Ten years on

[hazelk]

I’m usually late with anniversaries, although since BtVS didn’t air in the UK until 1998 you could say that I’m being obscenely early with this one. Buffy and I first met through a newspaper article and the early dates were fun, she was smart and exotically American, we had a similar sense of humour and shared memories of evil PE teachers. I remember the feeling that things had shifted up a gear at the beginning of season 2. Puppy fat had been lost literally and metaphorically and I liked that but still mostly appreciated the show for its cleverness – Cordelia and Xander falling into each others arms to knowing strings, Angel turning evil as the way to escape the UST trap. Time went by, the BBC sold its soul to snooker and the internets became my orb of Thessala. Then season six came around and I finally fell in love with resurrected Buffy. The Buffy who’d been ripped out of heaven and lost everything she once was but was still resolved to spare her friends from knowing what they’d done.

The final two seasons have their detractors (or so I’ve read) but they were my honeymoon period with the show and the fandom. The first post I ever made online was to try and justify the Potentials storyline in response to an essay by azdak about BtVS’s treatment of the Other. About a week later heresluck posted an essay on feminism and community which said it all and more so much better. Fannish anniversaries are all about lists, so to celebrate Buffy’s tenth here’s a list of some of the posts and discussions about BtVS that drew me into fandom


Feminist community in BtVS by heresluck

Please shoot me now: I'm going to talk about Seeing Red by superplin

Depression and narrative in genre TV by coffeeandink

A Fireman, When the Floods Roll Back by butterfly

Funny syphilis – canon and comedy in BtVS and AtS byazdak

Ranting again about the politics of S7 by dlgood

Power Corruption and Lies by londonkds

The Educated Fangirl's Guide To The Spike Wars by selenak

Comments

[laddical.livejournal.com]

I'm very much a detractor of the last two seasons. I denied Buffy for the longest time after I caught the second season episode where she goes to a frat party and ends up fighting some poorly effected demon in a well or something.

But four years later, out of college, married and basically a different person, I revisited the series when it started airing in syndication for the first time, and like a month later they started putting it out on DVD. So just as season six was starting, I was knee deep in Seasons 1 and 2, but I started watching first runs anyways, even though I had missed the intervening seasons.

Let's say the direct comparison was not favorable for Season 6. Season 3 came out on DVD during Season 7 and it fared even worse by comparison. I came to be of the opinion that the series would have been well served to end at "Graduation Day", and I have yet to see most of Season 4 or any of Season 5.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

One of the things I like about Buffy is the capacity it has to inspire strong opinions one way or the other :-) At least two of the links I gave are from strong critics of S6/7.

Some of the reasons I find the later seasons so resonant are quite personal. The boys were diagnosed with autism the year S6 aired so the whole being ripped from heaven thing was something I understood all too well at that time. Others are more intellectual, I would argue that S6 is a very deliberate deconstruction of the epic hero's journey model they'd been following, S7 is a feminist war movie with existentialist overtones. Such things aren't going to be popular with everyone even if they accept that they were well done given what they were ( and I can see the arguments against that too).

[yourlibrarian]

It's interesting how the timing of when someone starts up with the show often affects how they think of it (not to mention the experiences they had in the fandom). I just wanted to give you a nudge to repost these links to buffyversetop5's Classic Recs weekend when it rolls around again at Halloween. There's never that many essays recced which is a real shame, and I'd love to see stuff that captures things like these.

[maeve-rigan.livejournal.com]

Worthy postings all, well worth reviewing and thinking about. I don't agree with all of them, but I'm glad I read them. Thanks!

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Sure, there's more than five but I could rustle up a couple more and split off a list of essays I've enjoyed disgreeeing with or something like that.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

They run the whole range from things I disagree with violently to stuff I just wish I'd been able to express myself. Buffy really makes people think!