Buffy re-watch

[hazelk]

With Dr Who over and the schedules being cleared to make way for the Olympics the prospect of a TV-less summer looms large. So along with everyone else in the fandom it feels like it’s time for a big Buffy re-watch. Only my re-watch is going to start with S3, I’ve seen too many good intentions founder in the shallows of the early MOTW episodes. S3 is also probably the season I’m least familiar with plus Faith vid - I need to get to know her better from her beginnings.



There’s been much talk of getting whiplash as the S8 comics flip from comedy to tragedy and back and usually it’s the AtS S5 episode The Girl in Question that gets cited as an example of the same thing on the show but Anne is pretty much up there in the neck injury stakes turning from Sunnydale hi-jinks to homelessness, exploitation and despair. Really I think the episode lays on the homelessness/social issues a little too thick it’s not a subject the show is quite ready to deal with. Like when they tried to bring up the accidental Slayer killing issue in Ted and it just felt out of place in season 2. The worst part is that central montage of Hollywood street kids that cuts unironically to Xander moping in the Bronze.

Montage issues aside the main story is the classic hero gets her Slayer groove back and it works pretty well on an individual scene basis. There’s some quality angst in the bedsit of doom, great fight choreography in the demon workhouse and possibly the best Ghandi joke ever to finish with.

It’s interesting watching exactly how Buffy rediscovers her inner hero in light of the way she’s been largely dismissed in the latest round of strong female character discussions as an almost regressive example of the kick-ass babe type with only literal strength to recommend her. Sure she’s a 5 foot nothing ex-cheerleader who can kill things with her bare hands but largely that’s a metaphor for the hidden strength of the woman, the resilience, the ability to come back from having everything taken away from her, the willingness to use that strength, to take on unimaginable responsibilities and inspire others to do the same. She isn’t simply gifted with unnatural physical abilities like Superman but explicitly needs to work at them, to train while implicitly her strength varies according to her psychological state not to the presence or absence of extraterrestrial elements. In this episode for example she figures out what Ken really is with her brain, gets her confidence back with

“I’m Buffy. The Vampire Slayer. And you are?”

then gets with the ass-kicking not the other way around.




Back to Sunnydale and in some ways it’s a return to the old MOTW formula and not being subtle about it either. Someone just has to mention buried issues and up pop the zombies. Character wise the pattern is very like that of the S2 return to Sunnydale in When She Was Bad. Buffy’s more passive than aggressive this time but she might as well have a sticker on her forehead with “I’m not talking about it and you can’t make me” written on it. Mentally she has it wiped off by the time of the party but no-one else realizes that and they all end up airing their own issues instead of easing her through hers. Xander is especially unforgiving so thank God for zombie interventions. Willow and Buffy making up by trading insults in the aftermath is sweet.

Joyce gets the worst of it really, as she told Giles in Anne he’s basically replaced her role in Buffy’s life and that holds pretty well for the rest of the season. While the Buffy/Giles relationship goes through all kinds of changes Joyce is almost completely peripheral. She’s either brought to comment on the issue of the week whether it be college admissions or Angel needing to break things off or the subject of comedy possessions but its hard to see where S6 Giles telling Buffy that her mother taught her all she needs comes from. Of course mother–daughter relationships are complicated things with their ups and downs and ins and outs. I certainly remember needing to leave home and come back to appreciate mine.

Comments

[molly_may]

largely that’s a metaphor for the hidden strength of the woman, the resilience, the ability to come back from having everything taken away from her, the willingness to use that strength, to take on unimaginable responsibilities and inspire others to do the same.

Thanks for this. So often it seems like Buffy is reduced to "cute blonde who kicks ass", when her actual characterization is so much more than that. The qualities that made her a strong person were her resilience, her compassion, her loyalty, her sense of responsibility, not that she could kill things with her bare hands.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

the way she’s been largely dismissed in the latest round of strong female character discussions as an almost regressive example of the kick-ass babe type

I've read a few of those, and was left with the strong feeling that the writers never actually watched the show - or at most, flicked onto one of the early episodes (with Buffy in a mini-skirt) while channel surfing... I did like your strength metaphor explanation.

[shati.livejournal.com]

Yeah. BtVS is far from perfect, but Buffy really sticks out just by being a complex and sympathetic female character who is the unambiguous lead of the show and has important relationships with other women as well as men. I don't like that people often equate physical strength with strong feminist writing, but Buffy's not the example I'd pick.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I know and it just seems so obvious when you watch the show but it's as if people refuse to grasp the idea that being superhero strong doesn't mean you can't also be a strong in the metaphorical sense, let alone that in a fictional character one might be a way of representing the other.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Some of them yes. Or that they'd just had to read up about the show for some media studies class. With others I think people do vary on how much adversity needs to be shown to tell a story about someone triumphing over adversity which is fair enough. Then there's the idea I've seen recently touted that because all Joss's women have superpowers he's sending a message that 'normal' women are inadequate, which really makes me want to go all Sirk on the internets.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

That exactly. I was trying to figure out which of all the definitions of 'strong character' worked for me and came to the conclusion that it was even more nebulous than agency or power. I just need the character to feel alive, not a sock but someone the writer is interested in for their own sake and Joss for all his faults always comes across as genuinely interested in his female characters.