http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/Story?id=4396156&page=1



Buffy Summers has now done it all.

After spending nearly a decade slaying vampires and demons and carefully juggling her schoolwork with her budding teen romances, Buffy of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" now also knows what it's like to have a one-night stand -- with a woman.

Loved It.

Classic Xander.

I'm currently about half way through season 7.... are the comics in an anthology book or do you have to hunt all the single issues down?

lazycrockett said:

My cynical side wants to dismiss it as a marketing ploy.

BUT


The Buffy-verse has always been one of the most gay-friendly ones out there. Plenty of characters, main and side, have been variations of queer. There've been queer-centric themes in certain plot lines and episodes from the get-go. Not to mention Joss' fan-friendly habit of insinuating everyone of both genders either has sexed it up with Spike or is hoping to.

I'm currently about half way through season 7.... are the comics in an anthology book or do you have to hunt all the single issues down?

meow85 said:

the buffy-spike hookup pretty much did me in. that was all my fan loyalty could take.. ..

My only real problem with the Buffy/Spike thing was that she had just returned from being dead and somehow needed to be around other "dead" characters. I kinda think that Josh dropped the ball on the rebirth of Buffy.

The musical brought up the idea of being brought back from heaven by your witchy friend but I just never felt that they really addressed the issue. It was always well Buffy is just different now. I just thought there could have been a better arc of rediscovery of life that was lacking.

I'm not a fan of the Buffy/Spike relationship. Mostly because it pandered to all of the Spuffy shippers (shit, I'm such a fanboygirl, I guess) who were extremely annoying. But hell there were so many of them, I guess they had to at some point.

Raze said:

Personally, I would've preferred any 'ship to that one. Had it been played out differently, Spuffy could've worked for me. But no. No cookie for Joss this time. The rampant inequality in how it was portrayed bugged the shit out of me.

I think the fumbling rape scene just turned all fans off.

meow85 said:

Yeah, I kind of lost a lot of respect for the character (Buffy) the way she handled Spike. There's a difference between revealing flaws for some great characterization and just completely trashing her personality. Sure, she had a lot going on in her head, but still, this is fiction.... the heroes don't have to be COMPLETELY realistic human beings. A lot of the magic of the character and the show were lost for me during S6. And it wasn't just Buffy's character.

lazycrockett said:

I actually had an interesting conversation with my Communications Professor about this one, she also being an avid watcher (heh) of all things Joss, and hey, a Comm. Prof.

Though the more obvious error was making a character who the majority of fans had come to love attempt a horrific act (most people are more put off by sexual violence than plain ol' violence -a thing Spike's portrayed with gleefully over the story arcs) the real misstep was again, (and I agree with her) the inequality in the portrayal in context of the entire Spuffy storyline.

Yes. Spike attempted to rape Buffy. Not cool on any level. Not cool at all. Not even vamps get a pass on this one. That was just all kinds of wrong.

But. Um. Remember some of those sex scenes throughout the Spuffy-scope? Remember, on more than one occasion, Spike saying no and even physically resisting Buffy? Dude, that's rape. And if the genders of the characters had been reversed and they were, say, Brad the Vampire Slayer and Spikette the chipped vampire, it wouldn't even be a question. Throw in the added factors of "Brad" being stronger, higher up than "Spikette" on the demon food chain by way of being the thing that kills vampires, and Spikette's electronic handicap, and there you have it. But because the coerced party in the earlier scenes was male and the aggressor female, it's mostly played for laughs.

I'm not in any way trying to play down the seriousness of Spike's actions, just questioning why Joss et al. would play down the seriousness of Buffy's.
[Edited 3/11/08 1:57am]

meow85 said:

But the whole buffy/spike was s/m or thats how i saw it. two damaged souls trying to figure it all out. Thats why the "rape" thing felt false. Both Spike and Buffy had been playing each other for the thrill, then suddenly Buffy goes all weak and cant beat the shit out of Spike?

And for the record Im in no way condoning none equal sex games, im all for a good rape fantasy, but this to me just didn't make sense.

Raze said:

I'll admit, Buffy herself was never why I tuned into the show in the first place. I was more of a fan of the rest of the characters and the overal storyline. But I could respect Buffy.

Through S6 and S7 I hung on for the show, but I couldn't handle seeing Buffy after that point. I still loved the rest, but I didn't even like seeing her onscreen anymore.

meow85 said:

Yeah, I kind of lost a lot of respect for the character (Buffy) the way she handled Spike. There's a difference between revealing flaws for some great characterization and just completely trashing her personality. Sure, she had a lot going on in her head, but still, this is fiction.... the heroes don't have to be COMPLETELY realistic human beings. A lot of the magic of the character and the show were lost for me during S6. And it wasn't just Buffy's character.

Raze said:

Extactly... it was everybody.

Sweeny79 said:

Season six was aimless for the most part. I couldn't believe that halfway through the season, the big bad was the super-villian trio of Jonathan, Andrew and Warren. It didn't really kick into high gear until the last few episodes.

sextonseven said:

Yeah, that was a little iffy. I think Joss wanted to take time to focus more on the interpersonal drama than dealing with supervillians, which I understand. But honestly -high school nerds as evildoers? Only Warren was arguably evil, and he was just a smart guy with a huge chip on his shoulder. Jonathan and Andrew were just kids sitting in a basement.


For me, S7 had a much better villain (THE evil!) but the presentation was weak. It just dragged on and on.