The Tragedy of Whedon’s Women

In spite of the recent discovery of his personal hypocrisy, Joss Whedon still apparently stands as the modern master of the “strong female character.” With a “Buffy” reboot and a new series on HBO titled “The Nevers,” Whedon will attempt to rebuild his feminist bona fides and further develop his vision of the modern heroine. This is unfortunate because Whedon’s women are not “strong women” at all, but are instead just an expert presentation of an especially unseemly view of women.

I can’t read Joss Whedon’s mind nor do I imagine that everything he writes is a pure expression of his psychology (TV and film are collaborative endeavors) but I do think some consistent trends emerge that are, given his history, unsettling enough to challenge his standing and his formulation of what makes a heroic woman. I’ll start by investigating his signature character: Buffy Summers.

A cursory look at Buffy “The Vampire Slayer” Summers indicates that she’s the model of his “strong female character.” She’s physically powerful, beautiful, quick with a joke, out to save the world and upend the patriarchal rules that dominate her world. The narrative of the show concludes with her upending that structure and granting “slayer power” to all of the potentials so they too can be “strong,” but what does Whedon mean by strong?

The reason the traditional “hero” is male is because the traditional narrative emerged in a time of far greater daily physical violence than today and physical violence is largely a masculine pattern of behavior. By inverting that narrative and showing a woman as the strongest, Buffy is a metaphor for women in the modern world but the metaphor falls flat.

The classical hero’s journey has a familiar structure: a man’s call to adventure, the attainment of competency, triumph over an enemy which establishes his worthiness in the eyes of women. The moral is that physical and psychological strength (representative of broad competency) are the requisite virtues for a “happily ever after.” How does this translate when a woman is placed into this situation in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” What is her heroine’s journey? What is her “happily ever after?” Given that millions of women are acting this very situation out in their actual lives, it’s a worthy question.

Buffy Summers is a superhero who has to deal with all of the day to day problems of a normal girl but she can’t actually solve any of them. Her financial problems are solved by a gift from her father-figure watcher and then later by another man giving her a job she isn’t qualified for. She never achieves her romantic goals and she never figures out how to integrate her “power” with her actual life. So what is the moral of her story?

Consider the actual nature of “The Slayer.” There’s only one at any given time (though this changes) and when she dies, another is instantly chosen from a pool of “potentials” all of which are young, post-pubescent women. There are no fifty year old potentials, nor kids. Only very young women, necessarily. She literally can’t retire to her life or another Slayer won’t emerge and evil will run rampant. It’s built into the mechanics of her power: Buffy can never grow up.

More so, it’s not hereditary. There are no traditional matriarchs passing along valuable knowledge to future generations. Instead, the Slayer was created by the “Shadow Men,” who set the rules, which later evolved into the Watchers Council. Now, there are shown to be female watchers but they’re incidental. The primary figures are all male. I’m concerned with Whedon’s choices and not necessarily the rules of the universe.

Speaking of rules, for a Slayer they are highly suspect. She fights with archaic weapons, alone, and in secret. One needn’t be a military strategist to know that this is hardly the best way to fight a war, which is precisely how it’s described in the show. More so, the character Spike notes something critical about this set-up, namely that “Every Slayer has a death wish” because of the isolation and constant struggle for survival gives way to psychological exhaustion, expressed by a desire to surrender and just “let it happen.” He notes that the fear and uncertainty from waking every day to the question “is this the day I die” leads to that death wish and that Buffy has survived by flouting those rules and having allies to support her. It would make sense for a Slayer to survive longer, grow in competency, but that’s not what the Watchers want.

They don’t care because she’s actually disposable to them. If she dies, she’ll just be replaced by a younger model, and so they don’t care if she’s competent, well-adjusted, or happy. What they want is to get the most out a young girl until she matures to the point of disobedience. They even have a ludicrous test at 18 in which her trusted watcher betrays her, strips her of her power, and puts her through a sloppily managed fight against a vampire (or two in Buffy’s case), without warning. Given that the average tenure of a Slayer is a year or so and they’re always well younger than 18, this is a deeply unsettling test of her “competency.” Surely if she survived that long, she’d be extremely competent. One could surmise that the purpose of the test is in fact to kill the Slayer so that a new, young, naïve girl will take her place, one who needs the guidance of the Watcher’s Council.

Intentional or not, this creates a disturbing sexual parallel of older men taking advantage of young women as they enter sexual maturity, isolating them with adventure beyond their years, and then discarding them when they start to want more out of life. As soon as a woman wants to grow up, they’re cast aside. Considering the history of men in Hollywood actually doing this and the accusations leveled against Whedon, the parallel is unsettling at best.

Then there’s the issue of Buffy’s romantic history.

Buffy is the subject of obsession and endless inappropriate comments from her “nice guy” friend, Xander, who Whedon said was the character most like himself. That’s common enough an experience but no mature resolution is ever reached. In the episode “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered,” Xander blackmails a woman into casting a dangerous love spell on his ex just so that he can break her heart instead, a classic immature power game. The spell backfires and affects everyone but her. This brings Buffy into obsessive love with Xander and he has the minimal integrity not to take advantage of it. That’s Whedon’s idea of a resolution to unrequited affection: he didn’t rape her. No consideration is given to how sudden, obsessive, sexual attraction being forced onto someone might affect them.

Then there is the random collection of boys who either used her for excitement, sex, or betrayed her.

Finally there are her actual sexual relationships:

1. Angel
2. Parker
3. Riley
4. Spike

Angel is a two-hundred year old vampire who fell in love with Buffy when she was 14. He slept with her and then instantly became evil. Perhaps a familiar parallel to some woman but hardly the stuff of healthy romance. Rather, it’s creepy and inexplicable. What DOES he see in her? Why does he do it given that he knows that one moment of happiness will make him evil again? He’s basically just a reckless, obsessive, older man who is willing to risk everything to sleep with a young, beautiful woman. He’s the Anthony Weiner of the Whedonverse.

Parker is a classic college “player” who used her for sex.

Riley is the supposed “once in a lifetime” guy but is, in my opinion, the least healthy of all of them because his insecurity drives him to compete with her in her domain of mastery. Healthy couples inspire each other but don’t compete because if they compete, then one person has to lose and no one wants to date a loser or be the loser. Riley makes himself into a loser and then becomes self-destructive and blames it on her. His insecurity inspires him to undermine her.

And then there’s Spike. Spike is, somewhat hilariously, the romantic of the bunch and the healthiest in a string of unhealthy relationships. Spike’s famous “pep talk” is consistent with his romantic history. He wants her but he also loves her not for what she gives but who she is, without expectation. He’s also abusive, initially evil, obsessive, dishonest, and manipulative.

What’s interesting about these relationships is that none of them can possibly succeed in any way that allows Buffy to grow and mature, which is what she seems to want. She can’t have children with Spike or Angel (that removes even her choice), Parker doesn’t care about her beyond being a sexual conquest, and Riley’s insecurity will destroy any chance at a successful relationship. Buffy can’t be happy but she also can’t grow up, at least not romantically. Does anyone imagine a youthful Angel or Spike helping her when she’s 75?

The classical hero’s journey is often criticized because the hero “gets the girl” in the end. She is his “reward.” However, when told properly, the woman isn’t a reward but rather a judge. She is determining his worthiness. By succeeding in his “quest,” the woman deems him worthy. She’s a secondary character because it’s his story but that female character has her own story such as Beauty and the Beast or Pride and Prejudice. But what of the woman who plays the male role?

Her reward for succeeding in a male domain is poverty, suffering, and sexual trauma. There is no reward for being “strong” in Whedon’s universe.

What kind of person can Buffy actually be in a relationship with? A quick Google search will show that this is actually a very real problem facing millions of high-performing women who struggle to find partners. The traditional model of hypergamy punishes women for being successful, at least in terms of romance. This presents a problem for Buffy in terms of traditional dynamics. This is clearly expressed with Riley but her physical equals are incapable of growth due to their immortality. Angel even gets his chance to give up his vampirism and be with her but declines. Presented with the opportunity to tackle a truly relevant problem like hypergamy, Whedon takes a pass. There is no happily ever after for his “strong female character.”

This is made worse by the suspicious absence of children and matriarchal figures in the show (and in fact all of Whedon’s shows). None of the “Scoobies” have siblings that we meet. Dawn doesn’t show up until she’s 14 and ready to be sexualized, which she almost immediately is. There are no grandmothers, and barely any women at all over 35. That’s why Giles has nearly no sexual or romantic relationships (he sleeps with Joyce but only when they both regressed to teenagerdom). It’s apparently a young man’s game. Once they age out of youthful sexual appeal, women simply disappear in Whedon’s universe, which is especially unsettling given his roles in creating “Strong Female Characters.” He doesn’t appreciate or even appear aware of the classic archetype of the matriarchal heroine who challenges the hero, binds the community, is clever, whose actions affect the group more than the individual, and acts as a moral authority. Once a woman loses sexual appeal to him, he erases her from existence entirely while simultaneously not allowing the young women to mature.

What of the other women in “Buffy?” Willow can either be good or powerful, and she chooses powerful, leading to a fan-favorite relationship with Tara, someone that she lies to and violates via magic. It’s an abusive relationship that is reestablished solely to use Tara’s death as a catalyst for Willow’s descent. Anya and Xander is a reasonably solid relationship but Anya is inexplicably left at the alter by Xander, Whedon’s proxy, because of a fear of… wait for it, the future. Even the thought of the trials of maturity sends him running. Then there’s Joyce, whose only romantic relationship is with a controlling, abusive robot (outside of her magically induced fling with Giles).

Finally, there’s Faith. She arrives damaged and she’s the most sexually aggressive character on any of his shows. Her sexuality is played out as a kind of “bad girl fun” in what I think of as the most tone deaf part of the show. Women are perfectly capable of being sexually aggressive, and Whedon even shows as much, but Faith is clearly in trouble. She’s not bold, sexy, and powerful… she’s in pain. Exploring her psychological redemption could have been incredibly powerful in deft and interested hands but as soon as Faith needs to grow, she’s whisked away.

Women in Whedon’s universe are disposable and the measure of their value is his sexual interest. He’s not interested in the heroine’s journey. He’s not interested in the actual problems that confront women. He’s not interested in their lives as a whole.

You’ll find that these trends emerge across all of his shows. Dollhouse is literally about young women, primarily, trading their youthful prime for money in a clumsy metaphor for prostitution sans the dignity.

Angel’s most heroic women is Cordelia Chase and she’s immediately sidelined once the actress (Charisma Carpenter) becomes pregnant and is erased entirely after a brief return to course correct Angel. Winifred is a beloved character who is killed but retained in the form of Illyria, another “kick ass” woman, but one who will never grow or mature. More so, she’s like Anya in that she’s aggressively socially dysfunctional (this appears to be more of a masculine than feminine trait). Every female character suffers a similar pattern. If they grow or mature, they disappear or die.

Firefly’s early cancellation saved us from one of the most unsettling potential plot lines ever conceived of, namely that of Inara (another prostitute) killing murderous reavers via a poison that kills them when they rape her, and thus earning Mal’s respect. I’m not sure I can even think of a concept more unseemly than that. Though the show does manage one seemingly happy marriage, there’s still no growth or independence as they’re both under the the authority of their captain which ultimately results in the husband’s death.

And like Buffy, River Tam is a super powered girl who is… damaged and violated. It’s as if he sees a correlation between strength and victimization. None achieved their strength (a metaphor for competency) via hard work and commitment. It’s either forced upon them or gifted to them (why would Buffy, for example, lose all of her coordination and skills from losing her powers? Did she retain no muscle memory from her training? That they have to research and train at all is actually a virtue in his shows but that’s another matter).

What Whedon has done in creating his “Strong Female Character” is not actually tackle any of the underdeveloped heroic narrative attributes of women and/or “the feminine.” Instead, he creates men in super model costumes that he can sexually fetishize or damage at will. He ignores or truncates all of the transcendent, historical, psychological, practical, and even biological aspects of women, and gives only lip-service to the problems that they actually face.

Joss Whedon’s “strong woman” archetype is the worst kind of fraud because it purports to empower when in fact it merely entraps. It ignores a true heroine’s journey in order to indulge in his juvenile fantasies.