Spike is the one who was getting used and abused, both emotionally and phsycially, by Buffy. Buffy was the one with all the power in that relationship. They met when and where she wanted, NOT where he wanted. She had the control over what they did and didn't do. She was the one who refused to tell anyone, when he wanted to be open, she was the one who refused to TALK when he wanted to talk, etc etc etc. She is the one who BEAT HIM HALF TO DEATH AND LEFT HIM LYING IN AN ALLEY, and never even APOLOGIZED or told anyone who mattered what she had done! I am so fucking sick of hearing what an abuser Spike was and what a victim Buffy was, because that is absolute bullshit. People are so blinded by their conceptions of traditional gender roles, in which women are passive and victimized and men are active and aggressive, that they didn't even SEE what actually happened on TV between these two characters. They just take this situation and fit it into the pre-existing cultural structures without any real analysis of what ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
Also, again, James didn't say a single positive thing about Spike all weekend. All he did was LECTURE us on how WRONG it is that we are fans of the character! Hello!? Spike went from a villain-of-the-week to a hero who DIED TO SAVE THE WORLD. That is an absolutely amazing redemptive journey; that is more growth than *any* other character on the show has experienced. Why can't James say something about that? Why can't he say a single positive thing about the character that the audience he's surrounded by LOVES? People have traveled all this distance because we love this character. The reason James is getting paid to show up at this convention is because people love the character. The reason Spike was ever brought back as a regular was because we love the character. Where the hell does he get off INSULTING us and tell us we're WRONG for loving the character?
And aside from the gender thing (and I'm still so pissed off about James's attitude toward women that I can barely type), what is so wrong with the fact that we saw something GOOD in Spike all along? Yeah, Spike was bad early-on. Of course he was. He was a *vampire*, he killed people, blah blah blah. But starting (for me; others saw it at different times) when he put down that shotgun and tried to comfort Buffy instead of killing her, we saw something good in Spike. Not that he WAS good; of course not. But we saw a SPARK of something beautiful, something that, if allowed to grow, would have been so amazing. And actually--it did grow! From small compassionate acts to being tortured to protect Dawn, taking care of Dawn all summer, fighting for his soul, and finally saving the world. Those of us who saw the spark all along, we were RIGHT! That beauty and goodness that we saw in evil Spike grew and grew, and we were vindicated when he saved the world. (And I think the finale sucked ass, but the fact remains that Spike saved the world). We were right all along--we saw something with the potential to be amazing and we watched it grow into something truly beautiful. We saw that no matter how badly you've fucked up in your life, you have FREE WILL, and you can CHOOSE to become a better person. It was Spike's STRUGGLE to better himself that meant so much to me.
And somehow this makes me morally depraved? Because personally, I think the people with moral issues are the ones pushing this view that says "Once you screw up, that's it. You life is over, and you may as well just go kill yourself, because once you're labelled 'bad' that's ALL you can EVER be, and no matter how hard you fight and struggle and try to change for the better, you'll always be NOTHING."
James Marsters didn't say a single positive thing about Spike all weekend.
He said:
The Spike/Dawn friendship was supposed to horrify us because poor little Dawn was getting corrupted by Big Bad Spike.
It's our fault that Spike tried to rape Buffy. If we had just hated Spike in season six like we were supposed to, the writers wouldn't have had to write the bathroom scene to show us that we were wrong. (Yes, he actually said this).
The Buffyverse is a very black and white moral place (I agree with that). Spike didn't fit in (I agree with that--because Spike was too complex, realistic, and GRAY for the simplistic black & white moral structure of the Buffyverse). But according to James, Spike didn't fit because he was EEEEVIL, on the "black" side, yet the audience sympathized with him. Basically, we women were too blinded by James' abs and cheekbones to see the "truth" of how rotten and bad Spike was.
He wishes he'd played soulless Spike darker, instead of subverting the writing by being too sympathetic. (Which is bullshit -- David Fury just did an interview saying that Spike was always "special" and "unique" even without a soul. That's the WRITING, not the acting. And Drew Greenberg just did an interview explaining that the scene in "Smashed" when Spike tries to bite the woman is meant to be ambiguous--Spike wants to WANT to bite her, but he doesn't actually want to bite her. That's the man who WROTE the episode. So James is WRONG when he says it's entirely his fault that the audience sympathized with Spike.)
Spike was absolutely right when he said that Buffy didn't love him. Buffy loves Angel, end of story. (Oh, yeah, that's so feminist--the idea that a woman's high school crush is the only man she'll ever be able to love in her life?)
In his opinion, Spike and Buffy didn't have sex the night before the battle in "Chosen." Because "Spike wouldn't have started anything at that point." (Oh? Because it was BUFFY who came down the stairs into Spike's room, not the other way around. But of course, it's always the man who is responsible for what happens sexually; woman are too pure and perfect to be held responsible for THEIR behavior.)
Repeat after James: "If a man is bad, he'll be bad to you." "You don't want to hear it, but it's true."
Okay, you know what? I'm an adult woman. I don't need some TV actor giving me advice on my love life. I can't get over the ridiculous, stupid, condescending attitude that James Marsters has toward women. He idealizes women--this is not a good thing. This is not a feminist thing. When men idealize women, they create this fantasy picture of what a woman is that has absolutely nothing to do with WHO she is as a person, as an individual human being. This idealized portrait of a woman also takes away a woman's responsibility for her own actions, because she's just a sweet little lady--she could never do anything wrong. She has to be PROTECTED by the big strong men around her -- from the other scary BAD men that the GOOD men don't approve of. (And this also goes with ASH's comment that Giles was right to try to kill Spike because any parent would want to protect their daughter from an abusive relationship. Hello! Yeah, it was an abusive relationship--in which BUFFY was the abuser! But oh, no, she's just a poor meek little woman! Nothing's ever her fault.)
And people kept defending him, going "Oh, he just doesn't want to teach women to idealize men who treat them badly." Yeah, but that's not what happened with Spike and Buffy! I was IN a shitty relationship where I was getting used. I know exactly how they work. And who did I identify with? SPIKE. Spike is the one who was getting used and abused, both emotionally and phsycially, by Buffy. Buffy was the one with all the power in that relationship. They met when and where she wanted, NOT where he wanted. She had the control over what they did and didn't do. She was the one who refused to tell anyone, when he wanted to be open, she was the one who refused to TALK when he wanted to talk, etc etc etc. She is the one who BEAT HIM HALF TO DEATH AND LEFT HIM LYING IN AN ALLEY, and never even APOLOGIZED or told anyone who mattered what she had done! I am so fucking sick of hearing what an abuser Spike was and what a victim Buffy was, because that is absolute bullshit. People are so blinded by their conceptions of traditional gender roles, in which women are passive and victimized and men are active and aggressive, that they didn't even SEE what actually happened on TV between these two characters. They just take this situation and fit it into the pre-existing cultural structures without any real analysis of what ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
Also, again, James didn't say a single positive thing about Spike all weekend. All he did was LECTURE us on how WRONG it is that we are fans of the character! Hello!? Spike went from a villain-of-the-week to a hero who DIED TO SAVE THE WORLD. That is an absolutely amazing redemptive journey; that is more growth than *any* other character on the show has experienced. Why can't James say something about that? Why can't he say a single positive thing about the character that the audience he's surrounded by LOVES? People have traveled all this distance because we love this character. The reason James is getting paid to show up at this convention is because people love the character. The reason Spike was ever brought back as a regular was because we love the character. Where the hell does he get off INSULTING us and tell us we're WRONG for loving the character?
And aside from the gender thing (and I'm still so pissed off about James's attitude toward women that I can barely type), what is so wrong with the fact that we saw something GOOD in Spike all along? Yeah, Spike was bad early-on. Of course he was. He was a *vampire*, he killed people, blah blah blah. But starting (for me; others saw it at different times) when he put down that shotgun and tried to comfort Buffy instead of killing her, we saw something good in Spike. Not that he WAS good; of course not. But we saw a SPARK of something beautiful, something that, if allowed to grow, would have been so amazing. And actually--it did grow! From small compassionate acts to being tortured to protect Dawn, taking care of Dawn all summer, fighting for his soul, and finally saving the world. Those of us who saw the spark all along, we were RIGHT! That beauty and goodness that we saw in evil Spike grew and grew, and we were vindicated when he saved the world. (And I think the finale sucked ass, but the fact remains that Spike saved the world). We were right all along--we saw something with the potential to be amazing and we watched it grow into something truly beautiful. We saw that no matter how badly you've fucked up in your life, you have FREE WILL, and you can CHOOSE to become a better person. It was Spike's STRUGGLE to better himself that meant so much to me.
And somehow this makes me morally depraved? Because personally, I think the people with moral issues are the ones pushing this view that says "Once you screw up, that's it. You life is over, and you may as well just go kill yourself, because once you're labelled 'bad' that's ALL you can EVER be, and no matter how hard you fight and struggle and try to change for the better, you'll always be NOTHING."
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 09:25 pm (UTC)But I'm not here to debate Buffy/Spike.
After the first Q&A, I got my autograph from James. I told him that I really respected his honesty in his comments on the issue when, as I told him, there were plenty of people in the audience who would probably want to lynch him for his statements. He looked so appreciative of me saying that and told me "It's only my opinion." I told him that I thought it was great because it meant he was respectful to his craft, and again, he looked appreciative.
Look - you love Spike. Yay. You love James because he's a great actor. Yay again. James does not write the show. I tend to believe what he says about Spike because he's kind of got this in with Joss - the guy who wrote the show - who probably gives him direction and insight into the character he created.
But for everyone to be so hateful towards James for his opinion - it really makes me sad. Because this is an incredibly talented man who was just honest - and he shouldn't be put down or condemned for it.
And, also - the negative stuff he said about Spike was pre-soul. IIRC, he said positive things about post-soul Spike. And to interpret his comment about "Spike wouldn't have started anything" in "Chosen" as a statement of women's sexuality is just absurd. They shared a special night in "Touched" just holding each other. Spike said it was the best night of his life. He's had sex with her before - obviously it was just the proximity of her - the closeness - that touched his soul. I thought this comment was really portraying Spike in a positive light - and I wish people could see that.
I could post for hours on this, but I just wanted to get that out.
Phew.
Flame away, I'm sure.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 09:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 10:07 pm (UTC)If only there was a "reply to all" feature.
It just makes me really sad and angry to see people exhibiting such hatred towards someone for stating their opinion. He has a right to it just as much as you and I. You don't have to agree. But I think people should respect.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 10:12 pm (UTC)I have no hatred at all toward JM. From what I've seen, he is a perfectly nice person. I've been lucky enough to chat with him a few times, and every time he's been completely cool (and I have responded by being polite and respectful as well).
However, I disagree vehemently with his opinion on certain matters, and I have every right to express my disagreement, especially in my own LJ.
James has a right to his opinion. So do you, and so do I. It would be nice if we could ALL debate our opinions in a civilized manner without attacking each other personally.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 10:17 pm (UTC)I've just been home for a day now from this convention and I've heard so much anger aimed towards James, someone who I came to truly respect over this past weekend. And it's upsetting. And your post has become kind of a gathering of that opinion and I chose to express mine where it can be seen by those my opinion contradicts.
I don't think I was rude. I don't think I was disrespectful. But I wanted to say what I had to say - just as you did.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 10:49 pm (UTC)But I can easily see that pre-soul, JM and ME thought they were telling a story about a "bad boyfriend" but it didn't come across that way, and it bothers them that they somehow missed it. It took me until late in February of S6 before I finally had an epiphany and thought, wait - the whole reason I'm not understanding this story is that I don't think that Spike is as evil as ME thinks Spike is. Once I grasped that the season made sense (though JM is right, it didn't come across that way -their execution wasn't good).
But in S7 we've got a redemption story happening, quite obviously, on all levels, and I would have been astonished if JM hadn't realised that.
Feeling vastly relieved now! Sure, I can buy an evilish S6 Spike, though it took me awhile to grasp it at the time. But if I wasn't looking at a redeemed S7 Spike then I really DIDN'T get the story!
re: sex during the blackout - JM is right, IMHO, Spike would never have started anything, after the AR, or indeed post-soul. But Buffy had an awfully purposeful look in her eye ... we were quite deliberately left to believe, each one of us, whatever we want to believe.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-10 03:31 pm (UTC)Well, maybe you ought to be more careful about who you address your comments toward, becaue regardless of who you intended them for, when you post accusations in my LJ, they go to me, not to the other people who commented and who said harsher things that I said. I really don't appreciate being accused of things that I didn't do; I've never been hateful toward or personally insulted James Marsters.
Re:
Date: 2003-06-10 03:37 pm (UTC)And alternately - I don't think you would have wanted me to reply to every single commenter in the thread as it would have flooded you with emails.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-10 04:33 pm (UTC)You can still respect an opinion and disagree with it at the same time. If you won't respect one made out of blunt honesty, why should anyone respect yours?
It wasn't like he went overseas far away from any cons and sniggered to news reporters about the fans. He addressed the situation in a potentially mobbish situation honestly.
"I may not agree with what you say, but I'll die for your right to say it."
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-10 09:36 pm (UTC)And don't you dare lecture me about free speech. I'm a *huge* advocate of free speech. But just because I agree that people have the RIGHT to say what they want, I still don't have to respect their opinions. If some politician wants to claim that homosexuality is immoral and should be illegal, I'll defend his right to say it, but there's no way in hell that I'm going to respect that bullshit. And if some jerk wants to accuse my best friend of being a bitch, I'll defend his right to say it, but again, there's no way in hell that I'm going to respect that opinion. And if James Marsters says something that I find rude, condescending, and sexist, then he has every right to say it, and I sure as hell don't have to respect it.
I'm not asking you to respect my opinion. I'm asking you to debate my OPINION instead of attacking me as a PERSON, which plenty of people are doing. (And which I NEVER did; my comments are about James Marsters' opinion, not about the man as a person).
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-10 04:18 pm (UTC)Does that make Spike a good guy? Hell, no. Darth Vader's certainly not, and I think he kicks arse. And my three favorite Slayers characters are Xellos (pure Mazoku), Valgaav (Mazoku/Dragon who gets more than a bit insane and almost destroys the world), and Zelgadis (badboy Chimera who doesn't exactly walk on the right side of the line) Bad boys are facinating. Doesn't mean they're good guys.
Reading over the post, I agree with some -- not all, but some -- of what JM said about the character.
I also agree that he has every right to be honest about it. But that's just me. I guess I'm old-fashioned and backwards like that for actually appreciating honesty, forthrightness, and knowing where I stand.
Maybe if old women would quit grabbing his bum and teenybopper girls would quit treating and talking to him as if HE was Spike and trying to get SPIKE to fall in love with THEM and middle-aged women would quit treating him like a lust object, he wouldn't have gotten fed up. I do think he could have said it better, but sometimes, there's nothing that's gonna be straight shooting and blunt honesty from the hip when you get pushed too far.
Kudos to that man. Maybe I don't agree with him on every point, but he's earned my respect.