I am thinking a lot today about the Cordelia Chase storyline on Buffy and Angel and how it's almost a literal apotheosis of Whedon Feminism.

The actress was punished at one point by having her character ascend to another plane of existence, becoming a higher power; a goddess. https://twitter.com/LeeFlower/status/1359630145523490816

It was an elevation of the character in power and importance that had the effect of writing her out of the plot. In-story, it was sold as an honored sacrifice. It was about as pure an example of "putting someone on a pedestal" as you can imagine.

When she rejoined the main plot, her character was derailed by eldritch shenanigans and she was consumed in a mystic pregnancy (not the first one for just that character!) and it was retroactively revealed that this was the whole point of bringing her to that point all along.

And you could mine so much meaning out of the layers of symbolism, how the much-vaunted "strong female character" is so often just a female character with superpowers and not a strongly characterized female person.

And so many people have already written so much about the problems of Joss Whedon around pregnancy, in-character and out-of-character, but of course that's right at the center of all this.