Misogyny and the Culinary Appeal of Buffy, Bella and Sookie

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Disclaimer: I’ve never read any of the Twilight books or the Southern Vampire (True Blood) books. So, all of my opinions are based only on the movies and TV show respectively. Well, and things I’ve picked up from others who’ve read the books.

Any number of parallels can be drawn between these three franchises (and most of those parallels serve to highlight the exceptional craftsmanship with which BtVS was made—but that’s neither here nor there).
Spoilers for Sunday’s True Blood below the cut.

Upon the revelation in Sunday night’s True Blood episode that Sookie is a fairy—with “delectable” blood—I got to thinking about this latest parallel between these 3 heroines. All three of these special snowflakes—Bella, Sookie, and Buffy—have blood that is for one reason or another inherently more desirable to vampires than average human blood.

Sookie, it turns out, is a fairy. And fairies apparently have the bestest, most tastiest blood in the whole wide world. Buffy is a slayer, and slayer blood has healing powers (Graduation Day), aphrodisiac qualities (Fool for Love), and also a powerful slayer-y aftertaste that many find appealing (Prophecy Girl). And Bella… well. Who knows what her deal is. As far as I understand, no explanation is ever offered for her yumminess—it’s just how she is. And it just drives the undead fellas crazy for her.

What I find interesting/troubling about this is—well, there’s a lot, actually. But I’ll start at Plato. Plato didn’t think much of the ladies—don’t let a few isolated lines from Republic fool you: dude was an ardent misogynist. He thought women were generally inferior in every way. Big deal, right? Nothing earthshaking there. But what I find interesting is that in discussing reproduction and childbearing, he gives women about as little credit as you can possibly give the person who’s actually squeezing another human being out of her body.

Plato believed that men’s essence (i.e. semen) was what created life. Women provided the clay—the physical matter that men breathed life into. But women had nothing to do with the actual life-giving force. We were the flesh, the body alone. Nothing more. (As a side note—because women were so inextricably bound to the corporeal world, it was nearly impossible for them to joint the Forms—Plato’s version of reaching Nirvana.)

This view of women’s nature was picked up by the Manicheans—a religious cult/sect thingamabob that was pretty popular right around the time that the early Christian church was being organized. And in fact, there were several early church fathers who dabbled in Manichaeism and brought ideas of women existing only in the flesh into Christian doctrine—and thus into all of Western civilization.

So, here we are, 2300 or so years later, and Plato’s still got us. This whole “a woman’s inherent value is in her blood/body” business really just reaches back to the same old misogyny. And when I say old, I mean old.

And here we are, having to wonder whether Bill does love Sookie as wholly as he claims—or if he only wants her blood. And we have to wonder the same for Eric.

And we have to wonder about Bella—would Edward have any interest in Bella at all if every time he looked at her he didn’t see a big cartoon hamburger?

Having to wonder again and again whether anyone actually gives a crap about our (and I use “our” loosely, here—I feel no real ties to either Bella or Sookie) heroines for anything other than their blood is getting a little old.

Can’t we get a freaking story about a woman, written by a woman, for women where we don’t reinforce these millennia-old woman-as-flesh myths? Can we?

And that brings me to Buffy. As usual when discussing these works in tandem—BtVS sets itself apart. In more than one way.

Buffy is a slayer—not a member of a much-victimized race of fairies like Sookie or a haplessly delicious SparkleVamp cocktail like Bella. When vampires want Buffy for her intrinsic, fleshly qualities, what they want is her power—not just her body. And that’s something. It may not be perfect. But it’s a hell of a lot better than being a consumable object only desired for her ability to hold you over until dinnertime.

But another notable place where Buffy is different from Twilight and True Blood is in the gender of its creator. Joss Whedon, obviously, is a man; Stephanie Meyers and Charlene Harris are women (duh).

Why is it that Buffy is the only one of this trio of female protagonists who can legitimately be celebrated from a feminist perspective? Why is it that the two woman writers failed to create protaganists women can really look up to, but the man succeeded?

Don’t get me wrong—I’m beyond thrilled to have anyone of any sex creating strong female characters. I just wonder, if the vast majority of feminists are women (and I’ve got no statistics to back that assertion up—but I’m betting it’s true), why aren’t more strong female characters created by women? Is it a genre-fiction thing? Or a problem with getting certain media greenlighted? Or is it that women really are buying into the stupid myths about our inherent value being in the corporeal? Just curious.

Note: It’s been a long, long time since I took Intro to Philosophy, so if I got some of that wrong, I’m sorry.