Deep Thoughts About Gender Roles

I'd tried to post this as a comment to nazlan's entry, but it wouldn't let me create the separate section for it, and I didn't want to inflict "Seeing Red" commentary on everyone.

About ( Seeing Red )

Now, back to the regularly scheduled Angel coverage...

Get On With It

Wow, I really got off on a digression there, didn't I? Before I give the impression that I'm, I don't know, bitter about the end of Buffy or something, let me now leap off the grumble train and talk about something I really liked instead, which was this week's Angel. Because I did like it. Really!

Things I Liked About Angel 5.9, "Harm's Way"

1. Harmony is super fun
Why: GIRL POWER!
I've always enjoyed vampire Harmony, right from the minute of her first appearance. Her position as Angel's Vamp Girl Friday - dressing for success, fetching the boss blood, putting up with his grouchy mood swings, desperately trying to fit in among the gossipy lunchroom set - is played for its absolutely charming and inspiringly 9-to-5-ish best. Obviously the boss man doesn't know what kind of asset he's got here - after all, the camel luncheon idea was a pretty good one. This you-don't-know-what-you've-got quality also makes this ep yet another entry in sitcom standard of "nobody takes the blonde seriously" (e.g., WKRP in Cincinnati, etc.), a theory that's eventually disproved because Harmony does ultimately save the day. The most interesting side effect of this is that Angel comes off as terribly sexist in contrast - as a reward for saving the day, he orders her to get coffee. What a male chauvanist thing to do! Tsk. (Hope she spits in it. Girl power!!!)

I loved the day in the life quality of the episode as well - it's all in the details. Harm's clothes (even down to the dry cleaning bag at her desk), her sparkly stickers, her obnoxious alarm, snooty neighbor, pastel sheets, and vampire-fang toothbrushing. She's just another evil girl trying to get by. Haw.

That Harmony's identity as the vampire go-to girl is actually such a believeable extension of her high school character - aside from the evil law firm aspect, this is precisely the kind of job that one might have envisioned the human Harmony in if she hadn't been vamped - just goes to confirms once again the impression I've been gathering all along about what the real effect of vamps "losing their souls" is. Mostly, going soulless just seems to relieve them of the guilt impulse. Lack of soul doesn't necessarily add up an active encouragement to be evil as much as just cause them not to worry about the difference between good and bad anymore. Harmony treats vampirism as just a new set of rules she has to live with - she isn't sorry about killing people for blood, but neither does she seem to feel compelled to do so. She lives with Wolfram & Hart's new rules because she wants to keep her job. The restricted diet of bottled blood suits her fine - and given parody of office lifestyle in this episode, I half-expected her to enthuse about the lower calorie or carb count of animal blood versus human. (Now I'm starting to wonder if Angel might not get better results from his workforce if he made the "zero tolerance" policy into sort of a competition with positive reinforcement, like the diet pools many offices start up among its workers. Hmm....)

I liked how proactive Harmony is, too. She doesn't just wring her hands in helpless agony and moan woe-is-me. She trots around the office like Engerizer Bunny in a skirt, doing her damndest to attack her problems, whether is be solving the mystery of who-killed-the-liason, or trying to befriend the other desk jockeys. Harmony is a go-getter. You go, girl.

2. The lunchroom discussions
Why: Seeing the workplace environment through other eyes than the Angel gang's
We've seen the employees grumbling pretty consistently ever since Angel took charge (love the collection of nicknames for Angel that the staff seems to be assembling - "Mr. Goodfang," etc.), but this is the first time we've gotten a real feel for how behind-the-scenes at Wolfram & Hart works in the new Angel regime. Angel is an awkward yet forbidding figure throughout the ep - in the training video, he's his usual fidgety, goofy self, but in person is mostly shown glowering threateningly and enforcing his draconian "zero tolerance" policy. Obviously since the employees he executes are no innocent lambs (such as the guy who "dismembers virgins"), one can't exactly take exception to this policy, but you can see how it would lower morale.

And wasn't it interesting to hear the other workers' view on the rest of the cast? Fred is considered the girfriend-y, approachable one about whose love life the others feel free to gossip, while Gunn is always referred to Mister Gunn, and Wesley is blown off as nothing worth talking about in terms of office scandal. "Wyndam-Price? Psh!" one secretary scoffs when Harmony accurately pegs Wesley as having a Fred crush. Angel himself, of course, is a typical boss - the peons are both afraid of him and look down on him. This is your everyday office talk, right down to the part where everyone assumes that the boss has no idea what he's doing or what's going on right under his nose.

3. The drug... oops, blood testing
Why: Actual relevant workplace issue!
This is just plain funny. As a vehicle to create an atmosphere of paranoia similar to that of an actual office environment, it works - if the employees weren't already feeling like their jobs and lives were in jepoardy, here comes the random sample blood test. I almost wonder why we didn't get a little plot point about people having figured out how to "beat" the test (especially given the vamp Harmony fights - how was she planning to squeak past the blood sampling?).

Things I Didn't Like

1. Spike's explanation for why he didn't go to see Buffy
Why: It was lame
Given the simple behind-the-scenes mechanics (Sarah-Michelle Gellar is "too busy" to make an appearance, Marsters is under contract to be in every episode), it's no surprise we're not getting a meeting between these two characters. But of the dozens of ways that this situation could have been handled, and the dozens of explanations that could have been given for why Spike can't see Buffy, I'd have to say the writers picked about the weakest one. As a reason for why Spike would not run off and reunite with his true love, the idea that showing up on her doorstep alive again would rob his glorious exit of meaning sounds like a childish pout at best. As written, the speech comes off as him placing a higher priority on preserving that shining moment as his final impression on his beloved's psyche over her actual feelings, whatever they are.

Of course, there are other ways to read this. You can interpret the full text of Spike's little speech to mean that he's actually afraid to see Buffy. To run to her side now runs the risk of confirming conclusively that his take on her feelings in those last moments on the Hellmouth - his "no you don't" in answer to her whispered "I love you" - had actually been right. After having died a noble death for her, he could be afraid that all he's likely to get from Buffy is a tearful reunion, a couple of happy days of glad-to-see-you, and then a gradual reversion to the old status quo. He doesn't trust her anymore.

It's an interpretation that works for me. If nothing else, it means that Buffy's track record with men is now a perfect zero for zero - she's managed to send every last one of them running for the exits, as well they ought to. But I didn't like the taint of nobility that kind of hung around it, as if the idea of hanging out to help the Angel gang with world-saveage instead of jetting off in pursuit of love is somehow more rareified, less selfish. There really do seem to be some martyr issues hanging around the whole hero gig, as seen on BtVS and Angel, and I'm not sure I'm happy about that. Personally, they've yet to prove to me that anything is more important in this world than love. Not that I want to be convinced anyway.


Best Part

Harmony's closing line
Why: It's about self-worth
Wonderful moment: when Harmony realizes that she's not a nobody in this world because at least someone cared enough about her to hate her. See, you can make a difference!