October 2002 posts
Death Imagery and Vonnegut in Help -- Caroline, 15:14:55 10/16/02 Wed
I don't have much time to post (going to yoga class) and must be brief but I was intrigued by the death images in this episode. We have the funeral parlor, the SG in the coffins and the killing of the vamp in the coffin and the idea of death as peace. We have Cassie's prediction of her death and her eventual death. We have the boy who is afraid his brother will die in war. We have the poems that imply Cassie's death and her sacrifice by the cult. Cassie is also reading Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5, which also deals with themes of death, war, humanity, death being inevitable, how it is better to love than fight, how sometimes people no matter how hard they try may be ineffective to take action (I'm thinking about his phrase 'trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why'). I think they fitted the themes of the episode quite well. Will that also have something to tell us about the future. More death, more inability to control (Xander's power vs. control tradeoff). Furthermore, there appear to be no heroes or villains in Vonnegut's books - is that what we will see eventually in Buffy - the reconciliation of oppositional thinking of good and bad? But I think one of the main things that Vonnegut tells us is that no matter what happens, we need to maintain our humanity, how really important it is to be ourselves. Sorry for the rambling but had to get this out quick. What do people think?
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Re: Death Imagery and Vonnegut in Help - the more coherent version -- Caroline, 20:20:49 10/16/02 Wed
Okay, back from yoga class and ready to think.
I thought that the use of Slaughterhouse 5 in this episode was rather haunting, given the themes of Vonnegut's best (imo) book. Cassie is reading the book and at the same time, we know that there is death hanging over her in this episode. The opening scene is in a funeral parlor and the Scoobs are hiding in caskets ready to stake a vampire. It's a nice/horrible bookend to the death at the very last scene of the episode. Throughout the episode we have further images of death. Cassie has her prediction about herself, the cult (loved the Blue Clam Cult line!) obviously has designs on Cassie and there are Cassie's poems on the internet, which deal with her impending death. Unlike the mythical daughter of Troy, Cassie's predictions concerning her own death are believed by someone - Buffy.
But what does Slaughterhouse 5 tell us about Cassie's situation? Slaughterhouse 5 deals with themes of death, war, humanity, death being inevitable, how it is better to love than fight, how sometimes people no matter how hard they try may be ineffective to take action I'm thinking about his phrase 'trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why'. Also I think one of the main things that Vonnegut tells us is that no matter what happens, we need to maintain our humanity, how really important it is to be ourselves.
Cassie's brief life in this episode, I believe, really lived up to these ideals. Her own prediction of her own death trapped her in the amber. Some horrible external fate crashed in on her and she dealt with it with a certain dignity and humanity. In the face of tremendous adversity, she never loses sight of her humanity and her Self. She blames no-one, she cares for her friend Mike, she befriends Dawn, she defends her father, she is grateful to Buffy for all the latter's efforts on her behalf and she shows kindness to Spike. For someone with a death sentence, she behaves with amazing courage and dignity and doesn't question the why, just accepts the is. She has a certain pre-cognitive power but in the end, no ability to control the inevitability of her destiny. Jung would say that she chose to do gladly that which she must do.
The example of Cassie's life is in stark contrast to the recent behaviour of the SG - Buffy's year of depression post-resurrection, Xander's last minute cold-feet, Willow losing herself to the darkness after Tara's death. Cassie's attitude to her life showed them a profound example of how a life can be lived in the face of adversity. That no matter how bad things get, you always have yourself, your humanity, your compassion.
Some of the SG are trapped in amber the way Cassie is. Buffy still feels responsible for things that are beyond her power and control. No matter what, she could not prevent the results of Cassie's heart condition. (How ironic, once again, that the purest heart in Sunnydale has to die). And Buffy is also trapped in her situation with Spike. While obviously unable to deal with him right now because of her fears concerning him, she still needs him to help her in her quest. Willow has her issues in dealing with the loss and regaining of her humanity and conscience in the face of an irreparable loss that occurred for no good reason whatsoever. Xander has his fears about relationships. Anya is trapped in her rejection by Xander and her vengeance demon status, is obviously unhappy with it and will have to deal with that fate. Spike is probably the most trapped right now. He is caught inside the guilt and pain, he is trying to atone and he has not been able to find a way out of the pain despite his current efforts to do good. The challenge for all the SG is to accept the fate, the daemons that come at us and meet them with our humanity intact, the way Cassie did.
Also, in the several Vonnegut books I've read, there appear to be no heroes or villains - is that what we will see eventually in Buffy? A breakdown of the strict concepts of good and evil, a recognition that most of us, even the slayer and slayer power, exist in that gray area? Or perhaps a reconciliation of oppositional thinking in terms of good and bad, right and wrong?
As as aside, Xander line about the trade-off between power and control is well-taken (a change from stupidXander of last week, thank goodness!). In wonder if this is some foreshadowing about what's to come in the future. More foreshadowing - Cassie telling Buffy she will go to the dark underground - fits in with the from beneath you, it devours.
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Re: Death Imagery and Vonnegut in Help - the more coherent version -- anom, 23:40:56 10/16/02 Wed
I'm not sure how far the parallels between this episode & Slaughterhouse 5 go, at least in one respect. I was thinking that foreknowledge of one's death was something they had in common, but Cassie apparently has become aware of her impending death only recently, while Billy Pilgrim knows well in advance. He has become "unstuck in time," no longer experiencing his life linearly, which does not seem to be the case for Cassie. And he knows the exact circumstances of his death, "time, place, & manner," as the law says (in a completely different context); Cassie doesn't know how or where she'll die but is certain of when.
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Sometimes the disjuncture is important (Spoilers, S7 Lessons - Help) -- Rahael, 03:43:41 10/17/02 Thu
"He has become "unstuck in time," no longer experiencing his life linearly, which does not seem to be the case for Cassie. And he knows the exact circumstances of his death, "time, place, & manner," as the law says (in a completely different context); Cassie doesn't know how or where she'll die but is certain of when."
Cassie doesn't know, because that isn't determined. It isn't determined, because people still have action and agency. Buffy and Spike saved her from a gruesome death; she might not have been able to. The peope who wanted to kill her might have come to their senses and decided not to.
Therefore, our decisions are still important. After all, like Cassie, all of us know that we are going to die. We don't know how. Though we lack her knowledge of "when". Cassie was still able to live what life she did have in the manner she thought was best. That's all the power that any of us have.
It's interesting, continuing the theme of 'helping' that in Lessons, Buffy is confronted by all the people she couldn't help.
Also the difference between power and control. We can be powerful still, even when we cannot control life.
Btw Caroline, an excellent post despite my knowing nothing of Slaughterhouse 5 or not having watched the recent eps. I'll probably have more of a response when I read the transcript. The comments about the ep (though it has received a less enthusiastic welcome than some of the others, seems to me to indicate a very subtle, powerful episode.
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Re: Sometimes the disjuncture is important (Spoilers, S7 Lessons - Help) -- aliera, 17:30:08 10/17/02 Thu
good post Caroline...I hope we're headed towards a redefinition of the hero in keeping with the aging of the gang rather than an erasure. Sometimes disolution is part of that process. Also, your question spirals/dovetails in very nicely with Rah's mention of predestination and action, and the question of acting against seemly impossible odds.
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The most subtle, delicate and rewarding episode this season -- Caroline, 11:01:49 10/18/02 Fri
The more I think and ruminate on Help the more I see in it and the more rewarding it is. It doesn't pack the immediate punch of some of the earlier episodes this season. As Rah said it is more delicate, subtle and nuanced than that. The episode, like the book, has a fated event - an end date for a character, a death. But it still manages to convey the freedom and choices one has in exerting one's will even when destiny is fated. I've already spoken about Cassie and her choices, so I'll talk about the final scene. I loved the final scene - Buffy returns to work, gets some papers together and then puts her head in her hands. She's there, plugging away at it, even when in the scene before she is upset about her ability to make a difference. We don't always have control but we have some power. I also think it says much about Buffy's humanity and the outcome of this season.
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Re: Vonnegut; Not Much 'Help' Spoilers. 7-7.4 -- Age, 21:03:54 10/17/02 Thu
Hi Caroline,
I can't really add anything to your ideas regarding Vonnegut as my recollection of the film is vague. I threw out that kernel of an idea about the labyrinth to suggest a connection to the impending big bad/hellmouth and the shifting walls of the school, hoping that someone would run with it, but I think you were already way ahead of me as your portrayal of the Scoobies' being stuck suggests. My vague recollection suggested a labyrinth of moments in time, or perhaps rooms in a house.
Age.
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Re: Vonnegut; Some 'Help' Spoilers. 7-7.4 -- Caroline, 10:56:05 10/18/02 Fri
Your idea of a labyrinth is interesting. Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse 5 has an amazing capacity to become 'unstuck in time'. He'll drift from different times in his life, see events in reverse etc. I think that is interesting considering Xander's comments about the basement of the school and how the walls appear to be shifting. A labyrinth is a representation of the underworld, of hell. Beasts and monster live there and the entrance represents the entrace to hell. Is the labyrinth that Billy is in (in terms of time and place) somehow connected metaphorically to the hellmouth? As you say, walls are shifting, time seems to have no meaning for Spike, caught up in his own trauma. (Is he Cerberus, the dog that guards the entrance to the Hades?) I agree that it is most likely connected to the idea of the big bad and that somehow Spike has to be connected to it.
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Loneliness, Spike, and oppositional thinking -- manwitch, 06:12:36 10/17/02 Thu
I think you're right on, and I would add that I think this is one of the great buffy episodes.
I also know nothing of Vonnegut, although my wife has been telling me for years, "You should read Vonnegut. You'd really like Vonnegut." But your post, and last nights episode make me think of a quote from Richard Rorty, who, for a philosopher, really hit it dead on:
"What matters is our loyalty to other human beings, not our hope of getting things right. Our glory lies in our participation in fallible and transitory human projects, not our obedience to permanent nonhuman constraints."
We are all too often "results oriented." Buffy thought she failed Cassie because of the result. But even grieving Dawn could recognize that what matters is listening, trying, caring. Making the connection. Hallucination Buffy said this season was about power, and I think ultimately Buffy's victory this season will involve a recognition of this as our greatest power of humanity, to know and to let others know that even in our failures, we are not alone.
Which brings me to the subject of loneliness. Anything from Vonnegut there? I would expect so, although I haven't read it. Buffy knows what its like to walk the halls of Sunnydale high lost and alone. The boy afraid of losing his brother "doesn't want to be alone." Spike says, "Please don't leave me." Buffy came back to the school to help people, and she uses the phrase, "to connect."
Right now Spike is alone. I have said before that I thought the chip from Season 4 was a Foucauldian panopticon and that it would produce in him a "modern soul," a soul that would need to be overcome rather than being something positive like Angel's soul is. Foucault, in Discipline and Punish calls his book "a genealogy of the modern soul" and refers to the soul as "the prison of the body." And sure enough, we see that Spike's soul has his body locked in the Dungeon, constrained and punishing itself. But last night we saw the first seeds of his overcoming of both chip and soul. Foucault himself got into some crazy stuff, S&M, freaky stuff in the desert, drugs. He felt that by having immediate physical experiences one could break past the sorts of restircted meanings that culture imposes on experience. At least for a moment. So what I saw when Spike was punching that boy was that the chip, in acting on him physically, gave him respite from his soul. Whereas originally, by making him shy away from pain it caused him to police himself, restirct himself, and "produced" this soul, as Foucault would say, now by the very fact of its physical pain it releases him from a greater torment. As he grabbed his head with each punch, I saw not just self-flagellation-Spike is bad and should suffer-but release. In that moment of blinding screaming pain his soul was nowhere to be seen, the voices out of hearing.
So I think its still possible for Spike to be very dangerous. But I hope he does overcome this soul, no matter how monstrous it might make him. And here's why. For Spike to be good because he's house-broken like a dog does nothing for me. Any stupid animal will do as its trained. But for Spike to be good for no reason other than his will is noble. Buffy is worthy of nobility, not a pet. And I of course mean nobility of character, not nobility of birth.
What will Buffy someday say to him? Is it what we all think? Will she at the last cure his loneliness? And what of him if she does?
Spike represents Buffy's last obstacle in her spiritual journey, I think. He is clearly a metaphor for Buffy's continued oppositional thinking, not just good/bad as you point out, but vampire/human, man/woman, alive/dead, good/evil. But now Spike is being clearly associated with the Hellmouth, bringing into play the opposition of Heaven/Hell. Spike is "beneath:" Buffy, as she said long ago. "It would never be you, Spike. You're beneath me." Spike recalled that in the scene in the church when he said, "And it, the thing beneath you, its in here too." And now Spike is literally beneath her, in the basement, lurking at the mouth of hell, where presumably "from beneath you it devours."
I think Spike is being set up to represent this sort of fixed thinking that Buffy must overcome. And I think that when she finally does overcome it, it will be the last we see of Spike. And maybe of Buffy.
Anyways, my ramblings aside, I think yours are on the mark.
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Excellent! -- Rahael, 06:20:30 10/17/02 Thu
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future spec/Loneliness, Spike, and oppositional thinking -- alcibiades, 08:06:08 10/17/02 Thu
Excellent post, btw.
I think Spike is being set up to represent this sort of fixed thinking that Buffy must overcome. And I think that when she finally does overcome it, it will be the last we see of Spike. And maybe of Buffy.
Or it could work the other way, (especially since SMG wants out of the contract, but I digress). After all, Buffy is the one who popped into Spike's vision as the ultimate Big Bad, mouthing the same words she had said earlier in the show to Dawn, but whose meaning was morphed into a frightening revelation.
We learned from STSP that the invisible nothings that Spike has been dealing with may not be nothings after all. His visions are all a matter of perspective.
Now in Help we learn that some future prophecies cannot be helped or changed no matter what we do to avoid them.
In Beneath You we learned that Spike dreamed of killing Buffy -- he thinks they were dreams, but he is not sure. Maybe they were visions? Is he discerning clearly between the dreamworld and the visionworld? Does he want to discern clearly between them. We also know he has spilled endless buckets of salt at her ending -- assuming for a moment he is not getting off on killing her, although that meaning is written into Joss' words -- certainly to mislead Buffy, perhaps to mislead us.
Spike after all is the anti-Nietzschean in a sense. He is a man, turned into a monster, turned into a monster hunter, changed back into a man -- he defies Nietzsche's warning that whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.
To tie this into the discussion of Vonnegut, I'm thinking it is Spike, not Cassie, who is the one detached from time. He has visions, some of them may be true future visions. He knows he has hurt Buffy and he knows he is paying for it and will pay -- but is that in a past sense -- we're meant to think of the AR, but does it mean that even though that is what pops most readily into our heads -- or in a future sense? Is the pain Spike cannot bear pain of the past or the future?
Spike represents Buffy's last obstacle in her spiritual journey, I think.
I'm thinking Buffy may be Spike's last obstacle in his spiritual journey.
Just as Buffy may be her own last obstacle in her spiritual journey. What if her final opponent is herself? What if the oppositional thinking about good and evil is played out in her being? What if in some way, vanquishing the Little Bad this year, turns Buffy into the Big Bad? In Help we see Buffy ignoring the demon's bite. That may or may not have future consequences. Or it may symbolize or refer to another kind of bite she later ignores or perhaps an infection that she cannot fight -- and if this time it infects her?
Buffy has not yet overcome herself. She has been fighting monsters for a long time without turning into a monster herself. But that may not always be true, especially if this year, the heart gives way and there is nothing to do about it -- the lingering image we have from Help! -- the voice crying blindly into the future. If the center does not hold, will Buffy turns into a monster and will the slayer of slayers be forced to slay his third, weeping useless buckets of tears all the while at her ... ending.
What if what Buffy deserves is a man who can overcome himself enough to give her the ending the real Buffy deserves or wants. (Spike: Willow knew there was a chance she'd come back wrong. So wrong that you'd have to-- that she'd have to get rid of what came back. And she knew I wouldn't let her. If any part of it was Buffy, I wouldn't let her.)
Wouldn't that future certainty be enough to drive the nascent William/Spike mad?
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Interesting spec. Tragic in all respects but very interesting -- ponygirl, 08:18:31 10/17/02 Thu
OT to Darby (warning: evolution and culture) -- Sophist, 18:01:59 10/16/02 Wed
No, I am not resurrecting that issue. However, it's clear the subject intrigues you, so I thought you might have an interest in a passage from Steven Pinker's latest book, The Blank Slate. Before I quote it, I want to say that it is not my intent to make any point, one way or the other, by the quote. I am not even sure anymore which way it cuts in that discussion. I am merely (really!!) calling your attention to something that might interest you. Ok, protesting muchly, I segue into the quote:
"We should understand culture, according to the cognitive anthropologist Dan Sperber, as the epidemiology of mental representations: the spread of ideas and practices from person to person. Many scientists now use the mathematical tools of epidemiology ... or of population biology ... to model the evolution of culture. They have shown how a tendency of people to adopt the innovations of other people can lead to effects that we understand using metaphors like epidemics, wildfire, snowballs, and tipping points. Individual psychology turns into collective culture." Page 65, emphasis in original.
I haven't read any further, so I don't know if this point is developed later on in the book. There are some footnotes if you want to follow up on the sources.
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Interesting... -- Darby, 20:15:38 10/16/02 Wed
A certain symmetry there - my primary background in evolution is in parasitology (I was just last week lecturing on the rise of "childhood diseases" and the development of Europe through the Middle Ages), and epidemiology has parallel patterns to evolution when you look at the "carriers" as evolving systems. Maybe that's why it makes sense to me that way, but it's an odd subset of evolution that's largely overlooked - for instance, a sizable fraction of paleontologists, who should understand evolution, buy into the hypothesis that the dinosaurs or the megamammals might have been done in by disease, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Culture spreads like disease organisms, in a dance that sees changes in the carrier and the carried - it's a bizarre but valid analogy.
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Links to a couple of fascinating excerpts. -- Darby, 09:00:34 10/17/02 Thu
Here are a couple of passages from the Pinker book -
This one discusses the interplay of personality and genetics with environment - careful, there's a whole area in which memes (inheritable aspects of culture) could be invoked! But it's a decent summary of a lot of the truly scary (if you're a parent) research results of recent decades.
This one is more about the main theme of the book: the roots of violent behavior in humans. Some of it seemed pretty obvious, but there are some interesting points buried in it.
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Re: Links to a couple of fascinating excerpts. -- Sophist, 09:44:40 10/17/02 Thu
It's quite clear what he is arguing in the book. So far (I'm up to p. 86), I'm not very impressed. Partly that's because I lean to the other side anyway. Partly it's because he has made some bizarre statements on topics I happen to know quite a bit about. But he's an interesting writer, and I like to follow this debate.
And re: the parents thing: NOW they tell me.
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What are the bizarre statements? -- oboemaboe, 21:36:38 10/17/02 Thu
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One example -- Sophist, 10:59:48 10/18/02 Fri
From p. 11: "William Godwin, one of the founders of liberal political philosophy...."
This statement is absurd. Godwin was a liberal -- indeed, he was a radical -- but his views are both unimportant and unknown except for historians of the 1790s. In fact, I could give points to anyone on the board who can, without looking him up, tell me a single fact about Godwin other than the name of his wife or daughter (Rah and redcat are ineligible).
I've now read further into the book, and I can say that Pinker's discussion of certain controversies in science with which I'm familiar (e.g., the sociobiology wars) is so one-sided as to be false.
I'm continuing to read, but it's agonizing.
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hehehehe. You know me too well! -- Rahael, waving hand in the air, 14:25:53 10/18/02 Fri
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But maybe you can explain -- Sophist, 16:19:38 10/18/02 Fri
what happened to your pacifist post(s) above. They disappeared.
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Leaving the rest unsaid -- Rahael, 17:55:00 10/18/02 Fri
I kinda made them.
The thing is, I write posts intending to make one point than I end up saying all sorts of stuff. The writing is the key thing, having it read is not so important. I didn't think they had posted and was glad, and I get back late, and find that they had! Anyway, I had got too used to the idea that I hadn't said it out loud.
In this particular case, banishing them was ironic given what I said.
But here is a nice poem instead!
Leaving the Rest Unsaid
Finis, apparent on an earlier page,
With fallen obelisk for colophon,
Must this be here repeated?
Death has been ruefully announced
And to die once is death enough,
Be sure, for any life-time.
Must the book end, as you would end it,
With testamentary appendices
And graveyard indices?
But no, I will not lay me down
To let your tearful music mar
The decent mystery of my progress.
So now, my solemn ones, leaving the rest unsaid,
Rising in air as on a gander's wing
At a careless comma,
Robert Graves
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I liked yours better, but this is good compensation. -- Sophist, 21:31:28 10/18/02 Fri
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Re: I liked yours better, but this is good compensation. -- Rahael, 12:49:38 10/19/02 Sat
I find myself in a sentimental mood today. I can't think it possible for you to have an evil alter ego, Sophist!
Thank you, for all sorts of things, that I have neglected to thank you for.
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Thank YOU. -- Sophist, 14:36:11 10/19/02 Sat
Blushing now.
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Re: A few more (examples, that is..) -- redcat, 15:59:26 10/18/02 Fri
Ah, shucks, Sophist, I had four facts ready to go before I read my parenthetical exclusion from the game. ;-)
Although I've only read the two excerpts of Pinker's work to which Darby provided links, I agree with your sense that
he tends to represent debates and issues in limited or one-sided ways.
For example, he states: "The shockingly high homicide rates of pre-state societies, with 10 to 60 per cent of the men dying at the hands of other men, provide one kind of evidence." In fact, evidence and analysis of male-male
homicide (as well as non-fatal violence) in pre-state societies is *far* more complex than he suggests. Debates rage hot and furious in both anthropology and archeology about the relationships between osteological and ethnographic evidence in a very, very wide variety of types of pre-state societies. Evidence of male violence in early-state-formation societies is also undergoing some pretty heavy re-thinking in contemporary scholarship. To suggest that historians, archeologists and cultural scholars have collectively concluded that pre-state societies are *invariably* loci of male-male homicide at rates significantly higher than in state-ordered societies is both reductionist and inaccurate.
On a more personal note, I was also caught by this statement: "The theory that parents can mould their children like clay has inflicted unnatural, sometimes cruel, child-rearing regimens on parents." It is, of course, not the adults in most cruel child-rearing regimes who are the real victims. Whether inspired by Dr. Spock or fundamentalist interpretations of a strict God's bible, parents who think of their children as blank slates generally harm much more than just their own senses of self-fulfillment. While I certainly understand Pinker's desire to relieve parents of the guilt of raising a child who turned out "wrong," I suspect that the depth of those adults' bad feelings about themselves generally doesn't reach the level of damage that occurs to a child trapped in a home with a self-justifying, dominating and psychologically-violent (even worse if physically-violent) parent.
Finally, Pinker writes: "The new consensus about nature and nurture from behavioural genetics [is that] half the
variation [is] from the genes, little or none from the family, the rest from something else." Hmmm.... given the past debates on this board about astrology, and fully cognizant of d'Herblay's button #9 (which, BTW, I fully share), I'll simply quote Darwin's old buddy, Alfred Russel Wallace, who, when discussing the disbelief with which many of his scientific colleagues approached psychic, spiritual and psychological phenomenon, wrote: "...my first great lesson in the inquiry into those obscure fields of knowledge [was] never to accept the disbelief of great men, or their accusations of imposture or of imbecility, as of any weight when opposed to the repeated observation of facts by other men admittedly sane and honest." [The Two Worlds, 1893, p. 441.]
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Rah hit the buzzer first :) -- Sophist, 16:29:40 10/18/02 Fri
The time of your post is right there, down to the second. OTOH, if she can't beat your 4 facts, maybe you'll get extra chocolate.
If you were thinking of reading Pinker's book, don't bother. I was hoping for an enjoyable way to read a synthesis of viewpoints I have only mild sympathy for. His books on language were good. This is not.
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Re: Rah hit the buzzer first :) -- Rahael, 17:42:20 10/18/02 Fri
I'm sure redcat can mention more than four -
But, his wife was Mary Wollestonecroft (Vindication of the Rights of Women) and his daughter was of course the writer of "Frankenstein", Mary Shelley. And Frankenstein was dedicated to him.
Of course, having an inveterate nose for historical scandal and gossip I know of him simply because his step daughter Claire had an affair with Byron, and his adopted daughter killed herself, and Mary ran off with Shelley.
He had a falling out with his old friend Robert Southey when Southey went all respectable and conservative and became poet laureate.
Of course most of these facts weren't gleaned from history study, but reading too much historical fiction, and having a youthful crush on PBS.
Oh, and he also wrote "Caleb Williams" and..some histories of the Commonwealth and John Milton's nephews. And of course stuff on philosophy - the perfectability of man?
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Re: Rah hit the buzzer first :) -- redcat, 18:30:46 10/18/02 Fri
Hey, I thought Rah and I were ineligible... and when did we start playing with buzzers? Do we have to put our answers in the form of a question now?
Most of mine were the same as Rah's, anyway, except for his falling out with Southey, whom I'm ashamed to say I've never even heard of...
Let's see, what else is stuck in my brain about William Godwin?... Well, his work on anarchism was critical to the
development of the political philosophy of Emma Goldman; she asked friends to send her his book on anarchism and government (forget the title, but it was his main one) when Herbert Hoover imprisoned her during WWI for subversive activities like writing articles about peace.
Also, oddly enough, three decades earlier, the national chair of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU),
Frances Willard, developed what came to be described in 19thC American feminist thought as "Radical Benevolent
Christian Socialism" (a far cry from contemporary European versions) based in large part on Godwin's ideas; she often quoted him in her public speeches and once called him "the father of good government" because he advocated against it.
He was quoted by the 19thC abolitionist and feminist sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, in letters they wrote to
each other; particularly re: his argument for the education for women.
Oh, and when he got old, I think he was voted a pension (or something, a small amount of money) by Parliament, supposedly so he would shut up and stop bothering them - or at least that's the way I remember the story... don't
know if it's true.
The obscurity of all of the above pretty much proves Sophist's original point - William Godwin wasn't important enough to be considered "one of the founders of liberal political philosophy." I wonder who else Pinker would
consider foundational?
a still-unspoiled redcat, SO wishing it was Saturday and I'd seen 7.3 so I could read the rest of the board........
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Re: Rah hit the buzzer first :) -- Cleanthes, 09:11:29 10/19/02 Sat
Let's see, what else is stuck in my brain about William Godwin?... Well, his work on anarchism was critical to the
development of the political philosophy of Emma Goldman; she asked friends to send her his book on anarchism and government (forget the title, but it was his main one) when Herbert Hoover imprisoned her during WWI for subversive activities like writing articles about peace.
Herbert Hoover? I don't think so. Although a republican, he did serve in the Wilson administration as head of the US Food Administration.
Perhaps you're thinking of J. Edgar Hoover? I kinda think the truly subversive thing that Emma did during WWI, tho, was organizing riots against the draft. Don't hang her for a sheep, hang her for a goat. (my home town newspaper was closed down in 1917, incidentally, because it was anti-Wilson prior to US entry and was owned by a person with a German surname)
OBbuffy:
Woodrow Wilson was in Womanhood, the Glory of the Nation (1917) with Walter McGrail
Walter McGrail was in Double Life, A (1947) with Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters was in Over the Brooklyn Bridge (1984) with Sarah Michelle Gellar
Perhaps more interesting is J.Edgar's postmortum film career because:
J. Edgar Hoover was in Brother Can You Spare a Dime (1975) with Orson Welles
Orson Welles was in Transformers: The Movie, The (1986) with Frank Welker
Frank Welker was in Scooby-Doo (2002) with Sarah Michelle Gellar
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...and Cleanthes wins the Special Cocoa Kisses Award for Corrections...again.. -- redcat, 11:44:07 10/19/02 Sat
You're right, of course. I could see J. Edgar's face beaming beatifically down on me as I typed "Herbert." I was just so nervous about that buzzer....
Three months after her release from prison, J. Edgar was at the dock in NY when Emma was deported for opposing the draft. She later wrote that, as the ship carrying her, Alexander Berkman and about 200 other political deportees passed the Statue of Liberty, she turned back to Hoover and thumbed her nose at him while her fellow deportees blew him a collective raspberry - surely one of my favorite images from American history.
But I disagree with your assessment about why she was imprisoned in the first place. To my mind, your descriptive
narrative has been influenced by the hegemonic conservatism of pro-government historians. Emma Goldman was tried for "sedition." Have you ever read the Sedition Act, Cleanthes? Every time I've given copies of it to my students after they've studied the US Constitution, their immediate reaction is that it's clearly un-constitutional.
Goldman's arrest came on the heels of the closing of her and Alexander Berkman's magazine, "Mother Earth," in which she passionately and eloquently urged men to refuse what she saw as an illegal and immoral draft. When her press was destroyed (literally, with axes and sledgehammers) by Palmer's "troops," she held public meetings where she gave speeches against the war and the draft. At one of those public meetings, over 8,000 New Yorkers stood and cheered as she spoke for over four hours about the evils of the capitalist system and its relationship to the underlying causes of WWI.
In other circumstances, this would have been called a political rally. Although the meeting had been completely
peaceful during her entire speech, when the police tried to break up the event and dragged her off stage, a riot did
erupt. She was in a police vehicle as it started and certainly did not "organize" the rioters. If anything, Palmer, Hoover, Wilson and the NY police department were responsible for the injuries and property damage that occurred that night.
In fact, Goldman was adamant in her writings throughout her life that mob violence was no substitute for committed,
individual actions of conscience. She was imprisoned and later deported because of her anarchist political views
and her passionate writings about them, including writings against war and the draft. She was accused by the government of organizing violent resistance, causing people to riot and urging the overthrow of the American government. But the only charge that the government prosecutors could make stick, even at her kangaroo-court
trial, was that she had *written and spoken out* against the draft - which was only illegal because the government,
under the Sedition Act, could claim that such expression of one's political views was "seditious."
Both peaceful and non-peaceful civil disobedience occurred all over the country during WWI in protest against the
draft and the war. Goldman was one of the critically important voices in the collective struggle against that war, but I must challenge your repetition of the government's version of her history. A careful reading of the full body of Goldman's work and an historiographically-astute account of the events of her life show that it was, in fact, the power of her logical reasoning, her acute command of persuasive language and her passion for the highest form of ethical action in every situation which made her such a threat to the US government.
I take the time to contest your rather glib assessment of Emma Goldman's activities, in part, because, as a
component of its "War on Terrorism," the FBI has now given all American airlines a "Master List" of persons considered "suspicious," which includes the names of a number of prominent peace activists, environmental activists
and anti-nuke activists. Recently, two long-time peace activists, both middle-aged white lesbians, were detained at
the San Francisco airport and body searched by SF police before being allowed to board a flight for Boston, where they were scheduled to speak at an anti-war rally. One of them was detained and searched again on her way back to SF. The Sedition Act is still on the books and was invoked by some conservative political commentators after the Seattle WTO protests, which the American mass media continues to call "riots." How anyone could argue that the
Sedition Act is either constitutional or ethical in a democracy is beyond me, but it makes me more nervous than even Sophist's buzzer to think that the critical lessons of Emma Goldman's life can be so nonchalantly mis-represented,
especially in times like these. Like William Godwin two centuries before her, she was an intellectual anarchist, not a rioting terrorist, and I think it's important to keep the distinction clear.
"If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." - attributed to Emma Goldman, who actually never wrote that at all, but who once did write: "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things. Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world--prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own comrades I would live my beautiful ideal."
[I knew we could turn this into a Spike thread if we tried hard enough.....]
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Re: ...and Cleanthes wins the Special Cocoa Kisses Award for Corrections...again.. -- Cleanthes, 15:52:20 10/19/02 Sat
Sorry for the blunt fusspot correction about Herbert Hoover.
I'm also sorry for making the glib comment about Goldman.
In 1973 or '74 I helped set up an Emma Goldman clinic. I'm no Goldman scholar, so I'll defer to your understanding, with this caveat: it's such a bipolar historiography. Either she's a saint or she provided bullets for McKinley's assassin.
This makes me suspicious. I'm usually a "truth lies somewhere between" person.
I suspect the academic hegemony will return to vilifying Goldman once they decide her Zionism is more important than anything else. I admire her willingness to break with Leninism, also not fashionable these days, though.
ObBuffy
The Oracle says: Sarah Michelle Gellar has a William (I) McKinley number of 7.
Sarah Michelle Gellar was in Over the Brooklyn Bridge (1984) with Aki Aleong
Aki Aleong was in Motorcycle Gang (1957) with Edmund Cobb
Edmund Cobb was in Superman (1948) with Wheeler Oakman
Wheeler Oakman was in In the Days of the Thundering Herd (1914) with Major Gordon W. 'Pawnee Bill' Lillie
Major Gordon W. 'Pawnee Bill' Lillie was in Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Pawnee Bill's Far East (1910) with William F. Cody
William F. Cody was in Indian Wars, The (1914) with Nelson Appleton Miles
Nelson Appleton Miles was in President McKinley and Escort Going to the Capitol (1901) with William (I) McKinley
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Re: -- redcat, 18:13:36 10/19/02 Sat
No need to apologise for your corrections, blunt or otherwise. I actually like the precision you bring to the board in matters of fact and am generally appreciative of being corrected when I've made mistakes, especially a silly one like that above, which is why a virtual choclolate award should have arrived at your computer a few hours ago - check your keyboard for sticky messes...
Correcting a factual error is what I was mainly trying to do in contesting your comment about Goldman's activities. I'm glad you took it as such. If American "liberties" are worth fighting to protect, than certainly the First Amendment is among the most important of them. Goldman's "crime" was in writing and saying things the government didn't want read or heard. We all lose when someone who speaks her truth is vilified -- or sainted, for that matter. I agree that her historiography tends to be bi-polar. The facts of her trial, however, are not in dispute, which is the central thing I was trying to address.
Gotta rush, but have really enjoyed your "obBuffy" factoids. What does the title stand for, BTW?
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Surely from the Latin preposition "ob" meaning "toward," right? -- d'Herblay, 19:02:13 10/19/02 Sat
After all, one would assume "Cleanthes" to know his Classics . . . though please do not assume "d'Herblay" knows his French.
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ObBuffy -- Cleanthes, 09:39:08 10/20/02 Sun
Hmm, I posted a reply to this question but it's disappeared.
I've never actually seen a definition of the "ob" here; I picked up the usage from the incomparable Kevin Wald, author of "Heroine Barbarian", the finest bit of filk ever written. He used to post fairly often on alt.tv.xena.
I think it means "obligatory" (and so, the ob prefix does come from the Latin; hey, as you say, d'Herblay!). That is, obligatory if one wishes to remain on-topic.
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It had to happen . . . -- d'Herblay, 08:37:15 10/17/02 Thu
Evolutionary literary criticism (evlitcrit?).
Don't get too excited; I think this may be revenge for the Sokal Hoax.
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Hehe. -- Sophist, 08:45:58 10/17/02 Thu
Reads like a satire to me.
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Eh? -- Darby, 10:29:49 10/17/02 Thu
Shouldn't even satire have a point? This makes no sense but isn't entertainingly nonsensical.
And the Chronicle probably took it seriously - they aren't known for their sense of humor. Or their sense.
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Another link -- d'Herblay, 16:13:47 10/19/02 Sat
During the original cultural evolution debate, I contemplated applying basic Darwinian principles (descent with modification, differential success rates among competitors) to (because I don't understand the word culture) religion. I never bothered to write this up, though, because I felt that my scheme either lacked real explanatory power or was merely tautological or, sometimes, both. (Sure, one could point out that the strictures against sex in Shakerism prevent it from ever gaining as many adherents as Pentecostalism, but surely the interesting thing about the Shakers is that they're still here?) Oh, well -- some of my best posts have never been written.
Now it seems that I've been beaten to this sort of analysis by David Sloane Wilson, in a book here reviewed by Jared Diamond. I must admit that I don't see what makes Wilson's argument particularly Darwinian, and I am as doubtful of the usefulness of this approach as I am of explaining Aeneas's leaving Dido by reasons of her infertility. However, I'll let y'all read it and rip it to shreds.
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Interesting -- Sophist, 16:53:22 10/19/02 Sat
He said cautiously.
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Hmmm... -- Darby, 17:27:00 10/19/02 Sat
My mind has been working in this area (gee, what a surprise) with the book I'm writing - the chapter, still in progress, is here and includes much of what I would have added in a post about the evolution of religion in terms of, I guess, human engineering capability, a cultural feature.
I would like to point out that the infamous suggestion I made in a post a while back was that culture could be seen in terms of Darwinian processes - it's nice to see I wasn't completely insane.
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Re: Hmmm... -- aliera, 18:31:39 10/19/02 Sat
Thank you.
Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat.
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Re: Hmmm... -- Sophist, 10:32:41 10/20/02 Sun
I couldn't tell if the point of the book was that
Alternative 1: Those believing in a particular religion form a separate sub-population for purposes of evolution, with the religious beliefs increasing the survival chances of such believers.
or
Alternative 2: Religions can be analogized to biological individuals or species and are selected for in the environment in which they compete, in a way similar to the operation of natural selection.
In the latter case, I think the author's views about the spread of Christianity may be somewhat unsophisticated in light of current historical understanding. But it's hard to tell from just a review article.
Framing the Viewer's View (spoilers included thru 7.03) -- Sophie, 19:18:47 10/16/02 Wed
The French film director, Jean-Luc Goddard commented once that "cinema is not the reflection of reality, but the reality of the reflection." He deliberately makes his audience aware, through various devices, that they are looking at something that has been constructed rather than a story, which appears flowing and seamless.
from http://www.filmeducation.org/
Recently, I finally coughed up the $40 for the Complete Season 1 BTVS DVD set. So I am parallel watching Season 1 with Season 7. Obviously, I will finish watching Season 1 first, but so what. A number of things are strikingly different from Season 1 to Season 7, including clothes (such as Buffy's loss of her bra), hairstyles, etc, but also the film techniques used to make the show and frame the viewer's view. The trend in film for US movies and TV since about the mid-seventies seems to be towards realism and BTVS film-style has followed suit from Season1 through Season 6. Though we have seen hints of less realism from time to time. Season 7 seems to have all out adopted the expressionistic exaggeration.
Back in mid-years of the 20th century, there were films that strove to exaggerate things on film to enhance their meanings, or to remind you that this is just a film. Then there was the French new-wave movement with its long-windedness and jittery cameras. For the past twenty years, we have primarily had films that try to be real. By making the scenes as realistic as possible, and the cuts so gentle that you hardly notice them, you forget that you watching a film. You forget that your are the viewer. You forget that someone has framed your view.
FRAMING OF SCENE
In episode 7.04, "Same Time, Same Place", we get a very tight shot or frame. We typically are not allowed to see a whole room at once. We also have a very limited cast. After the airport scenes, we rarely see anyone other than Buffy, Xander, Dawn, Spike, Anya, and Willow. The episode also makes the world very small by not letting us, the viewer, look around - the scenes begin to be set on a stage and thus flattened.
So we alternate between Willow and Spike/Anya (SA), and Buffy, Xander, Dawn (BXD) and Spike/Anya. Spike and Anya become a hinge; they connect the two worlds of Willow and BXD, but they fail to communicate information between the two worlds sort of like a broken telephone. This is repeated over and over.
CUTS, CAMERA PANNING, AND FADES
Episode 7.03 uses a variety of techniques to make the viewer aware of the scene cuts. Sometimes, they are too slow, sometimes the camera pans across, then back, but the characters unexpectedly changed, or the scene fades and we see characters in the same space.
The experiences of Willow, perfectly match the experiences of BXD. They are always at the same place at the same time. It has a very unnatural feel that makes the viewer aware of the film instead of forgetting that it is not reality, and it also makes the episode feel extremely tight and consistant. Like when gymnast does a routine where instead of just stringing together a series of actions - a forward flip, a backward roll, and a handstand - the gymnast strings together a series of flips - backward, double, forward - but they all have a technique in common such as a twist. The same time, same place of BXD and Willow has the same effect of pulling the episode tightly together, like a well-choreographed routine.
This is further emphasized by the cutting of the film. It is not realistic, it is forced. And Whedon lets it feel forced to the viewer. The viewer cannot forget that they are watching a film. The viewer knows that life is never this perfect. Nobody is this "in step" with another person unwittingly. This could symbolize that BXD are feeling the same feelings as Willow.
Some cuts are slow, too. Further highlighting their existence. In most films and TV shows, these days, the cuts are quick and subtle - you don't notice. They are fairly often, such as when two people have a conversation, and we cut back and forth between each's face. The effect is that the viewer gets to see everything as if he were standing there looking back and forth between the two speakers faces. Natural and expected. So when Whedon adds two second of blackness to the cut, it is noticeable that there is a cut.
Other times instead of a cut, the camera pans across and back. Typically, a pans adds information to the scene by showing something off camera in the pan. Instead, when the camera pans back, we find that BX have been replaced by Willow. This is also disconcerting.
Another cut used in the episode is the fade out of BXD sitting on Buffy's couch to the fade in of Willow sleeping on that same couch. For a second or two, we see both groups, occupying the same space. Later, at the end of the episode, we get this quantum physics-like dual occupancy of space again when Buffy steps in the space that we know Willow is lying in even though we can't see Willow. The camera cuts suggest it, and Anya verbalized it when she tells Buffy to move because she is standing "in Willow".
The only cut that isn't this is when they smash cut to Dawn when she collapses onto to the floor because the paralyzation spell has been broken and smash-cut back to the cave. Very fast and very jarring. (Also very funny.)
COLOR PALETTES
In episode 7.04 the viewer's view is a world of limited color palettes. We have seen this technique used sporadically in the past seasons, most recently memorably in "Seeing Red" from Season 6. But the technique was used in scenes portraying The Master during season 1. The Master was shown in scenes that were blue/black or brownish/orange/red. In 7.04, we get these same color palettes, but they comprise every scene in the episode. The most common palette is the red/brown/orange of Buffy's house, or color palette #1 The other color palette we get is the blue/black, or color palette #2. When Willow goes upstairs and looks at the old pictures, the colors shift to the first color palette of red/brown/orange to the second color palette, blue/black. The airport scene uses a lighter version of color palette #1. It has better lighting, but mixes in creams, light greys, and yellows. The high school scenes, excepting the basement, follow this trend, ditching the reds for creams, yellows, and light greys. The Demon's cave is also palette #1, red/brown/orange, except for the demon himself, who is green. Green is the complementary color of orange on the color wheel. This is reminiscent of the scenes in England where we get color palette #1 plus a green scenic background.
Then we get scenes that are blue and black - the school basement and in 7.02, the church where Spike rests against the cross. All exterior night lighting also uses color palette #2. When we get scenes with Anya, we get a blending of the two color palettes. We get light blues (Anya's shirt) and light greys mixed into the orange/brown/red/yellow with a few creams. Notice Spike's new blue shirt these days. Interesting how Anya and Spike, who form a hinge in 7.04, are both wearing blue. Xander is also wearing blue, as in blue jeans, but this is not as noticeable as blue jeans have really ceased to be a color.
I find this repeated use of color and limited palettes holds a film together when it is kept throughout the film as happens here. Extremely striking examples of this type of use of colors are found in Luc Besson's films. In the past we have seen Whedon do a scene with striking or limited colors, but until 7.03, we have not seen this persist through every scene of the episode.
CONCLUSION
As season 7 unfolds, we are becoming increasingly aware of it being about seeing and not seeing. Willow invisible to BXD and BXD invisible to Willow, Spike talking to invisible people, and the camera limiting and forcing the viewer's view making it complete.
Allright. Comments, please!
Sophie
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Nice post! -- Rahael, 03:26:04 10/17/02 Thu
Thank you for this!! It's very useful, because these are the sort of things I don't notice, and also, it gives me a sense of the ep, even when I haven't seen it!
Just keeping the thread alive until those who have actually seen the ep can offer more useful contributions
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Thanks also. -- Sophist, 08:42:21 10/17/02 Thu
I too have no knowledge of such things, and posts like this are very helpful.
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All references in post to 7.04 should say 7.03, sorry for typos. -- Sophie, 05:57:05 10/17/02 Thu
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Re: Framing the Viewer's View (spoilers included thru 7.03) -- luna, 08:40:58 10/17/02 Thu
Sophie:
I want to resond to this extremely interesting post but will have to wait until I can look at an episode again with this in mind. I did notice the colors were different but hadn't really considered the total effect.Very nice analysis.
Also wonder if other things are creating this focus on the medium--makeup, artificiality of monsters, dialog, etc. The whole theme of SPST really lent itself to foregrounding tehcnique, but in certain ways we could also say this about Hush and Once More with Feeling, that they really make us aware of the representation by changing one element of it. But those were isolated, not whole seasons--you think this is running through all the episodes this time?
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Re: Framing the Viewer's View (spoilers included thru 7.03) -- Sophie, 11:29:06 10/17/02 Thu
I agree with you about Hush and Once More with Feeling. We also see scenes of this sort towards the end of Season 3 - always in Angels apartment.
I noticed these effects in Lessons. Not so much in Help. I really need to sit down and rewatch 7.01, 7.02, and 7.04 for comparison.
On the flip side, we seem to have lost (thankfully) the overused and not so appropriately used high angle whole room shots.
Sophie
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Great post -- Slain, 16:10:38 10/17/02 Thu
It puts into words a lot of things I've thought about watching the show. I don't generally discuss shot choice, mise en scene or montage in my posts or essays, because I generally forget about it once the episode has aired - you have to either have a better memory than me, or to make some kind of notes while it's airing - or at least I would do.
Colour palette is something I've noticed a lot, especially recently. It struck me that Season 6 used a lot of blues blacks, constrasted with for example the bright reds and yellows of Doublemeat Palace. Season 2 often did the same think, focussing on the dark. Season 4 seemed a very bright season for me, with a lot of earthy colours contrasting with the steel of the Initiative - Season 5 was earthy again, I think, with quite a variety of colours, but mostly muted. Season 6 defintely struck me as having the most noticable and hash contrasts, with the bathroom scene and much of Seeing Red contrasting with the earlier parts of the season. Season 7 seems to be returning to the palette from Season 1, I think - bright high school colours, interspersed with the inevitable dark blues. It's definitely a motif that Spike is always seen in blue.
As far as the shot choices and editing, 'Restless' is for me the great example of the show drawing attention to its own artifice. 'Same Time...' did this also, I agree. In contrast, I don't remember (OMWF aside) much obvious directing in Season 6 - they seemed to mostly stick to an invisible TV style.
Buffys' Journey - A realistic perspective and Audience Acceptance part I -- Artemis, 20:35:55 10/16/02 Wed
This is all very new for me so please be kind. I usually come out of lurkdom for just a few brief sentences. (and even that is rare,) Then I scurry back to safety. But these thought have been bubbling and boiling for some time so I've decided to let them spill out. I already tried typing this out once and lost it. So I must really need to get it out if I'm trying again . Forgive the typos, lack of punctuation, additional spaces and rambling . I'm a talker not a typer . Though even then I tend to ramble. O.k focus Artemis ... Here goes.
My question begins . Is it easier for an audience to accept a "Dark" Character like Spike who fights the light yet is drawn to it. than it is for them to accept a character like Buffy who is "Light" struggling against the darkness.
And if Buffys ' character is harder to accept. The question becomes, Why? I think the answer lies in Realism and the audience acceptance with that.
Let's look at the emotional Journey of Buffy which is realistically portrayed yet not I think always realistically percieved by the audience. Buffy who is a 16 year old girl when we first see her. She is forced to enter into a life that includes, death , secrecy, bloodshed. We as an audience get the privilege of seeing her at the beginning and unlike any television show I've witnessed, save one, we get to see a realistic struggle of how one might emotionally deal with this type of violence and life. This concept is unique. Most super heroes just do the job. We might if we're lucky, get a hint that there are problems, that they might be dissatisfied. But overall they seem to handle it quite well. The job doesn't change them very much if at all. And we as an audience gather comfort in the fact that they can do this extraordinarly hard thing and live this extraordinarily hard life and remain the same. We lose ourselves in the fantasy . We know it's not real. But this emotional journey feels right. It could be possible, Couldn't it?
This is one of the first illusions ME breaks. On Buffy even in Year one. Our character Buffy reflects a real person, displaying real emotions. Interesting that a Fantasy show strives on breaking illusions.
Buffys JOB is to kill but she doesn't want to. Buffys Job is to kill and it CHANGES her. While the first statement has been seen on television before . It is rare that the second one has ever been fully portrayed. And yet to look at it Realistically... As a real person wouldn't you change? Harden? Close your emotions?
I have seen one other character, a female character, that was changed as dramatically as Buffy and that was on a show called " LA Femme Nikita" Interestingly the audience reaction was very similiar . Many posters thought she was a Bitch. Though there were some who adamently defended her. I often wondered if the negative reaction was gender related . The male counter part of this series was never subjected to the amount of criticism Nikita recieved for similar actions. Is it harder for us to see female characters become hardened? And is this judgement Fair?
It is still relatively new in television and even in movies (10 maybe 20 years) to see female action characters. Sigourney Weaver in Alien being one of the first. Men have been doing it forever. It is acceptable for them to be portrayed as "Hard" As a matter of fact that's what we want to see in our male heroes. Showing an "Action/man" who is sensitive would be outside the norm. We still don't want to see Clint Eastwood crying. I think Michael Landon in "Little House on the Prairie" made it acceptable for men to cry on television at all. He cried all the time. I did love it though.
Yet I read50 or more years ago that John Wayne hated Gary Cooper portrayal in "High Noon" because the character showed fear. Wayne thought he was a wimp. I'll bet a lot of men in that era felt the same as Wayne. They were not used to seeing men portrayed realistically. Even though if they had been put in the same situation as the character in "High Noon" they would have felt and reacted the same way.
I Think we are seeing the same audience reaction today with buffy. As a audience we are used to seeing women showing their sensitivity, regardless of the situation . That is not to say that we are not allowed to be tough . But I would argue that many would prefer women to be portrayed as Sensitive with a sprinkle of Toughness. And keep a check on the toughness. That's fine but is it realistic. If put in the situations that Buffys' had to endure would our sensitivities not suffer. Our situations create who we are.
Buffy was 16 , forced to kill. She lives in death and carnage. If she runs from her role she loses . If she accepts it she is forced to make choices about Life and Death and she still seems to lose.
While the show deals in metaphors. It also deals with real emotions. The metaphors distance us as an audience. It makes it easier for us to accept. It is however the real emotions ,that are portrayed, that grab us and won't let us hide in the fantasy. Some people don't like that.
Will continue ....Part II
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I like what you say. -- HonorH, 22:17:44 10/16/02 Wed
It really *is* the first time we see a female action hero this young. It's realistic that she would have trouble emotionally.
I also like what you say about it being easier to accept Spike struggling toward the light than it is to accept Buffy struggling with darkness. Every kindness Spike shows is lauded, while his cruelties go unremarked. Conversely, every cruelty Buffy shows is magnified, while her kindess and virtues earn a big yawn. It goes to our expectations: Buffy is expected to be the hero, to do things right, and when she doesn't manage to live up to our expectations, the fandom turns on her. Spike, OTOH, never had the weight of those expectations. We never expected him to get this far. So he, while not being nearly as moral as Buffy, gets more praise for the virtue he does show, while she gets lambasted for falling short of an impossible ideal. The Hero's Curse, I call it.
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Re: I like what you say. -- Rufus, 23:23:23 10/16/02 Wed
Every kindness Spike shows is lauded, while his cruelties go unremarked. Conversely, every cruelty Buffy shows is magnified, while her kindess and virtues earn a big yawn. It goes to our expectations: Buffy is expected to be the hero, to do things right, and when she doesn't manage to live up to our expectations, the fandom turns on her. Spike, OTOH, never had the weight of those expectations. We never expected him to get this far.
And some people have forgotten just how much Buffy has done to help Spike.....I'd start with her not killing him just on principle. I'm enjoying Spikes journey, to hopefully light, but I don't have to at the expense of Buffy or Xander....or anyone who may be mean to Spike. It diminishes Spike to compare his past deeds as a murderous vampire to Buffy not holding his hand instead of attempting to save a student. And sure Buffy may have rolled her eyes.....but she is used to a strong Spike, and if we want to compare....Spike isn't always sweetness and light. For his journey to mean anything, Spike has to be treated in a way that includes not ignores the good and the bad he has done.
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Re: I like what you say. -- rabbit, 12:26:56 10/17/02 Thu
I like what is being said here. It goes right along with my concern that we've become too invested in our favorite characters at the expense of the story. And I remember La Femme Nikita, even watched it a couple of times. It is hard for someone like me, who is older and therefore did not grow up with the attitudes that women can be independent and forceful (I learned) to look at the hardness without being concerned. But at least I'm aware of that bias and try to step back from it and understand what I am really reacting to. I'm afraid that isn't the norm. And I for one am very grateful that ME is trying to bring a bit of realism to this fantasy world. Hero's and heroines are better role models if they are allowed to be human.. IMO
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Re: I like what you say. -- Tamara, 20:59:06 10/17/02 Thu
I wouldnt say Buffy not killing Spike is evidence of her compassion. Maybe Im just cynical but the only reason she didnt stake Spike was because James Marsters had a contract. I mean in Out Of My Mind Buffy visiting Spike to kill him off made sense. He had tried to get the chip out proving he was still a danger and he tried to kill her. It turned out Buffy threatening to kill Spike was just a dream and her keeping him around made no sense at all. So I think it was just poetice license that she didnt kill him not evidence of her great compassion. It actually offends me more to see Buffy using Spike as a punching bag than it would offend me to see her stake her enemy in an honourable way.
What gets me is that Spike is willing to take all the blame for what went down last year and Buffy is happy to let him. That is just plain unappealing to me. I am going to feel disconnected from Buffy if I am watching her use and mistreat a man who loves her. Writers interviews telling us were wrong to support Spike and we should hate him and love Buffy havent exactly convinced me. And no Spike isnt always sweetness and light. But regardless the writers should understand people are not going to like seeing Buffy roll her eyes with Spike after witnessing all the pain he has suffered. I mean we have him grabbing his head crying please make it stop begging now. And I am supposed to smile when Buffy says he stinks or when she rolls her eyes at his catatonia. Not gonna happen.
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I'd like to dispute one thing. -- Isabel, 12:13:21 10/20/02 Sun
"Maybe Im just cynical but the only reason she didnt stake Spike was because James Marsters had a contract. "
James Marsters once commented in an interview that Joss has told him that if the story requires that they kill Spike, they'll kill him. Being under contract means that the actors can't take jobs that conflict with their working on the show, NOT that the writers can't write them out if they need to.
Not that I disagree that Spike couldn't have been staked during Out of My Mind. Remember, that was the episode where it started to be clear to Buffy that her Mom was seriously ill. Also, it was the episode after Riley's confession to Xander that Buffy didn't really love him. He's seriously insecure and trying to hide it, when he's just had his heart surgery turning him into "Joe Normal". Buffy leaves him in the hospital to walk back to his room alone to go home to check on her Mom.
Darn those HMOs. He should have spent at least a couple of days in the hospital after heart surgery.
Buffy was starting to compartmentalize her life at that point with her Mom as most important, followed by Slaying, then Riley, then her friends. Staking Spike was way at the bottom because he still couldn't bite anybody.
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"As a real person wouldn't you change? Harden? Close your emotions?" -- ZachsMind, 22:21:03 10/16/02 Wed
It is perhaps important to point out that this hardness is what causes her to fail in romantic relationships. It seems throughout the series if she gets too close to someone she gets broken in some way. It's the rose and the thorn. You want to reach out and touch it, then you do and you just get bloodied.
Then she turns hard and her friends turn on her. There's the scene in the first half of season six, where Willow finds herself almost ecstatic that Buffy's angry about something, because it's the first time Willow's observed Buffy showing true emotion since Willow brought her back from the dead. Willow thinks this is an encouraging step towards Buffy returning to 'normal' whatever that might be. So Willow tries to cultivate it, encourage the anger, by getting Buffy angry at her.
WILLOW: Okay ... uh, let me make you mad again. Uh ... ready? Um ... Last semester, I slept with Riley.
BUFFY: And you know I really doubt it.
WILLOW: Caught me. Big fib. To ... cover up the sleazy affair I had with Angel.
BUFFY: Will ... what the hell are you doing?
WILLOW: Pissing you off.
BUFFY: Yes, true. Why?
WILLOW: Well, 'cause, you know, since you've ... been back, you haven't exactly been big with ... the whole range of human emotions thing.
BUFFY: (blankly) What do you mean?
Her friends can't even accept her. They don't realize that going around committing acts of violence against evil creatures, thus causing yourself to die at least twice in the process, is going to harden you. Willow and Anya have a discussion about this very thing in last week's episode, because both of them are noticing it happening to themselves too.
ANYA: Well, causing pain sounds really cool, I know, but turns out it's really upsetting. Didn't use to be, but now it is.
WILLOW: Is it like you're scared of losing that feeling again. And that having it be OK to hurt people. And then you're not in charge of the power anymore because it's in charge of you?
ANYA: Wow, that was really over-dramatically stated, but, yeah, that's it.
WILLOW: I get it. Believe me.
Anya had a cold heart for a millenium as a vengeance demon. She was separated from how her actions were adversely affecting others, because she felt they deserved it anyway and phooey on them if they can dish it out but can't take it. But she's been human now and she knows what it truly means to be scorned. I mean, supposedly that troll guy scorned her which is why she started being a demon in the first place, but that wasn't really scorn compared to being jilted at the wedding altar. She wasn't scorned by some evil guy in some evil way. It was just out of a series of events beyond any one person's control. I mean Xander didn't mean to hurt her, but he believed hurting her a little now would be better than what he feared he might to do her in the future. He figured that would be worse, so he chose the lesser of two evils. And now Anya's suffering for it. She's FEELING scorn for real, for the first time. Her heart used to be cold and hard, but now it is no longer. So she can't inflict evil on others like she did before. She understands the ramifications, and the injustice.
Willow lost Tara, and her heart ripped and whatever darkness that dwells within her saw its opening and took it. Don't feel IT said to her. Don't let Tara's death get the better of you. Take this and turn cold and hard and use your powers to... End the world? A strange line of thinking, but if you watch closely you can see how she got there. First she dissed Osiris who had helped her before but wouldn't help her now. Then the darkness in her seemed to tell her if you kill Warren, all this pain will go away. So she killed him, but that wasn't enough. She turned her focus to Andrew and Jonathan, thinking that might make the pain go away. Then her friends got between her and making the pain go away, so she tried making them go away too. Then she got that spark of magic from Giles, and could sense for the first time not only her pain, but the pain of everyone on the face of the Earth. "YOU POOR BASTARDS!" The suffering had to end. Her mind had become so irrational, fighting her own suffering, that she believed the only way to end her suffering was to put an end to all suffering once and for all.
Buffy is seeking to find a balance. Whereas Anya's on one side of the spectrum, having been all cold and hard and is no longer, and Willow recently experienced the opposite extreme of that spectrum, The Vampire Slayer must find a balance in order to get her job done. You do your job. You go home. However, any man or woman who spent time last winter or spring at Ground Zero will tell you -- you can't be in a place where there's so much carnage and be able to just shrug it off and go home. It stays with you. It lingers. It gets under your skin.
When Buffy slammed that sword through Angel and sent him to that hell dimension. When Buffy bonked Parker on the head. When Buffy perpetually kept Riley at a distance no matter how hard he tried to open her heart. When Buffy told Spike it's over. She can't allow any man to open her heart too much, because then she wouldn't be able to do her job. Sometimes you gotta be cold in a cold world. Sometimes you can learn to be soft, but Buffy doesn't believe she can afford that. It hurts too much. So she keeps her defenses up and doesn't let anybody in. When she does let her guard down, she gets dissed.
And then people call her a bitch. Well, she's a bitch then. She doesn't care if people call her a bitch, so long as she can do her job. Follow her calling. Answer the call of her destiny. Makes perfect sense from her perspective, even if other people don't appreciate it. The prophecies say only the Slayer can stand alone against the forces of evil, and maybe ultimately that's why, because so long as she allows her heart to not grow completely cold and hard, she's still vulnerable. The evil can still find her weakness. Maybe that's what ultimately killed all the other slayers. They didn't get hard enough.
But has she grown cold and hard? No. The second time she died, it was to sacrifice herself for Dawn. Dawnie's the one person who keeps Buffy from going completely cold and hard, but it's what caused her to lose before. Since then she's proven that yeah she's still pretty cold and hard but there's a balance she's learning to maintain. Whether that's for the best, or if she's still got an Achilles' heel that the forces of evil can use against her, well, we still got the rest of this season to find that out. =)
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Sometimes I wonder what Buffy would say to those who debate her endlessly. -- HonorH, 22:35:21 10/16/02 Wed
Probably something to the effect of, "You try being me, and then we'll talk."
I have to agree with you, Zach: Buffy's problems with men are one reason she has trouble opening up emotionally. She loved her father, but he grew more and more distant. She loved Angel completely, but he left. She tried to get over him with Parker, who used her. She tried to love Riley, but couldn't let herself go. Next step: using Spike to feel better. Didn't work. She lost only respect for herself. Even Giles left. The only constant male in her life is Xander, and small wonder she doesn't want to become romantically involved with him!
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Big brother syndrome -- ZachsMind, 22:48:19 10/16/02 Wed
I know this one from first hand experience. There's women who have such trouble with guys that when they find one guy who honestly and sincerely treats them nice, the girl doesn't wanna do anything that would jeopardize that. Getting involved with guys tends to cause problems, so they keep one guy around who no matter what will be there for her. It's one of those many strange paradoxes with women. They'll go out with all these losers because for some reason they don't feel they deserve better, then there's this one guy who hangs around and offers better, and they relegate him to the "friend zone" so they'll never lose that guy. Then eventually that guy gets bonked on the head enough times in his attempts to get past the Zone, that he just walks away. And the woman's left scratching her head wondering why.
Xander's relegated in Buffy's mind to the "big brother" she never had. So there's no hope for B/X action there at present. That might change later in this season if Buffy opens her eyes, but it's been seven years so I for one am not holding my breath. Besides, in television whenever main characters shack up, it closes many opportunities for storytelling, and restricts the potential the writers have for playing with ideas. X-Files is a supreme example. Moonlighting and Remington Steele come to mind. There's others. The show Jumps The Shark when the sexual tension between two lead characters gets resolved. It's better to keep the sexual tension unrealized because as a writer it's easier that way to expand the love interests and draw new blood into the center of the picture. I personally don't see anything happening between Xander & Buffy, Xander & Willow, or Willow & Buffy, in the television series anyway.
That's what slash is for. =) To allow the sexual tension among the audience to be realized. *smirk* For me personally? I'm not into slash. I think they should all just get a dog. But then I'm more of a plotter than a shipper.
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Quote of the week! -- Masq, 05:07:50 10/17/02 Thu
"I'm not into slash. I think they should all just get a dog."
*snerk*
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Oh great!!!! Now try to get that image out of my mind.....;) -- Rufus, 05:12:15 10/17/02 Thu
Who kinda fears for this dog Zach's Mind came up with...:):):)
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Git yer minds outta dah gutter bois & goils! LOL! -NT -- ZachsMind, 07:47:43 10/17/02 Thu
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LOL!! -- shadowkat, 11:56:51 10/17/02 Thu
"I'm not into slash, they should all get a dog."
Oh please no. Don't give these people pets. Unless of course you have something against dogs?
The fate of pets on this show:
1. Rocky eaten by a worm
2. Miss Kitty amongst the missing
3. Dru's canary dead
No, no...I like dogs.
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Someday we'll find out... -- Wisewoman, 15:08:50 10/17/02 Thu
...that Ms. Kitty Fantastico has been secretly living with Clem all these years...
;o) dub
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Re: Someday we'll find out... -- BriarRose, 15:31:22 10/17/02 Thu
Must add to this thread on this subject!*L
I'm with WiseWoman! I think Miss Kitty Fantastico will appear when she is ready to add to their lives and when she is safe from neglect.*S*
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Regarding Miss Kitty's fate-- -- HonorH, 16:14:55 10/17/02 Thu
Maddog of SunS posted this very intriguing, dark fanfic to answer exactly that question:
Baby Steps
Creepily enough, I can believe this one.
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Re: Regarding Miss Kitty's fate-- -- DEN, 16:40:48 10/17/02 Thu
As both a cat lover and a Willow 'shipper, I can only call the story spot-on. In many ways it would have been far more effective than the killing of the fawn!
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Re: Regarding Miss Kitty's fate--(Casting spoiler for BtVS S7, kind of) -- Arethusa, 12:30:45 10/18/02 Fri
One day Willow will visit Tara's grave and Miss Kitty will be sitting there, ready to go home.
Miss Kitty will insist on sleeping next to Willow and going with her whenever Willow goes into battle.
The cat will show extreme fondness for Dawn, and tease Spike by pretending to sink a claw into his hand.
She will show a little jealousy if Willow dates, but not much, because she wants Willow to be happy.
And just like Whedon promised, Tara will be back. Just in a different form.
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Re: Someday we'll find out... -- JM, 17:19:33 10/17/02 Thu
I suspect that Tara got caught with the cat by SDU and Ms. Kitty had to go live with Willow's parents. (Just like my sister's cat.) They she went with them to Europe when they went on sabatical.
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Willow's fish left as a love note from Angelus... -- Vickie, 16:52:53 10/17/02 Thu
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They have a dog -- vh, 13:38:09 10/18/02 Fri
His name is Spike.
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Re: Buffy lovers -- luna, 08:03:45 10/17/02 Thu
There are a couple of issues--the men the character Buffy is drawn to, and the relationships the audience likes to see. It's hard to remember that in a sense we create the story by our responses (not as much as we might wish somtimes, but ongoing media like this really does shape itself to the viewers). So Buffy's psychology works as HonorH says, but then also we like to see her with Angel and Spike to sort of make real the part of her that is drawn to darkness, just as their attraction to her makes real their attraction to the light.
With so many of the characters, it's that inclusion of opposites that's so appealing. The "weakness" or kindness we see surfacing sometimes in Spike even in earlier seasons, as well as the strength that surfaces in Dawn this season, the evil manifesting even in Scoobies or Buffy, goodness in demons like Anya and that guy with the floppy ears.
So we probably won't see Buffy and Xander together (at least not until the show finale, if then) for that reason too--it's another kind of tension besides or underlying the sexual tension, and it's one of the reasons we watch.
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Another approach... -- ZachsMind, 08:33:34 10/17/02 Thu
It's not necessarily the darkness that draws Buffy to characters like Angel or Spike. It's the potential for light that she sees within their shadow. The reason why she ultimately had to turn Spike away, was because although she saw light potentil within him, he wasn't properly cultivating that and she felt her very presence in his life was not encouraging the light, so she told him to go because though she was hoping for him to change, deep down she believed he never would.
As Spike put it, she didn't have that "spark" but in reality she didn't see the spark within him. Now he's gone and put his soul back where it was, and it's only made him worse. It's like a guy goes and buys a suit to make himself more presentable to a lady, but he walks out in public with it and realizes too late that it's a poorly cut polyester suit which makes him look worse than before.
Spike thought the soul would impress Buffy, but it's only made him look worse in her eyes, because he can't handle it. And it's also made him question whether or not he even would want to continue the relationship with Buffy, now that he's aware what he's done. How he's "hurt the girl."
It's not the darkness that attracts Buffy, it's the light inside the darkness that draws her to characters like Angel or Spike.
Like a moth to a flame.
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Re: And yet another -- Arethusa, 09:10:10 10/17/02 Thu
"It's like a guy goes and buys a suit to make himself more presentable to a lady, but he walks out in public with it and realizes too late that it's a poorly cut polyester suit which makes him look worse than before. "
Or he finds out that the woman doesn't care what suit he's wearing, because she never really wanted him in the first place. It's harsh, from the guy's perspective, but she never told him to buy a suit.
"It's not the darkness that attracts Buffy, it's the light inside the darkness that draws her to characters like Angel or Spike. "
Not sure I agree. Buffy fell for Angel before she knew he had a dark side. She thought he was a mysterious, handsome stranger who was trying to help fight vampires, like her-when he felt like it. (Remember, he wouldn't go under the mausoleum with her.) He was a schoolgirl's fantasy. And I think she was attracted to Spike's darkness, not his light. Not healthy, of course, like several of her decisions in S6. Spike told her she was rolling in the dirt with him, slumming in a sense. She was experimenting with her dark side, literally flirting with it-which reminds me of a discussion a while back about the danger of flirting with one's dark side-will it innoculate you against making bad decisions, or will it overtake and submerge you? Buffy spent a year drowning, not waving, but is stronger for facing some of her innner demon(s). Exploring how much stronger she has become, and how much internalization of her dark side she actually achieved, will be part of her journey this year, imo. And Spike is an important part of that journey, since her reactions to him are some of our best clues to this question. That is one reason why some people are so concerned about Buffy's reaction to Spike. Her personal growth will be reflected in how she treats Spike, and we hope her suffering was not in vain.
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Agree well said. -- shadowkat, 11:51:08 10/17/02 Thu
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Re: And yet another -- Tamara, 21:06:07 10/17/02 Thu
Im not sure about your example of a man getting a suit but not being told to do so by the lady he was trying to win over. Buffy never told Spike to get a soul. But she did spend all year telling him he was filth because he lacked a soul. She drummed that opinion into his head with beatings. It seems a little easy for her to be able to say now that she never asked Spike to get a soul and his decision has nothing to do with her.
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Buffys Journey and emotional realism -- Artemis, 00:51:52 10/17/02 Thu
Buffy dies for less than a minute and we see one of the first big changes in her persona. One episode, less than a minute. She dies. The self is gone. She loses control of her life. And for the next episode for a full hour, we see the repercussions. It angers her. She denys her feelings. She tries to control her feelings. She treats others, Xander in the dance sequence, Willow, Angel, as if their feelings aren't real. Her feelings aren't real, why should theirs be . This happens for one full episode. I wasn't on the boards then, But if the reactions that are present today are any indication, I'll bet many people called Buffy a bitch. But looking at it from a realistic perspective and not fantasy, can anyone really say at age 17 and having no control over your very life, they wouldn't lose themselves like Buffy?
Cut to season five. Reality is altered. You are given a sister that you know is not real . Your mother dies, from something you can't fight. You die. Not for a minute but for 147 days. talk about control being taken away . Some would argue that "Her Death" was a choice. I might agree, though look at the alternative Buffy had. If she had killed Dawn or if she had chosen to let the universe be overcome , she would have still been percieved as a Bitch. Buffy really can't win. Being a leader is a Bitch.
But let's say "Death" was her choice. That too was taken away . "Heaven" was taken away. Peace was taken away.
Now if Buffy was angry or confused for being dead for a minute in season one. I applaud ME for having the guts to show the depth of her confusion after being dead for 147 days. That emotional realism fascinates me. We don't see that on television.
Who is Buffy? I see her as a 21 year old woman who is forced to make life and death decisions every day. She is a woman who was abandoned by her father . Her reality has been altered (Dawn)and she is aware of it. So in essence her emotions have been manipulated. She is a woman who was raised by a loving mother who taught her through example about denial. She is a woman who was mentored by a father figure who taught her how to kill Vampires and his perspective of them, as he knew it. He also taught her through example how to keep her emotions in check. And I would say he taught her by the very fact that he left her at her lowest point, that you really only have yourself to rely on.(Perhaps this is why she only knows how to do this for Spike) Buffy is also a woman who is embraced by two friends who she worries about constantly because they place themselves in danger by being her friend. She is a woman who died. She is a woman who fell in love with "the enemy" and was force to kill him and lose him because of elements beyond her control.
She is a woman who lost her mother at twenty one and was forced to raise her sister. She is a woman who died. and was pull back without control. A woman who lost her way and her emotions because of all of these things. And who unfortunately during this delicate time was persued by someone who loved her. Someone who she was taught was evil and who in the past had tried to kill her.
Did we see bitterness? Did we see anger and abuse? Are we still seeing coldness? Yes!!yes! yes! .. It's realistic . What do you expect?
I'm generally considered a nice person by those who meet me . But now after reading some of the post about Buffy. I think I must be a Bitch. Yes I give to charities, but not enough. I definitely roll my eyes at times and don't even try to talk to me in the morning. I do these things and I've never even tried to save the world. I must be awful. All kidding aside. The fact that Buffy is still trying to be a good friend to anybody. Even if she does cut herself off . Is just one of the things that makes her so heroic to me.
I think Spikes journey is easier for us because we don't have to look at the dark places in ourselves in order to understand it or embrace it . We want to embrace it. Yet Joss has repeatedly said that he gives us what we need .
I'd argue that those who can empathize with Buffy are those who have looked into themselves at some point and seen their own darkness. Understand it, and have unified it with the light. I think Buffy will do this too.
My last point Helpless reminded me very much of Season one.(My least favorite season ) Yet what was interesting to me was that the situation though similar to season one seemed to amplify how much Buffy has changed. She doesn't quite fit. I think this is the point. The innocence of season one mixed in with the emotional changes in Buffy made her appear even colder. I do think this is being done for a reason and will be addressed. JMHO
My God I could have said all of this in two minutes been condemned and sent to the gallows in the time it's taken me to type this out. Back to lurkdom.
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Correction- That's "Help" not "Helpless" -- Artemis, 01:18:42 10/17/02 Thu
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Thank you!!! -- Rahael, 03:00:16 10/17/02 Thu
For posting this. Please don't go back to lurkdom. You just said all sorts of things I wasn't able to articulate.
Firstly, I want to say (with of course the disclaimer that this is not a claim to an authoritative perspective on how killing people changes you, nor am I claiming that this is a definitive opinion, it is only mine) that people who live on the frontline, whether they are saving people or killing people - yes it changes you. It is very very hard to be a good person, and even the best of us can make bad decisions. To deny this is to devalue the difficulty of living a life of moral integrity.
Even I, who had nothing to do with killing or saving, who simply lived in a place where people did both, I too changed. And for about 6 years afterward, I had to live with the people I loved telling me that I was selfish. Coldhearted. Unkind. Unmoved by the lives of others. It's because when the world has scarred you so many times, you become so so frightened, that the next time you'll break, and that will be the end of you.
And now you have reminded me why when I first started watching the programme, I saw something that no book or any other television show had shown me. That quality about Buffy, that struggle within, her attempt to be a good human being despite doing things that dehumanised her. That story resonates deep within. It's powerful. And for that power, and that complexity to be there, I can handle her not being sweet and nice (though she can be both). Give me the hardness, the cruelty, the compassion, the generosity; give me courage and cowardice! Tell me that human beings can be capable of all that, all at the same time!
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Re: Thank you!!! -- Rufus, 03:55:18 10/17/02 Thu
Firstly, I want to say (with of course the disclaimer that this is not a claim to an authoritative perspective on how killing people changes you, nor am I claiming that this is a definitive opinion, it is only mine) that people who live on the frontline, whether they are saving people or killing people - yes it changes you. It is very very hard to be a good person, and even the best of us can make bad decisions. To deny this is to devalue the difficulty of living a life of moral integrity.
You speak about one of the things that happens in the making of a monster. No matter your perspective in death, observer, participant......killing changes you and anyone left standing around you. What happens, withdraw into a shell to protect your fear, that doubt, guilt.....do you fight any way you know how, those monsters who kill for fun, for greed.....or do you begin to enjoy what you've seen what you've done and join the ranks of those who kill for enjoyment? Killing changes people, even if you kill to protect yourself or others, most people, most feel revulsion over the idea of killing, it's a hard thing to do for those who still can feel, still care. Buffy's response to the killing of innocents is to stop it with all the force needed. Once you have seen violent death, or participated in violent death you are changed forever....the only thing is you have the power to decide what you want to do about what you know because of it.
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Re: Making a monster -- luna, 08:19:23 10/17/02 Thu
"Buffy's response to the killing of innocents is to stop it with all the force needed. Once you have seen violent death, or participated in violent death you are changed forever....the only thing is you have the power to decide what you want to do about what you know because of it."
But her response is much more complex than that. We could say that about Faith at certain times, too, and even the first Slayer. What is different about Buffy is that she is NOT a monster. She struggles with her feelings, sometimes denies them, but compassion remains a part of her nature. The end of both this week and last week and even her job this season really focus on her compassion. The question that I think still puzzles many viewers is why she has so little compassion for Spike. Well, he did try to rape her. Buffy forgives Willow for killing one person who had killed more than one innocent, but she sees only the vampire Spike, not William. Or maybe she sees William as pretty much like the early Xander, who knows, but she's not ready to have compassion for Spike. But maybe he will earn it and/or she will learn how to have it. That's still not to say she'll love him, but maybe she's also finding it hard to have compassion because she's so attracted to him. She can't hold him at a middle distance.
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UnMaking a monster -- alcibiades, 11:30:14 10/17/02 Thu
The question that I think still puzzles many viewers
is why she has so little compassion for Spike. Well, he did try to rape her. Buffy forgives Willow for killing one person who had killed more than one innocent...
That's not it. It's not the AR.
She is much more compassionate to Spike in Lessons and Beneath You before she finds out about the soul and the moment she finds out about the soul than after she knows about the soul. And the AR was just as true then.
I think the fact that he is no longer a monster is what terrifies her. And the repercussions from that. Because if evil can become good, can good become evil. All of the lines she knows have been changed, just like the basement where the hallways cannot be followed on the map because they keep on changing -- the lines move. Nothing is solid, nothing has substance.
...but she sees only the vampire Spike, not William.
As for Buffy being unable to see William:
when Buffy is confronting Spike in the basement first William appears whose way of dealing with the pain is to reach for a zen state where he doesn't have to deal with it -- shades of his past in 1880 when he doesn't want to see the ugliness
around him -- then he starts to talk to Buffy and is helpful, saying, yes, something evil is here.
Then W/S turns his head, the camera angle turns, he turns his accent and turns into Spike and says, I'm a bad man, William is a bad man, referring to the other guy in him in the 3rd person.
So that what William was trying to tell her about
the evil present in the basement gets lost.
So is Spike preventing William from communicating the important thing about the evil in the basement? Or does he feel he needs to communicate with her desperately about how he feels about the AR?
I am pretty sure it is Spike who wants Buffy to stay which is interesting since it is William who doesn't want her to interrupt him, doesn't want her near him just then.
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Willow, Spike and Faith & the Double Standard -- Malandanza, 00:02:02 10/18/02 Fri
"The question that I think still puzzles many viewers is why she has so little compassion for Spike. Well, he did try to rape her. Buffy forgives Willow for killing..."
Buffy has had many attempts on her life and she has treated them rather cavalierly. Spike's own misconduct -- ranging from attempting to kill Buffy to kidnapping Riley's doctor (nearly resulting in Riley's death) and Buffy had, if not forgiven Spike, at least forgotten the crimes. Willow didn't just kill one person -- she was ready to turn Dawn back into a glowing ball of energy -- why the instant forgiveness for Willow and not for Spike? Surely threatening to kill Dawn is worse than threatening to rape Buffy -- especially for a self-sacrificing hero like Buffy.
The answer lies with Faith. Buffy conceived an irrational hatred for her former friend -- following Faith to LA and threatening to beat her to death if she apologized. And for what? A body swap and sex with Riley. Buffy has been treated worse (even by her friends). Why so unforgiving with Faith? We don't have to wonder -- Buffy tells us. Faith made Buffy feel like a victim, and that, for Buffy, is unforgivable.
Which brings us back to the attempted rape -- Buffy crawling on the floor, begging for mercy from her heedless assailant. It's Faith all over again -- Buffy is a victim. Except it's not quite the same -- Buffy had some closure with Faith on her LA field trip. She confronted Faith and watched as Faith was taken off to prison. With Spike, it's different.
Buffy made a career out of excusing Angel for Angelus' actions. They aren't the same person -- the soul is Angel, the demon is Angelus. How can Buffy blame the entity formerly known as Spike for Spike's actions? Instead of righteous indignation, she feels guilt, believing that she had some part in reducing Spike to a gibbering idiot, she pities the thing he has become -- on the whole, she'd like to avoid him altogether. But she can't -- he's set up house in the basement of the school where she works. He knows something about the evil forces in the Hellmouth and lives are at stake.
Add to that the politics of rape. Can ME brush the attempted rape under the rug? Pretend it never happened -- on a feminist show? The AR has to be treated seriously; Buffy and her friends cannot welcome back Spike the way they welcomed Willow (all Willow did was kill a couple of people). I'm not sure what the VictimSpike adherents expected Buffy to do when Spike returned (and he's not even Spike any longer -- Buffy had a relationship with the demon, not the man) but I do think that Buffy's treatment of Spike has been reasonable and in character.
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Re: Willow, Spike and Faith & the Double Standard -- Scroll, 14:38:08 10/18/02 Fri
Thank you, Malandanza, you really clarified things for me about Spike. Yes, I think Faith is the best comparison for Spike in regards to how Buffy treats these two. They both act as Buffy's shadow self, the thing she can't really trust or forgive or accept. While I don't think Buffy has ever totally relegated Angelus' crimes to Angelus and not Angel, I do think Buffy has had a safety zone in thinking (rightly, IMO) that Angel with a soul wouldn't have done all the things Angelus had done.
Of everyone, Buffy is most unforgiving when it comes to Faith - because Faith is Buffy. Spike spent most of early S6 being Buffy's confidant, then later became her lover, a position of great intimacy. While I don't think Buffy ever loved Spike, she did feel close to him. She probably felt that he could understand to a certain degree, especially about her inner darkness. Just as Faith, as the Slayer, could understand Buffy's darkness and need to hunt/kill. Then to have that position of trust betrayed with the AR -- I don't think Buffy is ready to forgive that yet.
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Re: Thank you!!! And I raise you a Thank you!!! -- Artemis, 20:59:35 10/17/02 Thu
"... You just said all sorts of things I wasn't able to articulate"
I disagree. I think you just articulated it very well. Your words moved me.
Thank you
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Re: Buffys Journey and emotional realism -- Rufus, 03:27:44 10/17/02 Thu
My last point Helpless reminded me very much of Season one.(My least favorite season ) Yet what was interesting to me was that the situation though similar to season one seemed to amplify how much Buffy has changed. She doesn't quite fit. I think this is the point. The innocence of season one mixed in with the emotional changes in Buffy made her appear even colder. I do think this is being done for a reason and will be addressed. JMHO
Yes, I agree....in season one Buffy was a student in season seven she is part of the school itself. Instead of learing she is attempting to make things easier for the students (only about three years or so younger than she) to navigate life. The only problem with this is that sometimes all the physical strength and determination can't change some things. Cassie died it was her time, so who learned something? What new way of being can Buffy learn from the senseless death of Cassie? Her growing realization that she may not make a difference after all, just change the timing of the inevitable. So why this, why now?
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Senseless deaths (spoilers, for Help) -- Rahael, 03:48:41 10/17/02 Thu
"Cassie died it was her time, so who learned something? What new way of being can Buffy learn from the senseless death of Cassie? Her growing realization that she may not make a difference after all, just change the timing of the inevitable. So why this, why now?"
Just wanted to make a quick comment, inspired by Caroline's and Age's posts on the board.
Cassie's death wasn't senseless, because life isn't rendered senseless by death. Death gives meaning to life. Cassie lived what life she did have in the best way she could; such a life is a very meaningful one. Perhaps her foreknowledge allowed her to do this. This points us to Tara's death. Tara was taken away 'before her time', yes. But Warren couldn't make her life meaningless. He can't do that to her, because she was a wise, good person, who did justice to herself throughout her life. That's all that matters.
Buffy did make a difference - she allowed Cassie to die an infinitely better death than the one she faced at the hands of those cruel men, thus showing us that this is a rerun of Tara's death. Only this time Warren didn't get to kill her, she left in a less violent way.
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Re: Senseless deaths (spoilers, for Help) -- Rufus, 03:58:14 10/17/02 Thu
Buffy did make a difference - she allowed Cassie to die an infinitely better death than the one she faced at the hands of those cruel men, thus showing us that this is a rerun of Tara's death. Only this time Warren didn't get to kill her, she left in a less violent way.
Sounds like something I wrote responding to Rob. Question, does Buffy understand that yet? Does she know that sometimes the act of caring enough to try to change what we can't let happen, makes a difference?
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Re: Senseless deaths (spoilers, for Help) -- celticross, 11:56:40 10/17/02 Thu
It seems to me Buffy needs to have a long talk with Angel about his epiphany.
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Re: Senseless deaths (spoilers, for Help) -- Dochawk, 17:19:49 10/17/02 Thu
First off I think Dawn said it better (or as well) as Angel could have. And I think that was the purpose of the final scene. To show us that Buffy does have some understanding that she helps. On her way to the final showdown I think she has quite a few small ones left in her.
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Wonderful essay Artemis! -- ponygirl, 07:47:37 10/17/02 Thu
Beautifully put, all of it. A great exploration of all that has happened to Buffy and how it has effected her. I agree with all that you say except that my concern, which is based only on this season and hey, we're only 4 episodes in, is that I as a viewer am not feeling the same connection to Buffy. It's as though the distance that has grown between Buffy and the people in her life has extended to her audience as well. In When She Was Bad, we understood what was going on with her, we saw her dreams, her fears and if we still didn't get it, Giles spelled it out. For all of season 6 we saw her struggle to connect, but we knew the reason very early on, and again in case we didn't get it she sang it out for us in OMWF. Now there doesn't seem to really be a problem, she's just become very very good at her job, so is there even an awareness on her part or for the other characters of this coldness? I hope, that as you say, this is being done for a specific reason and will be addressed soon. Sweeps! The one reason I look forward to November.
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Awareness -- Artemis, 21:19:01 10/17/02 Thu
"... Is there even an awareness on her part or for the other characters of this coldness?"
First up Thanks for the response.
In answer to this question, I think OMWF gives us some indication that she knows she's changed. As for the awareness of the others. I don't know. I'm inclined to think that they were into their own baggage. And maybe this year especially when Willow is fully integrated back into the fold, we might see this explored. Who really knows. I just go with the flow.
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Re: Buffys Journey and emotional realism [spoilers for Angel 4.02] -- Slain, 13:58:56 10/17/02 Thu
This is a great essay, Artemis. I like the angle muchly - it's very refreshing.
But I do think some of the strong female character in AtS have lacked a sympathetic angel - Lilah is likeable, but I found Justine to be someone I enjoyed seeing get locked in a cage and overpowered by Wesley - whereas I would have hated to see that happen to Faith. One of the great things about strong female characters in BtVS is that while they're tougher, 'tougher than men' you might say, they're also very funny and sexy, and likeable.
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Re: Buffys Journey and emotional realism -- shadowkat, 12:36:16 10/18/02 Fri
First off - very powerful post Artemis. I tend to agree.
(I also emphathise with Buffy, in my love/hate relationship with the character, because like Buffy, I am a bitch. Agressive and take no prisoners. But you sort of have to be to work and live in NYC. ;-) And to be honest, it is Buffy's bitchiness that makes me like her the most.)
You bring up an interesting point in your essay that from my scan of the board no one else has touched on: the sick mother/distant father theme that runs throughout Btvs:
"Who is Buffy? I see her as a 21 year old woman who is forced to make life and death decisions every day. She is a woman who was abandoned by her father . Her reality has been altered (Dawn)and she is aware of it. So in essence her emotions have been manipulated. She is a woman who was raised by a loving mother who taught her through example about denial. She is a woman who was mentored by a father figure who taught her how to kill Vampires and his perspective of them, as he knew it. He also taught her through example how to keep her emotions in check. And I would say he taught her by the very fact that he left her at her lowest point, that you really only have yourself to rely on."
Who is Joyce? We know so little about her before she dies. A single mother with a child she doesn't understand. But loves dearly. In the first season of the show, Joyce barely registers, and often seems in denial. When I was home for Thanksgiving last year, I got my mother to watch the show with me and she commented on how annoying it was that Joyce didn't appear to know her daughter was out all night fighting vamps, kissing a vamp, sleeping with a vamp or doing half the dangerous stuff she does. My mother didn't like the comment the show was making on mothers. (One that isn't limited to Buffy's who actually appears to be the best mother on the show.) In Season 2, Joyce is in denial mode. Buffy comments in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
how she's beginning to worry about her mother's desire to repress or deny everything. It's not until Becoming PArt II
that Joyce wakes up and Buffy is forced to leave. Joyce literally gives Buffy the ultimatium - if you leave never come back, when she doesn't come back - Joyce blames the surrogate father, Giles.
Joyce realizes later in Season 3, how truly in denial and out of the loop she was when Buffy admits to having been dead for just five minutes. Something Joyce, her own mother never knew.
In Season 6 - Buffy's interactions with Dawn reminded me a lot of Joyce. She either wanted to lock Dawn in a cage and protect her or she wanted to forget about her entirely. Often leaving the discipline to others. Her interactions with Dawn are in a sense foreshadowed in Bad Eggs in Season 2, where Buffy finds herself the single parent of an egg. An egg that ironically doesn't get possession of her because she neglects it to go out slaying, instead of staying home and giving it the opportunity to feed off of her. Willow and Cordelia by contrast - are quickly possessed. Buffy is saved because slaying comes first, the egg second. The same relationship happens with Dawn in Season 6. Slaying comes first. Dawn second. It's not until she realizes she can include Dawn in her life that a balance between the two extremes is found. The same thing happens with Joyce and Buffy in Season 3 and Season 5 - they come together when Buffy starts letting Joyce into her life and Joyce willingly participates. She begins to exclude Joyce again in Graduation Day - in order to protect her and we realize throughout Season 4, how out of the loop Joyce is again - rarely seeing Buffy (This Year's Girl),
and doesn't meet Riley until literally the end of the year. The boyfriend, slaying, school is first. Mom is walled up behind a wall, forgotten. In Season 5, when Mom gets sick - Buffy moves home and once again the two bond. And we see Buffy begin to take on more of her mother's traits - denial regarding Riley's feelings towards her or his problems (may be reminiscent of what happened between Joyce and Hank Summers) and an obsessive focus on protecting Dawn...
How much of our parents traits do we take on really? How responsible are our parents for who we become? Is Joyce responsible for Denial!Buffy and Compassionate!Buffy?
In Season 7, we begin to see Buffy moving away from the Joyce model. She's more involved in Dawn's school. Dawn is actively involved in slaying and in Buffy's life. Buffy appears to be sucessfully incorporating her sister in life more than Joyce was able to incorporate Buffy in hers.
So what has Buffy learned from Joyce? I think both good and bad traits - how to ignore and deny emotional problems or issues, yet also how to forgive and accept others and overlook the bad for the good, how to listen and care about someone. It's both. Part of the pleasure of watching BTVs is the characters are neither one thing or the other - they are both.
Onto Daddy. I've always considered Giles to be the reluctant father. He didn't really want to be a watcher - he became one partly out of family duty and partly out of guilt or atonement for past sins (see Never Kill A Guy on First Date and the Dark Age). He's always been confused about it. When Buffy or anyone else refers to him as a father, he is quick to disagree. At one point claiming rakish uncle, another just Watcher.
Your freudian slip of Helpless was interesting. Because Helpless examines the issues Buffy has with her fathers more than just about any other episode. What does a father teach us? Rules? Discipline? Right and Wrong? Who to trust?
What to believe? Values? And doesn't every or most little girls live for Daddy's approval? What happens in Helpless?
Giles cruely posions Buffy for a test, where she is rendered helpless and must use the mental skills he taught her. Before he does this, two things happen: 1. Buffy's biological father, Hank Summers, stands her up, he cancels on their annual Birthday celebration at the ice capades (first referred to in Nightmares). 2. Buffy asks Giles to take her instead. It's her birthday. She's looking forward to it. But Giles declines. Instead he posions her placing both Buffy and her mother in danger.
Giles does come through in the end of course. And Buffy eventually forgives him. But from Giles she learns she can't trust men or anyone really. As far back as Lie To Me, he conveys this. She must always be on her guard. He also trains her to keep secrets, to not tell people things unless absolutely necessary. And he tells her she must rely on herself and her own instincts. All the information she has on vampires has come from Giles or Angel. Now she's been told not to absolutely trust them, but what else is there? Buffy's knowledge of right and wrong comes from Giles.
Then as you state, when she needs him most? He leaves.
Stating she needs to figure things out on her own. He can't babysit her. No wonder she doesn't call him for help. She so desperately wants his approval. And when she fails...in protecting Tara, defeating Warren, or stopping Willow - it is crushing. She's worried he'll be disappointed. He lets her off the hook and that means everything. But when she asks why she's back - he states the same tried and true phrase :"you have a sacred duty".
Giles however can leave his duty. He can go to England. He can be done. Buffy can never leave her's, she's not done until she dies. And every man she counts on - starting with Hank Summers - leaves or disappoints her or perhaps in her head, she's failed in some way. I think it's the latter.
I think in Buffy's head - Angel, Hank, Giles and Riley all left because she failed, they were disappointed in her.
And she's trying desperately to repair that. To prove something.
In rewatching Help I noticed few interesting parent tid-bits:
1. HomeImprovement Guy (Peter?) uses the following phrase to get Buffy's sympathy: My parents just got divorced.
Buffy gets very sympathetic and then he laughs at her and tells her they are married.
2. Cassie - only sees her Dad one weekend a month. Buffy seemed to gulp at that. She expected Dad to be the villain and for once, surprise, surprise, he's not.
Principal Wood's scenes with Buffy reminded me a great deal of both Giles and Joyce's denials of problems when Buffy went to them for help. In Freshman - Giles says she can handle it herself. In Pack - he questions her overreaction.
Joyce is even more like this.
Finally - emotion. Both Joyce and Giles contain it. Neither are emoters. Giles gets across the need not to show it. To Giles it's a weakness...he hides his emotions behind cleaning glasses or the halting speech or the books or the glass of scotch. Angel also never emoted. Brooded yes. But not emoted. Buffy never knows what he feels. These are the two most influential men in her young life. By the time she reaches college she has incorporated these lessons. If people can't see what you feel? They can't hold your feelings against you.
Now we come to Spike...I think you're right, Buffy is treating Spike in the same manner Giles and Joyce would have treated her or someone in pain. Or at least close to it. But in a way it's different as well. I'm not sure Joyce or Giles would have been as compassionate to the Crazy!Vampire. And thinking on it? I'm not sure how I would deal with the situation myself, if I was Buffy. It's hard to know these things until we are actually in them.
At any rate...not sure I added anything to the discussion.
But I enjoyed your posts, please post more.
SK
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SK , Thanks. You added so much -- Artemis, 17:17:29 10/18/02 Fri
I think you clarified, as you often do exactly what I was thinking and more.
I also like what you said about Buffy reaction to "Home Improvement" guy and particularly Cassie. I hadn't put that together. But it's funny because when I watched the show I was having a problem with Buffy going to the fathers house and accusing him of abuse. I felt at the time it was over the top, not acting wise but the fact that she would take this step. But after reading your post, it really does seems to fit her character. Thanks.
Also funny that you pointed out the "Fruedian" slip. "As Giles says "It's all connected"
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Great essay and some Help spoilers -- fresne, 08:16:15 10/19/02 Sat
Wonderful essay, glad I stopped by between deadlines to read it.
Buffy's journey is not an easy one, nor is her character given to more than subtle clues.
I would like to pass along a Usenet post that a friend sent me about Help.
Beginning of post
Buffy sees herself...reflected in the students eyes. Tonight's episode "Help" was about Buffy confronting all of her own issues face to face with somebody else dealing with those same issues. It was so obvious and way past time for it to happen.
First up: a girl, who on the surface seems a little frail and insecure. Guess what? She's recently indulged in her own brand of vigilante justice and smashed her tormenter's face into the parking lot. Sound like anyone we know? One of Buffy's favorite high school games was "kick the crap out of loser human guys trying to take advantage of a situation." Next in line: a kid who doesn't want to talk. Really. Buffy is the poster child of "I have a problem, let's not discuss it."
To boot, this kid is about to lose his older sibling to a really dangerous profession.
What's it feel like to be Dawn some days? Then there's whathisname from "Home Improvement" (whose parents, Jill and Tim "the Tool Man" Taylor, really were happily married the last time I saw a re-run). Buffy can dish on divorce if need be. Oh, yeah. And dead beat Dad syndrome. She's got that down cold, too.
The kicker is Cassie, though. This one is tough for the Buff. Because she knows not only what it's like to want to take a dirt nap, she's actually been there and done that. Buffy doesn't want the same for Cassie. She's a little freaked by this case. Does this girl want to commit suicide? Is someone out to get her?
Turns out Cassie doesn't want to die, but she thinks she's going to anyway. Now this is the story of Buffy's life. A teenager with a lifetime full of plans and dreams who knows that death is right around the corner. She doesn't know who or why, but it's coming. And there isn't a damn thing she can do about it. Talk about back to the beginning. Deja vu much?
I've read a lot of reviews that undercut this episode. My recommendation is rewind and take yourself back a few years to Buffy Summers at 15. It's all crystal clear from there. If Buffy only knew then what she does now...., but wait...she does! She's been through all of this stuff before. She can relate to these kids. She may be someone who can help them. And not because she has supernatural Slayer powers. She's actually lived a little bit, experienced some things, some real life troubles.
And what do you do when you know you can't help? If you're Buffy you try anyway. Because that's what she does, she helps people. This is the episode I've been waiting for. This is Buffy Summers discovering who Buffy Summers is. This is Buffy Summers realizing that she has a place in the real world, too.
She isn't a creature of darkness, she isn't a supernatural freak, she isn't doomed to spend her life just turning vampires into dust. Buffy already knows what Buffy the Vampire Slayer would do, but what can Buffy Summers do? I'd say plenty.
Cassie's death wasn't about "you can't fix everything" blah, blah, blah. The whole point was that Buffy's Slayer powers were useless in this situation. The only good Buffy could do was as a plain old human being that cares about another human being. And she did that. She gave Cassie someone to talk to, she got Dawn involved so that in her last week Cassie made a new friend, she let Cassie know that she cared. This wasn't the best monster of the week episode (ME would be hard pressed to top Gnarl) it wasn't the most exciting episode, or the funniest, but by golly it was the most character growth we've seen coming from Buffy since Joyce became ill.
I don't understand the complaints from Spike fans, either. When Buffy first approached Spike she thought he was dead. For a second she looked genuinely distressed. I'd say she still cares quite a lot about him. Way more than I would like her to, but since when do I get what I want? (oh wait! Tonight, I did!) She stopped William from punching Spike in the face (doesn't that count for something, Rose?) and she left when she saw that she was distressing him. Then Spike shows up at the pivotal moment to help. It's obvious that he wants to help. A part of him got hooked on helping the Slayer do the right thing and that part is still rock solid.
Whedon may very well be paving the way for SMG's departure from the show and I think it's fine. Having Buffy Summers find her human worth is the most I could ask for out of ME.
End of post
~~~~~~~~~~~
Since filling out that academic essay and Halloween has gotten me to thinking once more about identity, (time for a little Nightmare Before Christmas on auto repeat) it's nice to think that Buffy may be making more progress just than learning how to protect herself from the worl
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Awesome, fresne! -- Scroll, 10:31:08 10/19/02 Sat
I'm glad you shared your friend's post. This is very much how I see "Help" and I don't really understand the criticism I've heard about this ep. Personally, I like this ep much better than "Beneath You" which, other than the scene at the end, was fairly mediocre.
Cassie was lovely as Buffy's alter ego, and as a ghost of Tara and Joyce. I hope to see more stand-alone eps like this one.
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Wonderful fresne ! -- Etrangere, 15:26:37 10/19/02 Sat
I also quite liked this episode. I think it was a very unusual Buffy, because it was so... realistic. Well not so very much so... but the way it dealt with the characters and the subjects was in a realistic tones, very different from the symbolism and the metaphores we're used to. I think that's why most people found it so odd.
But it doesn't mean it was a bad episode.
I loved the various students we've seen (yeah, even that bastard Brad... "I'm bored", hehe, what do we do when you have a class you don't want to go to, yeah, go to the counsellor's office of course :) and I loved how you just show they were all reflections of Buffy's past.
Something else catch my interest in your post : "If Buffy only knew then what she does now...., but wait...she does! She's been through all of this stuff before. She can relate to these kids. She may be someone who can help them. And not because she has supernatural Slayer powers. She's actually lived a little bit, experienced some things, some real life troubles.
And what do you do when you know you can't help? If you're Buffy you try anyway. Because that's what she does, she helps people. "
Okay, first, the enchainment is interesting. You say she can do something because she's come through this things and she can actually counsel the kids with her experience. Then you speak about how she can't help them (but will try), apparently it's a contradiction.
But it's not. Not really. Help comes in many many different way, and, yes, you can tell people of what you know, of what you've been through to make a difference, and it does, it's very valluable, but you still can't live their lives for them, you can't fight their demons for themselves because it's different for everyone. Buffy died but was resurected. Cassie was saved but died. It's the same and it's different.
Buffy can only says "Ok", I'm receptive, I'm there if you want to talk, to the Marine's brother 'till he decides himself to talk.
She can only talk to them, you never can force people to act intelligent. (No more than you can force people to be a democracy). Some things must be willing.
Like Spike going to help Buffy.
She could only leave him because she made things worse, because he had to come by his own decision.
Help comes in many many ways.
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Yes, Wonderful fresne ! -- aliera, 16:50:59 10/19/02 Sat
...and your post, Etrangere. This also reminds me of being a parent, of being a friend. Yes, sometimes you've been through it or you understand it and you feel that you see it so clearly. And yes you can sometimes help. But no, the demons have to fought for themselves. And to me this is the right thing. But oh so painful sometimes!
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You need to take more breaks, cause that was awesome and I want more -- Dochawk, 18:03:17 10/19/02 Sat
sometimes we get what we want and sometimes what we need. So write more
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An 'old timers' aside on High Noon -- CW, 05:56:40 10/17/02 Thu
First off thanks for posting. You'll fit right in.
Your memory about John Wayne's statement concerning Gary Cooper's role got me thinking. High Noon was a big change for movies as well as for westerns. The biggest change, I think, was not that the sheriff showed fear, but that the sheriff had serious problems in his life because he was an honorable man, a hero. There were certainly lots of movies before, Casablanca for example, where the hero got in trouble for doing the right thing. But, High Noon was the first time the hero had all of his friends desert him (a recurring theme in Buffy), and also have his new bride threaten to leave him if he didn't take the cowardly way out. I believe that was more disturbing to a lot of people in Hollywood, than the fact he showed some fear. High Noon was a big enough success that it's doubtful much of the public shared John Wayne's oppinion of the sheriff.
The biggest reason why the sheriff's constant bravery was an issue was the way Hollywood had been making movies since the beginning of WWII. As morale booster, heroes in movies of the 1940 became more one dimensional. In the average war movie of the time, the hero's biggest problem, besides keeping himself and his men alive, was that his wife/girlfriend was worried sick about him. Right after the war there were a few movies in which men coming home from the war had problems fitting back into not just civilian life, but into their families as well. Some of those movies were critically acclaimed, but they weren't very popular. Frankly, people didn't want or need to be reminded, about the common problem that was going on all around them. It was too painful of an issue. (It would become painful again in the US again as men and women began returning from Vietnam. TV was more bold in exploring that issue at the time than the movies, in my oppinion.)
High Noon marked a change in that like movies of the 1930's, the hero's ordinary life could be less than perfect again. It wasn't simply that hero had to be brave in the 1940's, but in general so did everyone good around him. Cowards were isolated not heroes. I think maybe that lack of support bothered John Wayne, or maybe he thought that a true hero had to have such charisma that that lack of support could never happen. He translated the weakness of showing a little fear into being unworthy. As I said before, I don't think men in general agreed with Wayne on the issue. You have to also remember that John Wayne didn't leave the US during WWII. I'm not sure, but I think he may have officially been in the navy. At any rate, he did no serious duty, and continued to make movies. Like other men in his position, his own bravery was called into question, so it was a sensitive subject for him.
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A bit more on High Noon and Rio Bravo -- shadowkat, 12:24:26 10/17/02 Thu
Good post. A bit more fodder.
Now you're dating me as well. I studied the growth of Western in Cinema back in the 80s.
Rio Bravo and El Dorado were a reaction to more than just the bravery issue in High Noon. Wayne had troubles with the idea that the sheriff was asking all these amateurs to help him with his job. He considered the idea of going into a town meeting and requesting the town folk to help you kill a bunch of bad guys to be ludricous and extreemly dangerous for the townfolk. Also he had problems with the whole conscientous objector theme.
High Noon was a bit like It's A Wonderful Life - with a heavy theme of helping each other. Except it's the anti-Wonderful Life, because no one helps the sheriff, he's alone. He must face the bad guy by himself, instead of leave town with his Quaker wife that he just married and let townsfolk deal.
Wayne had troubles with this theme. He felt it was highly unrealistic and the social message felt faintly communistic/socialistic to him. But mostly it was the idea of a sheriff asking townspeople to do his job that bugged him. So he and Howard Hawkes banded together to remake High Noon in the proper way. Replacing the poor Quaker wife played by Grace Kelly - with Angie Dickenson as a saloon girl, the deputy played by Lloyd Bridges with Rickie Nelson who wants to help but gets momentarily distracted. And they split the sheriff into two people Dean Martin - the drunkyard and John Wayne the friend and gunfighter/marshal type character. Rio Bravo was the birth of the buddy movie.
It's basic formula has been repeated more often than High Noon actually. In fact I think both from interviews and from watching Buffy - Btvs is closer to following the Rio Bravo formula. If you ever see the movie Vampires (John Carpenter's Vampires) you'll notice an uncanny similarity to a)Rio Bravo and b) to Two to Go. Xander and Buffy are very similar to MArtin and Wayne in this episode.
Rio Bravo was a much more complex buddy picture - because you actually have a group of buddies teaming up, all professionals, none innocent townspeople.
El Dorado (sp?) is similar in format. So are a few other dramas can't remember names of. I think one has the word PRecient in it.
Whedon is a Western fanatic. Firefly - if you have watched it - follows a similar pattern to the Westerns filmed close to Rio Bravo - I call them Howard Hawkes/John Ford Westerns. These guys liked the idea of the dark hero or the hero having to go dark to save the day. They didn't go nearly as dark as Sergio Leon and Clint Eastwood in the man with no name westerns or Sam Peppenpaw (Wild Bunch) (I can hear the name, but can't spell it.) So in some ways they are a bit lighter and more fun, yet continue to explore the dark themes.
In the Ford/Hawkes Westerns the hero isn't always nice. He has blemishes, he's either a drunken slouch of a sheriff (Rio Bravo), a struggling blowhard cattle man (Red River), a vengenful indian killer (The Searchers), a shadowy gunfighter (Stagecoach), a hopeful but tainted law men (Gunfight at the OK Corral and My Darling Clementine).
These heros walk the line between light and shadow and the filmmakers through cinematography painted the West in similar tones - you can see it better in the black and white films.
Buffy does the same thing. She's really not so much Gary Cooper in High Noon. She's more the troubled Montgomery Cliff in Red River or John Wayne in Stage Coach and Rio Bravo or the halfbreed nephew of Wayne in The Searchers.
(Maybe even Wayne himself). Each of these characters isn't wrestling with fear of the bad guy, they are wrestling with their fear of themselves, who they are, they own inner turmoil and violence. In some ways she fits Cooper's character in the wrestling match over moral issues. But unlike Cooper - Buffy doesn't ask the townspeople's help.
She's actiongirl. It's hard for her to ask for help.
Of course this shows a bit of my own personal preference. I prefer the less sentimental Hawkes/Ford take on the west.
Hope that made sense. Oh good post Artemis and CW...generally agree.
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That's Sam Peckinpah -- CW, 13:25:27 10/17/02 Thu
Who also directed the immortal clunker, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. ;o)
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Assault on Precinct 13 -- Arethusa, 14:13:07 10/17/02 Thu
Directed by John Carpenter, said to be his remake of Rio Bravo. Gunn and Wesley mention the movies in "Dad.":
Wes and Gunn stand up and face the doors. Gunn is jumping in place to loosen his muscles. Looks over at Wes.
Gunn: "What are you doing?"
Wes: "Trying to imagine myself as John Wayne in Rio Bravo. You?"
Gunn: "Austin Stoker, Assault on Precinct Thirteen."
They slap their hands together, Cordy walks past them holding her weapon at the ready.
Cordy: "If we live through this, trade in your DVD Players and get a life."
quote by psyche
It's one of my favorite movies, too.
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Re: An 'old timers' aside on High Noon -- vh, 12:45:23 10/18/02 Fri
An interesting thing about High Noon was the backstage drama that was taking place regarding the McCarthy witch-hunt and blacklisting. Eventually the producer of High Noon -- darn it, now I've forgotten his name! -- was blacklisted and Cooper's efforts to help him nearly got him into trouble too -- he eventually had to back out. The producer's statement before the congressional committee was a real-life profile in courage.
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Re: An 'old timers' aside on High Noon -- ponygirl, 13:15:18 10/18/02 Fri
Carl Foreman was the screenwriter and producer of High Noon. He also was the uncredited screenwriter for Bridge on the River Kwai - his name was kept off the credits because of the blacklist, but was restored recently, unfortunately after his death. High Noon can certainly be viewed on one level as a commentary about the McCarthy era with the individual having to struggle against a fearful, conformist society. Can't remember what Foreman said to HUAC but I'm sure it was a doozy - one thing the blacklist showed is that one should not attempt to force professional writers to testify about anything and expect them to do it quietly, the speeches from that era cut like glass.
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Is it our fault? -- Darby, 07:49:47 10/17/02 Thu
Great points, Artemis.
At first it got me to thinking, part of the problem is that we've lost the role of confidant for Buffy that has been served variously by Willow, Giles, and Spike, sometimes Angel and Xander: conversations that allowed the articulation of the inner turmoil and explanations for the behavior as Buffy has changed. Would we be more sympathetic to her plight if we, as confidants once removed, were drawn more smoothly along, as we were in earlier seasons?
And now I'm thinking, isn't that the easy way out? Haven't they been showing us, as Artemis has noted, this inward spiral without having to tell us too? Shouldn't we be sophisticated enough as an audience to see what our heroine has been going through?
- Darby, feeling none-too-sophisticated, having used Artemis as a stand-in for the confidant character.
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Re: Is it our fault? -- Artemis, 21:28:26 10/17/02 Thu
"Darby, feeling none-too-sophisticated, having used Artemis as a stand in for the confidante character."
Darby,
I've read your post and enjoyed. You're pretty sophisticated. I'd love to be a stand-in confidante, as long as typings not involved.
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Thank you, Artemis, for such a wonderful, insightful essay! -- Rob, 09:43:12 10/17/02 Thu
After the recent flux of anti-Buffyness cropping up at the Board, I am so glad that you came along and put her character into perspective. I was so sick of reading "Buffy is a bitch" posts that I was avoiding anything even potentially anti-Buffy in the subject lines altogether. Thanks for defending her. I think the problem is that people try to define Buffy based on their own terms, and not her own. How many people could live the kind of life Buffy does? And out of those, who could find themselves unchanged by this kind of life?
How many "heartless, cold bitches" would die more than once in order to save the world?
Oh, and Artemis, please don't stay in lurkdom mode for too long!
Rob
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Re: Thank you, Artemis, for such a wonderful, insightful essay! -- DEN, 16:34:19 10/17/02 Thu
Several postings have addressed the series in the context of the Western genre, with Buffy as sheriff. I find a close parallel as well to a category of war movies that are built around doing one's duty whatever the cost to the individual. Buffy,especially this season, is behaving like a character familiar in that genre: the officer who has buried too many of her people. She might like to let down--but if she does, more of hers will die. Her s7 treatment of Spike fits that pattern: everyone is needed on the line; there is neither room nor time for the luxury of a private nervous breakdown.
I've made several postings referring to Willow's s6 crash-and-burn as replicating the behavior of a burnt-out fighter pilot. In that same context, I choked up at the alternate ending scene proposed in another thread, with Xander in the cemetery, asking Tara, Joyce, and Jesse to look out for Cassie. I remember a friend, an old combat hand, telling me that a time comes when you have more friends on the other side than down here. That's when it's time to get out--if you can.
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Officer in charge -- Artemis, 20:31:50 10/17/02 Thu
"... everyone is needed on the line, there is neither room nor time for the luxury of a private nervous breakdown."
I so agree with this parallel. I actually had the same thought when I watched that scene in the basement with Spike. I think it was "Spiral" The episode when they were on the road in the Winnebago that this image of Buffy as an officer or general first came to mind. Glad I'm not the only one who felt that.
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A couple of military viewpoints (not for squeamish) -- KdS, 04:17:15 10/18/02 Fri
A friend of mine is a historian currently studying the Roman army (ancient world). He told me a little while ago that he'd been cultivating some military/ex-military types at his university because he felt that he needed to get a better understanding of the military mindset (being as he described it a pacifist and coward). The thing that most stuck in his head was an ex-military guy who told him that he'd quit about the time of the Sierra Leone crisis (for Americans, some British forces were embarassingly taken prisoner by a militia group in Africa). My friend's informant said that he'd heard about the fighting in Sierra Leone and the first thing he thought was "I hope I'm not sent there". At that point he resigned because, he said, you're no use as a soldier if you don't want to be where the action is, not in any sense of bloodlust, but the desire to be in the thick of things sorting things out outweighing any feeling of self-preservation.
The other suggestion is this essay, written by a guy who claims on his homepage to be a former US Marines NCO (no guarantee of truth, but his style induces confidence). The more peaceful of you might find it a little disturbing to read, but the take-home statistic is that the efficiency of any real-world combat unit falls drastically after 45 days of front-line service and after 60 days "ninety eight percent of the unit is likely to be a psychiatric casualty". He notes that intermittent unpredictable combat is as bad as constant combat and that the problem in Vietnam was that there was no clear "safe area" away from the front. Sunnydale anyone?
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Getting all Heart of Darkness-y -- ponygirl, 12:07:07 10/18/02 Fri
Reading the posts in this very interesting sub-thread about military parallels to Buffy make me wonder if it's time to dust off the Apocalypse Now dvd. I'm so used to thinking of the film in connection with Xander, but now I'm wondering if it really applies to Buffy. Is she, rather than Xander, Willard coming to the end of her journey, more than a little battle-scarred and haunted by what she's seen, her companions either lost or similarly injured? Is Spike the Dennis Hopper character (it's been a while so I can't remember his name) burnt out and raving about Kurtz? And is Kurtz whatever is lurking inside the basement?
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Re: Getting all Heart of Darkness-y -- Artemis, 16:37:00 10/18/02 Fri
I had kinda forgotten the Apocalypse Now reference in "Restless" and like you associated it with Xander, but now you've got me wondering It's been a while since I've seen it. Cool now I have something to rent this weekend.
Yeah!
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Thanks, Rob -- Artemis, 20:40:25 10/17/02 Thu
I always enjoy your post. It can be disheartening reading the negative post. I always find yours one of the few I'm not scared to open up. They're refreshing and insightful. I'll try to come out and play more. It's really more my typing skills that keep me away.
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You're welcs! And thank you. ;o) -- Rob, 20:57:15 10/18/02 Fri
Now I'm happy- Tara in BtVS- spoilers to 7.4 -- Tchaikovsky, 08:07:24 10/17/02 Thu
My first post on this board, three or four weeks ago, was about my disillusionment with the lack of reference to Tara in 'Lessons'. I could have extended this gripe throughout 'Beneath You', and complained that 'Same Time, Same Place's' brief flashback was superficial and a way if fobbing people like me off. I didn't and now I'm glad.
Let's back-pedal here; to get a slightly fuller appreciation of Tara's character; and particularly her character development.
She first appeared in 'Hush'. It would be underestimating Joss Whedon to suggest that it was a co-incidence that a silent episode introduced a character who had problems with speech. Tara, at this stage, is eloquent in her actions, but inarticulate in her speech- a stutterer whose self-confidence has been crushed by a repressive family.
In Season Four, we see Willow and Tara's relationship, (not unlike Willow and Oz' a couple of season's earlier), develop in a way more organic and believable than the way most other relationships are portrayed on screen. There's the initially irrelevant seeming holding of hands in 'Where the Wild Things Are', and the spell at the end of the episode of Oz' return [Return to Oz?] where the blowing out of the candle strongly suggests something more off-screen. But it's permanently understated, an expressive and beautiful relationship portrayed with immense restraint and subtlety.
Even the continuing plot twists of Tara's character are not over-played. The hijacking of the demon-locating spell, which caused long discussions on this board and others, was allowed to simmer over half a season and a hiatus, before being resolved in the Whedon-penned 'Family'. It's interesting to note what a large part of Tara's character development appears to be in Whedon's episodes- from her introduction in 'Hush', through 'Family', to 'Once More, With Feeling' where a crux is hit for the Willow/Tara relationship. However, this is somewhat off-topic.
Tara treats everything and everybody with respect and quiet empathy throughout her character's development. We see her relate to, and help with Dawn's feeling of exclusion from the Scooby Gang early in Season Five. It is perhaps not as surprising as it first seems that it is Tara who has the best attempt at talking to Buffy in 'The Body'. By this time, (and partly through a growth of self-confidence related to Willow), she is happy with being emotionally honest. More so than Buffy is, or Willow, or Xander. She has become, quietly, a grown-up like Giles. Yet this development is neither instantaneous nor perceptible to an occasional viewer.
In Season Six, Tara is portrayed as the grown-up of the group. She suggests proceeding with caution in 'Bargaining', having the most rational response of all to the danger. She is emotionally honest enough with both Willow and herself to trigger the separation in 'Tabula Rasa'. It is also to be noticed that as the most emotionally honest character, the singing charm has the least obvious effect on her in 'Once More, With Feeling'. In pouring out her heart to Willow, and in her other roles as member of the group, her voice is the most recognisable.
In 'Smashed', we see Tara explaining as best she can to Dawn. In 'Dead Things' she is deeply sympathetic to Buffy, and doesn't judge her on her revelation about Spike. Tara here is more forgiving of Buffy than Buffy herself.
And, finally, and in a characteristically understated way, she reconciles with Willow slowly but surely. Her lines in Entropy, culminating with 'but can we just skip that? Can you be kissing me right now?' are slightly misleading. In Older and Far Away, she admits she is proud of Willow's resistence of Anya. In 'Hell's Bells', we see them joking with each other again. It's again slow, understated, and implicit, rarely addressed full-on by the writers.
Perhaps we can understand this better by questioning if Tara is a yin to Anya's yang. Anya is the noisy, but actually confused one. Tara is the quiet but assured one. Anya is a funny character, because she says whatever comes into her head, whether appropriate or sensible, or not. Tara says what she thinks is best for other people, and always puts the other person first.
I would claim there are two complementary sides to Tara in the programme. The character itself is understated, she often goes back to being in the shadows, and letting other people take the limelight. Similarly, Tara's portrayal in the programme, as I hope I have shown, is often set in relief to other issues. Her issues are sub-threads, her actions are often seen as reactions to other people's apparently more important actions.
And this, ultimately, is why I'm so happy with the scene in 'Help'. Because Willow, in trying to come to terms with Tara's loss, in going to her grave, reacts in an understated manner. This is the way to react to the death of a character so gentle and loving, rather than, for the myriad of reasons she had, reacting by attempting to end the world. And it's not a deep, emotional speech Willow delivers. It's 'hey,.....it's me'. She can't articulate her emotions. But the scene is understated. It's packed into an episode where the plot is about something else. Although one can argue that Buffy couldn't save Cassie in the way Buffy couldn't save Tara, that is at least an extremely oblique reference by Rebecca Rand Kirshner. Tara's end, and the end of Tara and Willow's relationship, as shown here, fitted her life. Understated. Eloquent yet inarticulate.
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Beautifully said -- Sophist, 08:24:52 10/17/02 Thu
One more point: Cassie died of heart failure, perhaps also an understated nod to Tara.
I personally thought that understated was the correct decision. Having said that, a little more, not just from Willow but from the others also, could have been done while preserving the understated approach.
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Re: Beautifully said -- Dariel, 10:04:51 10/17/02 Thu
Yes; a little anything from Buffy, and in particular, Dawn, would have been nice.
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A scene I would have liked to seen at the end. -- ZachsMind, 09:27:13 10/17/02 Thu
At the end of the episode, after a simple dissolve, would have liked to have seen Xander standing alone on a rainy drizzly day, in a business suit. Standing over Cassie's grave. No one else around. He looks left, then right. Kinda embarrassed he's there. Not wanting the others to see him doing this. Then looks up. He almost whispers these words.
"Tara? Buffy's Mom? Jessie? Make her at home out there.. wherever you guys are. M'kay? She's part of the family now. Just.. Y'know. Make her feel at home. Thanks."
Then he just stands there. Then the screen goes black & the credits start. I woulda preferred that to the rather static scene of Buffy sitting in her office desk.
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