BUFFY: How do you get to be renowned? I mean, like, do you have to be ‘nowned’ first?
Today is the end of NaBloWriMo. If there was a prize, I did not win it, because I skipped a couple of days, however, I’m sure I beat my own previous record, so there. I only managed to add one episode to the BtVS rewatch. It doesn’t take long to watch the episodes, but writing up my notes takes a LONG time. Must think faster, I guess, or summarize more.
So, November comes to an end and Advent begins. I’ll try to keep up while anticipating the next adventure.
Thankful today for many things, with one exception: the big traditional family feast. That will be happening tomorrow. In our family, with our TCK/CCK heritage of missionaries and military, we focus on celebrating when and where we can. If that doesn’t exactly match the officially designated time/place/menu, we celebrate anyway. For us, this year, Thanksgiving day will be on Friday.
However, this has not stopped my father from watching football this evening!
And nothing can stop me from quoting from the only Thanksgiving-themed Buffy episode, “Pangs”:
GILES: Well, you know, you should be very pleased.
BUFFY: Wasn’t exactly a perfect Thanksgiving.
WILLOW: I don’t know. Seemed kinda right to me. A bunch of anticipation, a big fight, and now we’re all sleepy. And we did all survive.
BUFFY: I guess that much is true. First thanksgiving on my own, and we all got through it.
Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good night.
All the longuers of yesterday somehow overwhelmed what should have been the day’s notable good news: my proposal for the 2010 SC4: The Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses has been accepted!
What is my proposed paper? For several years, students in my Freshman Comp 2 classes have been analyzing Buffy 7.16 “Storyteller” as part of a unit on metafiction. For many of them, it’s also their introduction to the show. So I’ll be discussing how that has worked out.
The literature anthology that has included this “metafiction” unit goes into a new edition next year, cutting the unit and most of the stories in it, so Spring 2010 is probably the last semester I’ll be using “Storyteller.” However, I’ll probably find a place for another Whedon show episode from Firefly and/or Buffy.
BtVS 1.5 “Never Kill a Boy on the First Date”
written by Rob Des Hotel and Dean Batali, dir. David Semel
This episode (acronymically referred to as NKaBotFD) is rarely mentioned in fans’ “best of” lists, but in building the Buffy mythos, it contributes more than it has been given credit for. First, even more than in the previous “Witch” episode, where Buffy’s slayer duties conflicted with her desire to regain the popularity associated with being a cheerleader, NKaBotFD highlights one of the show’s essential themes: the conflicts between our hero’s “normal” life and the responsibilities of her vocation. I was noticing this as I watched it, and then I watched the featurette in which Joss Whedon says the very same thing. (Either I am very bright, or I have a very retentive memory, or I can read Joss Whedon’s mind. Whichever it is, I’m giving credit to Whedon.)
Another contribution of this episode—several, in fact—quite a few quotes that have become iconic “Buffyisms,” starting with the teaser, in which Buffy introduces herself to the vampire she’s about to slay: “I’m Buffy, and you’re….history!” {stake!—poof!} Others:
Giles warns Buffy to conceal her secret identity and she promises, “Well, in that case I won’t wear my button that says, ‘I’m a Slayer. Ask me how!’” (I actually have that button as a refrigerator magnet; I don’t have a lot of fannish swag, but I love that button.)
This classic exchange in which Buffy and Xander discuss her (entire lack of) love life:
XANDER: You’re acting a little overly, aren’t you? I mean, you could have any guy in school.BUFFY: He’s not any guy. He’s more…Oweny.XANDER: Sure, he’s got a certain Owenosity, but that’s not hard to find. I mean, a lotta guys read. I can read.
In three lines, three different examples of “Slayer slang” as described by Michael Adams: using an adverb (overly) as an adjective, or else to describe an implied adjective (here perhaps “emotional” or “upset”); adding -y to a noun to make it an adjective (Oweny); and the creation of an entirely new word: Owenosity, which appears to mean the essence of “Owen.”
Confronted by Giles with yet another impending prophecy of doom, Buffy insists she can go on her date with Owen and still be “on call” for Slayer duty, saying, “If the apocalypse comes, beep me!” We never see this beeper again after this episode, or anything similar, such as a cell-phone—the Scoobies are limited to land-lines until season seven (a vampire does use a cell phone in season 3)—but this line is frequently quoted as quintessentially Buffy.
Cordelia’s first words on catching sight of Angel in the Bronze: “Hello, salty goodness!” When she loses her memory in Angel 4.6 “Spin the bottle,” she’ll have the same reaction. Nice work with the continuity, writers!
Owen is the first of the impossible “normal” guys Buffy will long for. He likes her, but he doesn’t quite get her. Both Giles and Owen, for different reasons, describe Buffy here as “the strangest girl.” Owen’s morbid emo fascination with Emily Dickinson and death turns into a fascination with danger for its own sake. He has no idea what he’s getting into. It’s irresistible to see him as a prototype of Riley Finn in seasons 4/5. Riley has more skills and motivation, a better understanding of “the mission,” but his first encounters with Buffy leave him similarly baffled:
RILEY: She’s all right, I guess. She’s just kind of… I don’t know. Peculiar….I don’t dislike her. She just–she never feels like she’s really there when you talk to her. I like girls I can get a grip on. (4.7 “The Initiative”)OWEN: It’s weird.
BUFFY: What is?
OWEN: You! One minute you’re right there. I’ve got you figured. The next, it’s like you’re two people.
BUFFY: Really? Which one do you like better? (1.4 NKaBotFD)
GILES: I was ten years old when my father told me I was destined to be a Watcher. He was one, and his, uh, mother before him, and I was to be next.
BUFFY: Were you thrilled beyond all measure?
GILES: No, I had very definite plans about my future. I was going to be a fighter pilot. Or possibly a grocer. Well, uh…My father gave me a very tiresome speech about, uh, responsibility and sacrifice.
BUFFY: Sacrifice, huh?
And finally, Whedon once again subverts our expectations—after warning us right up front with the Master’s prophecy that “‘the Slayer will not know [the Anointed One], will not stop him, and he will lead her into Hell.’” I’m virtually certain that the first time I saw this episode, I got so caught up in all the Owenosity that, like Buffy and Giles, I followed the red-herring of the crazy-prophesying vampire and was shocked to discover how the prophecy had been fulfilled. I wish I could say that I was annoyed, but at the time, I was really creeped out.
The way things are going, it will probably be the end of the semester—or at least Thanksgiving—before I see a movie in a theater, but Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog has seen Men Who Glare at Stoats. Also, he claims to be negotiating with Caxton to print his books. Hey! Caxton wasn’t even born until a decade or so after Chaucer’s death, much less setting up a printing press. I like a humorous anachronism as well as the next medievalist, but they’re funnier when they seem intentional rather than just mistaken.
Medieval psychic spies, however, came off pretty well, by adding a nice mix-in of Harry Potter:
–Wyth the mocioun of the mynde and the eyes aloon, these knightes kan stoppe the beatinge herte of an adult stoat at a range of XX feet….
–These knightes of the Privy Order of the Garter have divyded themselves yn to IV “houses” in which they trayne and recruit squires. The houses aren ycleped Hippogryiffin d’Argent, Serpentyne, Hurlyburle, and Rooktalon.
I’m so grateful that I learned to read Middle English.
In other news, at least two other scholars I know who have written/published on Buffy the Vampire Slayer were interviewed in the past week or so on the mysterious allure of vampires, as was I (by my university newspaper).
From David Lavery’s interview with Portuguese journalist:
[Q] And what does that mean in this first decade of the 21st century that the most successful of those narratives is not one with a feisty heroine, but about an abstinent teenage couple?
As a Buffy scholar I have again and again heard from those fans (and scholars) empowered by Buffy (like the little girl at bat or the young woman standing up against her abuser) in Chosen. … Twilight cannot be making anybody stronger—or more adult.
K. Dale Koontz, author of Faith and Choice in the Works of Joss Whedon, interviewed in her local paper:
Vampires also give us safe scares, [Koontz] said.
“It’s a catharsis,” she said. “We get to be all scared and release all of those feelings and then go home and have meatloaf and go back to an ordinary life and be okay with it being an ordinary life.”
…
“The heroine of the ‘Twilight’ saga is a throwback to the girl as a victim,” she said, citing “Buffy the Vampire [Slayer]” as an example of how Whedon took a blonde girl with a goofy-sounding name and, instead of making her a victim, made her a strong lead character that terrorized demons.
“This is kind of feeding into that fantasy of, ‘I might not fit in with the rest of the world, but there’s this powerful, charismatic, strong man that only I can understand whose entire life is devoted to protecting me.’ It’s very safe and I think (Myers) taps into that really well.”
I’d link to the Campbell Times article, but it’s not online, which is another story.
I have the next post in my Buffy re-watch ready to go, but have paused to get things arranged for the start of the fall semester. Meanwhile, fellow Buffyologist Nikki Faith has a progress update.
The “teaser” for this episode starts RIGHT where episode 1 left off, with vampire Luke menacing Buffy. He’s repelled by the cross she received from the mysterious-tall-dark-handsome-Byronic-pale stranger, and Buffy leaps out of the coffin in a trice, saves Willow and Xander (but not Jesse)—yes, my memory is correct that this episode originally aired the same night as “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” as the second part of a two-hour series premiere. Obviously it’s been split up somewhat awkwardly for franchise reruns.
After the credits, Giles explains how everything works and Xander and Willow are fully drawn into the demon-fighting act. I love this:
WILLOW: [dazed] Oh…I need to sit down…
BUFFY: You are sitting down.
WILLOW: Oh. Good for me.
Meanwhile, below the high school, Darla presents Jesse to the Master with schoolgirl enthusiasm, like a demonic cheerleader. We’ll never see this side of Darla again, fortunately. The Master refers to himself, sarcastically, as “your faithful dog,” initiating a long series of vampire/dog metaphors. I’m not sure what that means; it’s just something I’ve noticed.
Giles exposits the history of vampires and slayers:
GILES: For as long as there have been vampires, there’s been the Slayer. One girl in all the world, a Chosen One.
BUFFY: He loves doing this part.
GILES: All right. The Slayer hunts vampires, Buffy is a Slayer, don’t tell anyone. Well, I think that’s all the vampire information you need.
I’m going out on a limb to speculate that the above indicates something about the ability of the good guys to be concise when appropriate, rather than prose on and on in classic evil overlord style. Xander and Willow want to help. Buffy tells Xander “I’m the Slayer, and you’re not” (note SNL Chevy Chase reference she’s too young to know) and begins his long history of feeling useless after being told to stay “fray-adjacent” (“The Zeppo”). Giles accepts Willow’s computer skills with a comment on his “Britishness” which is echoed when Principal Flutie mocks Buffy’s excuse that Giles sent her on an errand off campus: “Well, maybe that’s how they do things in Britain, they’ve got that royal family and all kinds of problems…”
Angel materializes in the crypt—not literally, but suddenly he’s just there. How could Buffy not notice him when she came in? Never mind! At least this time he’s willing to give his name. And some specific helpful advice. Xander, too, turns up after all. Motif: Buffy says she can/must do it alone, but friends always turn out to be helpful.
Let’s take it as a given that the season 1 vampire make-up is a work-in-progress at best. Nevertheless, the discovery that Jesse has become a vampire is, for me, the second real moment of horror, worse than Buffy finding herself in a coffin next to a skeleton and about to be bitten by Luke, because as briefly as we knew him, we know Jesse as a real person, Xander’s friend, rejected by Cordelia, and the contrast with his vampiric self is thus shockingly frightful:
JESSE: Sorry? I feel good, Xander! I feel strong! I’m connected, man, to everything! I, I can hear the worms in the earth!
XANDER: That’s a plus.
JESSE: I know what the Master wants. I’ll serve his purpose. That means you die. And I feed.
BUFFY: Xander, the cross!
XANDER: Jesse, man. We’re buds, don’t you remember?
JESSE: You’re like a shadow to me now.
Giles has discovered the Master’s plan: “How about the end of the world?”
Start counting apocalypses now!
But of course this leads to the quintessential scene between Buffy and her mother, in which Joyce tries to put her foot down and exercise proper parental discipline by grounding Buffy. If Buffy were any other teen, she’d be absolutely right:
BUFFY: This is really, really important.
JOYCE: I know. If you don’t go out it’ll be the end of the world. Everything is life or death when you’re a sixteen-year-old girl.
BUFFY: Look, I don’t have time to talk about this…
In the Bronze, Cordelia tells her friends that last night Jesse was following her around “like a little puppy dog.” Now he’s a vampire and he really is “prowling” for her.
When the vampires attack, Giles is knocked out–for the first of many times.
Luke’s grandiose evil monologue is impossible to take seriously. It’s the kind of thing that gives evil a bad name. The Master is also given to grandiose monologues, but has a slight edge of self-aware irony
Again, even though Buffy slays Luke and a number of other vampires, without Xander, Willow and Giles, the plan would not have succeeded. And Xander (with a little help) dusts Jesse.
The closing scene, I’m sure, cemented my almost instant devotion to the series when I first watched it in 1997: in which Buffy, Willow and Xander act casual about their recent experience and react with apparent unconcern to Giles’s eager recitation of the gruesome terrors that may arise from the hellmouth, leading him to push his glasses up on his nose and mutter, “The earth is doomed.” (And as we now know, this scene will be bookended by a parallel scene near the end of episode 7.22 “Chosen.”)
It seems to me possible that “Welcome to the Hellmouth”/”The Harvest” contain the seeds of just about every motif we’ll see in the next seven seasons of the show. Which is just brilliant.
Once More, with Commentary: Joss Whedon says he (and David Greenwalt) thought people would object to the whole “This world is older than any of you know. Contrary to popular mythology, it did not begin as a paradise. For untold eons demons walked the Earth. They made it their home, their… their Hell.” mythology speech by Giles. But not so much.
[And really, you know---I figured it was a TV show about a fictional world in which vampires were real. Why couldn't they have a fictional mythology too? Don't tell me all mythologies are by definition fictional. But probably the reason they didn't get a truckload of angry mail from extreme right-wingers was that in 1997, hardly anyone knew the show existed except TV critics and it's small but significant audience. Later, that would change.]
[On this run-through, I notice both Giles and the Master talking about demon/vampire souls. Thought vampires didn't have souls in the Buffyverse, but obviously this element of the mythos was evolving. I guess it works well enough to say their souls are different from human souls.] Joss does mention that the writers picked and chose the rules for vampires from a variety of vampire lore sources, everything from Dracula to The Lost Boys. [Better than making them up out of whole cloth, IMO.]
Speaking of series motifs, Joss notes that Willow defending Buffy in the computer lab [and I would say also, taking revenge on Cordy by means of her superior computer knowledge] is “the beginning of Willow’s real empowerment. The experience she’s gone through, almost being killed by a vampire, gives her just a little bit of an edge…[we] see the effect that her friendship with Buffy is already having on her.”
Also in this scene, Cordy’s “Do I horn in on your private discussions? No. Why? Because you’re boring.”
Joss says he once used that line himself and “thought it was funny at the time, but the person I said it to was really upset.” And thus “the thing that’s really important about this show is that we are all Willow and all Cordelia, and Buffy and Xander. We’re all cruel, heroic, everything.” Unlike the usual high school show that emphasizes groups or cliques, “categories are fluid, changing.”
Joss says he saw Buffy’s trunk as a metaphor for adolescence: normal girl stuff on top, the elements of her secret life/identity are “what lies beneath.”
At least two things prompted this Buffy re-watch:
1. A challenge from fellow bloggers Nikki Faith and Peter Waldron.
2. A project I hope to be working on, to be named later.
And since today is August 11, I’ll dedicate this project to St. Clare, patron saint of [quality] television.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered March 10, 1997 on the WB with “Welcome to the Hellmouth.” I was living in the LA area at the time. In fact, I’d been living there in 1992 when the original movie came out. Since I viewed SoCal and Los Angeles in particular with some skepticism, I bought the movie tickets on the title alone—Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Hysterical! I was so there! Five years later, when I heard there would be a TV show based on Buffy, I knew I’d at least check it out.
I feel as if I’ve told this story to many friends, students, and fellow Whedon fans since I started getting serious about a show with a wacky name: Generally, I do not watch horror movies. I don’t like being scared. I am not a fan of vampires. But I immediately bought the idea that a little blond cheerleader chick would be “the one girl in all the world” who could slay them. I am a big fan of irony, especially irony on the side of the good guys.
So as I watch “Welcome to the Hellmouth” this time, I’m trying to recall something of what it was like to see it for the first time 12 years ago. For one thing, I probably had no idea what the episode title was. TV Guide didn’t give that kind of info, and the vast array of internet sites dedicated to BtVS information did not exist. Even if they had existed, I didn’t know about them, because I was still ignorant of online fandom.
Since I was not a horror movie fan, the opening scene in which the threat turns out to be the little blonde—vampire!—completely suckered me. Brilliant! Now the opening credits. I can’t help noting that Nicholas Brendon looks much more suave in the credits than Xander will turn out to be. And the dialogue in the first few scenes is definitely Jossian, but seems to be trying a bit too hard. Back in 1997, though, it must have hit my and many other ears like “What!” and “More please!” because it was unlike anything else, except possibly Clueless (1995)*
This pseudo-valley-girl talk is most overpowering in the locker-room scene with “Neg!” “Pos!” “Negly!” but then “Aura” screams and forgets about talking. Yay. By the time Cordelia interrupts Buffy’s “downward mobility” as she is getting to know Willow, Xander, & Jesse, the dialogue starts to snap and we get a run of classic Whedonisms:
Xander–”What’s the sitch”
Cordelia–”Don’t you have an elsewhere to be?” and “Morbid much?”
It’s here that Jesse offers Cordelia a shoulder to lean on, “or even nibble on”—foreshadowing!—but I had no idea at the time, and in fact I’ve never noticed that line before.
Giles explains the hellmouth
Buffy–”Can you vague that up for me?”
Luke’s inverted incantation in the Master’s destroyed church—”Amen!”—the first of many religious parodies or inversions. As Buffy will say later: “Note to self: religion freaky.” (Much more to be said about this, because like most things, it’s much more complicated than that.)
Buffy trying on dresses for the Bronze: “Hi, I’m an enormous slut…Would you like a copy of the Watchtower?” I know I laughed out loud when I first saw this and it still makes me laugh because it perfectly captures how a new kid tries to find the right outfit but nothing works.
Buffy is stalked by a mysterious stranger—again, back in 1997 I had NO clue who this might be—and pulls her first really remarkable slayer stunt on—oh my! who is this tall-dark-and-handsome laid-out-flat on the sidewalk guy? Did I know Angel was a vampire? I cannot recall. Looking at him now, so pale he almost sparkles in the dark (sorry), that Byronic outfit (kudos to the costume dept.), telling Buffy “I don’t bite,” giving her a cross in a box…how could he be anything else? Once we get to the Bronze, in a nice parallel, Jesse is Cordelia’s “stalker”…and meets Darla, who finally tells us her name.
Ooh, thanks to subtitles, I discover that the band at the Bronze is adding yet another layer of subtext to this episode by singing:
What’s inside of me?
I just wanna believe
If my life can have a purpose?
Can you hear me? Can you see me?
Well everyone wants to find the circle
The line of truth that has no end
Because so many lives have the feeling of empty
Buffy has told Giles she doesn’t care about her calling as the Slayer, but in the Bronze, she finds she does care about Willow. Abstractions don’t mean much to her, but the concrete, the personal definitely does. The fight with the two vampires who took Willow and Jesse is already classic Buffy, but she doesn’t know enough yet, and neither do we:
BUFFY: Are you sure? Now, this in not gonna be pretty. We’re talking violence, strong language, adult content… (Thomas attacks, she dusts him) See what happens when you roughhouse?
DARLA: He was young and stupid!
BUFFY: Xander, go!
DARLA: Don’t go far!
(fight) BUFFY: You know, I just wanted to start over. Be like everybody else. Have some friends, y’know, maybe a dog… But, no, you had to come here, you couldn’t go suck on some other town.
DARLA: Who are you?
BUFFY: Don’t you know?
(Luke grabs her by the neck from behind.)
LUKE: I don’t care! (He throws her across the room.)
Part 1 ends with Buffy in a coffin, menaced by the gruesome Luke, TO BE CONTINUED.
And, once more, with commentary. I know I’ve listened to Joss Whedon’s commentary on these two episodes before, but you can always pick up something new. For example: Joss confirms that Buffy’s nightmares in the scene just after the credits are made up mostly of clips from coming episodes because of budget constraints. But of course this worked out great, since the point is that her nightmares are prophetic!
I don’t think I’ve seen this exact quote anywhere before—Joss on Xander, Buffy, and Willow: “The idea of this band of kind of outcasts being the heart of the show and sort of creating their own little family is very much, you know, the mission statement. To me, high school is so much, I think, for almost everyone, that band of, you know, of we few people that nobody really understands exist on a level that they don’t. Your friends seem so terribly real to you and everybody else seems to fake and strange.”
The Library was originally conceived as a labyrinth, but it was too expensive and hard to light, so this is what they got. Wouldn’t that have been a show—Buffy the Vampire Slayer + Jorge Luis Borges?
On Giles and Joyce as adults who are not the enemy, though sometimes clueless: “We didn’t feel like demonizing and alienating the grownups.”
“The idea that Buffy would fall in love with a vampire seemed like a bit of cliche, but it was too good to pass up.” Now, of course, it IS a cliche. Vampire Diaries, anyone?
Joss on the difficulty of putting Buffy in peril: she is the superpowered “hero,” so is rarely in real physical danger, but more and more she will be in emotional peril. And the emotion of it really becomes the appeal, of course. If I just wanted to see vampires get staked and/or burst into flames, I could be watching John Carpenter’s Vampires or Blade. Not tonight.
ETA: Joss identifies the band at the Bronze as Sprung Monkey.
*Another thing I noticed in comparing the Clueless preview to BtVS is the way Clueless satirizes the overuse of mobile phones, which were still primarily toys or tools for the rich and powerful in 1995. No BtVS character is shown using a cell phone until season 3, when a vampire from LA brings one to town. In season 7, the Buffy gives one to Dawn.)
I’m now pinkazalea’s #1 fan, since she posted this detailed, thoughtful and generally positive review of Buffy Goes Dark. She’s working on her own BtVS book, and I look forward to reading it!
Well, the next best thing: Jonathan McIntosh, the clever person who created the video mashup which imagines Edward Cullen of Twilight in Buffy’s Sunnydale explains it all. If you follow the link, vid is included, in case you missed it the first time.
Five months in the making, Buffy vs Edward is essentially an answer to the question “What Would Buffy Do?” My re-imagined story was specifically constructed as a response to Edward, and what his behavior represents in our larger social context for both men and women. More than just a showdown between The Slayer and the Sparkly Vampire, it’s also a humorous visualization of the metaphorical battle between two opposing visions of gender roles in the 21ist century.
I know many people who love the Twilight books and movie. They should note McIntosh’s closing comment:
[Some responses to the video] express concern that my mash-up is a condemnation of the fans of Twilight or of the actor Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward. I would like to say that the video is not intended as a stab at the fans. Rather, it’s an argument against the specific way in which romance and gender roles are constructed in the Twilight series.
Worth reading, worth thinking about—for fans of the Twilight-verse and/or the Buffyverse.
