Happy International Women's Day!

Women Power!

Slayer Soundtrack Sunday ~ Gingersol

Gingersol's "Never Noticed" plays at the end of the "The Wish," season 3, episode 9. Cordelia is angry at Xander and makes a wish in front of Anyanka the Vengeance Demon, who later become Anya, Xander's girlfriend. But in this episode Anya is still rocking the vengeance, and goes all out to give Cordelia some revenge by creating a Sunnydale where Buffy has never existed. This episode is famous for the alternate universe in which Vampire Willow and Vampire Xander are creepy lovers who torture Angel and stalk teenagers.

This is an ironically upbeat song to end such a dark episode.





Never Noticed:

Whedon ~ New Teen Vampire Shows are "Choosing Boyfriends: The Movie"

Joss Whedon is frustrated with the latest crop of Vampire tales, and he has good reason to be. From "Twilight" to "Vampire Diaries" there are no characters to match the power of Buffy, Willow, Tara, or Anya. Most girls don't want to slay the vampires - they want to date them!

From Entertainment Weekly Via Wet Paint

"The thing about Buffy for me is–on a show-by-show basis–are there female characters who are being empowered, who are driving the narrative?”

That question mark has him disappointed in relationship-centric vampire dramas that focus on love triangles — which he did with Buffy, Angel, and Spike through the years, but in a different way — and the magazine specifically asked about Twilight and The Vampire Diaries.

“The Twilight thing and a lot of these franchise attempts coming out, everything rests on what this girl will do, but she’s completely passive, or not really knowing what the hell is going on,” he said. “And that’s incredibly frustrating to me because a lot of what’s taking on the oeuvre of Buffy, is actually a reaction against it. Everything is there — except for the Buffy. A lot of things aimed at the younger kids is just Choosing Boyfriends: The Movie.”

Pakistan's Burka Avenger Fights Bad Guys with Books and Pens

The "Burka Avenger" is a superhero cartoon in Pakistan, inspired by a real-life hero and child-activist Malala, who survived an attack by the Taliban and was honored by "Malala Day" at the United Nations.

While she wears a burka like extreme traditional women, in her everyday life this cartoon character is a modern woman - a teacher - who doesn't wear a veil or cover her hair. The creator says he wanted the burka to be used just to hide her identity, a nice twist on the usually oppressive use of the burka to hide a woman's sexuality from the world.

And she protects children from the bad things - sweatshops and religious oppression.

Her weapons? Books and Pens only. And that goes back to something Malala said:

Let us pick up our books and our pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education first.

Mr. Giles would certainly approve.

Whedon Talks Avengers in The Daily Beast

Joss Whedon on Shakespeare, Female Superheroes and Feminism (and lots of other stuff) via Daily Beast

Excerpt:

Where does your fondness for heroines come from?

I was raised by a hardcore feminist. I was also much smaller than my brothers and bullied a lot, so I identify with the feeling of helplessness.

Why do you think there’s a lack of female superheroes in film?

Toymakers will tell you they won’t sell enough, and movie people will point to the two terrible superheroine movies that were made and say, You see? It can’t be done. It’s stupid, and I’m hoping The Hunger Games will lead to a paradigm shift. It’s frustrating to me that I don’t see anybody developing one of these movies. It actually pisses me off. My daughter watched The Avengers and was like, “My favorite characters were the Black Widow and Maria Hill,” and I thought, Yeah, of course they were. I read a beautiful thing Junot Diaz wrote: “If you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves.”

. . . The Avengers 2 is on the horizon, and Robert Downey Jr. is technically not signed yet. How crucial is he to the franchise? His Tony Stark is almost Shakespearean.

He is Iron Man. He is Iron Man in the way that Sean Connery was James Bond. I have no intention of making Avengers 2 without him, nor do I think I’ll be called upon to do that. I don’t think it’s in my interest, Marvel’s interest, or his interest, and I think everything will be fine. But I know that this is Hollywood and you roll with things. You have to be ready for the unexpected. But I loved working with Robert, and everybody knows he embodied that role in a way no one else can. The day he was cast, I went up to [Marvel Studios president] Kevin Feige and said, “You brilliant son of a bitch.”

How did you get to direct The Avengers?

I’d known Kevin for a while and was brought on just to read the script and advise the way I have with plenty of people. Eventually, I thought there was a story that I’d like to tell, and Kevin and I were on the same page about that. I took a big financial hit doing that movie. They know it’s your [big] break. Plus, you don’t do it for the money—even if there is the money—because people will know. They’ll smell it. But I fell in love with the story and they liked my version of it.

Guardian UK Geek-Out Over Joss Whedon

Great fannish article about Joss Whedon From Guardian UK

Excerpt ~ on Buffy and Feminism:

Whedon... (created) his own universe: supernatural and sci-fi worlds populated by fast-talking, wise-cracking folk whose language has infiltrated our speech (if you find your vocab becoming rather suffix-y – if you've ever used words like "backstabby" or "kissage" – thank Whedon).

. . . What you can't miss about his oeuvre is its empowering depiction of women. Buffy, with her kickass reflexes and witty rejoinders, never needed rescuing by a guy – hell, she once stuck a sword through her boyfriend's chest. Was it hard, I wonder, to introduce a feminist icon into fantasy, a genre more associated with teenage boys with limited social skills? "It's like horror or, back when it was somewhat new, rap," Whedon replies. "It's a fringe art which means you will find the most egregious misogyny in there – but also the most subversive feminism."

Whedon has said before that if anyone wonders why he writes female characters the way he does, they need only meet his mother. Writing a female hero was a conscious decision "but if it doesn't come from the subconscious it'll just be a polemic, it'll reek," he says. "There's nothing worse than someone who thinks they're supposed to add a feminist or racial agenda that they're not invested in." Whedon himself was inspired by James Cameron – "He gave us [Alien's] Ripley and [The Terminator's] Sarah Connor when we desperately needed them, and he wasn't doing it with any stated agenda."

He admits, however, that the status quo may not have improved dramatically. He's keen not to lay a thick judgment on the Twilight franchise, but he admits the films "feel like a reaction against Buffy: 'OK, we liked the part where it was sexy, and there were love triangles, and monsters… We found her a bit grating.'

"Kristen Stewart is kind of captivating," he continues, "she can just stare at stuff and it works because I still want to watch it. But it does seem a bit passive. 'I don't know which beautiful boy to choose between!' is not exactly the struggle that every girl is going through."