When I first watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I really couldn't stand Xander at all during seasons 1-3. I found him to be an amalgam of all the annoying, immature, sexist behavior exhibited by males of that age and a little older, but what made it worse is that I had the impression that I was supposed to like him. But then, with time, I started to tolerate him, and even like him - as a flawed man who is growing up and changing for the better, but still occasionally lapsing into his old immature, douchy behavior patterns. And even then, I thought that the show did a good job of showing us the reasons for his behavior (as in "Hell's Bells"), like his family situation. Then sometime halfway during season 7, he seemed to really have matured and gotten rid of most of those annoying traits.
But then I started reading Buffy-related forums a bit too much and came to the startling realization that the character is considered an epitome of a nice guy in a large portion of the fandom. To make it worse, I came upon comments such as:
(these examples are taken from this thread - it's an old thread and it's about season 8, so there's no point reviving it for an off-topic discussion)
First off, just how ridiculous it is to argue that two characters should get together because A "deserves" B? And Buffy doesn't have to "get over" anything. I get the impression that Buffy/Xander is something that some male fans fantasize about (maybe there are some female Buffy/Xander shippers, but I've never met them; female fans, if they ship, they ship Buffy with Spike or Angel), because they want to think that an average Joe "deserves" to get the strong, extraordinary girl, as a reward for being her long time friend. Well, it doesn't work that way. If we're going to use the word "deserve", then Xander deserves someone who really wants him, and Buffy deserves someone she really wants. And a real friendship should be a real friendship, not a means to an end - getting romance and sex as the real deal one day. This idea just cheapens the friendship.
But another thing that pisses me off is that Xander, IMO, is not a nice guy at all. (If you want an example of a nice guy on the show, it's Oz, when he wasn't going into werewolf mode.) And once I saw him treated as a nice guy, all my old annoyances with the character come back full force.
Now, don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like characters who act like assholes. Pretty much everyone in Buffyverse is a douche at some point or other, and my favorite characters, besides Buffy herself (who also has major douchy moments throughout the show) are Spike, Faith, Anya and Darla. But it's one thing when the show, the fans and the character himself/herself is owning up to it, and very different when people are not just ignoring douchy behavior and not calling it for what it is, but acting as if the character is supposed to be some sort of stand-in for the audience or 'everyman' moral arbiter, or 'nice guy'.
Xander's credentials for the role of the "Nice guy" are pretty much these: he was one of those guys who think that the fact that they have stuck around as a friend to a woman who has - shock, horror! - rejected their romantic advances, makes them somehow entitled to constantly pass judgments on her sexuality and her choices (which makes him a lousy kind of friend - exactly the kind that the female friend can't really confide in). Or, you know, those kind of guys who whine how they are getting rejected because they're too "nice" and that there's something wrong with womenfolk who always go for "bad boys". What they don't understand is that weak, average, insecure doesn't equal "nice", and the reason they're getting rejected is that they aren't really that nice at all, they're douchebags just as much as those other guys, and that women might simply prefer other guys because they're sexier, smarter, stronger, more confident, more fun, etc.
Therefore I was very happy when I recently came upon this Livejournal entry whose author has listed his reasons for hating Xander. I'll quote the parts that I pretty much agree on (and I'll add some that the author has forgotten about):
Addition: Xander has known about Willow's crush on him all the time, but he never showed any interest in her - he is more interested in bitchy, sexy and dangerous women. (Willow will eventually become the most dangerous of them all, but unfortunately for Xander, she'll realize she's a lesbian by that time....) Until she found a boyfriend, Oz. He is very disappointed when he realizes in season 2 finale that Willow loves Oz. And then in season 3, while he is dating Cordelia, Xander and Willow start secretly seeing each other. Where did this sudden interest come from? Xander really loves women he can't have, doesn't he. I don't criticize people for their romantic choices, but it is interesting in the light of Xander constant judgmental bitching about Buffy's love life. (Because, you know, she actually dares to choose other men over his wonderful self.) More about that later...
(to be continued...)
But then I started reading Buffy-related forums a bit too much and came to the startling realization that the character is considered an epitome of a nice guy in a large portion of the fandom. To make it worse, I came upon comments such as:
(these examples are taken from this thread - it's an old thread and it's about season 8, so there's no point reviving it for an off-topic discussion)
...it's that I always hoped that Buffy would someday get over her "bad boy" thing, and realize Xander was the best man for her....
And this pisses me off on many levels. Let me count the ways...While it might be true that Xander is the best man for Buffy, Buffy is not the best woman for Xander. While I'm usually all for the geek getting the girl, this girl has always had a little unstable and moody (and that's putting it mildly). Let Buffy have her bad boys. Xander deserves better, like Willow. Too bad Willow is gay, that coupling always made more sense to me.
First off, just how ridiculous it is to argue that two characters should get together because A "deserves" B? And Buffy doesn't have to "get over" anything. I get the impression that Buffy/Xander is something that some male fans fantasize about (maybe there are some female Buffy/Xander shippers, but I've never met them; female fans, if they ship, they ship Buffy with Spike or Angel), because they want to think that an average Joe "deserves" to get the strong, extraordinary girl, as a reward for being her long time friend. Well, it doesn't work that way. If we're going to use the word "deserve", then Xander deserves someone who really wants him, and Buffy deserves someone she really wants. And a real friendship should be a real friendship, not a means to an end - getting romance and sex as the real deal one day. This idea just cheapens the friendship.
But another thing that pisses me off is that Xander, IMO, is not a nice guy at all. (If you want an example of a nice guy on the show, it's Oz, when he wasn't going into werewolf mode.) And once I saw him treated as a nice guy, all my old annoyances with the character come back full force.
Now, don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like characters who act like assholes. Pretty much everyone in Buffyverse is a douche at some point or other, and my favorite characters, besides Buffy herself (who also has major douchy moments throughout the show) are Spike, Faith, Anya and Darla. But it's one thing when the show, the fans and the character himself/herself is owning up to it, and very different when people are not just ignoring douchy behavior and not calling it for what it is, but acting as if the character is supposed to be some sort of stand-in for the audience or 'everyman' moral arbiter, or 'nice guy'.
Xander's credentials for the role of the "Nice guy" are pretty much these: he was one of those guys who think that the fact that they have stuck around as a friend to a woman who has - shock, horror! - rejected their romantic advances, makes them somehow entitled to constantly pass judgments on her sexuality and her choices (which makes him a lousy kind of friend - exactly the kind that the female friend can't really confide in). Or, you know, those kind of guys who whine how they are getting rejected because they're too "nice" and that there's something wrong with womenfolk who always go for "bad boys". What they don't understand is that weak, average, insecure doesn't equal "nice", and the reason they're getting rejected is that they aren't really that nice at all, they're douchebags just as much as those other guys, and that women might simply prefer other guys because they're sexier, smarter, stronger, more confident, more fun, etc.
Therefore I was very happy when I recently came upon this Livejournal entry whose author has listed his reasons for hating Xander. I'll quote the parts that I pretty much agree on (and I'll add some that the author has forgotten about):
Addition: possessed Xander also cruelly played with Willow's feelings, pretending to be about to tell her he has feelings for her, just so he could mock her "pasty face". Of course, he was possessed, so we can't hold it against him, but it shows that he knew about Willow's crush on him, which is interesting in the light of his later behavior.Xander Harris is the most chauvinist piece of shit in chauvinistshitsville.
(...)
Xander is the kind of guy who thinks that because he is so much ~nicer~ and more ~sensitive~ than the popular jocks, he deserves the love of every girl in the world. Xander is the kind of guy who reacts to rejection by shaming women for their choices. Xander is the kind of guy who purposely dates women he can denigrate and emotionally abuse because he believes they're lucky to have him and nobody else would ever love them. Xander is the kind of guy who thinks women need protecting and saving and to have their chairs pulled out for them and to be saved from having to make any kind of goddamn decisions about their empowered sexuality because they are so silly and crazy and full of estrogen.
And the most maddening thing is that again and again and again Xander is fucking lauded for this behavior, with the most egregious example being in 6.22 "Grave" when he talks the crazy lesbian out of destroying the world with the power of his man hugs. In S7 he is "the one who sees everything," apparently, when I would argue he is actually the one who sees everything through an intolerable and patronizing male gaze.
Let's just do a whole bunch of scene and episode breakdowns, here.
1.06 "The Pack" - Xander tries to rape Buffy under the influence of a hyena spirit. I'm not trying to suggest that Xander ought to be held responsible for his actions here, but when the possession has ended, instead of apologizing or even asking if she's okay or anything, he just pretends to have no memory of the events. Way cool, Xander.
1.12 "Prophecy Girl" - Xander asks Buffy to the school dance, and when she very gently rejects him he starts spitting venom at her about her choice to date Angel. "I guess a guy's gotta be undead to make time with you." Gross. And then he asks Willow -- who he knows has a crush on him (he admits this while under hyena influence), and who he's already been torturing by having her roleplay him asking out Buffy -- to be his back-up date, and is all offended when she finally shows some backbone and turns his ass down. It's all so ~tragic~ that he has to go off and mope and listen to country music and make himself unavailable; meanwhile, Buffy and Willow and Cordelia come face-to-face with death and grow as human beings. Whatever, Xander.
2.09 "What's My Line?" - After asking for a favor, Xander defaults to an attack on Cordelia's sexual purity whenever he feels the need to take a shot at her.CORDELIA: I can't even believe you. You dragged me out of bed for a ride? What am I, mass transportation?God forbid a woman date a lot of guys or be confident in her sexuality, Xander. This is but one of many examples of Xander referring to Cordelia as easy or trashy or slutty or comparing her to a hooker, etc etc. He even does this when they're dating.
XANDER: That's what a lot of the guys say, but it's just locker room talk. I wouldn't pay it any mind.
2.12 "Surprise" - I'm just going to leave this one here because if I talk too much about it bile actually starts to rise in my throat.GILES: They should be back by now.
WILLOW: Maybe Buffy needed a few minutes to pull herself together. (sad) Poor Buffy, on her birthday and everything.
XANDER: Hmm. It's sad, granted. But let's look at the upside for a moment. I mean, what kind of a future would she have really had with him? (as if doing a comedy routine) She's got two jobs: Denny's waitress by day, Slayer by night. And Angel's always in front of the TV with a big blood belly, and he's dreaming of the glory days when Buffy still thought this whole 'creature of the night' routine was a big turn-on.
WILLOW: (disturbed) You've thought way too much about this.
XANDER: (excited) No, no! That's just the beginning. Have I told you the part where I fly into town in my private jet and take Buffy out for prime rib?
WILLOW: (as Buffy enters, trying to shut him up) Xander...
XANDER: (laughing) And she cries?
2.16 "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" - Rejected, Xander blackmails Amy into casting a spell to rob Cordelia of her free will so that he can humiliate her publicly. This is beyond gross and nobody ever really comments on it. To his credit, he is a good enough person to turn Buffy down when she gets affected by the spell instead, but the mere fact that he does the spell in the first place is vile. Cordelia thinks it's 'sweet', but Cordelia at this stage in the game isn't really thinking beyond 'wow this guy likes me so much'.
2.21 "Becoming" - Xander throws Ms. Calendar in Buffy and Giles's faces, using the overly familiar "Jenny" and reducing a dead woman into an objectified memory for his personal use. This really, really, really bugs me.
2.22 "Becoming" - THE LIE. Xander decides that Buffy is just too much of a wishy-washy girl to be clued in as to what the hell is going on, and keeps her ignorant to the fact that Willow is re-attempting the curse. Whether he does this because he's jealous of Angel or because he thinks Buffy will be 'too distracted' if she knows (this is a common Xander apologist explanation), it doesn't matter. He's still deciding Buffy isn't capable of making her own choices when it comes to her love life/sex life, and by extension her heroic journey. Gloriously, she proves him utterly wrong.
3.02 "Dead Man's Party" - This is where Xander goes forever past my tolerance threshold. After compelling Buffy to flee Sunnydale by lying and making her think everyone was all gung-ho for her to stake Angel (she makes this pretty clear in 7.05 "Selfless"), Xander decides he's going to step into an argument between Buffy and her mother and act like he's Buffy's dad or something. Cordelia of all people has to tell him to back the fuck off.JOYCE: (hard) Buffy, you didn't give me time. You just dumped this thing on me and you expected me to get it. Well, guess what? Mom's not perfect, okay?! I handled it badly! But that doesn't give you the right to punish me by running away.I want to punch him in the fucking mouth. And he never apologizes! Never! He and Buffy just have a bro moment killing zombies and that's the end of it.
BUFFY: (aghast) Punish you? I didn't do this to punish you!
XANDER: (butting in) Well, you did. You should've seen what you put her through.
BUFFY: (with shocked laughter) Great. Thanks! Anybody else want to weigh in here? (to Jonathan) How about you, by the dip?
JONATHAN: (startled) No, thanks. I'm good.
XANDER: (condescending) You know, maybe you don't want to hear it, Buffy, but taking off like you did was incredibly selfish and stupid.
BUFFY: (starting to cry) Okay! Okay. I screwed up. I know this. But you have no idea! You have... you have no idea what happened to me, or what I was feeling!
XANDER: Did you even try talking to anybody?
BUFFY: (in tears) There was nothing that anybody could do, okay? I just had to deal with this on my own.
XANDER: (sarcastic) Yeah, and you see how well that one worked out. You can't just bury stuff, Buffy. It'll come right back up to get you.
BUFFY: (incredulous) As if I even could've gone to you, Xander. You made your feelings about Angel and I perfectly clear.
XANDER: (dismissive) Look. I'm sorry that your honey was a demon, but most girls don't hop a Greyhound over boy troubles.
Addition: Xander has known about Willow's crush on him all the time, but he never showed any interest in her - he is more interested in bitchy, sexy and dangerous women. (Willow will eventually become the most dangerous of them all, but unfortunately for Xander, she'll realize she's a lesbian by that time....) Until she found a boyfriend, Oz. He is very disappointed when he realizes in season 2 finale that Willow loves Oz. And then in season 3, while he is dating Cordelia, Xander and Willow start secretly seeing each other. Where did this sudden interest come from? Xander really loves women he can't have, doesn't he. I don't criticize people for their romantic choices, but it is interesting in the light of Xander constant judgmental bitching about Buffy's love life. (Because, you know, she actually dares to choose other men over his wonderful self.) More about that later...
Addition: "Into the Woods" - once again, Xander offers his amazing advice on Buffy's love life (because he has proved to be such an unbiased party when this subject is concerned), giving her a condescending speech about how awesome Riley is because he is a "long-haul guy" and how badly Buffy has treated him (by not being totally madly in love with him and not making him the center of her universe while she was worrying about her mother's illness). While I could sympathize with Riley's frustration (he didn't have a job anymore, his life started revolving around Buffy, he felt he wasn't needed, etc.), what Xander completely forgets is that the immediate reason for the breakup is that Riley has just been caught going to vamp whores for suck jobs. But he's too busy over-identifying with Riley. If you haven't chosen me, at least choose someone who can act as my stand-in! Well, sorta. 'Coz he's human and you're not really that into him. (It's hinted that it's because she has a thing for vampires. Which she does. But then again, it may also have something to do not with Riley being a human being, but with Riley being such a dull, traditional and closed-minded human being, with the lack of any chemistry between the two of them, and with the fact that he can't deal with his girlfriend being stronger than him.)3.07 "Revelations" - In which Xander is basically just as responsible as Gwendolyn Post for Faith's estrangement from the group and therefore eventually her fall from grace. He purposely inflames Faith to think Angel is dangerous and in need of slaying, then totally blames everything on Faith when Buffy confronts him. What a craven shithead. Meanwhile, in the 'intervention' scene, he starts talking about Buffy's sex life in really inappropriate and hostile terms and straight up blames Ms. Calendar's death on Buffy's sexuality. Gross gross gross gross.
3.09 "The Wish" - In which Xander acts like Cordelia leaving him because he cheated on her for months is outrageous, and tries to get his friends to make her feel bad.
Season Four is a terrible season overall but is pretty blissfully Xander-free for the most part. When he's around, he's mostly fine except for the patronizing way he treats Anya at all times. Anya is not a child. I already bitched about this in my Anya essay on Day One, so I'll spare you a rehash. His dream in 4.22 "Restless" says a lot about how he views women, but I'm going to write extensively on "Restless" later in the meme so that can wait.
(to be continued...)
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