Yeah I remember early interviews where Joss seemed to see Xander as a role model for the males in the audience and that really bothers me. Supposedly Xander was so great because he admired Buffy as a powerful woman and was happy to be her sidekick, except he wasn't? From as early as Teacher's Pet he's having a fantasy about Xander being the true hero while Buffy is some vapid girl in a sexy red dress being attacked and swooning over Xander when he rescues her. He was constantly complaining about his manhood, ie in Halloween Buffy apparently broke the guy code by coming to Xander's rescue, or in The Wish when he's all excited at finding out that he's a badass vampire in the AU and sees it as his answer to how threatened he is by Angel.
Just because he found it hot that a conventionally attractive woman like Buffy could also kick ass and handle herself, doesn't suddenly make him a great feminist when it was always clear to me that he had a lot of traditional ideas about men and women. He was never happy being the sidekick, in The Harvest he immediately starts complaining about being 'less than a man' when Buffy doesn't want him to come with her and get into danger, so I don't know where the idea comes from that he was happy to be a woman's sidekick. Maybe later on in the series, but definitely not when they were all in high school. Having to accept the inevitable truth that he wasn't as strong and powerful as a girl with superpowers doesn't mean that being her sidekick was the ideal state of affairs for him. At the very least his fantasy in Teacher's Pet should have seen him fighting alongside Buffy as an equal, instead of charging to Buffy's rescue as she is helpless and defeated, if he really was that into women being equally as strong or stronger than him
And the argument about him being so awesome because he's attracted to strong woman, I hate when his interaction with Kendra in What's My Line is used as an example of that. Like it's unusual and something to be be praised that a teenage boy is attracted to traditionally beautiful and in shape women like Buffy and Kendra! And then some people say it's so awesome how Xander loses all interest in Kendra when she starts stammering and isn't as strong a person as he thinks. Yeah how awesome that Xander takes a sexual interest in a slayer, and then immediately loses any interest in talking to her the second he realises that she's shy around guys and he's therefore no longer attracted to her?
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Just because he found it hot that a conventionally attractive woman like Buffy could also kick ass and handle herself, doesn't suddenly make him a great feminist when it was always clear to me that he had a lot of traditional ideas about men and women. He was never happy being the sidekick, in The Harvest he immediately starts complaining about being 'less than a man' when Buffy doesn't want him to come with her and get into danger, so I don't know where the idea comes from that he was happy to be a woman's sidekick. Maybe later on in the series, but definitely not when they were all in high school. Having to accept the inevitable truth that he wasn't as strong and powerful as a girl with superpowers doesn't mean that being her sidekick was the ideal state of affairs for him. At the very least his fantasy in Teacher's Pet should have seen him fighting alongside Buffy as an equal, instead of charging to Buffy's rescue as she is helpless and defeated, if he really was that into women being equally as strong or stronger than him
And the argument about him being so awesome because he's attracted to strong woman, I hate when his interaction with Kendra in What's My Line is used as an example of that. Like it's unusual and something to be be praised that a teenage boy is attracted to traditionally beautiful and in shape women like Buffy and Kendra! And then some people say it's so awesome how Xander loses all interest in Kendra when she starts stammering and isn't as strong a person as he thinks. Yeah how awesome that Xander takes a sexual interest in a slayer, and then immediately loses any interest in talking to her the second he realises that she's shy around guys and he's therefore no longer attracted to her?