Is it Gay to be a Werewolf? "PHASES" Reaction | Buffy The Vampire Slayer 2x15 (Commentary)
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- Опубликовано: 4 окт 2024
- A classic monster this week and an episode of surprises. My review and analysis for episode 15.
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The title is a nod to the popular internet meme format of a certain subsection of men thinking you're gay if you do ANYTHING.
Not a serious question, everyone relax 😂
If you'd put "fellas" in the beginning, that would be super duper clear. I think most people got it anyway.
And its a great tittle. The only thing that is not gay is hooking up with guys, thats just being a homie
There is a bigger thing you touched on about BTVS when you opened the video. Which is, that while you disagree with violence, BTVS is a depiction of feminism as violence. Buffy is novel as a superhero in that her solution is to kill her enemies. (“She is the Slayer.”)
By the way, the question of whether direct conflict with evil even is the morally right response is a theme in Angel, if you ever choose to react to it. But the moral ambiguity of the use of violence lingers in Buffy discourse. And it has led some critics to argue that the show is itself ableist. But I’ll leave that for you to decide.
Ohhh, I didn’t get that off the bat but I wasn’t offended either way. I figured you were nodding to the metaphor in the episode.
@@davewolf6256 interesting thought, though just pointing out the vampire hunter trope is hundreds of years old dating back to Slavic myth, and all feature male vampire hunters killing vampires. I’d love to be corrected but I think Mina from Dracula is the closest thing to a female vampire hunter before Buffy, and although she’s a really undervalued character, it reads as very non-feminist that she isn’t an active part of fighting off Dracula, and her virtue is in trying to resist him.
Joss has said many times that he wrote Xander with the most faults as a proxy for him and his peers in high school, showing how awkward he was and how many mistakes he made. He wrote Oz as the person he would have liked to be and as someone he hoped the next generation would look towards.
It's also interesting to note that these days, people find this episode problematic. It makes the only gay character in the show the biggest, most toxic jerk in the whole school. But at the time, the intention of the character and the side plot was trying to simply deliver the, "Some people are struggling with shame over who they are and lash out at others in awful ways" message and was praised for showing nuance and actually portraying a gay male character on TV in a way that wasn't overly feminine and outwardly flamboyant.
Crazy how times change!
I definitely think the show redeems itself for any potential issues with this episode, one of the pioneering shows for gay representation in the long run.
@@ceceliam9014 Agreed entirely. But I do understand when teens today watching for the first time after having seen a lot of representation that came after will say, "Oh sure, of course every giant jerk is secretly gay and all gay people in the closet act like assholes on TV back then! We go almost two full seasons without a single gay character and this is the only gay guy in Sunnydale? Really?"
It's just a measure of how much progress we've made though and IMO that's pretty cool!
Yeah when this came out I was a Larry, and it was really nice to have some representation closer to my experience back in the late 90s where everyone still really ostracised us, so it's wonderful to hear attitudes have progressed enough that Larry is now considered outdated rather than groundbreaking
Yeah, I think you’re really spot on with the problem people have with it now verse the positive at the time. For me tbh the actor that plays Larry makes the difference. He never plays it as a joke, he’s beautifully sincere and I feel the audience is suppose to root for him. Xander is the punchline, because he’s uncomfortable. And I’m really glad that although the show does make fun of Xander for being uncomfortable, they don’t write him any homophobic lines.
I think Larry initially being a jerk has aged fine, because it's clear that he's dealing with a lot of insecurity and is overcompensating in the worst ways. It's a bit broad, but it rings true enough. I think Larry himself is handled fine.
Xander's behaviour, on the other hand, has aged less well. Understandable from a 17 year old in the nineties, maybe, but it still hasn't aged great.
In Xander's defense MOST of his discomfort was that Larry (Pirate Guy) thought he was gay too and he didn't want that to get around. I do love how kind he was to Larry in the moment at least. ❤
Also, he didn't out him even to Buffy, which I respected quite a bit.
As a Queer Gen Xer, I remember being thrilled to see a canonically LGBTQ+ person on television who wasn’t being played as the laughing stock, & that their being out about their sexuality to themselves was portrayed as a positive.
Yeah, the bar was on the floor, but it had to start somewhere. 💜🌈🏴☠️🧛🏻♀️
Buffy is so good at arcs, even the disposable background characters get them 😂
I'm still waiting for my extra to get a bigger role 🤞🏼
My favortite buffy arc is from a four episode extra
cassieeeee
@@TylerAlexander Maybe he'll look at his watch TWICE! 😁
The one background character that gets an arc extended till angel finale is probably my favourite of those 💜
"They're exactly who they were before."
Yeah, except Larry has realized he doesn't have to be a dick!
I hug my guy friends all the time, especially when it has been a while since we've seen each other.
I think your point about 'Phases' feeling like a relief after 'Surprise'/'Innocence' is really astute. I think a standalone episode after a big emotional beat is also perhaps a bit truer to life than a consistent escalation in the plot. Big devastating event happens and... life goes on.
This isn’t stand alone tho 😂
It’s important for the Oz storyline.
Haha you did the reactor head tilt when Oz woke up naked 😂 but 👏👏👏 for remembering about the bite from his nephew 😊
I like the parallels you made between Larry's coming out and Oz struggling with a secret of his own, and the complexities for men to be able to be intimate and vulnerable and express themselves. That's what I've always got out of this episode and I like the discussion. It's important to keep saying it too. Good commentary!
It’s clear Oz was gay coded
Not sure about late 90s, but Xander's reaction was perfectly rational for the 80s and earlier (when the writers were in school.) The last thing any outcast or nerd wanted was any association with gays or being gay, as it could turn you into a target. Fear of bullies usually overrode any kind of social justice posturing for teenagers back then.
also the 90s, at the time there where groups of boys roaming the streets to find and "knock" the gays as they said (aka violently assault).
This rings true to my high school experience and that was back in the 2000s. Things were starting to change but they weren't there yet. Lot of casual homophobia, "gay" was still the worst insult you could get...Xander's reaction fits for the 90s, I think.
As someone a year older than the characters, can confirm that his response was actually quite *nice*.
Xander's reaction would actually be kinder/nicer than what was often going on throughout the 90s AND early 2000s. A lot of modern audiences don't actually realize how much progression happened over that time, despite the current setbacks we're seeing.
Yes, I went to high school in this era, and bully's used homophobic slurs on their targets even if there was no homosexuality expressed by the target. "What are you gay?" Don't be gay!" "That's so gay!" where all common expressions used in the late 90's. In my high school, and granted it was a small one, there were no openly gay students. Looking back, statistically I figure there was at least 1 student who was gay, but they were no one was *openly* gay.
"Sorry, I went on a tangent." Don't apologize. Your tangents are why I subscribed. Love ya. :)
I second the love of a great tangent!
YES
Agreed! A good tangent is a sign (sine? cosine?) of a good reactor!
When willow has that moment of “will that make me a slut?” Just remind me of being a teenage girl feeling insecure about if I make a move on a guy I’ll look desperate or easy. It’s a toxic feeling that is very relatable
It was David Boreanaz's performance as Angelus that convinced Joss he could handle his own show
Security makes Xander and Oz polar opposites. Oz never feels like he has anything to prove so he goes with his conscience, which is a good one. Xander’s conscience is pretty good too but he’s so bogged down with insecurity and armored by defense mechanisms that he’ll say and do things that aren’t okay just to seem “cool”.
Your videos on Buffy have just given me a whole new appreciation for the show; it was always one of my favourites, but the analysis and care in the commentary and breakdowns of the messages just makes me love the show even more deeply. I watch quite a few reactors watch Buffy, and while I also enjoy them just experiencing the story as it comes and in the moment, having the comments interspersed throughout at the points where they are most apparent is something I adore. Thank you for the extra effort and time you take in regards to these videos.
The parasocial relationships you talked about? A lot of it stems from the fact that many men _do_ associate emotional intimacy with romance. There's a desperation a lot of men have for meaningful connections that they think they can only get through romantic relationships, and offers of that kind of connection are often interpreted as signs of romantic interest.
Reminds me of a joke/meme: "I'm always a little bit mean to men because if I treat them like human beings they think I want to sleep with them."
Disclaimer: Not saying it's a good way to behave, but it illustrates the point
I love how the series can handle both big, deep issues and piddly but very real/relatable high school issues. (And, as the characters grow up, college and young adult issues.) This episode is one of the first ones that really shines in that respect, and the rest of this season in general.
“BEND THAT SPINE” the intrusive thoughts won for a minute 😂
Fun fact: The "Charlie Bit My Finger" kid is a werewolf now.
The air drumming during the Buffy theme song... epic as ever. Well done. 😄❤
"Owlbears?"- Points, nerd points.
"...bunnies can really take care of themselves."- Oz has read Watership Down
Now I'm sad that we never had any owlbears in Buffy.
I get what you're saying about breather episodes but the problem is the undertones of both episodes with Bad Eggs and Phases. Even breather episodes tend to relate or reflect back to Buffy in some way. With bad eggs Buffy was preparing for sex for the first time as a teenage girl and that episodes was about why it's important to be cautious around sex. Contrast that with Phases we have Willows love interest become a monster and essentially reflecting back to what Buffy was going through. We might argue that Oz despite being a monster chooses to not behave as one but that also helps highlight the severity of the Angel/Angelus phenomenon, after all Angel had good intentions too.
Joss is very good at pacing. He recognized that You have to follow the deep heavy stuff with something light and or easy. You can't just keep hamming dark heavy stuff episode after episode or it loses it's power and meaning. So we just had some really ark heavy stuff, no hear is a lighter episode to allow us to decompress, so we will be ready for the next heavy emotional episode.
"Owlbears?" bonus point for that comment.
Jon Ronson did a book about public shaming. One of the things he found that if the incident was sexual, then the best way to not get shamed was to be male.
Oz the coolest character in The Buffyverse, not only is he a philosophical lead guitarist in an indie band, he just becomes even cooler now as he has Superpowers too! Some great foreshadowing from S1 I Robot You Jane when Buffy says to Willow about her virtual computer boyfriend ' he could have a hairy back' well Oz definitely does! I think we can see now you really are getting the show. Look forward to your E16 E17 reactions.
Having graduated high school in 2001 and having a very dear friend who was gay and out in back then I saw some of the stuff he went through but he had a great support system and when he slept over at my house my mom was welcoming to him and my brother didn't really care that he was there. He wasn't afraid that he would be hit on or looked at. The guy was my friend and still is. Certain people were really mean to him but there was more acceptance than you'd think for the late 90s and early 00s. I really loved your commentary for this episode. I love this episode. Thank you for being a joy to watch.
But I live in a college town in Arizona so there is a lot of diversity here. I think that makes a huge difference even when I was a teenager.
Thanks Lesley, and thanks for sharing ❤
01:18 In Oz we trust XD
Willow and Oz are absolutely adorable!
I love Larry's coming out scene. Xander handles it poorly, but Larry does an amazing job! I also love how this episode explores various types of masculinity in this episode through a variety of male characters: Xander, Oz, Larry, Cain, etc. As always, it was great hearing your analysis and thoughts on everything!
That final scene between Willow and Oz is golden. Every time. I just love them together. ❤
Pirate Guy is Larry which also happens to be the actors real name :)
Yep, and he also has a small part in Hocus Pocus.
In my mind, the response Oz would give to Larry is a polite but firm pushback followed by deflection. Maybe along the lines of "The point is that I like her. Hey, did you guys hear about Mr. Brodsky?"
It's interesting that you mention "Bad Eggs" may have been better placed at this point in the season. I think, among other reasons, it was purposely placed where it was to introduce the idea that vampires can't procreate so that in the next ep, when Buffy and Angel have sex, they didn't have to give any nod to contraception. Even so, they still got back lash at the time for exactly that reason. I remember seeing an interview with SMG on a talk show explaining Angel's a vampire and over 200 years old, and this is a fantasy show🤣. Like, "Get over it, people"!
Xander knew he would get whooped but still stood up to Larry
You're absolutely right that David B. is tearing the doors off with his performance as the soulless Angel.
It's interesting because when Angel pretended to be evil in "School Hard" (as part of Angel's Incredibly Stupid Plan to have Spike Bite Xander), David was…very much not good. Hardly a surprise Spike saw through the ruse.
Was David deliberately trying to show Angel doing a poor job of faking soullessness? (His "I'm just pretending to be tormented, so I can sneak snacks behind Buffy's back" claim was silly, too.) Did he try to add an extra layer to the performance, having Angel be uncomfortable with the pretense and thus the ruse failing?
Or was it simply that David blew that scene in 2.03, and Joss told him "hey, you've got to play this character full-time later on. That's not going to cut it; do better"? We'll never know, but Occam's Razor has me thinking it's the last case. JMO.
I'm so excited for you to get through this season and series as a whole. There are some really great episodes of this show. And yes Xanders extremely toxic trait. But he does have some of the best funny lines in the show.
Strange note on David Boreanaz's acting as Angel - he was found for the part just by walking his dog. :) true story.
I realise it was just a throw away comment at the beginning, but I loved your “owlbear?” Lol
Have you read Kings of the Wyld? I think you might like it. It’s a very old school D&D inspired fantasy. This isn’t me pushing a favourite book btw -I liked but didn’t love it - but did enjoy one character who was obsessed with the idea of owlbears.
Loved the rest of the commentary! And, yes, Larry was the pirate. :D
I haven't read it! I tend to love druids or the idea of shapeshifting in any fantasy genre, whether it's book or video game though, so I share your appreciation for owlbears 😅
Although this (and 2x16) seem to be stand-alone episodes, when considering Surprise/Innocence - Phases - 2x16 together, they make a really interesting arc for the three mains (Buffy, Willow, Xander)
Ah, I love that this episode surprised you twice! And I liked your slut tangent. I’m not being parasocial, I swear, but when I’m healthy enough to get back out amongst the people, I hope I can make some friends like you. :)
Thoroughly enjoyed this! Very thoughtful commentary. First time I've caught one of your videos. Gonna have to go back and watch your Buffy vids!
Hi Tyler. This is the last reaction of you I watch on RUclips... because I'm finally joining on Patreon. In defense of Xander here, a lot a straight teens would be afraid to be associated with a gay kid in fear of being mistreated or worse by others. I was a gay teen in the 2000's and I was in a very intolerant middle school. And, of course I wasn't out (I was fairly young) but it was pretty obvious for everyone. I went through school harassment for two years and even the person who didn't go after me (and I am talking about constant insults and even physical violence) didn't want to have anything to do with me because they would have become a target too. Luckily I went to a very good high school after that and I discovered that a lot of teens my age were in fact decent people. So I don't think Xander behavior is particularly nice but I can understand it for that time period. But I am very glad to see that the next generation is way more open minded.
And, of course, as usual, I love your reaction and your comments all along.
While I totally understood your point about bad eggs. The entirety of that episode was foreshadowing for surprise and innocence. If you watch all the episodes of season 2 leading up to that two-parter. You can see the like build up and the warning signs that led to the finale of surprise. Granted it's a very unhealthy don't have a sex message but still
8:09 this is the moment I subscribed 😂
Best line ever
To me, this isn't a standalone episode, which isn't really realized until the end anyway. Because Oz will always be a werewolf, and assuming he will be in further episodes given him and Willow dating each other, this episode propelled a character arc narrative rather than being a monster-of-the-week standalone like it seemed at the start.
Xander's reaction to Larry drives me crazy, but yes, you're right, it's a product of the time. A glimpse into the time capsule of society. My friends and I handled it (I think) quite well back in high school in the late 1980s when we learned one of our dear friends was gay. It was just sort of a shrug and "well, okay" type of reaction, and to this day, four of us including him are still very close friends and hang out every weekend.He was open in school, and we had his back against any potential haters; it also became the way we would decide whether or not someone would join our circle of friends (we were punk rockers, or as close to punks as we could be in our small, isolated town). If they weren't cool with him, if they freaked out -- kind of like Xander did -- then they weren't going to be a friend. We were outcasts, misfits, different, weird, and even a couple of "normies" hanging with us, but if they weren't cool with someone being gay, then goodbye. It would have probably been better to try to educate them, TBH, but back then and as teenagers, his well-being and safety were our primary concern.
I truly enjoy your analyses on these Buffy episodes
kiss the homies goodnight, boys! 😁
the 'phobia was deeply ingrained back then. you can see it in how hard Larry was trying to hide it. it takes a good long while, but i think Xander does learn and grow by the end of the show.
Yeah, it was the norm back then and Larry was rightfully worried about being forced off the football team, so he over-compensated with his bad behavior. Which makes me wonder about a lot of jerks back in school a long time ago, like what were they trying to hide?
@@gungho1284 Most "bad behavior" in kids is the result of trauma. :( Xander's reaction isn't even technically 'phobic because he didn't negatively react to Larry, it was mostly just surprise. His negative reaction was that Larry would tell people Xander was also gay. Larry admits to having beat up Xander in the past. Xander's fear is not about being gay, but about adding the stigma of it on top of all the other negative attention he gets. Remembering how much energy it took to survive being bullied in high school, i get it.
When he's older and much less worried about getting beat up randomly, and another character shows up, he's not flustered by it at all.
The character of Angel really comes into his own when he gets his own show.
amazing reaction as always, I *love* your commentary!! It's SO insightful and awesome to watch
Gay Werewolf here. Thanks, mate. I'm pretty cool. Befriending a Werewolf is actually quite cool.
Oz is awesome. He is the perfect guy for his age and time.
Loving your break-down on this one as I do on all your buffys so far!! 👍 now I juat can't wait for you to get to the end of this season!! Obviously I would never put any spoilers on here I just can't wait for your break downs on the up coming episodes!! 👌🤟
When you were going on about Bad Eggs, I couldn't help but laugh and grin from ear to ear.
I thought, "He's probably going to want to take all this back, once he sees how this episode is soooo much better than Bad Eggs.
Bad Eggs and I Robot, You Jane, are the worst 2 in the series.
Great insight as always.
Loved the tangents of this one. I was just turned 20ish when Buffy first aired and I can say that, from my perception, people had just started to become more open to people being gay. Of course I may have had a different perception to the majority as it was about this time I learned my elder brother is gay, and the people I used to meet on nights out would be welcoming and supportive of anyone, but that may be down to it being the alternative/goth scene.
Over the years I had two people come out as gay to me, one a man and one a woman. Both were from work and I thought it was strange and weird that they chose to tell me something that they didn't care to share with anyone else. Weird because why me? I've never been a super friendly, open person, so I felt incredibly honoured that they felt I was someone they could talk to and trust. I'm not one for blowing smoke up my own backside, but I do feel proud of myself that I never spoke a word of it to anyone else, even after one left the company and the other came out fully to the rest of our colleagues a year later.
And without male friends, I don't think I'd have had half of the intimacy I've shared with other people in my life. Talking with male friends about life, the universe and everything is a great experience. It's easier to be open and honest with male friends, I find, because there is no sexual tension there and no questioning motives of the conversation.
Xander's comedic beats with Larry are just there for some balance in the B story.. If you took that away, the interaction would either be dull or unrealistic for its time (or even now). The awkwardness Xander feels how his bully (that he pretty much hates) is dropping something deep on him it just there for levity.
Really agree with the episode order. Season 2 is so easy to love based on where the episodes are placed, the pacing, etc.
I've watched this episode countless times and am only now realising that Oz being a werewolf could specifically be read as an allegory for bisexuality (in this episode at least). Not only are there parallels with Larry's journey, but Oz's conversation with Willow at the end really has a kind of "post-coming out" feeling to it - The bisexual boy being reassured by his new girlfriend that she "still wants him in her life" after she learns more about his identity. I don't necessarily think this is 100% intentional (although the title, "Phases" seems very deliberate), but allegorically it seems to fit, and it makes the final scene feel even sweeter.
men are allowed to make money off of women. Women aren't allowed to make money off of themselves. On a related note, I saw a tiktok about the degree to which Shirley Temple was SA'ed while she was a child star. apparently in the comments people were asking where was her mother? In the creator said, who do you think was getting SA'ed in the next room?
I know that the way this show introduced queerness was progressive for its time, but then “bully who is overcompensating and actually gay” trope is still used today and is definitely problematic. 😣
Also, it definitely felt like a lot of the awkwardness that Xander was struggling with when he realized that Larry isn’t a werewolf, but gay … was played for laughs and still finding a way to turn queerness into a joke. I get that he didn’t say anything offensive but we were meant to relate to Xander more than Larry in that scene.
I really like the way Oz is written and he is one character I seem to appreciate more as I grow up. He seemed more like a background character when I was a kid and watching this show, but he’s so memorable now. ✌🏻
David boreanaz is great as Angelus.
It seems to me that the idea was Oz was supposed to be bisexual or gay . Basically he hooked up with his cousin and got “converted”
Love your reaction to and analysis of this one.
pirate guy is absolutely amazing
In terms of the question in the title of the video, its all about the Id, so whatever it wants is the full force of how the werewolf acts rather than whether it's gay to be a werewolf or not.
This is an episode showing Xander of the epitome of what people in the '90's acted like concerning being confronted with the subject matter of being gay. Many times they would not want to say there was anything wrong with it (a whole episode of _Seinfeld_ was dedicated to "Not that there's anything wrong with that," which became a common phrase after the episode aired), but feeling a need to justify when he or she wasn't, and being uncomfortable in the subject matter as a whole. Larry is considered brave, as during this time in real life, Xander's reaction (minus Larry's misconception) was a pretty accurate interpratation of how real people acted, as it was the transitioning time from society seeing it as bad to seeing it as good. And on the other end Larry being a dick to people due to being in denial about his situation was also how people used to act when society had an issue with LGBTQIA2S+ (all of which were just referenced as gay or lesbian back then). On top of this, Xander has another issue in this episode, Buffy (and Tyler) do call him out and correct him on. Buffy and Tyler: "It's not up to you."
I feel like after Oz saying to Willow he can wait when he called Willow out on trying to "even the score" and "trying make Xander jealous," Willow shouldn't be desperate for smoochies. She should tell him she feels she's ready before he makes a move and Oz should feel like it isn't just about her feeling like she's ready, but her knowing she is before he tries to kiss her. Her jumping into anger and marching to his house as if he's done something wrong says more about her not realizing her issues than Oz. Not to mention she ends up in danger because of it. While Oz should have said something about being the werewolf, I get why he didn't. Just after he found out about being a werewolf, he walks into the library to hear Buffy say she should have killed it. Without context why should he trust telling them. He still doesn't know them all that well. Which is another reason Willow isn't as ready as she thinks.
Why does Willow think that in a P.E. class about self defense Buffy should be acting like a "meek, little girly, girl." This is the one time slayer skills could get her an A in class. She doesn't have to use the full force of her stregnth, but there's definitely no call for acting like a "meek, little girly, girl" either. Even in the defense position, the point is to throw off the attacker, not act meek and girly. Sorry, Willow. I know you meant defense position as opposed to meek girly, but I disagree with that just as much as if you didn't mean it that way and actually assumed girls are weak. Both would be wrong for Buffy in this situation. She should be allowed to flourish under these specific set of circumstances. Even if Larry didn't grab her ass, he was portraying the attacker, so Buffy flipping him over, gets her an A for the day.
"Why does Willow think that in a P.E. class about self defense Buffy should be acting like a "meek, little girly, girl."" to keep her Slayer identity a secret, which ofc is starting to be a moot point :)
@@Henrik_Holst Before the first episode was over, characters knew Buffy got into fights, through rumor and fact. They either knew what happened at her old school or because Cordelia called every one sh knew after Buffy mistook her for a vampire. Not to mention Larry is afraid of her after she defended Xander in _Halloween._ Willow mentioning Buffy needs to be a "meek, little girly, girl" doesn't have people not finding out anymore than her fighting does. It doesn't really make sense even on a secret identity level.
@@Buffy8Fan hence the "getting moot" but for some reasons the writers still insist on her having to keep her being the Slayer a secret.
One of the few really dumb faults of the writers.
@@Henrik_Holst SPOILERS
Sorry. Didn't realize that's what you meant by moot. Thought it was more a reference to it doesn't matter. And that didn't make sense to me.
I also don't think it a writer issue. I think this is Willow just not understanding Buffy and what a slayer is the way Spike eventually says to people. A sliver of a reason why Buffy feels alone even when surrounded by people.
@@Buffy8Fan SPOILERS
I think I might be too harsh on the writers here and calling it a writers problem, obviously in world problems is not inherently due to writers messing up but ofc the characters themselves messing up and assuming the characters to always be perfect, 100% in tune with the world and so on is a fallacy that I very much despise so funny that I fell down that hole myself, so thanks for dragging me back up!
Willow insisting that Buffy hides her Slayerness here and Giles still forbidding Buffy to explain to Joyce is as you say flaws of those characters or flaws in their logic and not necessarily flaws by the writers.
I really wish being a werewolf was gay culture. I would be a really good boy
Your commentary at the end about coming out can also apply to disability. I recently, at 41 years old, was diagnosed as autistic and I’ve been really struggling with how to tell my family about it and worried that they might treat me differently or be dismissive.
Everyone please try to remember this episode aired almost 25 years ago and things were a little different back then socially. Of course there's nothing wrong with being gay but it wasn't talked about openly the way it is now. Xander is a product of his time. Teenage boys can be awful and stupid, especially in the 90s.
Just a small point on the sexualization of woman and the slut shaming angle from a woman's point of view. If I do things that others perceive as a sexual act or being overtly sexy for whatever reason and someone decides they don't agree with what you are doing that is their point of view. We can't say to them, you shouldn't think that way anymore then they can tell us, we shouldn't do those things. Name calling has a history for generations of an attempt to control another's behavior or their feeling of self. The way we get past that is to just be who we are and move on. Who cares what others think, I really tend to care what I think. Perhaps that is a shallow idea but I have found that being called something even if it's true, is only given weight if I, decide that it does. I feel like quoting the end of the Labyrinth that David Bowie was in. " You have no power over me."
Always love your Buffy reactions. I click on them so fast when I see them pop up in my RUclips screen. This was another great one as per usual.
There is definitely a lot of slut shaming and Buffy especially through season four. As someone who watched the show as it was airing and now as an adult I kind of just close myself off to it because I know that things have changed a lot. They certainly haven’t changed completely But myself and most of the people I know don’t subscribe to slut shaming in the least. I mostly consider it a product of its time and just remind myself that it is the late 90s early 2000s and move on. I think that it’s right that you address it here because it’s obviously something that goes on in our society but I just wanted to prepare you from much more to come.
I think the weirdest/most glaring example of slut shaming I've ever seen came from the show Farscape, from around the same time. Two female characters get into an argument and one slut-shames the other (I can't remember who insulted who)...but one of those two characters was raised in an environment where romantic relationships were taboo but casual sex was actively encouraged (as a method of stress relief,) while the other was a rebel from an extremely conformist, moralistic culture and took great pride in being as carefree and hedonistic as possible to push back against her upbringing. One of them would not understand the concept of a "slut" as anything other than a completely neutral, descriptive term and the other would take it as a compliment. And yet...
In other words, some men are insecure. We know this
Bad eggs is one of my least favorite episodes. It’s not awful but it’s just completely out of no where. There’s going to be a few more episodes in the coming seasons that are kind of wtf, but non as bad as bad eggs. Regarding Larry and Xander, it’s hard to put today’s lens on the cultural climate from 1998. Less than a decade out of the AIDS epidemic and with the only portrayal of gay people in media being flamboyant caricatures, it was terrifying to come out because you thought you would lose everything. Xander’s reaction was typical for the time, although not in any way okay. People were just not used to being around LGBTQ+ people and now we are everywhere. No spoilers, but I will say Xander as a character goes through a lot of growth, for the better, as the season progresses.
And I have less thoughts on this than Xmen 97 since I don't actually pay attention to OF but the issue of that type of content creation is, as you talked about the male parasocial to women on OF aspect, but the other aspect is that women who do OF do it knowing their job is to create a parasocial relationship to develop "regulars" and OF is an inherently predator profession where it is exploitative of male loneliness and insecurity and sometimes mental illness. There's a category called findom where it's just women who abuse male humalition fetish and get paid and control their money. The fact is women get hate for doing that because women who do that inherently are women who enjoy exploitation of lower tiered men.
I think you gotta be a little careful of spreading misinformation. In terms of the Xmen 97 creator Beau Demayo he was not fired for having an OF. That was public and well known since 2020. He was fired for either abuse (SA or violence we are not sure). He was additionally fired from the Witcher as a writer for being problematic and difficult to work with. Disney does not fire based on that stuff. They only fire based on legal stuff
I will say Xmen 97 unfortunately does a lot of the tropes I genuinely hate. Even tropes that were born from Buffy I believe. And I do find the sexual and BDSM references in a cartoon on Disney+ to be highly uncomfortable for me. I really can't stand his writing especially as a Gambit fan but it is what it is.
But overall I just want to be clear he was not fired for OF. That's just a rumor going around. There's a lot more to it, and just the fact content creators aren't even trying to find out what the issue is says it's extremely bad
Bad Eggs was a weaker episode for the whole series, let's not mince words. It's ok.
Are you going to let nonpaying viewers see the next episode?
No one has to pay for my content. If you don't want EARLY ACCESS just wait. My schedule has been 2 videos a week for around 2 years now 😂
@@TylerAlexander 😅 Thank you for confirming. The video popped up in my feed as subscription only. I'd never seen that before.
@@tikamajere316 oh... I didn't know it came up that way to people. Thanks for letting me know. I can add a tag to the title maybe before it goes live so it's clearer.
The only time I slut shame is when people are being *wreckless* with their, and their partners, sexual health. That means, if they are taking more than one partner in a three month time span. It is scientifically IMPOSSIBLE to engage in safe sexual activity if you're not waiting 3 months between new partners. It's a huge pet peeve of mine, people espousing spontaneity and sex positivity as synonymous with multiple partners in a short period of time. Not all STDs are detectible in tests until 3 months later. As someone who has been the victim of a sexually wreckless person, who then changed my life forever, I simply hate this. So....numbers of partners within a timeframe does indeed matter. Only for this reason, though. If we lived in a world free of this consequence, then absolutely have at it.
One thing you need to recognize about Xander is that he's a completely toxic person. He gives good talk now and then, but he's a complete piece of crap. He's jealous, gaslighty, and hypocritical.
This Xander take is toxic
Xander's my least favourite Scooby, by some distance, but I think that's a bit harsh. He's a flawed character who is unintentionally written as much more flawed than the writers intended, because what would have been considered minor character flaws at the time are seen much more critically 25 years later.
Let's do some examples of Xander's poor personality traits. Jealous- this entire episode where he just rags on Willow and Oz. Gaslight-THAT episode of season 7. Which to be fair he was not the only one there. Hypocritical-gets possessed and does awful things including trying to sexually assault Buffy, only to pretend he doesn't remember and avoid consequences then proceeds to crap on other characters who also do horrible things. Is he a teen in this? Yes. Does that excuse everything he says or does? Absolutely not. I wish the writers dived more into Xander's home life. It would explain his personality more.
@@desarae9778 I mostly agree, but it's not fair to blame the hyena possession behaviour on him. He wasn't in his right mind and wouldn't have done it otherwise, so he has no responsibility to cover up. He only lies because he doesn't want to talk about it.
@@desarae9778I can do an as bad or worse list for every character tbf
Don't know if you know this but Sarah Michelle gellar and David boreanaz didn't have great chemistry at the beginning and the whole point of bad eggs was to convince the audience that they couldn't keep their hands off each other right before the big emotional bluff in the two-parter that's why your incessant babbling about the orders of the episode was completely completely invalid cos the bad egg episode was only about one thing (creating fake chemistry)
And body away this also devalidates your rant about how the last episode was trying to make it out to be immoral that Buffy had sex...
The whole point is that it's not immoral and the episodes are set up to give the viewer the impression that it's totally fine and normal it's only Buffy that assigns morality to what happened and what happened with angel reinforces her twisted view of the world Which the actual show is critical about. Neither willow Giles or even Xander a sign any sort of morality to her sexual behaviour.
If you're gonna do this it would be very nice if you didn't just you out whatever nonsense you think is there without actually paying attention cuz then you're only talking about your own biases and at this point why even watch the show... You can just turn on your camera and babble on
I think without "Bad Eggs" the two parter in "Surprise" and "Innocence" would have been fine. I didn't notice any 'bad chemistry' and the show does enough to set them up for one and a half seasons before "Surprise" and "Innocence" before "Bad Eggs". I think to posit that the two parter wouldn't have worked if "Bad Eggs" didn't exist is...a very weird take and just wrong, with a slew of evidence in the show to argue against your take.
You say this - 'And body away this also devalidates your rant about how the last episode was trying to make it out to be immoral that Buffy had sex...'
I have never said that Buffy having sex was immoral because that's not an opinion I hold. My 'babble' about slut shaming was directly after Willow said something and I talked about slut shaming in general. It's you who assigned what I said to Buffy. But sure, pop off about how I'M not paying attention.
No
But Buffy saved my life
We had no role models growing up. But buffy the Slayer being born wrong or diddy. Hiding who she was or she'll be disowned. I'm so glad buffy taught me to be tough and survive in this world . I wouldn't have made it without The Slayer. It shaped me into the Slayer 🏳️🌈 I am today. 👁⚧️🦾⚔️🔥🤜
Yes, I feel this 💖💜💙🏳️🌈