That Guy Just Bugs Me (Teacher’s Pet)

(Content warning in this essay for discussions of sexual assault against minors.)

About four years ago, in the halycon days of 2017, I decided to start writing a series of essays on Buffy. I wanted to track the show through every episode, analyse the themes and desires of the series, see how they morph and shift through the seasons. I opened up my DVDs, popped in Welcome to the Hellmouth, and set to taking notes. I scratched down all the little thoughts and ideas that occurred as I watched, carrying on through The Harvest and Witch, eager to fill my brain with the whole season before I sat down to write, noticing new themes and parallels, brimming with eagerness and love for this show.

And then I reached Teacher’s Pet.

It’s hard to know what to do with an episode like this. I’ll be honest and say that this is comfortably among my least favourite episodes of the series. Unlike some others, it also fails to be bad in an interesting way. It’s hokey, it’s plot-heavy but the plot never provides any surprises, and it has a silly bug suit. I can feel motivation trickling out of my fingertips as I blink my eyes stupidly at the exploits of Bug Lady and Mr Claw. But my mission with this series is not so much to do a series of episode reviews, as it is to track the show and its whole identity as it progresses. I want to eke out meaning and purpose regardless of quality. So let’s swallow this turd and see what comes out the other side. Let’s talk about Jonathan.

He will first appear in exactly one season from now, and gradually grows from a generic nerdy background character, to a recurring character, to a main villain. In episode 4×17 ‘Superstar’, Jonathan casts a spell over the whole of Sunnydale that makes him the centre of the universe. He is cool, attractive, a celebrity, a billionaire, a better slayer than Buffy, a rock star strutting his stuff on the Bronze’s stage. He’s James Bond, Frank Sinatra, Brad Pitt, and (gag) Elon Musk, rolled into one. He’s, well, a Chad.

Succinctly, he’s the idealised image of the Straight Male Icon. The finish line of masculinity as our cisheteronormative society envisions it. Jonathan wants to be this person, the Patriarchy made flesh, because it is what society has promised him. He is entitled to it. And so he distorts the world, distorts the structure of the show, in order to obtain it, and in doing so rips power from the female hero. We have sympathy for Jonathan in seasons 3 and 4, as a young man struggling with depression. But his actions in season 6 make this reading of entitlement obvious. 

When he joins the Trio, Jonathan allies himself with the worst excesses of nerdy misogyny. They are so bitter at living in a world that has not provided them with the success, adoration and female attention that was promised them by mainstream media, that they turn to villainy. They position themselves in equal importance to Buffy, and have the arrogance to presume this is true. We can see a straight line from Jonathan shaping the world to his image in Superstar, failing to realise why this is so wrong, to the Trio trying to control Katrina in Dead Things, and not realising why that is so deeply, deeply wrong. Unfortunately, we will talk more about Dead Things later.

In the opening scene of this episode, Xander has a dream. Buffy is up against it in the Bronze, struggling to overcome a single vampire. That’s when Xander cuts in, deftly slaying the vampire, earning swoons from Buffy and adoration from the crowd, before leaping up onto the stage, and shredding guitar to the whole of the Bronze. His image of himself is one with him as the Hero, and Buffy as his blushing Love Interest. He too restructures the show to centre himself. 

Right from this first scene, the episode demonstrates its interest in the Straight Male perspective. Lest anybody misinterpret me, I want to make very clear that I am not condemning any story that focuses on a heterosexual cisgender man’s point of view. I am not writing this because I intend to wage war on straight white men (I do, but that’s an independent project). I’m talking about the narrow view of idealised masculinity – virile, heterosexual, assertive, handsome, physically strong, competitive, successful, etc – that is held up as an ambition all men must aspire to. There are plenty of decent men who are all these things – but it becomes toxic when it is expected by default of all men.

That is the issue that Xander is struggling with in this episode. He is not the Idealised Straight Male, though he intends to perform as one. When Blaine – the typical jock bully introduced in this episode – asks him about his sexual activity, he claims he’s having sex with multiple women a day. He tries to present Willow and Buffy – his platonic friends – as his girlfriends, in order to impress Blaine. We see this insecurity tied to his feelings about Buffy, as she leaves his arms just as she sees Angel, a man who Xander immediately describes as handsome (sidenote – this is the first in many lines that can lead to a legitimate reading of Xander as a closeted queer man).

The lesson that Xander needs to learn is that it’s OK to not be that kind of man. He can’t be The Hero, because this is Buffy’s show. He’s not going to be a sex god, or a brooding man of mystery, or an action hero, because that’s not him. He must unlearn these expectations and become happy in his role as The Chick^[1]. 

So the question is – is that the lesson that Xander learns in this episode? Well, kind of. By trying to prove his masculinity, ignoring Buffy’s warning and going over to meet Miss French, he gets himself trapped in a basement and almost decapitated. Willow emphasises that Xander is fine how he is when she talks about how she likes his eyes, his hair, his smile – his Xander-ness.

I think you can also view the villain of this episode, Miss French, as someone who actively exploits the Male Gaze for her own purposes. She’s almosting distorting the show herself when she arrives, turning the camera onto her, bringing in a slow-motion effect and what I can only describe as Sexy Jungle Music in the background. She grooms her victims by encouraging this Idealised Straight Male aspiration. When Xander arrives at her house, she acts shy and coy, suggesting that he must be more experienced and confident than her. She puts herself in the exact same role that Xander puts dream!Buffy into, down to admiring his hand.

Miss French does act as a mirror to Buffy in this episode, or perhaps more accurately, to The Slayer. I always think it’s significant when a demon species in the show is referred to as female, as I think it almost always means we’re supposed to relate them to Slayers. When passionately and very normally describing the praying mantis to her class, she describes the female as “larger, stronger, and more aggressive”, much as the specifically female Slayer is always more powerful and aggressive than any male of their species. Later in the episode, she specifically strikes fear into the Fork-Vampire, just as the Slayer strikes fear into all vampires. So perhaps Miss French is indicative of the way that Xander perceives Buffy – a sexually alluring vagina-dentata metaphor, coming to seduce him and then cut off his head. It’s inaccurate of course, but I think it makes sense for Xander’s confused developing sexuality.

For what it’s worth, I thought over and over about the metaphorical function of the Fork-Vampire, and why so much emphasis is placed on him through Angel’s warning despite not really being necessary to the story, and the best that I can come up with is that most of this episode is really about forking.

So the episode is almost making a very good point about the dangers of pursuing the Idealised Male image. But, fitting for this show whose feminism appears good in parts but is deeply incomplete, the message is undercut by the final joke of the episode – the reveal that Blaine is a virgin. It’s treated as a shameful secret that the show is giggling at. The scene isn’t saying “see, the idea of a ‘Real Man’ is fake nonsense that harms everyone”, it’s saying “see, he isn’t a Real Man either”. 

I think this kind of incomplete feminism is part of why Xander is such a frustrating figure for so many fans. I myself do like Xander as a character and will defend him, but he doesn’t half make it hard sometimes. Part of the problem is that he often gets very close to learning these kinds of lessons, to deprogram himself from these toxic expectations, but never entirely does so. He is, I think, intended to be a representation of Positive Masculinity in the series, in opposition to the series of openly misogynistic villains that the gang faces, something which I think is important for any feminist framework to consider. But he fails to completely be this, largely because this show’s creator doesn’t completely understand feminism. So Xander’s continuing problematic behaviours go only partially acknowledged by the text, if at all.

This incompleteness is displayed as the show reveals more of Miss French’s modus operandi, and doesn’t seem entirely aware of its implications. Miss French is a teacher who grooms teenagers, invites them back to her house, where she exploits their inexperience, forcibly has sex with them, and kills them. This is not implication or metaphor. This is the textual fact of this episode.

“She, she… she, she takes you outta the cage, and she ties you up, and, and… she… she starts movin’, and throbbin’, and these eggs come shootin’ out of her! And then… […] She mates with you!”

Blaine, 1×04 Teacher’s Pet

Miss French sexually assaults and murders underage boys. She is a child molester. This is a dark and serious topic that honestly I don’t want to be talking about, but this episode is forcing me to. It’s adding these concepts as flavour to the goofy Bug Monster episode, rather than treating it with the seriousness it requires. It’s gross. It’s distasteful.

A lot of media has a serious blind spot when it comes to male victims of sexual violence^[2]. Frankly, this show is a prime example (see Riley in Who Are You). The flippancy in which this is treated is an abhorrent but prevailing attitude throughout society. It’s one of the main ways in which the Patriarchy harms men. That this episode buys into that attitude is a huge mark against it, especially as there’s little else in the episode particularly entertaining.

There’s an interesting moment in the middle of the episode where Principal Flutie is walking Buffy to her mandated counselling session – one that is reflected later, when Xander is at Miss French’s house.

“I really believe if we all reach out to one another we can beat this thing. I’m always here if you need a hug, (jumps back) but not a real hug! Because there’s no touching, this school is sensitive to wrong touching.”

Principal Flutie, 1×04 Teacher’s Pet

“Would you like to touch me with those hands?”

Natalie French, 1×04 Teacher’s Pet

This parallel would suggest some level of awareness, that Flutie is so hyper-aware of any perceived “wrong touching”, as a warning sign of predatory behaviour, when it involves an adult man and a younger woman, but is completely oblivious to a member of his staff doing this when it is an adult woman and a younger man. Buffy even specifically refers to the Mantis as a “predator”, to drive home that the show does know what it’s doing on some level. But there is no follow-through on this commentary, so it seems like an unnecessary and insensitive insertion into the Goofy Bug Monster episode. 

The episode could’ve dug into this theme, or they could’ve ignored it and just had Xander and Blaine as potential victims of blood sacrifice (which would’ve matched the trope inversion I think they were going for – Xander as the sacrificial virgin and Buffy as the Shining Knight saving them). But it does neither, and that is its undoing.

In episode 6×13, ‘Dead Things’, Jonathan, Andrew and Warren use a magical mind control device to remove Katrina’s agency, forcing her to come down to their basement, where they intend to sexually assault her. It is an unnerving swerve into a dark concept, specifically calling out nerdy male entitlement, and refusing the viewer any comfort by calling this what it is – rape. Katrina, for a moment, breaks free of the mind control, and runs up the basement stairs. From behind, Warren grabs her, trips her, and beats her, and  before realising she is dead, attempts to then continue the assault. The rest of the episode is a harrowing tale that forces us to stew in the unpleasantness of this action. It’s dark, but dark with purpose, treating the topic with seriousness.

In episode 1×04, ‘Teacher’s Pet’, Miss French uses magical pheromones to influence Xander’s agency, forcing him to come down to her basement, where she intends to sexually assault him. Xander manages to loosen the bars of the cage and makes a run for it, sprinting up the basement stairs. From behind, the Bug Monster trips him, and pulls him back down, intending to continue the assault and kill him. The rest of the episode is a silly runaround with a 50’s horror movie shadow-puppet homage, fun science facts about bugs and bats, and jokes about how the jock is really a virgin.

Xander starts this episode as Jonathan, and ends it as Katrina. And I don’t think the show knows it.

* * *

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this piece, please consider supporting me on Ko-Fi!

* * *

References:

[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheChick
[2] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale