But it always smacked to me of a patronizing lesson to "know your place" from people whom I assumed made a lot more money than my mom did. I always wanted to say, Yeah, try being poor and struggling and see how "happy" you are.
Absolutely. And yeah, I remember those shows, too, although I could more easily understand the point of view they were coming from there -- it used to be much more common in American fiction to emphasize the wholesomeness of the working class (as opposed to those decadent, over-intellectual, over-cultured rich folks), so you'd get these little parables about how money-wasn't-everything. But these days, I'd argue that underlying philosophy really doesn't exist anymore, so it's automatically problematic when creators blithely copy those old story tropes and stereotypes.
It makes sense to me in a way because Buffy/Xander very nearly became the endgame back in S1. You can see them going for that in PG when it's Xander who revives her. It could have gone either way.
Totally! I'm not a B/X 'shipper either, but I'm not against the idea of B/X; it's just that if that was where the story was going to go, I'd want it to go there. To me, B/X would be an ideal situation to test out Buffy's yearning for a "normal life," as well as Xander's history of "dating demons." It would remove a lot of illusions for both of them, on the whole grass-is-always-greener front -- would they still have the same relationship issues, or not? To me, it was just disappointing to watch the show flirt with the idea and then do nothing interesting with it.
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Date: 2013-08-18 08:11 pm (UTC)Absolutely. And yeah, I remember those shows, too, although I could more easily understand the point of view they were coming from there -- it used to be much more common in American fiction to emphasize the wholesomeness of the working class (as opposed to those decadent, over-intellectual, over-cultured rich folks), so you'd get these little parables about how money-wasn't-everything. But these days, I'd argue that underlying philosophy really doesn't exist anymore, so it's automatically problematic when creators blithely copy those old story tropes and stereotypes.
It makes sense to me in a way because Buffy/Xander very nearly became the endgame back in S1. You can see them going for that in PG when it's Xander who revives her. It could have gone either way.
Totally! I'm not a B/X 'shipper either, but I'm not against the idea of B/X; it's just that if that was where the story was going to go, I'd want it to go there. To me, B/X would be an ideal situation to test out Buffy's yearning for a "normal life," as well as Xander's history of "dating demons." It would remove a lot of illusions for both of them, on the whole grass-is-always-greener front -- would they still have the same relationship issues, or not? To me, it was just disappointing to watch the show flirt with the idea and then do nothing interesting with it.