Buffy, the Vampire Slayer a Gender Discussion - 1514 Words

Buffy, The Vampire Slayer: A Gender Discussion What is gender? The answer to that is not so simple. Gender is what culture makes out of the ‘raw material of biological sex, (Unger and Crawford, 1995). Also, there is a difference between what is gender identity and what is a gender role; a difference which seems to be even more difficult to differentiate between than the words gender and sex. Media and other parts of our culture seem to believe they know the difference, yet up until a certain period in time, the same stereotypical characters were portrayed and used as role models for others in most media. Women characters being the helpless victims, while the strong men would come to save them (including†¦show more content†¦She is more in control of what is happening, or has happened to her, and is beginning to harness herself as her own person, her own identity. She is not acting, or trying to be a certain type of person because everyone is telling her that that is who she is. Instead she is taking her identi ty and molding it; shaping it to fit who she is and who she has grown up to be. The fact that Buffy has taken on the role of the take charge leader (usually a role taken by a male), but other characters are called upon to take on the commonplace beliefs of gender roles and behavior. Willow (played by Alyson Hannigan) has recently gone through a change in her sexuality. Once a heterosexual high school student, after going through a difficult break-up with her boyfriend, becomes a lesbian. This makes it quite difficult to understand whether Willow became a lesbian because she felt that that was her sexual orientation all along, and originally she was only following what her peers and society believed in when being a lesbian was not as accepted as it is now, or because she did not know how else to handle her difficult break up, and decided that being a lesbian was easy because it was right there in front of her. One stereotype that is not acknowledged within this scenario is that neither female (Willow and Tara, her girlfriend) are butch in their behaviors, as many believe lesbians to be. Both women are exactly the same as who they were before realizing theirShow MoreRelated Comparing Sexuality and Power in Dracula and Buffy the Vampire Slayer1657 Words   |  7 PagesSexuality and Power in Dracula and Buffy the Vampire Slayer    At first glance, Joss Whedons Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the hour-long TV series which premiered in 1997 and is now in its third season, bears little resemblance to the book which started the vampire craze -- Bram Stokers Dracula, published a century earlier. And yet, looks can be deceiving. Although the trendy -- and often skimpy -- clothing and bandied about pop-culture references of Buffy clearly mark the series as a productRead MoreWomen And Feminine Qualities Of Women1478 Words   |  6 Pagestreated as just people. 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