The gaze

Angel is a vampire. Buffy is the vampire slayer. When Angel has a soul, Buffy is able to see the subject, Angel himself, within the object, the vampire. When he loses his soul, Buffy is forced to ignore the subject she once knew and see Angel as only an object, a vampire who must be killed.

The same is true of Spike. As a vampire he objectifies himself; he identifies entirely with being frightening, being ruthless, being a vampire. As a vampire who cannot kill, however, he becomes a subject--he protects Buffy's sister and falls in love with Buffy.

The same is true of Oz, the werewolf. Oz is a subject, a friend and individual, on every day and night except the full moon. Once a month he becomes an object, an animal who hunts and kills, but those who know him continue to see the subject he was and will be again at dawn.

What can a TV show say about being a subject in a world of subjects? Looking for hints to the good life in Simone de Beauvoir's ideas of the subject, the object, and the gaze, I see the importance of recognizing both the subject and object in yourself. Only by recognizing both in yourself can you transcend, know yourself and really be who you are.

However, without also working to recognize both the subject and the object in others, kindness, compassion, and an unprejudiced life are not possible. I don't think transcendence is limited to our private lives and inner selves, but that a sort of social transcendence is also possible. By recognizing the object in those that would make objects of us, we are better able to maintain our own subjectivity. By recognizing the subject in those that we would make into objects, we give them a fair chance to make objects of us and establish a foundation of respect upon which to meet them. If the gaze is inevitable, its only right that it should go two ways.

We must be aware of each other's and our own faciticity without losing sight of the fact that each of us has a private mind.