See, for me this doesn't work. What this emphasis on horror says to me is that they traumatized their lead protagonist in order to further a male characters story. Buffy had to be violated so that Spike could learn something about himself...
No. this was a messy situation. It wasn't always a teaching moment, nor should it have to be. It was simply a very real, at times, very toxic relationship. I do find it hard to watch at times.
So... let me ask you something? What did Buffy learn from her beating up of Spike, something that was (for me) just as horrifying as the attempted assault, and for which she a) walks away, apparently unaware she'd done something wrong. b) never apologizes for c) the show never addresses. Although, it's played for laughs, Buffy is extremely physically abusive to Spike over the course of the series. Early on, it's appropriate, because she's playing the role of soldier and it's her duty to put him in the ground, so to speak... goal=stop enemy. Later on, she seems to get into the habit of hitting him for sport. They establish very poor, very unhealthy boundaries... because she's toxic and he's toxic, and yet, they're drawn to each other.
This wasn't written 'like a show'. It is more like we get the inside view of a relationship on fire, without neat lessons or pat answers. Life doesn't hand those out. Ever. We learn lessons if we choose to, and often, only in hindsight.
IMO, it was very, very much the kind of trajectory you see in relationships between people who are out of control, particularly addicts. Most can't move past the mess they create or the damage, but some can, and some do.
I know b/c I did. And in the end, it was the very best, very happiest relationship of my life BECAUSE we basically rebuilt each other from scratch... but in the process, we were like two crazy, cornered animals and we also did damage to each other. We were both victims of abuse, and recovering addicts. The first year of our relationship was
volatile. Frankly, the neighbors should have called police. But, what happened instead was that we each went out and got help... for dealing with all the chaos that was inside each of us. We learned to talk brutally honestly about things -- and we got better. We learned that verbal assault and physical violence were not answers to our problems... we spent time apart. We spent time getting help... we chose to get saner. It was the hardest, sometimes frightening, sometimes loud relationship I've ever had. It's also the place I learned to trust and learned what it felt like to be treated with both love and respect...
I honestly think I would not be a viable human being had it not been for him. The converse is also true. We taught each other how to
be.
I don't think Buffy was traumatized 'in order' for Spike to learn something. This is not relationship school. This is us watching two people face their demons, not always well... But it's also about a woman who doesn't want to live, who does have someone she can turn to, even though she's not really emotionally sane or healthy. He is there for her. He saves her, in spite of being unhealthy himself, because he lacks moral judgment. I think both of them have a lot to learn and I think they learn it in spite of the bad stuff that they do to each other.
Buffy learned that someone had her back no matter what, and I think she learns that she has a right to be who she is, and want what she wants. Because her very dysfunctional relationship with the 'family' isn't very helpful to her in the last couple years in Sunnydale. They violated her too... You may not see this, but they wrenched her back into the world and that is NOT how it is supposed to work.
But I don't see her learning anything about herself.
She learned she didn't want to be dead. She learned that whenever she felt most alone there was one person who would always be there and who would fight for her to find a reason... who would try to stop her killing herself (as he actually did in OMWF) and stop her from destroying her life even more than it was (dead things - at great cost to himself)
Come season 7 I see an emotionally shut down and isolated young woman who is put in a position to care for the man who assualted her, but I don't see her learning anything.
She isn't put in the position to care for him... she CHOOSES it. She demands that Xander takes him in. When he's taken, she gets him back. That's NOT the action of someone who is 'forced' into something. That's the action of someone who is doing for Spike what he did for her the previous year. She's saving him, taking care of him, helping him get his mind back.
I don't see him learning much either. He gets his soul, but he has zero concerns about her even after.
He's totally different. He's not expecting her to love him or want him, but he is available and even though he offers to leave once he recognizes he could be dangerous, he stays because she asks. He expected her to stake him when the First took him over. Frankly, if we staked all our friends when they are taken over by something evil, we should have seen her kill Xander when he was the Hyena boy, she should have gotten a gun or a crossbow and shot dark Willow. Or Oz. She did for Spike who was unwittingly evil just what she would have done for ANY of the scoobies... she tries to save him... just as she ended up saving Giles who was not even recognizable as himself... thank goodness Spike recognized who he was and tried to help him...
If he had been moved to Angel immediately, stayed out of the path of the woman he loves and violated, and they reconnected later. That might've been different. But Spike is still all about Spike at this point for me, and I don't care what he needs... he's the offender. Even if he regrets it I care about what Buffy needs and at the start of season 7 she is not all that happy to see him. The way the rest of the season plays out, for me, gives the message that sexual assault is a way to start a relationship. Without it, Spike gets no soul, which seems to have been necessary to make Spuffy kosher or whatever, but for me personally I preferred Spuffy before this. It's the after I can't forgive, and the message (for me) is basically a "stand by your man" for abused women.
Not saying you have to agree with this, just trying to shed some light on why for someone like me, this doesn't work narratively.
But it's not trying to 'work narratively' -- it's a life, two lives -- and those don't work narratively, they just are. Their relationship didn't start with the abuse. It ENDED over it... There was NO relationship when he came back to Sunnydale. Only friendship... and that was actually the right note, as far as I can see.
She doesn't 'stand by him' she doesn't take him back when he comes back. It isn't clear she's interested in taking him back at any time in that year. They are, instead, slowly becoming friends. He is standing by her when she faces her worst enemy and the utter betrayal of friends and family.
There's no relationship. They learn to be friends.
Then as he is finally dying, she sees that he has become someone she can trust, someone who hasn't been trying to get into her pants, but who is instead trying to do what is right, and help save the world.
Can't agree there either. I don't think any of this is presented in a real life kind of a way, just in a romanticized "love heals everything" wishfullfilment fantasy.
Then I guess my relationship, which was hurtful and toxic by turn but slowly became healthy (and even included him standing up to my family) was wishfulfilment too.
To me, the idea of two messed up people healing each other is... well, ludicrous.
Well, i guess you have to live it.
To be clear, I'm not trying to convince you of my point of view, or to say you're wrong in any way, just explain why none of this is "good enough" for me. Just because you're a victim doesn't mean that you can't be a survivor...
You couldn't convince me. I'm whole today. I wasn't whole before. It wasn't just his love and our many painful talks that got me whole... we both forced/encouraged each other to get help a lot of times, and at other times, chose to get help b/c we were so horrified about our own behavior. Over the course of several years, we stayed clean, got help, got healthy, and found that love
does heal everything... if you do it right. That DOES NOT include 'taking it' or 'standing by your man' regardless. It involved a lot of painful confrontation... and self honesty... I wouldn't have missed a moment of my life.
After what I went through before he came along, I doubt I could have healed any other way. I was too broken, too hurting, and too alienated from trusting ANYONE. I didn't think I could be loved, and wasn't sure I could love anyone again.
I have none of those doubts today. I know I'm worthy. I know I can love and be loved and that I totally deserve it. I've also discovered that I can help others. My life is rich. He is a large part of why. So I KNOW love can heal you.
On the original question, in the #MeToo climate I think the story would have to be presented differently.
Probably. I think that in the name of 'not triggering' people, a lot of stuff will get dumbed down. The truth is that bad stuff happened in that relationship and bad things happen in a lot of relationship. They were traumatized. It was stomach turning to watch. That is as it should be.
It is those that we love who have all the power... those we let it. They can hurt us. They can save us. They can build us and they can destroy us. And unlike Spike, humans have souls. I think the lack soul is a metaphor for loss of control and lack of judgment. Of course, it is the man who does the deed... the demon just wants to kill and eat. The lack of soul means something though... It means the judgement to hold oneself back is lacking. And that moment means that Spike finally does see himself.
I am not someone who writes rape scenes b/c i find them gratuitous. But that is NOT a rape scene. It is painful b/c we see the effects of it... it isn't some kind of rough sex porno, which I've also seen rapesex depicted as. This is NOT that.
(this addresses what you wrote below as well)
The bathroom scene is particularly traumatizing for me as a viewer (even if able to separate fantasy from reality and having the ability to watch the news) because it's not Spike the demon who attacks Buffy. It is Spike the man, the man she's trusted, let inside of her, laughed with... it is a sincere and awful violation of Buffy's person and it is not presented as a metaphor or in a fantastical way. It is a real, raw and I'd say gratuitous rape scene. (Or sexual assault if you will, but no penetration doesn't make it any less violating). I don't think this scene belongs on a show with invisibility rays and snake demons, I don't think this kind of scene is what most (not saying all) signed up for when they started watching Buffy. I don't think it's brave or edgy, I think it is reckless and uncalled for.
Today they would either have had to make that scene differently, or dealt better with the aftermath. Buffy would talk to someone. An actual conversation about it. She would deal with it on screen. And Spike on a cross talking about how Buffy will forgive him probably wouldn't have been the same either, I think.
Basically, I think that in today's climate the AR would have been more of a big deal in the show, not just the means to an end (Spike getting his soul).
I actually would not change a thing in the portrayal in the show. It is ugly and it is shocking. What it is NOT is sexy. It needs to be shocking. There's no going back from that. At that point, we don't know we'll see Spike again. We don't know if we want to. After this episode aired, I would however, add a much needed discussion, where resources for relationship violence, rape survival and addiction help were made available. It needs to be addressed, but not within the show.
There definitely need to be resources provided after an episode like this.
I really do believe that the show was
always about more than the demons and magic.
The very first season, Xander tries to rape Buffy. Forcible, unvarnished rape. It's in some ways uglier and more shocking. We just aren't as wrapped up in them as a couple, so it doesn't stay with us... but XANDER NEVER ADDRESSES IT. There's no apology. Maybe if he'd addressed it, he might not have left Anya at the altar, b/c he might not fear his own internal violence so much. Sorry, but 'blame the Hyena' is every bit as facile as 'blame the lack of soul'. The damage to Buffy is still done.
What happened with Spike and Buffy could have (and probably has) happened to people with souls... People who didn't actually INTEND to try to rape anyone... It is still wrong and unacceptable and must be addressed.
If you look at Xander's attitude and behavior in that scene, it was all about dominance, all about raping and
owning Buffy. Spike was only hoping to prove to Buffy that she had feelings for her, but he lacks human judgement and it goes off the rails. What the soul means here? Is that he might have tried something different had he had his full judgment. He was also immediately regretful and horrified.
Xander treated it like a joke... and got Giles to go along with protecting his pride, while no one ever addresses the trauma he caused. Giles was complicit in protecting the 'innocent guy' instead of taking care of his traumatized slayer, who was also still a child. If I'd been young, virgin Buffy and my friend had tried to rape me, I wouldn't want to date him either... just saying.
The one rape of the series that actually happens never gets addressed as rape. Willow raped Tara. She roofied her, and she raped her, maybe more than once. Just think about that. THAT is a true violation. It was done with willfulness, forethought and utter, cold-hearted malice. Willow wants her, so Willow makes it so. (It's the same attitude that drags Buffy from heaven and gets the whole suicidal, self-destructive Buffy going, so she's partly to blame for everything that happens to Buffy that year.) Then the show gets Tara and Willow back together and that's OK.
That bothers me way more than the YEARS it took for Buffy and Spike to end up together after what happened.
The show was immensely transgressive. That is part of why we're still talking about it so many years later. Thre's a lot that is disturbing, but it is also a fascinating exploration of human nature and life. I still love it.
