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Faith, Hope and Canon
May. 2nd, 2007 05:33 pmSo are the comics canon? Joss, more than other show runners perhaps, is the auteur type. The one thing that units the seven seasons of Buffy is his editorial control over the final product. His influences, the writers, actors, budget and network censorship levels were continually changing but the final word on the published story was always his. It would seem reasonable in this instance to think of a Joss-led and sanctioned continuation of the story as just that, a new season rather than a new series, the comics as part of the same continuous canon rather than a separate new canon of their own, but people don’t. The reasons given for not doing so are multifarious but generally come down to pointing out one or other component of the first seven seasons that won’t be present for the eighth. I don’t think it’s that simple though.
When I was younger and more evil one of my favourite pub wind-ups was to try and convince people that Manchester United didn’t exist. The club was founded in 1878. Since then it’s changed managers, players, coaches, ground, owners, even the name. In 1958 over half the team got wiped out in the Munich air-crash and it had to be re-built from scratch and Bobby Charlton. There’s absolutely nothing left of the original team in the current one. Not a single molecule. Despite that I always, always lost those arguments.
I think stories are like football teams, the fannish mind has an innate capacity to perceive unity, to believe in the existence of one big canonical whole however much the individual components change. As long as there’s something to connect each step in the process to the next, fans can happily ignore all kinds of incremental changes, of cast, of writing staff, of genre. On AtS the only member of the original cast to survive by the end was the titular character, on Dr Who such changeshave become integral to the entire concept. None of the S1 BtVS writers apart from Joss were still on board by S7, on both The West Wing and Due South the show runner ran but the show went on. As to changes of format Buffy wouldn’t be Buffy if it weren’t regularly playing with different forms. Episodes from The Zeppo to Intervention have the characters acting in exaggeratedly dumb or over the top fashion for comic effect but fans still recognize their favourites and incorporate their actions into the overall narrative. If form is so important is the musical less canonical than the other episodes?
I think differentiating canon from non-canon isn’t a strictly scientific process, I suspect it has more to do with the Mulderesque factor of wanting to believe than being objectively able to. The biggest single obstacle to the comics being accepted isn’t anything to do with comicness versus TVness or Jossness versus SMGness, it’s simply that it’s now nearly three years since the canon was declared closed and the willingness to suspend disbelief and engage the fannish capacity for seeing continuity no matter what is no longer unconditional. Joss may declare them canon and clearly has as good an understanding of the meaning of the term as the next fanboy made good but he’s also basing his acceptance on a good deal more evidence than the rest of us. He’s seen the next however many installments, he knows where the story’s headed and where it’s going to end. We don’t.
When I was younger and more evil one of my favourite pub wind-ups was to try and convince people that Manchester United didn’t exist. The club was founded in 1878. Since then it’s changed managers, players, coaches, ground, owners, even the name. In 1958 over half the team got wiped out in the Munich air-crash and it had to be re-built from scratch and Bobby Charlton. There’s absolutely nothing left of the original team in the current one. Not a single molecule. Despite that I always, always lost those arguments.
I think stories are like football teams, the fannish mind has an innate capacity to perceive unity, to believe in the existence of one big canonical whole however much the individual components change. As long as there’s something to connect each step in the process to the next, fans can happily ignore all kinds of incremental changes, of cast, of writing staff, of genre. On AtS the only member of the original cast to survive by the end was the titular character, on Dr Who such changeshave become integral to the entire concept. None of the S1 BtVS writers apart from Joss were still on board by S7, on both The West Wing and Due South the show runner ran but the show went on. As to changes of format Buffy wouldn’t be Buffy if it weren’t regularly playing with different forms. Episodes from The Zeppo to Intervention have the characters acting in exaggeratedly dumb or over the top fashion for comic effect but fans still recognize their favourites and incorporate their actions into the overall narrative. If form is so important is the musical less canonical than the other episodes?
I think differentiating canon from non-canon isn’t a strictly scientific process, I suspect it has more to do with the Mulderesque factor of wanting to believe than being objectively able to. The biggest single obstacle to the comics being accepted isn’t anything to do with comicness versus TVness or Jossness versus SMGness, it’s simply that it’s now nearly three years since the canon was declared closed and the willingness to suspend disbelief and engage the fannish capacity for seeing continuity no matter what is no longer unconditional. Joss may declare them canon and clearly has as good an understanding of the meaning of the term as the next fanboy made good but he’s also basing his acceptance on a good deal more evidence than the rest of us. He’s seen the next however many installments, he knows where the story’s headed and where it’s going to end. We don’t.