This is the most nakedly and utterly horrifying moment in all seven seasons of “Buffy”. Season 6 had, up until this point, been the heroes dealing with the harsh realities of adult life, with the gritty humanity of the season exemplified by the fact that the “big bad”, the villain of the entire season, appeared to be three pathetic nerdy boys. Sure, they had enough magickal and technical know-how to do things like summon demons and create laser guns, but they were also incompetent, immature, squabbling, and above all, human. Nothing like the vampires, cyborgs, and immortal demons that had featured in the previous seasons. They were a joke. Comical.
And then came “Dead Things”. The “cerebral dampener”. The idea to hypnotise “any woman we desire into our willing sex slave”. And when Katrina, the girl they initially hypnotise, breaks free, this is her reaction.
And the most hideous thing about it, the thing that makes my stomach turn every time, isn’t Katrina’s words. It’s not her fury and horror at her near-violation. It’s the reaction of two of the trio. Because they’re not angry, they’re not sulky, or petulant, or amused…they’re shocked. Hell, they’re horrified.
Because it never even occurred to them that what they were doing was rape.
We’ve seen it so many times in so many mediums. “I will use this spell to enchant the prince!” “I will use this potion to cause the queen to fall in love with me!” Lois Lane and Lana Lang try to program Superman to marry them. Bowser enchants Princess Peach to be enamoured of him. Rimmer infects himself with a virus that makes him irresistible to women. Oberon uses a love potion to make the dickish Demtrius fall for obsessed Helena. It’s played for laughs. It’s seen as cute comedic fun. It can even be seen as a character’s way to express his/her true and honest love. Hell these, kind of products, whether they be pills, colognes, or hypnotic glasses, are still sold around the world.
It’s still comedic here. We giggle as the three boys squabble over which woman to entrance first, as they babble about “bazoombas” and snigger like twelve-year-olds. It’s even funny to see sarcastic, vitriolic Katrina in her ludicrous maid’s outfit. And when she says the words above, the audience is as horrified as the boys are. Because we realise we have been complicit in her violation. And, just as the boys honestly didn’t realise that what they were about to do was rape, part of us didn’t realise either.
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