Day Six: Female Character Meme

[ishtar79]

Day Six: Favorite female-driven show Buffy the Vampire Slayer




Is this cheating? You know how it goes: shows with a roughly equal gender ratio are perceived to be female-dominated, and it's true much of fandom's energy (and screentime in later seasons) was dedicated to certain male characters. On the other hand, trying to think of majority female cast shows made me think of the either depressingly stereotypical (Sex and the City) to shows than I either haven't watched or wasn't crazy for (Xena and Lost Girl, respectively). And the fact remains that, for all its flaws, Buffy at its core remained about the story of a girl, and over the years it has offered truly amazing and varied female characters.

At the end of the day, it's a show that holds a special significance to me that no other show has managed to replicate so far. Whether it's the camp, brilliant metaphors and witty dialogue that characterised the earlier seasons to the less universally beloved grit and darkness of the last few years, BtVS kept me hooked throughout, right up to a finale that is, to me, the most feminist closing of a television series. I cared about Buffy and the Scoobies' struggles, battles and evolving relationships. And while the wankiest fandom battles were about the canon het ships, it's easy to forget how good it was at portraying female relationships, from the occasionally rocky but always strong Buffy and Willow friendship, to delightfully convincing sisters Buffy and Dawn, to one of the first long-term tv lesbian relationships in Willow and Tara and, of course, to the antagonistic and sexually charged dynamic between Buffy and Faith. There's just something wonderful and magical about the show I haven't been able to let go of, and it's not just because it was my introduction to fandom. It's telling that whenever a great new show comes up, for a significant portion of fans the question seems to be “But is it the new Buffy?”.


Day One: Favorite lead female character
Day Two: Favorite supporting female character
Day Three: A female character you hated but grew to love
Day Four: A female character you relate to
Day Five: Favorite female character on a male-driven show
Day Six: Favorite female-driven show
Day Seven: A female character that needs more screen time
Day Eight: Favorite female character in a comedy show
Day Nine: Favorite female character in a drama show
Day Ten: Favorite female character in a scifi/supernatural show
Day Eleven: Favorite female character in a children’s show
Day Twelve: Favorite female character in a movie
Day Thirteen: Favorite female character in a book
Day Fourteen: Favorite older female character
Day Fifteen: Favorite female character growth arc
Day Sixteen: Favorite mother character
Day Seventeen: Favorite warrior female character
Day Eighteen: Favorite non-warrior female character
Day Nineteen: Favorite non-human female character
Day Twenty: Favorite female antagonist
Day Twenty-One: Favorite female character screwed over by canon
Day Twenty-Two: Favorite female character you love but everyone else hates
Day Twenty-Thre: Favorite female platonic relationship
Day Twenty-Four: Favorite female romantic relationship
Day Twenty-Five: Favorite mother/daughter and/or sister relationship
Day Twenty-Six: Favorite classical female character (from pre-20th century literature or mythology or the like)
Day Twenty-Seven: A female character you have extensive personal canon for
Day Twenty-Eight: Favorite female writer (television, books, movies, etc.)
Day Twenty-Nine: A female-centric fic rec
Day Thirty: Whatever you'd like!

Comments

[ariadneelda.livejournal.com]

Buffy would totally be my choice for this question as well. :) It might be cheating in a way, and perhaps a great part of fandom was mostly interested in some of the male characters, as, I admit, was I at first, but I always felt the show was focusing more on its female characters and the male characters felt kind of secondary. And thinking of BtVS female characters, it now makes me also think of Joyce, Harmony, Glory (whom I hated but that's not the point), all the Slayers... who else am I forgetting?

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

Jenny Calendar, Kendra, Drusilla (to say nothing of more central characters like Faith, Anya, Tara etc).

And yeah, I remember who you were looking forward to when we started watching. ;) But the whole cast ends up winning you over, the female characters in particular are so awesome.

[ariadneelda.livejournal.com]

I left out characters you mentioned in your post or are in the photo (so no Faith, Anya and Tara) but how could I have forgotten Drusilla especially??? Also - Darla! Cordelia! (Though Darla was more in Angel). I'm sure I could think of more.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I don't think that it is cheating at all to recognize that BtVS was one of the all time great female lead/female centric shows to ever be on TV.
I mean I loved Gilmore Girls... until they ruined both characters in the last season (better they had died IMO)
And Charmed died and stunk up the air waves with its rotting corpse of sex kitten costume changes after Shannon/Pru left the show.
I never liked Sex and City (talk about mixed messages, supposedly a women's show but it set back women worse than Mad Men ever could)
And I'm afraid I never watched Xena (mea culpa)

How many female centric shows have there ever even been? There are a few police procedurals w/women as leads, but they are basically playing men surrounded by men... it isn't about women at all.

Nope Buffy is the girl! Surrounded by strong interesting girls.

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

I wasn't a fan of GG or Charmed, but I did enjoy Sex and the City on its own merits. If nothing else, I thought it did a good job of portraying the friendships between the four leads (even if Carrie's romantic life drove me up the wall). But yeah, there's a depressing lack of female-centric shows that aren't either stereotypical or, well, dull.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Well I could find 'Sex and The City' funny for a single half hour episode, but when it went into syndication here they started running them in batches of three in a row, and I quickly discovered that I couldn't bear to spend an hour and a half with these selfish vain materialistic bitchy women. I really could never have been friends with any of them (I certainly couldn't identify with any of them!).

Of course I didn't really want to live in Buffy's world either, but I was really dying to get to move on board Serenity.