Deconstructing Buffy
Jun. 30th, 2006 09:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ksmithI will start out by saying that I have enjoyed Buffy for years. I came late to the series--end of Season 5--and didn't watch it regularly until I bought the DVDs.
Admission the second--I don’t know if I would have enjoyed it as much without Spike, or a similar Spike-like character. Angelus/Angel never did it for me. It could have been Boreanaz's essential blockiness--he gave Angel a staid, almost ponderous presence that made me want to kick him in the ass to see how long it would take him to say Ouch. I like tall, moody brunets as a rule, but he doesn't make my list.
So, not an Angel fan. Haven't seen an episode of Angel. No Firefly, either.
All this wasteful pondering is the result of having read this post, followed by this discussion. I think they can be treated together as part of the ever ongoing metadiscussion of why Buffy's world is a soft fantasy construct of balsa, spit, and tissue paper, a discussion that could go on for *days*. Why "strong women" die while "strong girls" survive, and why I don't believe that's the essential question.
Authority figures. Buffy began as a show about kids, and like all shows featuring kids--at least the ones I'm familiar with--parents and authority figures are portrayed as incompetent or evil when they are portrayed at all. Part of the problem can be explained by the structure of the character growth arc and the series concept. Buffy needs to grow/mature/accept more responsibility. She also needs to be seen as the strongest person in the room, both physically and emotionally, most or all of the time. And that means that no one else can be strong enough or competent enough over the long haul to fix things, because if they were, that would shift the focus away from Buffy.
So, no strong, fair, competent, authority figures. No stronger friends. No truly strong parents. No stronger women, at least in the long run.
What about Joyce, then? What about Giles?
I never felt much sympathy for Joyce Summers. In fact, she bugged the hell out of me. I never saw her as particularly strong, but as clueless, slow on the uptake, and self-centered. A bubble, bobbing along over the surface of the churn. The scene that flipped my switch in this regard was the one at the end of Fool for Love, where Buffy comes upon her packing in preparation for a short hospital stay. Buffy is surprised to hear about this impending stay, and that's when it hit me that these two never talk. They don’t strike me as mother and daughter in that scene, but as acquaintances who happen to live in the same house. Maybe that was done on purpose--I don't know. In any case, Joyce's importance to the story line had pretty much played itself out by that point. That, and the fact that we are ultimately concerned with Buffy's growth process, part of which involved kicking all the emotional skids out from under so that she can learn to stand on her own two feet, led to the inevitable death of Joyce. She couldn’t just leave--that's what Buffy's father did. Insert questions concerning the lack of strong father figures in this series here. I think it leads back to the No One Stronger Than Buffy hypothesis.
(But what about Giles?)
Giles, imho, needed more Ripper Moments. He needed an entire Ripper sequence. I liked the man, but he dithered too much. He was also at a permanent disadvantage because he was played against Buffy, who (repeating myself here) always had to appear strongest.
As for the demise of other strong women...
Tara. Not sure about the fairness of this comment. Willow was in the midst of her Magic Overdrive period at the time of the alleged abuse. Yes, what she did to Tara stunk. What she did to Dawn stunk as well. She was selfish and unfeeling and riding a magic riff wherever it took her. That was part of the storyline. After that came separation from Tara, then rapprochement, then disaster. Something bad enough to drive Willow to seek to bring about the end of the world. And what could drive that except great loss, the loss of the woman she loves.
Because it's not about strong woman Tara dying. It's about Willow going to the brink and being brought back by a friend. For "strong woman" in this instance, insert "expendable secondary character." These are not necessarily the same thing.
I think the same thing applies to the death of Jenny Calendar. What could drive Giles to take on Angelus but a supreme tragedy? It isn't that Jenny had to die because she's strong. It's that a driver was needed to compel Giles to fight Angelus...then fail so that Buffy could save him...because Buffy is ultimately the strongest one in the room.
Other things. One small example of soft fantasy underpinnings, and then I've leaving this alone.
Buffy needed a financial plan. She needed to have compelled the rich, powerful Watchers organization to provide support while she did Slayer things, and it always bothered me that these supposedly intelligent, wealthy people didn't realize that a day job and financial worries could interfere with the effectiveness of a Slayer.
I wanted to see Anya as Buffy's business manager. I wanted to sic Anya on the Watchers and have her negotiate Buffy's contract. Demand insurance and tuition and a trust fund for Dawn. Because money troubles are implied, dad's not around, and there's no way in hell that Buffy can support that household on a fast food worker's paycheck. Honestly, the illogic of the financials bothered me.
I still enjoyed the show. A lot. As long as I didn’t think about some things too deeply because they just didn’t stand up to scrutiny
Admission the second--I don’t know if I would have enjoyed it as much without Spike, or a similar Spike-like character. Angelus/Angel never did it for me. It could have been Boreanaz's essential blockiness--he gave Angel a staid, almost ponderous presence that made me want to kick him in the ass to see how long it would take him to say Ouch. I like tall, moody brunets as a rule, but he doesn't make my list.
So, not an Angel fan. Haven't seen an episode of Angel. No Firefly, either.
All this wasteful pondering is the result of having read this post, followed by this discussion. I think they can be treated together as part of the ever ongoing metadiscussion of why Buffy's world is a soft fantasy construct of balsa, spit, and tissue paper, a discussion that could go on for *days*. Why "strong women" die while "strong girls" survive, and why I don't believe that's the essential question.
Authority figures. Buffy began as a show about kids, and like all shows featuring kids--at least the ones I'm familiar with--parents and authority figures are portrayed as incompetent or evil when they are portrayed at all. Part of the problem can be explained by the structure of the character growth arc and the series concept. Buffy needs to grow/mature/accept more responsibility. She also needs to be seen as the strongest person in the room, both physically and emotionally, most or all of the time. And that means that no one else can be strong enough or competent enough over the long haul to fix things, because if they were, that would shift the focus away from Buffy.
So, no strong, fair, competent, authority figures. No stronger friends. No truly strong parents. No stronger women, at least in the long run.
What about Joyce, then? What about Giles?
I never felt much sympathy for Joyce Summers. In fact, she bugged the hell out of me. I never saw her as particularly strong, but as clueless, slow on the uptake, and self-centered. A bubble, bobbing along over the surface of the churn. The scene that flipped my switch in this regard was the one at the end of Fool for Love, where Buffy comes upon her packing in preparation for a short hospital stay. Buffy is surprised to hear about this impending stay, and that's when it hit me that these two never talk. They don’t strike me as mother and daughter in that scene, but as acquaintances who happen to live in the same house. Maybe that was done on purpose--I don't know. In any case, Joyce's importance to the story line had pretty much played itself out by that point. That, and the fact that we are ultimately concerned with Buffy's growth process, part of which involved kicking all the emotional skids out from under so that she can learn to stand on her own two feet, led to the inevitable death of Joyce. She couldn’t just leave--that's what Buffy's father did. Insert questions concerning the lack of strong father figures in this series here. I think it leads back to the No One Stronger Than Buffy hypothesis.
(But what about Giles?)
Giles, imho, needed more Ripper Moments. He needed an entire Ripper sequence. I liked the man, but he dithered too much. He was also at a permanent disadvantage because he was played against Buffy, who (repeating myself here) always had to appear strongest.
As for the demise of other strong women...
Tara. Not sure about the fairness of this comment. Willow was in the midst of her Magic Overdrive period at the time of the alleged abuse. Yes, what she did to Tara stunk. What she did to Dawn stunk as well. She was selfish and unfeeling and riding a magic riff wherever it took her. That was part of the storyline. After that came separation from Tara, then rapprochement, then disaster. Something bad enough to drive Willow to seek to bring about the end of the world. And what could drive that except great loss, the loss of the woman she loves.
Because it's not about strong woman Tara dying. It's about Willow going to the brink and being brought back by a friend. For "strong woman" in this instance, insert "expendable secondary character." These are not necessarily the same thing.
I think the same thing applies to the death of Jenny Calendar. What could drive Giles to take on Angelus but a supreme tragedy? It isn't that Jenny had to die because she's strong. It's that a driver was needed to compel Giles to fight Angelus...then fail so that Buffy could save him...because Buffy is ultimately the strongest one in the room.
Other things. One small example of soft fantasy underpinnings, and then I've leaving this alone.
Buffy needed a financial plan. She needed to have compelled the rich, powerful Watchers organization to provide support while she did Slayer things, and it always bothered me that these supposedly intelligent, wealthy people didn't realize that a day job and financial worries could interfere with the effectiveness of a Slayer.
I wanted to see Anya as Buffy's business manager. I wanted to sic Anya on the Watchers and have her negotiate Buffy's contract. Demand insurance and tuition and a trust fund for Dawn. Because money troubles are implied, dad's not around, and there's no way in hell that Buffy can support that household on a fast food worker's paycheck. Honestly, the illogic of the financials bothered me.
I still enjoyed the show. A lot. As long as I didn’t think about some things too deeply because they just didn’t stand up to scrutiny
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 10:15 pm (UTC)Should we move on to how on Earth the Magic Box makes enough to support Giles and Anya? Do you think they have a mail-order business?
Yup. I think about this tooo much.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 10:33 pm (UTC)Since he had enough to live on in the year when he got fired, and then went on to get his salary back, it could be he was letting Anya draw the bulk of the profits.