(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 12:03 pm (UTC)Can't really follow up or add anything. You've said it all, and you've said it perfectly. Wish we could forward your rant to Mr. Marsters and the gang at ME for future reference.
Thanks for posting this.
::pets you::
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 12:08 pm (UTC)What did Clem say? Issues? Think he's got issues with Spike at the moment.
Re: he's an ass
Date: 2003-06-09 12:29 pm (UTC)I don't buy Buffy/Angel because I was TOLD they were in love. I believe in Buffy/Spike because I SAW it on their faces.
So as Kly says, The amazing thing is that he managed to play the Spike he did while having absolutely no conception of who the character actually was. I mean, that's astonishing.
This is all very upsetting.
Re: he's an ass
Date: 2003-06-09 12:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 12:33 pm (UTC)Man, I would really just love to sit down with him for an hour and talk about all this stuff. Although I doubt it would make a difference; he's got like 40 years of cultural conditioning to get over. We really ought to make him take some women's studies classes or something, lol.
I just wish he could understand how HURTFUL it is for him to say these horrible things about Spike to people who love and who deeply IDENTIFY WITH Spike.
Re: he's an ass
Date: 2003-06-09 12:38 pm (UTC)That's basically what he's saying. That it's his fault, and his mistake, that we liked Spike, because he "subverted the writing" by portraying Spike too sympathetically.
But I still think that's nonsense. Go rewatch "Intervention" or "The Gift" or "Afterlife." Spike's heroism in those episodes (and many others) is in the WRITING. Certainly, the acting adds quite a bit, but it's still in the writing. James has no reason to blame HIMSELF for the fact that the audience liked Spike. "I couldn't live, her being in that much pain; I'd let Glory kill me first," "Till the end of the world," "147 days," "Every night I save you." That's the WRITING.
I also suspect that if the audience hadn't liked Spike so much, and JM hadn't played him so sympathetically, we never would have gotten a redemptive journey at all. Spike probably would've been castrated for the audience's "pleasure" like Caleb. James should be proud for playing Spike so well, not angry at himself.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 12:38 pm (UTC)I'm just saying.
Actors--hate 'em. Except for Mark Derwin and Nancy Grahn. :)
Unbelievable.
Date: 2003-06-09 12:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 12:49 pm (UTC)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.
For me it was in his devotion to Dru. I mean sure he was evil but if he didn't have something different about him could he have cared for Dru for such a long time and not, I don't know, have just got sick of her and left her someplace, or staked her outright? I suppose her being his sire could have something to do with that devotion but of course I/we didn't know that when he first showed up.
All he did was LECTURE us on how WRONG it is that we are fans of the character! Hello!?
Well that's just rediculous. I mean... does he want to be out of work and have his character unloved? Obviously. Does he not want fans?
I sincerely beleive that Buffy was just as much if not more responsible for the horrors of the spuffy relationship in season 6. Maybe its just me but I always found the AR to be completely out of character.
Hmmm. Maybe he's just an asshole? Of course I've kinda thought that for a long, long time but... this is pretty much just confirmation. Then again I have this theory that meeting the actors who play the characters that you love can only end in disappointment... but that could be cos I'm a pessimist.
Sorry he pissed you off doll.
Huggums,
S.
Re: he's an ass
Date: 2003-06-09 01:17 pm (UTC)I totally agree with everything you've said, Laura, and am extremely upset by him negating his performance and his character.
grrr, argh indeed
Date: 2003-06-09 01:30 pm (UTC)I used to want SMG to shut up because I didn't think she had a clue. Now, I honestly think JM doesn't have a clue. Who is telling him to act this way and why?
Oh well, la la la, he's an actor, and Spike is a wholly separate being, open to our interpretation. I can't hear JM! Can't hear im!
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 01:51 pm (UTC)I have to say I'm pretty hurt and disappointed in what James had to say. I always commended him for seeming to understand the character really well, and I'm just blown away at how his perspective is. And I'm really upset by this whole "blame the audience" thing. That's just ridiculous.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 01:53 pm (UTC)Fenchurch
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 01:56 pm (UTC)Well, perhaps I'm hiding in the land of DeNile, but his comments (while outrageous) seem inconsistent with his earlier comments about Spike and this makes me wonder what prompted the change. (although even last summer he was preaching things like "Spike is BAD, BAD I tell you.") It makes me wonder how much of what he said was really his own input and how much of it is 'the party line'. From what you described, he's almost apologizing for the character's popularity and is backpedaling, and this invites a question about what's going on behind the scenes.
Or again, perhaps I'm just making excuses. If JM truly thinks so, I'm very sorry.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 02:00 pm (UTC)I quit reading interviews with BtVS actors months ago, because while I love their performances, there's a reason they're paid for acting, not thinking. They're good at one. The other? Not so much.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 02:04 pm (UTC)I'm gonna try!
Date: 2003-06-09 02:05 pm (UTC)Re: he's an ass
Date: 2003-06-09 02:12 pm (UTC)Y'know what? That's a good idea.
*unfriends drinkthepoisonx with a clear conscience*
Calling a person names simply because they don't share the same views you have is not only wrong, but it's also really fucking childish. James is entitled to his opinion just as much as anybody else is - I'm not saying he's right, granted - I disagree with him about a lot of what he has to say about Spike. But what good does it do to call him an ass or a moron? If there's any asses around here, it's you guys.
Grow up, y'all - seriously.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 02:13 pm (UTC)Write Him
Date: 2003-06-09 02:18 pm (UTC)Re: he's an ass
Date: 2003-06-09 02:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-09 02:23 pm (UTC)I do wonder if things like that stupid Salon article that said Spike ruined Buffy and basically blamed the fans for liking him to the detriment of the show have gotten to him. That article, like James's comments apparently, also smacked of a rather outdated sexism.
Re: he's an ass
Date: 2003-06-09 02:23 pm (UTC)If you want to unfriend me because of what OTHER PEOPLE said in my comments (which I have NO control over) then fine. Good riddance.
actors interviews
Date: 2003-06-09 02:25 pm (UTC)I was thinking, though, that perhaps a lot of this is because he was thinking "in character". One thing that was perfectly obvious throughout S7 was that Spike didn't think that much of himself. He began by thinking of himself as a "bad, bad man" and ended by believing, even though the look on her face ought to have told him otherwise, that Buffy didn't mean it when she said she loved him - because, deep down, he believes he doesn't deserve love.
And if JM is Method (is he? I think I read something somewhere to that effect), he really feels that Spike he's playing is bad and unloved. That doesn't mean that the writers think the same thing - it doesn't even mean that Buffy thinks the same thing. It means that JM plays a Spike who believes that. Different question.
Re: he's an ass
Date: 2003-06-09 02:25 pm (UTC)Nope - and you're not gonna be... that much you can count on.