Bella vs.Buffy

We all live in a culture, a culture which defines and labels members. Our individual cultures emphasize and promote certain activities, standards of beauty, dress styles, tell us what to aspire to become. We are also involved in various subcultures, religion, social groups, a local identity, a nationality. One cross-culturally consistent defining feature of humanity is our reliance on patriarchy to define women's roles and aspiration.

For example in industrialized England, women were divided into to moral classes. (1) The virginal angel, hoisted onto a pedestal of untouchable perfection or (2) the whore, discarded and thrust down into the ditch. There were no other options for women. 
When I taught Anthropology classes in university there was one lecture in which we would talk about zombies and vampires as cultural references. I always brought up classic novel Dracula, a novel full of commentary about women and their place in society. (All you Twilight Fans- Go read it!!!) In this embodiment, vampires symbolized foreign infection, a real concern of this burgeoning industrial age.

Much of the vampire myth in our western industrialized culture can be traced back to this first dramatization of Dracula, the father of all vampires.

Bella, the victim

I hate to even mention this deplorable assault on womanhood here, but in the "Twilight" series, the heroine is a girl named Bella. Bella is a teenage girl who dramatically becomes emotionally attached to a vampire whose name is Edward. Bella spends the entire series passively letting the people around her make decisions, letting others save her. Her entire defining characteristic is her complete and utter devotion to Edward (who stalks her, filled with potential violence).

Interestingly, these books were written by a member of my church. I think that it is very revealing that this is the type of relationship that a woman in my church would idealize.

Buffy, the hero

An alternative to the concept of women as a victim, is the empowered female hero, for example in the television drama "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Buffy is a girl who initially fits all of the stereotypical traits of an idealized high school girl. But when she is given the responsibility to protecting humankind from evil, she rises to the challenge becoming physically and emotionally strong, selfless, and powerful. She too falls in love with a vampire, but when humanity is threatened she puts aside her feelings and does her duty. 

Buffy was created and written by Joss Wedon, one of my favorite people I've never met. Mr. Wedon has continually pushed boundaries by creating female characters who are multifaceted and powerful. His characters are of course not completely realistic, but in comparison to most portrayals of women he is light years ahead of the staus quo.

So if, Industrial England was worried about foreigners and changes in woman's place in society, as evidenced by the novel Dracula, what do the stories of Bella and Buffy say about twenty-first century America? 

Race Relations

Racism... now there's a complicated and sensitive subject. I've been thinking a lot about racism in the past few months. I recently moved from a more suburban, heavily white inhabited area to a lower-income, heavily not-white inhabited area. And this has affected my comfort level. 

Looking back, I (as a middle-class white girl) have been raised to fear and avoid: #1- people who look rough, who are obviously not of my social class, #2- people who have a different skin color than I, and #3- strange men. So the scruffy looking men of African descent in my new neighborhood have hit all three of these criteria. I've found myself automatically, without conscious thought, walking faster, not making eye contact and simply reacting to people who I don't know. People who have never given me any reason to mistrust them, simply on the basis of my past indoctrination. And I hate this part of me. I hate that I've been made to react this way to people around me.

Now there are multiple sources for this education. When I was a college student, I spent a summer in Israel, Egypt and Jordan and one of the most upsetting and scaring experiences I had involved the pre-trip orientation. The white men who were leading this trip spent hours telling us horror stories about pretty little white girls who had been accosted and had been taken advantage of. Their goal was to scare us into dressing and acting in ways that would not attract attention. After the orientation, I went home scared to death, not wanting to go on the trip. The big scary world had become very real.

I did go on the trip, and there were definitely situations were I did not feel safe because of first, my gender and second, my skin color. But did I feel unsafe because of actual circumstances or because I was programmed and preconditioned to feel that way? Either way, actual misogyny or socialized misinformation, I got the short end of the stick. 
Despite all of this, it was a great trip and I was physically safe.

But even more involved and central to my understanding of human interaction has been the influence of my family. My mother has told me stories about how her grandmother was outrageously racist. My father is an interesting story in race relations. He grew up in California and went to high school in Hawaii, where he was one of the few white kids in a school predominately Polynesian. Apparently he experienced racism as a white minority in that situation. To this day, he is extremely sensitive to race relations, often taking offense when other groups accuse Caucasians of acting racist. He deeply believes that he, the middle class white man, is the victim in current United States culture and government.  

Recently there was a cheerios commercial which caused a huge uproar because it portrayed a little girl with a white mother and a black father. I was amazed by the intense reactions of people to this commercial. 



Within my feminist community, there has recently been a discussion about race within feminism. The idea that feminism focuses too much on the white female as opposed to other racial groups that experience misogyny in addition to racism, a double dose of prejudice and discrimination. I very much agree that non-white females deal with misogyny in different and often more challenging ways. In the same way, economic status affects a woman's ability to be successful in patriarchal society. So the reality is that the factors of gender, race, economic status are so intertwined and dependent on each other, making the conversation about any one of these inequality factors very complicated.

I feel like at this point I should say something very deep and resolute, shouting my solution to these world problems from the rooftop. But from a practical standpoint, I still haven't even gotten up the courage to talk to my neighbors at this point. Which is so stupid! I want to be that brave cosmopolitan, adventurous, uninhibited person. I don't want my socialized background to define me. I want to push boundaries. So how does a person overcome who society has made them? 

(Wow... I went pretty existentialist there. Kind of Matrix, Brave New World and Farenheit 451 ish :)

The Twelfth Doctor

Last week with much pomp and drama, the BBC revealed the twelfth doctor in the much beloved series Doctor Who. For those of you Non-Whovians, a quick explanation. The Doctor is an alien Time Lord from the planet Galifrey who regenerates occasionally into a new body and a new personality. His method of transport is the TARDIS, he often has a companion and is always finding trouble: situations and people who need his help, or at least his meddling and interference.
The 50th Anniversary of this show is happening in November. This is a show with multi-generational viewers, tribute bands, a Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff, spin-off shows and so much more.

So back to 12. Leading up to the announcement last week there was much speculation on who the new doctor would be. There were many of us who campaigned for a completely different kind of Doctor. The Doctor has always been a white man, ranging in age from 26-70. I personally very much wanted a female doctor. It has been established that time lords can change gender. They can certainly change race, skin color. So why is the Doctor always a white man? A female doctor, in the grand tradition of Joss Wedon's powerful female hero would give the show so many new avenues of plot and drama.
Or if that was too much scary feminist rhetoric (which I don't think it is), how about a Doctor of a different race? He is an alien for goodness sake! There are so many possibilities, why are the producers limiting themselves?

So, after much ado, the Twelfth Doctor has been revealed as Peter Capaldi, an older white man. He's not even ginger, as the Tenth and Eleventh Doctor wished to be. I really don't have a problem with Mr. Capaldi. I'm sure he will do a great job embodying the Doctor and everything he stands for. I've accepted the choice. But I can't help but wonder and wish that this amazing show, that embodies so much of my personal ideology, i.e. tolerance, acceptance, the realities of pain, consequences of our decisions, the possibility of adventure; a show that has broken so many boundaries, both social, technological, culturally. I just wish that this opportunity to be so relevant and progressive had been taken and run with. 

Because, as we know, with the Doctor, there's an awful lot of running to do!


This just in: I'm not the only one who feels this way! See this!