The Feminist Perspective of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Essay

In Octavia Butler’s Dawn the idea of gender is deconstructed and reformed from the typical human’s definition. Often people do not consider the role of gender in society today. Usually the first thing one notices when meeting someone new is their gender or their presumed gender. However, there becomes a problem when the person whose gender we perceived identifies as a different gender. Butler forces the reader to examine how they judge and perceive gender. While the ooloi are actually “its” their personalities seem to imply a certain gender. The transgender community often brings up this issue because these assumptions of gender based on our judgments of what defines a male and what defines a female can skew how a transgender person is treated and addressed. In Chapter One of Gender Through the Prism of Difference by Anne Fausto-Sterling, the idea of expanding the number of genders based on one’s biological differences is examined through the five sexes theory. By now the concept of gender being defined solely by one’s biology has mostly been left in the past but the question remains of how do we truly define gender? How does being outside of the social norms that Michael Warner talks about cause us to feel shame when discussing our gender and our perceptions of gender? In this essay, I will argue that preconceived notions of gender create shame when a person’s own perception of their gender does not fit the social norms. This stigma around the limited and strict definitions

Horror has long been about tales of heroic men fighting monsters (whether it be human or inhuman) and saving damsels in distress. Women were mostly used as eye candy, victims of violence or only to further the plight of the leading man. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that women in horror movies started to have more power in horror movies. This was majorly due to the rise of feminism, the female protagonists were fighting back which lead to the rise of the ‘final-girl’ archetype – the ‘final-girl’ being the only one surviving at the end of the film having outsmarted the killer. The final girl not only promotes feminism but also a reflection of the values in our

In “‘Tough Enough’: Female Friendship and Heroism,” Sharon Ross focuses on the importance of a new vision of heroism, by discussing epistemic negotiation. The chapter also discusses how important both female friendships, and group friendships, can be in helping to fight crime. The main idea of epistemic negotiation is shown throughout the show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer because Buffy “almost always consults with her friends

Correspondingly, Barbra’s character shrieks the stereotype of a hysterical housewife, a helpless, naïve blonde woman. She is weak and reliant on the others, incompetent and oblivious to the concerns at hand. Her lack of prowess when the ghouls infiltrated the farmhouse consequently led to her death. While others were pitching in to devise a plan to combat the slew of ghouls drawing near the farmhouse, Barbra was in a state of bewilderment due to Johnny’s death and was unmindful of the plan to defeat the ghouls; therefore, she became a hindrance to the others. Robert Hass’s film criticism of Carol J. Clover’s work in Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, declares, “Women are usually helpless victims in the horror genre” (Haas 67). This essentially summarized Barbra’s character in such a manner that the viewer would infer that Barbra enacts the stereotypical female role of a horror film.

Just how the forces of good organize themselves in each text reveals much about the assumptions about gender roles present in their cultures of origin. Buffy Summers, a teenage girl, is the Vampire Slayer -- "One girl, in all the world, a Chosen One. One born with the. . . the strength and skill to hunt the vampires, to stop the spread of evil" (Giles/Buffy, "Welcome to the Hellmouth") -- and her friends, the so-called Slayerettes, and her Watcher Giles only provide assistance and support. Dracula's Mina is merely a minor -- and weaker -- member of a large group of men, including her husband, who fight in order to protect her. Without doubt, the image of the petite Buffy fighting and killing vampires week after week forces the viewer to recognize her strength and power. Despite her physical passivity in the novel, "sweet-faced, dainty-looking" Mina reveals she too is strong and necessary to the fight against evil, even if in less obvious ways (226). Seward credits Mina's skill in typing and work in compiling hers, Harker's, and his diaries with providing the key without which they "could never have found the dates otherwise" (232). The information she provides while under hypnosis -- visions echoed in Buffy's prophetic dreams ("Welcome to the Hellmouth," "Prophecy Girl," "Surprise," "Innocence") -- makes

Expressing one's sexuality is often considered a taboo, especially if it concerns women’s sexuality. A woman expressing her sexuality is often looked down upon because of the notion that women must be innocent and demure. These notions were meant to repress women’s sexual gratification and constrict women into feminine roles as mothers or as wives. These stereotyped feminine roles caused women to be viewed as less of a threat to male masculinity. However, in the Victorian Era, new ideas on what it meant to be a woman challenged these feminine roles and the patriarchal order. The “new woman” wanted to be equivalent to men, financially independent, and sexually liberated. The new woman threatens the patriarchal order because equality of the sexes challenges power dynamics and gender roles. In Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, he challenges the social constraints that limit individual and sexual desires through vampires who are capable of revealing the characters’ repressed desires. With the use of vampires as figurative representation of the new woman, the novel reveals the fear of female sexuality through the erotic acts presented by the women and the men who must confront them.

In the first three series of the show taking place in Sunnydale High, Giles's lair is the library. After Buffy enrols in university, Giles's bachelor flat becomes the de-facto library of the Scooby Gang. His bookishness defines him and gives him his role among the cast of protagonists. In 'Primeval' (4.21), Giles's contribution to the group's attack against Adam is his intelligence, 'Sophus', his mind. Giles is the brain of the group, Buffy the hand that strikes. Similarly, Van Helsing in Dracula intervenes in the novel when the young characters need someone with access to occult lore to explain Lucy's ailment. His knowledge defines him too: Jack Seward refers to him for the first time as 'Professor Van Helsing, of Amsterdam, who knows as much about obscure diseases as anyone in the world' (Dracula, 111), and alter as 'Van Helsing, the great specialist' (Dracula, 117).

Today’s filmmakers have three areas to focus on: the event or theme of the film, the audience who will be watching the film, and lastly, the individual characters and the roles they play and how they are portrayed and interpreted. Many of these films bottom line objectives are to focus on the “erotic needs of the male ego.” The focus on fetishistic scopophilia tend to slant the view such that we see the world as being dominated by men and that woman are

Within My Last Duchess, The Bloody Chamber and Dracula, there is evidence to suggest that women within the gothic genre as portrayed as victims of male authority, as well as evidence to disprove this argument, instead suggesting that it is the women within the Gothic genre which makes themselves victims. ‘Angela Carter is particularly interested in the portrayal of women as victims of male aggression as a limiting factor in the feminist perspective of the time’[i] Carter, with her modern twist on traditional fairytales places a

Horror movies throughout history have been known to have their cheesy storylines or continuous bad acting. Especially horror movies. People nowadays could easily spot the flaws in a film and judge them drastically in reviews. Yet, little do people notice the ongoing discrimination between genders. Horror films tend to portray males and females substantially differently because of stereotypical views. There seems to be a pattern in which each gender takes a certain role in a movie continuously. Females are shown to be “objects” such as sex and emotional symbols, while males are shown as strong or powerful and moreover as the main bad guy. Although some of the newer edition films of the horror genre are displaying each gender more and more equal throughout the ongoing years, the gender discrimination dilemma still exists and can be seen by the statistics in the movie industry in general.

In his Literary Theory: The Basics, H. Bertens classifies stereotypes of women in literature into a number of categories; dangerous seductress, self-sacrificing angel, dissatisfied shrew, and defenseless lamb, completely incapable of self-sufficiency, or self-control, and dependent on male intervention. Bertens concludes that the primary objective of these women – or “constructions” – is to serve a “not-so-hidden purpose: the continued cultural and social domination of males”. One such novel that came under feminist scrutiny for these particular reasons was Bram Stoker’s Dracula, although this perlustration didn’t occur until 70 years after Stoker originally penned his masterpiece. However, during the mid-1960s, the rise of the feminist

Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s debut in 1997 reinforces the concept that “...since the late 1990s/early 2000s, the sympathetic vampire…has become distinctly more common in popular fiction and film than the monstrous stereotype as a vicious killer” (qtd. in Parke and Wilson 179). Throughout the Buffy series, one of Buffy’s main love interests has been Angel, an outcast vampire who has empathy for humans (e.g., he does not harm humans unless provoked, he protects Buffy and her friends from other vampires). As opposed to the other vampires in Buffy, Angel has a soul and experiences guilt for his past crimes. Writer Lorna Jowett (of Buffy, Dark Romance and Female Horror Fans) introduces the idea that Buffy the Vampire Slayer has impacted science-fiction (paranormal, in particular) by a theme of “dark romance”: “…its male protagonists are powerful and dangerous, often presented as stereotypical bad boys, and the fact that they are vampires or werewolves positions them ‘naturally’, both monstrosity and masculinity” (qtd in Stuller 92).

subject of social ostracism, and the New Woman, the advent of which was feared by the majority of the British Victorian patriarchy, was a prominent aspect of much mid-to-late Victorian era literature. Supplementary evidence to support the compelling Victorian era literary connection between the vampire and the New Woman can be extrapolated from the unique gender role standards that defined that socially complex era. As Catherine Siemann suggests in her essay, “Darkness Falls on the Endless Summer: Buffy as Gidget for the Fin de Siecle,” the Victorian New Woman’s “personal

The story is of a teenage girl who is chosen to be the next Slayer, endowed with supernatural strength in order to aide her on her quest, because: “In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer”("Welcome to the Hellmouth"). In this series, the Slayer is known as Buffy Summers, and the series follows her as she faces one apocalypse after another, graduating school, dealing with boys and life and death and all the issues that one expects to arise from a coming of age series. What makes Buffy unique is that unlike the rest of the Slayers from the generations before her, she has a collection of friends who help her answer her calling, and together, they create an enthralling cast that keeps the viewers coming back to relive each episode. Feminists have hailed Buffy as being one of the most prominent series that deals with feminist issues and provides viewers with a strong female figurehead; others, however, look at the show with a more critical eye, wondering just what kind of feminism and feminist ideals are being portrayed in the series. This paper will touch upon most of these ideas, yet for now, the focus will be on the character of Buffy herself. .

Most concerns are with the important positioning called the final character that happens to be a girl, with relationship to spectator. There are theories that are used to analyze the movie as a male character. There is where popular culture evolves in that every last or final person in a horror movie is always a woman or girl. The serial attacker or the killer usually turns out to be a male. Ironical how women are viewed as weak and fearful people they are always the ones that end up being the last people. The final girl is structurally meant to make an interesting impact to the audience so that it can be watched by almost