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selenakStill hounded by Darth Real Life, still determined to post the prompt inspired entries on the day they were promised. :)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a rich variety of relationships between women, and by "rich" I don't just mean in numbers, I mean that no relationship is identical or even very similar, and that these relationships keep changing, sometimes radically, sometimes subtly, through the canon. Buffy's new friendship with Willow at the start of s1 when Willow is the outsider geek and Buffy is the new girl isn't yet the firm friendship it becomes through their high school years, which changes with college (something Willow takes to far more easily than Buffy) and Willow coming into her power as a witch, which changes again after Buffy died, got resurrected against her will and Willow went Dark Phoenix (or Darth Willow, as Jonathan and Andrew put it), and then once more after they'd come both back from their dark experiences. Meanwhile, the relationship between Buffy and Cordelia certainly improved through the first three seasons, but never reached the same intimacy at the best of times; otoh, both the hostile and the understanding moments (which start as early as season 1's Invisible Girl) were informed by that they're not that dissimilar, that Buffy (as she's very aware) before becoming the Slayer was very much like early Cordelia. Buffy's relationship with fellow Slayer Faith deserved and got many a post in its complexity; while it's also informed by the mixture of parallels and contrasts, it's never like the one with Cordelia, not least, because Cordy never wants either to be Buffy, or wants Buffy. The relationship between Buffy and her mother alters as Buffy grows up, and while Buffy being forced to out herself as a Slayer is a major point of disruption, in the long run Joyce being aware of the truth puts her and Buffy on a far more open and closer level. The sisterly relationship between Buffy and Dawn is the driving force of the fifth season, but doesn't stay the way it is by the end of that season; it goes through major estrangement in season 6, grows closer again in early s7 and evens out into a ups and downs sibling relationship again by the end. As I said: none of these relationships are identical or static. (And btw, the list isn't meant to be complete: you could add Buffy & Tara, Buffy & Anya, Buffy & Maggie Walsh, etc.)
Of course, they are all with Buffy, since she's the main character. However, there are also relationships shown between the female characters without Buffy being one of them. Willow and Cordelia go from the deepheld hostility from s1 to an uneasy truce (disrupted by the brief Willow/Xander affair) to ending up as the primary contacts between the Sunnydale and Los Angeles teams. And speaking of Los Angeles (aka the Angelverse), the relationship between Cordelia and Harmony, having started out as Mean Girl and Acolyte and turning into enmity as Cordelia becomes more involved with Buffy and her friends, gains (while still being used as comic relief) an unexpected poignancy when Harm shows up in L.A.
Willow and Faith are indifferent on Faith's and slightly jealous on Willow's part before Faith's dark side stint, at which point it becomes cool hostility, and they don't really interact in a meaningful way when Faith returns in season 7. Otoh Willow and Anya go from Xander-centric not very well concealed mutual dislike to Willow, after her walk on the dark side, becoming Anya's champion during Anya's big crisis in season 7. The friendship and later romantic relationship Willow forms with Tara is probably the relationship between two women without either of them being Buffy that gets the most narrative space on the show; Tara also forms relationships with Dawn (who adopts her as a maternal figure in season 6) and Buffy (where she's an unexpected confidant). I could go on.
But to sum up: because there are so many relationships between female characters on BTVS, none of them bears the burden of representation. I.e. is in danger of being regarded as a narrative statement about female relationships. And thus we get the full spectrum. There can be feuds and indifference because there are friendships (and romances) as well. There aren't any extremes of "all female characters are hostile towards each other" on the one hand, or "all female characters have to be friends, otherwise it's a betrayal of feminism" on the other.
Of course, BTVS had seven seasons for this, with 22 episodes per season. Agent Carter, otoh, has only just started its second season and has a far shorter season. Within that space, we haven't gotten yet narratively shown and weighted relationships between women when neither of them is Peggy Carter. (Unless you count the Red Room flashback to Dottie's childhood/training in s1 and the friendly chat between Rose and Violet in the s2 season opener.) However, Peggy and other women did get their screentime: Peggy's murdered room mate in the s1 pilot may be the classic "hero gets back into hero-ing by murder of friend" trope, but her friendship with Angie the waitress and hopeful actress develops through the season, with Peggy at first skittish mostly due to not wanting more dead friends but ultimately opening up to Angie, who is the instigator and pursuer of the friendship. Angie is also the embodiment of a normal life, of optimism, and the sole important "civilian" character (I'm not counting Jarvis as a civilian here, since he becomes Peggy's sidekick as soon as the pilot) of the season. The other important relationship Peggy has with another woman in s1 is with Dottie who ends up becoming her arch nemesis (at least, that's how Dottie sees it!), and it's very worth pointing out that Dottie (whose cover identity fools Peggy right until the point Dottie knocks her out via Peggy's own lipstick) proves Peggy can be prone to the same fallacy her male colleagues suffer from: not really looking at a woman, taking her at her surface and consequently underestimating her. (There is no way that an on the run Peggy would have let a man close enough to kiss her!) What Angie and Dottie share is that they symbolize something - the cheerful reconnection to life post war Peggy needs, her shadow self the ultimate agent, bereft of any real identity; this doesn't make them lesser characters, but it's a different narrative than BTVS with its many girls and women.
S2 has only just started, deepened one character who in s1 had a mostly silent role (Rose) and giving her personality and interaction with not only Peggy but Daniel and Violet, and introduced three new ones, Ana Jarvis, Violet and Whitney Frost. The later seems to be the season antagonist (i.e. fulfilling a similar mirror/contrast role to Peggy as Dottie - who is still around - did in season 1), and you can see Violet as a romantic obstacle if you're uncharitable (though the show is careful not to let Peggy treat her as such, or vice versa), but Ana and Rose are symbolism-free so far, which makes me doubly intrigued on how their interaction with Peggy will develop. Otoh, it could remain static, though pleasantly so (both Peggy's scenes with Ana and Rose have been friendly); Agent Carter could err on the side of caution and in order to avoid presenting relationships between women as cliché catfighting make them (minus Peggy and her nemesis du jour) harmonious only. As opposed to Peggy's relationships with the male characters who aren't antagonists, be they Daniel Sousa, Jack Thompson, Jarvis or Howard Stark, which are more complicated (so far), not least because they can include negativity.
But to repeat myself: it's a far younger show with far fewer episodes. We'll see how it developes - in every regard.
The other days
Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a rich variety of relationships between women, and by "rich" I don't just mean in numbers, I mean that no relationship is identical or even very similar, and that these relationships keep changing, sometimes radically, sometimes subtly, through the canon. Buffy's new friendship with Willow at the start of s1 when Willow is the outsider geek and Buffy is the new girl isn't yet the firm friendship it becomes through their high school years, which changes with college (something Willow takes to far more easily than Buffy) and Willow coming into her power as a witch, which changes again after Buffy died, got resurrected against her will and Willow went Dark Phoenix (or Darth Willow, as Jonathan and Andrew put it), and then once more after they'd come both back from their dark experiences. Meanwhile, the relationship between Buffy and Cordelia certainly improved through the first three seasons, but never reached the same intimacy at the best of times; otoh, both the hostile and the understanding moments (which start as early as season 1's Invisible Girl) were informed by that they're not that dissimilar, that Buffy (as she's very aware) before becoming the Slayer was very much like early Cordelia. Buffy's relationship with fellow Slayer Faith deserved and got many a post in its complexity; while it's also informed by the mixture of parallels and contrasts, it's never like the one with Cordelia, not least, because Cordy never wants either to be Buffy, or wants Buffy. The relationship between Buffy and her mother alters as Buffy grows up, and while Buffy being forced to out herself as a Slayer is a major point of disruption, in the long run Joyce being aware of the truth puts her and Buffy on a far more open and closer level. The sisterly relationship between Buffy and Dawn is the driving force of the fifth season, but doesn't stay the way it is by the end of that season; it goes through major estrangement in season 6, grows closer again in early s7 and evens out into a ups and downs sibling relationship again by the end. As I said: none of these relationships are identical or static. (And btw, the list isn't meant to be complete: you could add Buffy & Tara, Buffy & Anya, Buffy & Maggie Walsh, etc.)
Of course, they are all with Buffy, since she's the main character. However, there are also relationships shown between the female characters without Buffy being one of them. Willow and Cordelia go from the deepheld hostility from s1 to an uneasy truce (disrupted by the brief Willow/Xander affair) to ending up as the primary contacts between the Sunnydale and Los Angeles teams. And speaking of Los Angeles (aka the Angelverse), the relationship between Cordelia and Harmony, having started out as Mean Girl and Acolyte and turning into enmity as Cordelia becomes more involved with Buffy and her friends, gains (while still being used as comic relief) an unexpected poignancy when Harm shows up in L.A.
Willow and Faith are indifferent on Faith's and slightly jealous on Willow's part before Faith's dark side stint, at which point it becomes cool hostility, and they don't really interact in a meaningful way when Faith returns in season 7. Otoh Willow and Anya go from Xander-centric not very well concealed mutual dislike to Willow, after her walk on the dark side, becoming Anya's champion during Anya's big crisis in season 7. The friendship and later romantic relationship Willow forms with Tara is probably the relationship between two women without either of them being Buffy that gets the most narrative space on the show; Tara also forms relationships with Dawn (who adopts her as a maternal figure in season 6) and Buffy (where she's an unexpected confidant). I could go on.
But to sum up: because there are so many relationships between female characters on BTVS, none of them bears the burden of representation. I.e. is in danger of being regarded as a narrative statement about female relationships. And thus we get the full spectrum. There can be feuds and indifference because there are friendships (and romances) as well. There aren't any extremes of "all female characters are hostile towards each other" on the one hand, or "all female characters have to be friends, otherwise it's a betrayal of feminism" on the other.
Of course, BTVS had seven seasons for this, with 22 episodes per season. Agent Carter, otoh, has only just started its second season and has a far shorter season. Within that space, we haven't gotten yet narratively shown and weighted relationships between women when neither of them is Peggy Carter. (Unless you count the Red Room flashback to Dottie's childhood/training in s1 and the friendly chat between Rose and Violet in the s2 season opener.) However, Peggy and other women did get their screentime: Peggy's murdered room mate in the s1 pilot may be the classic "hero gets back into hero-ing by murder of friend" trope, but her friendship with Angie the waitress and hopeful actress develops through the season, with Peggy at first skittish mostly due to not wanting more dead friends but ultimately opening up to Angie, who is the instigator and pursuer of the friendship. Angie is also the embodiment of a normal life, of optimism, and the sole important "civilian" character (I'm not counting Jarvis as a civilian here, since he becomes Peggy's sidekick as soon as the pilot) of the season. The other important relationship Peggy has with another woman in s1 is with Dottie who ends up becoming her arch nemesis (at least, that's how Dottie sees it!), and it's very worth pointing out that Dottie (whose cover identity fools Peggy right until the point Dottie knocks her out via Peggy's own lipstick) proves Peggy can be prone to the same fallacy her male colleagues suffer from: not really looking at a woman, taking her at her surface and consequently underestimating her. (There is no way that an on the run Peggy would have let a man close enough to kiss her!) What Angie and Dottie share is that they symbolize something - the cheerful reconnection to life post war Peggy needs, her shadow self the ultimate agent, bereft of any real identity; this doesn't make them lesser characters, but it's a different narrative than BTVS with its many girls and women.
S2 has only just started, deepened one character who in s1 had a mostly silent role (Rose) and giving her personality and interaction with not only Peggy but Daniel and Violet, and introduced three new ones, Ana Jarvis, Violet and Whitney Frost. The later seems to be the season antagonist (i.e. fulfilling a similar mirror/contrast role to Peggy as Dottie - who is still around - did in season 1), and you can see Violet as a romantic obstacle if you're uncharitable (though the show is careful not to let Peggy treat her as such, or vice versa), but Ana and Rose are symbolism-free so far, which makes me doubly intrigued on how their interaction with Peggy will develop. Otoh, it could remain static, though pleasantly so (both Peggy's scenes with Ana and Rose have been friendly); Agent Carter could err on the side of caution and in order to avoid presenting relationships between women as cliché catfighting make them (minus Peggy and her nemesis du jour) harmonious only. As opposed to Peggy's relationships with the male characters who aren't antagonists, be they Daniel Sousa, Jack Thompson, Jarvis or Howard Stark, which are more complicated (so far), not least because they can include negativity.
But to repeat myself: it's a far younger show with far fewer episodes. We'll see how it developes - in every regard.
The other days
