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Buff Stuff |
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Note: These comments about Buffy:TVS were originally written for my weblog, which I stopped
updating in July 2003. They are reproduced here unchanged.
The shamans who created the first Slayer did so by forcing a girl to merge with a demonic force, turning her into an inhuman warrior who could do the things they were too weak to do. The whole Slayer line was therefore based on an act of misogynistic violence, and on the assumption that the Slayer had to abandon her humanity. Buffy refused to do this. She insisted on her right to be a normal teenage girl who liked to shop, and consistently refused to accept that she was a mere pawn of destiny. She stood up for free will, humanity and compassion, and however messy her emotional life became her humanity was always a strength rather than a weakness. It allowed her to have friends and allies, and even to see the possibility of redemption in Spike and Angel. The compassion that prevented her from destroying Spike, as a traditional ruthless Slayer would have done, ultimately saved the world as in the end only he had the power to close the Hellmouth. Spike had to die in the process because he had so much blood on his hands that it was only through this sacrifice that he could finally be redeemed. That is probably also why Anya died. The fact that snivelling nerd Andrew survived, much to his own surprise, is a reminder of what free will means. There is no guarantee that anyone will get what they deserve or what they expect. Good things can happen to bad people, bad things can happen to good people, and anyone can get lucky. The scene before Buffy enters the Hellmouth in which she jokes with her friends about how they should go shopping the next day is also significant. Instead of just being comic relief it is showing us how they have all retained their humanity despite the terrible things they've experienced, and that what really stands against evil is not superbeings but ordinary people trying to do what's right. So it was absolutely fitting for the show to end with Buffy inverting the nature of the Slayer. Many instead of one, human instead of inhuman, empowered instead of enslaved to a brutal destiny. Most of all, a power created to serve men was turned into a power owned by women, an ending demanded by the show's basic theme of female empowerment. It was also fitting that the Hellmouth was finally stopped-up with the remains of Sunnydale, because it was the ultimate source of the evil that Buffy had been fighting for seven seasons. It was the reason for her presence in Sunnydale and defeating it was the final completion of her work there. But the show also dealt with more mundane problems, using the supernatural as a metaphor for all the difficulties of teenage life. It wasn't about teenagers fighting evil, it was about teenagers and fighting evil. The show explored the process of growing up, and after the sudden death of her own mother Buffy found herself juggling slaying, paying the bills and looking after her little sister, acting out the struggle of every single parent trying to cope with the conflicting demands of work and home. But the Scooby Gang were always the outsiders, the awkward kids struggling with a society that they couldn't quite fit into. The bland suburban anytown of Sunnydale represented everything conventional, and was therefore the source of all the things that make life so hard for the teenage non-conformist. If you treat Buffy as a show about growing up that uses the supernatural as a metaphor, then Sunnydale itself is the mouth of Hell that keeps trying to swallow our protagonists. In the final scene Buffy and friends stand staring at the crater formerly known as Sunnydale. With increasing insistence they ask her what they should do next, but she does not answer. I found this a rather abrupt and downbeat ending, but there is a logic to it. Buffy has overcome everything - her destiny, her personal problems, Hell, evil, and Sunnydale. As she made clear when explaining her relationship with Spike to Angel, she now knows herself and is secure in her adult identity. Buffy is finally free and at peace, so in that moment there is nothing else left to do. There are some flaws in how the last few episodes were executed. The character of Caleb is introduced and then killed off so quickly he seems like an afterthought. The magic weapons to defeat evil turn up rather too conveniently, along with an ancient priestess to explain it all. This is perhaps an example of the old dramatic problem that it's very easy to think of ways to put your characters in mortal peril but much harder to think of plausible ways for them to escape. There's a lot of talking about feelings, and the extent to which the First Evil has actually been contained or defeated remains unclear. But while the plot could have been better constructed the themes of the show were all brought to their proper conclusions, so this was absolutely the right way for it to end.
On the other hand, that is entirely appropriate for this season. Firstly, the emphasis has been on character development and personal relationships, so there just hasn't been room for a major Big Bad story arc as well. There's only enough screen time for a Big Bad Lite. Secondly, the nerds are in keeping with the grittier, more adult tone of this season precisely because they are weak human villains. They are social inadequates acting out juvenile power fantasies as a way of getting back at the world. In the Buffy universe, they can literally do this with magic and comic-style supervillain technology. But their psychological development follows that of real-life serial killers and mad bombers. They start out socially isolated and resentful. They retreat into a fantasy life, like the spell Jonathan used to make everyone think he was a superhero, and cope with social rejection by telling themselves that they are superior to other people. As a group, they validate each other's fantasies and gain the courage to act them out. In earlier seasons, they were able to escape the consequences of their actions, mirroring the way in which adolescents have a certain license to experiment, with schools and colleges providing a controlled environment in which to do so. As adults, they have total responsibility for what they do and acting out power fantasies brings terrible consequences. For example, a teenage boy might fantasise about hypnotising women into having sex with him but when the nerds try to do it for real the result is a sordid attempted rape and murder. But each crime they commit removes a moral restraint and makes it easier to do something worse, building up to some huge atrocity that Buffy will have to prevent in the season finale. So instead of having a supernatural monster season six is showing us how ordinary people can become monsters.
The first elephant is how useful modern weaponry would be. Vampires may be invulnerable to metal projectiles but it would surely not be impossible to fit wooden tips to bullets to create something that could harm them. At the very least it would be possible to use non-lethal weapons like tasers and pepper spray to subdue them, or knock them over with a shotgun blast to stop them running away. Things like demons and killer robots generally would be vulnerable to normal bullets, and an assault rifle with a nightvision scope should logically be an essential part of every slayer's armoury. Even the limited amount of weaponry that the Scoobies could afford would significantly improve their fighting ability. The fundamental reason why this never happens is that it just isn't that kind of show. High-kicking martial arts action is part of the formula so that's how the fights have to be. Secondly, introducing guns would make the violence much more realistic, making it harder to position the show as primetime family entertainment and diluting the fantasy element that is integral to its identity. The whole point of this show is that it's not meant to be the real world. Thirdly, guns are a highly charged political issue in America. Having a glamorous teenage superhero for whom guns are an essential tool in the fight against evil would neatly conform to the agenda of the NRA, and would politicise the show in a way that its producers would certainly not have wanted. Because Buffy was initially too young to legally own a gun it would also have been condemned as totally irresponsible, and network executives would be having nightmares about getting sued over real-life acts of teenage violence. The second elephant is media attention. Sunnydale must have an appalling murder rate and a huge number of missing persons, and most of the residents would either have seen something weird or know someone who had. It would be common knowledge that this was a very strange and dangerous place, and the national media would pick up on that from stories in the local media and the lurid tales that would be circulating on the internet. Events like the Mayor's Ascension, in which the local high school is blown up after a pitched battle, would be headline news from coast to coast and would also provide a (somewhat charred) heap of physical evidence for the existence of the supernatural. The media would also soon learn about this mysterious girl who always shows up to save the day, and Buffy would quickly become world famous. Of course its obvious why they can never acknowledge this, because it would bring the whole show to a halt. It couldn't work with that type of realism - or at least, not without reinventing the whole format. However it could make quite a funny alternate reality episode. Sunnydale would be a paranormal tourist trap like Roswell. Buffy would be a celebrity hero like Captain Amazing in Mystery Men, doing press conferences and thanking her sponsors, while the Scoobies did the chat show circuit plugging their autobiographies.
The Scooby Gang have now grown up, and have largely established their adult identities. That means freedom from the artificial environment of school and all its petty tyrannies, but it also means total responsibility for your actions. As a teenager, you are expected to be learning, making mistakes, and sometimes acting stupid, and school and college provide comparatively controlled environments in which to experiment and work out exactly who you are. As an adult you no longer have the same restrictions or the same license to make mistakes, either practically or within your own mind. You have power, and with it responsibility. Willow has literally gained new powers, and the future for her and Tara is in exploring the world of magic and the supernatural, wherever that might lead. As a human Anya could get pregnant, so she and Xander have the power to create a new life from their relationship. They are outsiders who have found a way back in, and found fulfilment in the ordinary things in life. They are going the opposite way to Willow and Tara, and becoming Mr and Mrs Joe Q. Public. The group lacks cohesion without the unifying presence of Buffy, so it is necessary to abandon the old Scooby Gang based on an alliance of misfits and outsiders and completely reinvent it as a group of adults who are confident in their identities, but who have differing goals in life. Spike is facing similar issues. He has the power to cause pain and suffering, but towards the end of season five was choosing to limit his behaviour because of his feelings towards Buffy. He was effectively becoming Dawn's adopted big brother, giving her someone to confide in who would be her co-conspirator against the stuffy adults. However, in letting this relationship develop he was also taking on a position of responsibility towards her. In making choices that require him to limit his actions for the sake of his relationships with others he is not just rediscovering elements of his humanity, he is also making a transition from the vampire's childish world of instant gratification to a more adult sensibility. Having been a kind of undead teenage dirtbag he is now growing up as well. Buffy herself should be a different person as a result of her experiences in the afterlife, and probably quite angry that she has been forced out of her rest to take up the burdens of the slayer again. However, the problems that Buffy found so overwhelming in season five once she had to take responsibility for Dawn as well as everything else are the quintessential problems of the single mother, juggling home and the job and everybody's expectations. How do you cope when everybody is relying on you all the time, and you're the one who always has to be strong and capable? While her peers were exploring the opportunities of adulthood, Buffy had all its responsibilities thrust upon her. However, season six will also have to address the problem that Willow's magic is now so strong that she could dispose of most threats instantly. That would make most episodes about five minutes long, so they have to introduce some kind of restraint on her abilities. The obvious way to do that would be to have Willow and the gang raise Buffy from the dead (as the trailers on Sky One show) but for this to have some kind of side-effect that limits her magical powers, thus solving both the Willow Power Problem and the Getting Buffy Back Problem. After all, to bring a slayer back from the dead, particularly one who sacrificed herself to undo the power of The Key, means wrenching the whole machinery of the universe out of its normal course. It's mugging causality and stealing its watch. So let's not say that it is impossible, but rather that it causes such disruption that the fabric of reality begins to unravel. At first, it looks as if everything has worked fine - Buffy is back, although not at all happy about it, and no harm seems to have been done. Then, odd things start happening. Magic starts to become erratic and unpredictable (so Willow can't just zap every threat that they face), and eventually the gang realise that by breaking the laws of cause and effect in one place they have started an avalanche of chaos that threatens to dissolve all of time and space into randomness. From a writing point of view that's also very attractive because it means unbelievably weird and freaky things can happen. The whole group shares responsibility for this situation, but it could only be done because of Willow's power. A wiser or more experienced witch might have seen the danger, but her willingness to try it is consistent with the over-confident and careless attitude to her power that Willow has shown in the past. For example, in past episodes she has accidentally conjured a troll, made Giles go blind and Buffy and Spike plan marriage, and brought a vampire version of herself across from an alternate reality. Although Anya was involved in some of those incidents they depended fundamentally on Willow's power and her willingness to use it carelessly. Accidentally blowing up the universe is just the sort of thing she would do, and as part of the transition into adulthood she has to face the terrible responsibility of her powers in the same way that Buffy has had to face the consequences of being the slayer. This perfectly fits the theme of (adult) power. The gang have used their power to re-order the universe, and the life of another person, to fit their needs. They now have to deal with the consequences of this action, no matter how difficult and dangerous it is for them. They will fear that one of them will have to die to restore the balance, forcing them to face very adult questions of mortality: What is your own life worth? What are you really willing to sacrifice to do what is right? Just what price are you willing to pay for this other person to live? When you're young you feel you're going to live forever and do everything but as an adult you have to face the fact that you really will die sooner or later. A part of forming your adult identity is accepting that you have limited time and limited options and you have to choose what's really important. It would also resolve the question of the Big Bad for the season. Instead of a single main enemy there would be a Big Problem to be solved, but in the meantime the growing instability would throw up all kinds of monsters and strange phenomena, some of which would be very powerful. There would be lots of false clues before it became clear what was really going on. That's how I'd do it. So no doubt it will turn out to be something completely different. |
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Last Updated: 1 Oct 07 |  |
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