Joss Whedon actually rewrote a later scene to make it clear to an audience feeling weird about Spike that Buffy was using Spike for sex during the period leading up to the assault. Yet, when we should have been free to abandon Spike – as a modern audience would after such a betrayal – we were manipulated to feel we couldn't. Buffy, understandably, is disgusted by Spike's behaviour. Leading up to this scene, Spike has been scorned by Buffy and has lashed out by sleeping with one of her friends. From the first moment we meet Spike, we've known that he will do anything for the woman he loves – that he's very capable of being driven to obsession and revenge. Prior to the assault, Buffy and Spike had been sleeping together secretly, much to Buffy's shame. The show and the episode's defenders say the scene was justified in the context of the story arc. He was a blood-sucking sex symbol with a heart. He was one of the characters we loved the most. What made it so frustrating, so emotionally messy and, for many, utterly irresponsible, was that Spike had been built up as a three-dimensional man by Joss Whedon and actor James Marsters. Buffy fans I know prefer to pretend that the episode isn't canon, or just deny its existence altogether. It's just as uncomfortable to watch now as it was then. "Historical context is everything, and scenes like this provoke a lot of debate in my class because TV is a niche, targeted thing, and it's always moving forward," Jowett says. When anyone watches Buffy, they are Buffy – James Marsters, Spike We're still talking about whether it's feminist many years later." "We learned how to talk about television as an art form from this show. "For TV scholars, Buffy was the birth of what we now call 'quality television', in terms of shows that hit certain characteristics and that we can discuss as a quality text," Buffy Studies scholar Lorna Jowett tells me. This single episode set the standard for the way in which we talk about TV today. "Seeing Red" – which aired 15 years ago today – became infamous not just for those who watched the show, but for anyone interested in TV or pop culture at large. Spike never manages to rape Buffy – she eventually wrestles free.
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