The answer to that is not so simple. Gender is what culture makes out of the raw material of biological sex, (Unger and Crawford, 1995). Also, there is a difference between what is gender identity and what is a gender role; a difference which seems to be even more difficult to differentiate between than the words gender and sex. Media and other parts of our culture seem to believe they know the difference, yet up until a certain period in time, the same stereotypical characters were portrayed and used as role models for others in most media.
Women characters being the helpless victims, while the strong men would come to save them (including television shows such as Miami Vice or Threes Company). Today there is a whole slew of shows and movies, which are redefining and re-categorizing the stereotypical language in relation to gender. One such television series is Buffy, The Vampire Slayer (starring Sarah Michelle Gellar).
And although it may seem like a typical teen-angst show, and the main character is a whiny, rich girl who fights demons , many people believed it would be exactly like the film (of the same name) which came out five years before the television show first aired in 1997. The film (starring Kristy Swanson) was trite and airy, and yet the television series proved those non-believers wrong. In a stereotypical world within the culture that the show represents, Buffy is doing a mans job.
She is fighting creatures double her size, and killing them. She is aggressive, outgoing, and determined. Words which are not normally used to describe women (without, of course, the word bitch trailing right behind them). In other cultures, women being the more aggressive and take-charge kind of person is the norm, but because we are living in a society, a culture, where even with the whole womens suffrage being long passed, many people would still like to see women behave as dainty, quiet, and passive characters.
Buffy, The Vampire Slayer has taken the issue of normal gender roles and behavior and switched them around, allowing the women to be more aggressive, having most of the power and ability, while the men take on the more passive role, watching from the sidelines, or at least simply trying to help. Although, at times, the stereotypical views of how a woman and a man should act, usually in interaction with each other, plays a role within the episodes. At the same time, though, the show allows its characters to explore their own ideas of what gender is, and how those ideas come into play with the ideas of the people in their environment.
In the film, Buffy is a strong, demon fighting woman, taking on opponents who only she can do any damage to; whereas the men in her life (Pike and Merrick) must stand back or they might be hurt. But upon speaking, Buffy practically epitomized the reason for every dumb blond female joke. She did not understand big words, and spoke in the true stereotypical California-girl manner, using the like after almost every other word. She seemed like an airhead, and up until she truly understood what her destiny was, she spoke and acted like one.
But the film version was meant to be a flaky comedy, while the television series is many times referred to being a dramedy (it is considered a drama, in this case, a science fiction/action drama, with a bit of comedy to keep it light. ) In the television series, although Buffy still speaks in slang and still appears to be the reason a dumb blond joke was ever invented, her vocabulary has become much more mature and clear. She is more in control of what is happening, or has happened to her, and is beginning to harness herself as her own person, her own identity.
She is not acting, or trying to be a certain type of person because everyone is telling her that that is who she is. Instead she is taking her identity and molding it; shaping it to fit who she is and who she has grown up to be. The fact that Buffy has taken on the role of the take charge leader (usually a role taken by a male), but other characters are called upon to take on the commonplace beliefs of gender roles and behavior. Willow (played by Alyson Hannigan) has recently gone through a change in her sexuality. Once a heterosexual high school student, after going through a difficult break-up with her boyfriend, becomes a lesbian.
This makes it quite difficult to understand whether Willow became a lesbian because she felt that that was her sexual orientation all along, and originally she was only following what her peers and society believed in when being a lesbian was not as accepted as it is now, or because she did not know how else to handle her difficult break up, and decided that being a lesbian was easy because it was right there in front of her. One stereotype that is not acknowledged within this scenario is that neither female (Willow and Tara, her girlfriend) are butch in their behaviors, as many believe lesbians to be.
Both women are exactly the same as who they were before realizing their feelings toward each other. This portrayal can help to reconceptualize our study of human behavior in accordance to the lesbian and gay reality according to Laura S. Brown (New Voices, New Visions, pg. 170). It can help to break out of the lesbian and gay stereotypes, and into the reality of the fact that not all lesbians have the typical male qualities and not all gay men have the typical female qualities. And also that there are heterosexual women who exhibit aggressiveness and rage, and there are heterosexual men who exhibit passivity and shyness.
Sometimes, an episode will show in which roles are switched, and those who are the strong sink into the victim position, and those who watch from the sidelines are allowed to be the aggressors. These episodes are an explanation for our society by acting as a metaphor for the stereotypes of male and female behaviors and thoughts, believed by our culture. One such episode was aired during Halloween of 1998. Buffy wanted her boyfriend, Angel (played by David Boreanaz), a 240-year-old vampire with a soul, to want her more. The only way she felt that would happen is if she dressed as a damsel in distress, someone who was needy and passive.
Along with that, the character of Xander (played by Nicholas Brendon) decided to dress up as an army man, to seem tougher and stronger. A bit of magic occurs, and the people are turned into whatever they were dressed up as, turning Buffy into the helpless female, and Xander into the aggressive male with access to guns and hand grenades. Another point that follows along with these switched roles, is the fact that when the male characters are in their aggressive mannerisms, they become mean. Angel, being a vampire, when in true vamp-mode is twice as strong than he normally is, is not at all passive, and becomes full of rage and hate.
Is that what a real man is supposed to be like? Dr. Mark J. Blechner says that the idea of masculinity is all about what culture is being discussed. Within the culture we live in today, in America, year 2000, masculinity seems to still hold much of the same beliefs as in the early 1900s. According to John Money and Anke Erhardt, the idea of masculinity holds factors such as a whole range of behavioral tendencies (athleticism versus sedentariness, self-assertion versus compliance, self-adornment versus utilitarian dress, attention to achievement versus to romance).
Blechner believes that if we change the metaphors, change the stereotypes, the reality can be changed. So, when Angel becomes an angry and vengeful vampire, it wont be a comparison to men and their masculinity, but instead an expression of what happens to him when he gets too excited. And Buffy will understand that she does not need to dress a certain way to please her man. She should only be pleasing herself. Browns theory also reflects the same idea as Blechners theory.
Brown believes that if the stereotypes of sexual orientation are dismissed, and looked into with a much less biased view, that a new reality will form in the study of human behavior. Buffy, The Vampire Slayer is a metaphor for the beliefs and views (on gender roles and identity) of our society and culture in todays world. But it also presents a metaphor for what the future should bring into how we (as a society) see males and females, and their behaviors with each other and within themselves, without the wall of stereotypical beliefs that are preventing both sexes as a whole from slaying the demons and the vampires.
