In a society dominated by male superheroes, it is not that often that a female character is able to step forward and defend the world. There have been quite a few female superheroes throughout the ages of popular culture, including the Canadian Marvel super-heroine, Aurora ("Marvel"), and DC Comic's character, Black Canary (Kanigher, and Infantino). Yet for every one female superhero that is encountered, there are at least a dozen more male superheroes to stand around—and often in front of—her. Even more frustratingly, the female superheroes are often merely there to be the gendered counterpart to the much more powerful, dominant male superheroes. There have been few women who have stood out as being independent, admirable sources of female empowerment for their fans throughout the generations of superheroes. Perhaps one of the biggest cultural sensations that does just this is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the main title character of the series, Buffy Summers herself. Yet is Buffy really as admirable as she seems to be on the surface? The fact is that for all the good that Buffy appears to do for her fans, there have been some very crucial issues in Women Studies that she has failed to lend her empowering nature to. This paper will discuss the powerful influence that Buffy the Vampire Slayer has over its viewers, and some of the problems that arise from this power.
First, the question needs to be asked: just what is Buffy the Vampire Slayer? To summarize it as simply as possible, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a television series created by Joss Whedon. It was originally created as a relatively unsuccessful movie in 1992, when it was adapted for television in 1997 (IMDB). From then on, it became a popular culture phenomenon, gath...
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...eams, 2009. Web. 16 Mar 2011. .
Levine, Elana, and Lisa Parks. "Buffy and the "New Girl Order"." Undead TV: Essays on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2007): 168-190. Web. 16 Mar 2011. .
Samanta, Anamika, and Erin Franzman. "Women in Action." Hues 4.3 (1998): 28. Web. 16 Mar 2011. .
Schudt, Karl. "Also Sprach Faith: The Problem of the Happy Rogue Slayer." Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale. 'Ed'. James B. South. Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 2003. Print.
"Welcome to the Hellmouth." Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 10 Mar 1997. Television. 16 Mar 2011.
“National Women’s Conference.” Off Our Backs 8, no. 1 (1978): 2-3. Accessed February 12, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25792578.
In the article “Wonder Woman” Gloria Steinem expresses that the making of female super-heroes empowers females by reducing the fixed theme of a Caucasian male saving an inferior female. She displays this by showing how inferior women were before in male super-hero comic books, compares what it was like personally reading female super-hero comics to male super-hero comics as a child, the fight with other women to have the original Wonder Woman published in Ms. Magazine and how even males were changed by the making of Wonder Woman.
In 1997, a new series featuring a female lead aired, it was called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This show became popular instantly and to this day it still remains popular, if not more. This series was named by TV Guide critics as “one of the fifty greatest TV shows of all time”, because of its feminist portrayals (Heinecken, 91). Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created by Joss Whedon due to the fact that he felt bad for women in horror films, he felt like their depictions were almost always sexist. Whedon quoted that the show he has created depicts, “the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it.”, which is important to show to women of newer generations (South, 35). What made Buffy so special was that there was finally a female character that was at
...oday. Taking for granted a "normal" life that revolves around school, parties and friends. The Crucible and The Matrix exhibit more cultural and social values than Buffy and they are both done exceptionally well, covering many different themes and aspects without taking away from the plot or story.
Robinson, David. “Web Page of Deborah Tannen.” Georgetown College - Georgetown University. 28 Feb 1998. 15 Jun 2008
In American culture today, women continue the struggle of identifying what their roles in society are supposed to be. Our culture has been sending mixed messages to the modern day female, creating a sense of uneasiness to an already confusing and stressful world. Although women today are encouraged more than ever to be independent, educated, and successful, they are often times shamed for having done just that. Career driven females are frequently at risk of being labeled as bossy, unfeminine, or selfish for competing in many career paths that were once dominated by men. A popular medium in our culture such as television continues to have significant influences as to how people should aspire to live their lives. Viewers develop connections with relatable characters and to relationship dynamics displayed within their favorite shows. Fictional characters and relationships can ultimately influence a viewer’s fashion sense, social and political opinion, and attitude towards gender norms. Since the days of Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie, where women were commonly portrayed as being the endearing mischievous housewife, television shows have evolved in order to reflect real life women who were becoming increasingly more independent, educated, and career oriented throughout the subsequent decades. New genres of television are introduced, such as the workplace comedy, where women are not only career oriented, but eventually transition into positions of power.
... her to be the Slayer. Her only chance to find motivation in the world is to find a new desire. Both characters approach the same center, but from different ends of the drive-symbol spectrum. Thus, Whedon not only makes use of the Lacanian "between the two deaths" concept, but he also plays with making it dynamic (Spike) and with inverting it (Buffy). Then, at the very end of the episode, the two experiments are united in an elegant closure.
Gale, 2000. Credo Reference. 29 Oct. 2007. Web. 20 Apr. 2010. < HYPERLINK "http://www.credoreference.com.ezproxy.sunycgcc.edu:2048/entry/galeus/women" http://
For over 60 years, Wonder Woman has filled the pages of her magazine with adventures ranging from battling Nazis, to declawing human-like Cheetahs. Her exploits thrilled and inspired many young girls, including Gloria Steinem. Through all of this, she has had to pilot her invisible jet through territories that her male counterparts have never had to. She is constantly pulled in two directions; her stories must be entertaining and non threatening to the male status quo, while simultaneously furthering her as the original symbol of 'Girl Power.' She is praised for being an icon of strength to women everywhere, but chastised for wearing a skimpy costume and tying men up, as if she were no more than a male fantasy. No comic book character has had to endure as much scrutiny as Wonder Woman. That's because Wonder Woman represents an entire gender, at a time of important social flux. Although she was created by a man to influence a male audience, Wonder Woman has evolved into an important symbol of the feminist movement.
Originally published in Cinema Journal 40, No. 3, Spring 2001, Jason Mittell’s “A Cultural Approach to Television Genre Theory” conceives of television genre as a cultural category rather than merely a textual component. In the decade since the original publishing of the article, television has evolved out of the multi-channel era and into the post-network era. In this new television landscape, genres are no longer a fixed entity1, and there is great academic potential in the in the study of television genres. The text, Thinking Outside the Box: A Contemporary Television Genre Reader, aims to explore and analyze genre in the current television landscape, and the Mittell article, republished in the book, serves as an entry point to such scholarship.
Thompson, mark. “Women in Combat: Shattering the Brass Ceiling.” nationtime.com. Time, 2014. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.
The SyFy Channel’s reality television show Heroes of Cosplay follows a predominately female cast of cosplayers as they participate in several competitions on the fan convention circuit (Brady et al, 2013). Suzanne Scott notes that, in the show, men are shown as the “invisible laborers” whose work is confined to domestic spaces, while their partners, the female cosplayers, move freely through and work in the “public sphere” by participating in conventions (Scott, 2015, p. 152). This can be seen as a direct gender role reversal from traditional gender roles. Traditional gender roles say that women should be mothers and place family over potential careers (). While men should, according to traditional gender roles, be the worker in the outside world and be “bread winners”(). Additionally, traditional gender roles leave the work women do in the home under appreciated whereas in the show it is seen that the women take the bulk of the acknowledgement regardless of the male participation in constructing the costumes (Scott, 2015, p. 152). Heroes of Cosplay has been criticized in some instances for verifying what Suzanne Scott says is the “inherent masculinity of material fan labor” (Scott, 2015, p.153). The show has also been criticized for downplaying the women’s work on their costumes implying that the men actually do the bulk of the work while the women are just objects whose purpose is to display these works (Scott,
When the word “vampire” comes to mind, people think of the traditional pale-faced, malicious bloodsuckers, sporting a cape and killing people when they’re sleeping. Wrong! Nowadays, the image of a vampire is a handsome, polite, and loving person who protects humans. The new cultural phenomenon Twilight is building a new degrading image for vampires that slaps the face of all previous authors, directors, writers, etc. who contributed to giving the monster its unique image in the past.
Superheroes in the media have traditionally been portrayed as white males. In fact, anyone who is not a dedicated fan to superhero comics will probably find it difficult to name a superhero other than Wonder Woman who is not a B-list female counterpart to a more popular male superhero (take Supergirl, Batgirl, and Spider-Women as some examples). This can be a huge problem when it comes to girls searching in the media for powerful female role models and not finding any superheroes.
Journal of Popular Culture, 32(2), pp. 79-89. Retrieved from: http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=6&sid=64cd7df8-8ea3-4d9a-ad60-1deef7e616e6%40sessionmgr114&hid=103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=aph&AN=1585569 Starlet C. (2007). Women in action movie empowered role models or chicks with guns.