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How do you put a female protagonist in a story for men, who occupies a traditional male role? You need a woman who embodies honor/courage/valor/stoicism/risk taking in the face of immediate personal danger and you also need a damn good reason why it’s a woman doing the job.
We don’t see this in modern fiction (targeting men) because the characters are pretty universally terribly written. I imagine it’s at least partially due to the authors being outright inimical to the role and it’s requirements (except as a vehicle for empowerment) and their would be audience alike.
It’s not impressive or engaging when woman does classic man thing better than all of the doubting men, overcoming the inevitably evil male antagonist, but that seems to be the only plot now. I’ll point out it’s the opposite of empowering, too.
Give me more Ripley! She isn’t a paragon of female empowerment who breaks the glass ceiling through a newly learned sense of self worth and boss bitch power. (Disregarding the allegory of the horror of childbirth…) she deliberately faces down a terrifyingly gruesome death to protect a girl from the same because everyone else is already dead.
I’d gladly watch more (T1/2) Sarah Connors, Buffy, Scully, or even Margot Hanson for a contemporary reference.
How much agency did Buffy have? She didn't choose to be the slayer, nor was she the 'brains' of the operation.
Give her visions from God, Jeanne d’Arc style.
I don’t disagree too much. On the side of agency and moral worth, Buffy embraces her destiny and personal responsibility to her own detriment. She takes on raising her sister, and later fighting a war. I think we should also cut her slack for being a teenager.
Buffy is compelling in the Vonnegut sense of character writing, where the universe continually throws awful stuff at her and she is just going along for the ride.
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By this standard any superhero with innate powers may be said to not have agency?
How much agency can someone called by destiny to save the world from evil with their supernatural powers have?
The universe inhabited by many superheroes with innate powers often don't allow for much agency. That these characters as portrayed also often lack dimension doesn't help.
Non-powered superheroes frequently have more agency, Batman, Ironman. They use their wealth and intellect.
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Accurately. Or at least sort of. Superheroes are considered children's entertainment because they fly so close to the Mary Sue, they are simplified down to base archetypes and motivations to tell stories without the additional complications of logic and reality and the like. Buffy was built off the superhero mold, and as a result she lacks the complexity of a more human character. But that is by design, and traits she lacks are made up for by her ensemble, or are used to further the story.
That's just me waffling though, I agree AvocadoPanic is mistaken here. They are making the same mistake a lot of critics have been making over the past two decades, which is sort of like the use mention distinction - yeah Buffy doesn't have any agency, she's a fictional character. Her characteristics were given to her by a man, namely Joss Whedon. But inside the show she has plenty of agency. That's where it matters.
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