Buffy: The Life and Death of Recurring Women
Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s obsession with recurring women and death changed television with one character.
By Bru
The remnants and legacy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s large impact can still be seen in television and pop culture. The creator of the series, Joss Whedon, provided such depth with the titled vampire slayer that her prototype inspired teen heroines by using supernatural and horror mediums. Without a doubt, he made Buffy Anne Summers a dynamic character by initially inverting the blonde bimbo trope and adding so much more sustenance in an otherwise drought of fictional women. Because of this, Buffy was the most influential piece of media in third-wave feminism and that allowed critiques from books to even college courses dissecting the show and its movie predecessor.
Whedon regularly praised his own feminist work on the 1997 teen soap by implying the series was a space for women that gives them the recognition and strength they deserve on screen. Yet, when rewatched at the height of the fourth wave, especially when intersectionality is no longer desired but necessary, the statement becomes contrived. The deception becomes evident when you examine Buffy’s development juxtaposed to the other heroines. Whedon handles her with such great care and depth, making her the hero of her horror story, but that care doesn’t transpire effectively to the rest of the women even though they live in that world too, and as a consequence, they become flat in comparison. When examining the series through this kind of feminism, beyond the limits of Buffy herself, it highlights the inequalities of how exactly Whedon treats the many different archetypes of women seen.
Through that male gaze, he unintentionally pits these women against each other: His ideal version of a woman hero vs. the regular ones, who with the exception of Dawn, Faith and Willow, die in the end. This is demoralizing considering these women are a fictional reflection of the audience. Through these “normal” characters, viewers are allowed the ability to suspend disbelief that without magical abilities they are still powerful, but instead are met with a similar horror that even in fictional stories, a woman dying is more beneficial than living. And it is a truth that can be explored through Anya, Tara, Kendra, Cordelia, Joyce, Buffy (twice), and even Fred from the spin-off Angel.
The disposable woman trope has made roots in other forms of fiction, however, it wasn’t used at such a capacity on television until Buffy. As a result, a shift in the usage of women in this way was popularized. A prime example was the first gruesome death of a recurring character in a series. Let’s revisit the life and death of Jenny Calendar.
Played by Robia LaMorte, Jenny Calendar was unironically the legacy the series would later be known for since it was woven into the very fabric of her character. From her introduction in season one’s “I Robot… You Jane”, Jenny was the most balanced. A computer science teacher who worked at Sunnydale high with fellow faculty member Rupert Giles, the librarian who was also Buffy’s Watcher and occult expert. She supported the internet and technology distinctively in a time where it was too mysterious to understand. As a technopagan, she proved herself to be smart and trusted enough to affiliate with the Scooby Gang. Her involvement in season one was not much, but very crucial to understanding the social dynamics of the entire ensemble.
The following season, Ms. Calendar whittled down to just a love interest for Giles. Only having 1-2 scenes per sparse episodes. Her involvement in those was either to provide a romantic side to Giles or become a damsel in distress in which she would be saved by Buffy or Giles. By the second half of the series, her true identity is secretly revealed. Janna of the Kalderash, a g*psy descendent who was entrusted to watch Angel, Buffy’s vampire lover. Killing one of their own, Angel was cursed to suffer for the rest of his life but meeting Buffy was unplanned and when experiencing one second of happiness, he turns into Angelus -- the soulless form of Angel.
What makes season two infuriating is that for the second half of the season, this particular storyline felt very rushed. Comparatively from the first season, Ms. Calendar served herself and her intentions however season two neglects that side of her and alternatively goes from serving Giles’ story to now serving Angel’s with her own personal identity being erased by each scene. The irony settles in since this happens exactly when the viewers learn of her identity and by Episode 17’s “Passion,” Ms. Calendar diminishes into a plot point and solidifies fictional women’s role in television that would continue to be seen over 20 years later.
After her identity was revealed and everyone shunned her for her cultural responsibility and alleged betrayal, she tried to repent and make amends by trying to restore his soul. Of course, Angelus discovers this. It’s difficult not to feel this episode is contradictory among Whedon’s many contradictory episodes purposely because of the intent behind the creation of the series. He reminded the world that he was a feminist because he inverted the trope of horror where women are trapped, fight back and win but he purposely puts Ms. Calendar right in the middle of the trope and Jenny never gets the chance to redeem herself or fight back. Instead, Angel snaps her neck as she’s unworthy to be fed from. Afterward, Angel senselessly drags her lifeless body to Giles’ home, lays rose petals on the ground for Giles, only to find in his bedroom the body of his lover.
Kathleen Tracy, author of The Girl’s Got Bite: The Original Unofficial Guide to Buffy’s World takes note of this moment in television history.
“Of all the episodes, ‘Passion’ is probably the most viscerally disturbing, because of the unexpected death of Jenny Calendar. Even though by now, everyone knows that creator Joss Whedon has no qualms about killing off recurring characters, never before has such a regularly recurring character died.”
Joss Whedon stated that someone was bound to die in Passion. One of the options was Oz, Willow’s boyfriend played by Seth Green, who would be introduced shortly before Ms. Calendar’s death, but he liked writing him too much and the fans seemed to love him.
There’s a little irony in that choice as Oz would go on to leave a season or two later. This time as a werewolf, and with his life intact. Joss said the reason that Jenny needed to die was to show the audience that anyone was expendable. While on the surface that seems true, all of the men seemed to survive and one would go as far as to get his own show after their resurrection.
Ms. Calendar’s death set off a cataclysmic event, one that Whedon would take advantage of on his two major primetime shows by killing off all of the aforementioned women, and other shows would follow shortly after like Felicity and Dawson’s creek. Further into the future (and now our past), in 2016 eight fictional women were intentionally killed off on six different shows, unintentionally in one week. Those numbers have only increased since then.
For twenty years, fictional women have died for the sake of story progression or another (presumably men) character’s arc. These series stuff women in refrigerators, a term coined by Gail Simone in 1999, without giving them the option to fight back or work through a redemption arc. It’s terrifying to grasp that even in fictional worlds women are valued more in death and then when the dust settles, they are forgotten. Women deserve a chance to evolve on their own accord; both real and fictional.
There are women in the world who are like Buffy. They are strong-willed and resilient, but there are others like Kendra Young, Jenny Calendar, and Tara Maclay. Equally, they are strong and deserve to live especially when given a shot to and through them, we deserve a chance to see what our future could look like.
