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shadowkatI saw this quote on Facebook from a social activist that I've been following, which stated:
"Do less of passing on your fears to people."
And I thought, if less people did this? I wouldn't have social anxiety or a lot of other anxieties for that matter - most of which have been thrust onto me by other people. People can be scary.
This quote is also apropos for the episode of Buffy that I re-watched this week, entitled (per Hulu) Gingerbread, S3 Episode 11. I think it's 11. It's not an episode that I remember fondly, and have been known to skip it on past re-watches. Mainly because it focuses on a recurring theme in horror/supernatural fiction - which is well - the witch hunt. It's been explored in a lot science fiction series as well, from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to the The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" (a classic Twilight Zone Episode). And historically with the Salem Witch Trials and the Holocaust - where a group of people become scapegoats and people hunt them down and kill them as if they are demons or animals with no worth. I'm not fond of the theme - because, well, I find it frightening and incredibly frustrating, not to mention annoying, especially right now. I'd rather not think about it or watch it. Out of sight, is out of mind, right? Well unfortunately not always.
Also, I remembered Gingerbread being somewhat cliche and eye-rolling in places. (It's not. I was mistaken.)
I was surprised by how cleverly written this episode actually is, and how it manages to involve all of the main contracted cast, with the exception of Faith (who isn't a lead cast member and recurring).
It manages to take a well-known fairy tale and flips it on its head, in a way no one else has done before or since. What if the villains in the fairy tale were in reality the protagonists or victims, and they weren't what they seemed?
At this point in the series, Joyce Summers, Buffy's single Mom, has learned of Buffy's nocturnal role as the slayer (of pretty much every monster in Sunnydale that isn't human). And has decided on a whim to join her on her slaying - to see what it is like. If you can't stop them? Join them? Buffy's father is no longer even mentioned - and the writers have at this point for good or ill turned him into a deadbeat Dad, who has completely abandoned his family. (I honestly think they would have been better off killing him off - then having him abandon Buffy completely, but I think the writers pulled heavily from their own and the actress's experience and chose the later.). Oh interesting casting choice on the Dad? He played the husband of Laura Ingells Wilder in Little House on the Prarie for about two years. So they cast a wholesome actor to play the deadbeat dad. We don't see him past S2, when he appears in When She Was Bad - that is the last time that we see him. So he appears briefly in two episodes, Nightmares and When She Was Bad, both before the Angel/Buffy relationship takes off, or she begins to really bond with Giles as a father figure.
Anyhow, Joyce has joined Buffy on "patrol" much to the annoyance of Buffy - who tells her mother to stay out of the way as much as possible. Bored the mother goes to the playground to sit on swing, and stumbles upon two dead little blond haired children, who have symbols on their hands and appear to have been sacrificed in a horrible ritual. Freaked out - Joyce calls the police, and sees this as something she can take action on. It's her fear talking mostly, and I realized that when I read the quote on FB. It's not anger - it's fear. It's the fear of the monsters in Sunnydale, of her own daughter, of what her daughter is doing, and the lack of control. Terrified and frustrated - because she can't protect her own daughter let alone herself, if anything her teenage daughter is protecting her instead - she calls all the adults in town, all the parents, and asks them to help her stomp out the threat - which is obviously human in nature. That she can stop. Or so she thinks. And it's obviously the teens. And it's clearly what they are studying or reading. Anyone can see where this is going...
Buffy being a bit of a satire - throws in all sorts of humorous and clever gags. Joyce starts MOO - Mothers Opposed to the Occult. Buffy is appalled at the acronym. And even more so, by her mother. But honestly, what can one expect from a woman who named her daughter "Buffy"?
Other better gags are Cordelia being the one who finds an unconscious Giles - poor Giles is always being knocked out once he discovers the solution.
And of course she slaps him awake, and exclaims how much it hurt her hand.
Then states, "Giles, I swear, you are unconscious constantly - I'm amazed you haven't woken up in a coma by now."
Xander and OZ attempt to save them - by journeying through the duct system to the locked audience room in the middle of city hall - where the town, for reasons I don't quite understand, has elected to burn the alleged culprits (Buffy (for being the Slayer), Willow, and Amy (the two witches), the third witch managed to escape and warn everyone else. What I don't understand is why the town decided to burn them "inside" city halls auditorium, as opposed to you know outside? Was this due to set constraints and that an outdoor local wasn't possible for the writers? It's odd, and kind of hilarious. Because if you set books and people on fire inside the building - you are also setting the building on fire and ahem, yourselves?
Anyhow, OZ and Xander fall through the ceiling in front of them, after Giles reveals the ghostly children entrancing the town as in fact a demon, Buffy manages to haphazardly slay the demon, and Cordelia puts out the flames, along with various town council members and parents standing in the way of her hose.
The demon is actually fairly clever. Some of the monsters in this are rather clever. It's a 7 foot tall red ugly demon - who's only power is to seduce folks into acting on their fears, and pass those on to others. It conceals itself with a glamour of sorts - so it appears to be two little children, Hansel and Gretel of the fairy tale. Except in reality the Hansel and Gretel of the fairy tale were the demon, and the innocent witch the victim. It appears throughout history and in different locals doing much the same thing - inciting a lynch or burn mob to kill innocent women.
This is a favorite theme of the writers - by the way - because it reappears in Firefly, and in Angel. It also pops up in the Agents of Shield. The persecuted or scapegoated - is among the main themes of the series - which is about feeling like an outsider in society, or persecuted.
How Buffy kills the demon is also clever and humorous - she stakes him with the stake she is tied to, and can't tell if she got him or not - and is facing upside down on the stake - asking the gang - if she got him.
Willow: Cordelia, could you untie us please?
Buffy: Did I get him? Did I get him?
OZ and Xander falling from the ceiling to Buffy's feet: We've come to save you.
I was rather amused. Also it's reassuring in that the paranoia of the town is so easily squashed.
A main takeaway from it - is Amy, after everything that happened to her mother using magic, and what happened in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, clearly has learned nothing - and is still practicing it. And as a result - ends up a rat at the end of the episode. She turns herself into a rat to escape the flames.
Buffy: She could have done that to us first?
ME: Be thankful she didn't. Or we'd have the adventures of Buffy and Willow the Rat for the next three and a half years.
Amy stays a rat until Willow finally figures out how to change her back in S6. Amy's pissed that she didn't do it sooner in S6, if I recall? And to be fair to Amy - Willow probably could have in S4 or 5.
This is important because Amy comes back again for two episodes in S6, and an episode in S7. This character makes an appearance in just about every season, but four (where she is a rat - which I guess counts?). There's a couple of minor characters in the series that pop up in all the seasons: Jonathan, Harmony (except for S7, she does however jump over to Angel), and Amy. Of the three - the only I liked was Amy. The other two annoyed me. YMMV.
I found this episode, like all the other episodes in s3, to date rather well - and to cross-over well into the modern age, in that we've always had this problem. And it is an universal one. People get afraid of something or someone - and feel the need to tell everyone else about it - to share this anxiety or fear. Right now it's immigrants - and the fear that the immigrants will take away their jobs, their homes, and their way of life. Irrational as this fear is, they believe it is a real threat and they must fight to make sure it doesn't happen by any means necessary.
I once had a frightening debate with a poster named peasant in my journal way back in 2017. Peasant, a Brit, was convinced that the evil immigrants were coming to take away their job, home, and everything they held dear, and they had to stop them. That the evil socialists would help the evil immigrants. Fascism was better in Peasant's view than the alternative. And Capitalism was the best approach, everyone was happier under that. Peasant was terrified of socialism. Peasant's political views scared me, not just the views themselves, mind you, which were scary in of themselves, but the fact that someone actually thought that way? That they had demonized a group of people in their head to that extent. An otherwise rational and from what I saw kind person who cared about animals, gardened, etc - felt like this? That scared me. Peasant scared me, not the immigrants. I was afraid of Peasant. And I'm not an immigrant - my ancestors came to the United States in the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s, both my parents, grand-parents, and for the most part great grandparents and great great grandparents are US Citizens. I was afraid for the immigrants, Peasant hated, and the their view that fascism was the better choice. That scared me. So badly, that I eventually blocked them from my journal.
Fear divides people and unites people - it also starts wars, and kills millions. It causes debilitating anxiety.
Peasant in attempting to pass their fears on to me, much like Joyce does to the other adults in town including Willow's mother - caused me to block them and ended our correspondence.
Another example? JK Rowlings fear of transgender has resulted in various people distancing themselves from her, and book stores no longer selling her books and removing them from their shelves. I don't see them at all in area book stores any longer. She has been deemed a lost cause, and repeals people with her hate and fear, and her attempts to pass it on to other people. Even those who agree with her, such as Musk, have attempted to reign her in on Twitter (aka X).
Passing fear on to others - may be rewarding in the short term, but it isn't in the long term. It did Joyce no favors - at the end of the episode, it is implied not shown by Buffy that Joyce has retreated to her gallery, and (potentially her booze), appalled at her actions, and her friends have disassociated themselves from her. This is shown with wry humor in the episode, but at the same time - as a kind of twisted morality lesson? Not to take things at face value, to question fears, and to try not to instigate a lynch mob.
"Do less of passing on your fears to people."
And I thought, if less people did this? I wouldn't have social anxiety or a lot of other anxieties for that matter - most of which have been thrust onto me by other people. People can be scary.
This quote is also apropos for the episode of Buffy that I re-watched this week, entitled (per Hulu) Gingerbread, S3 Episode 11. I think it's 11. It's not an episode that I remember fondly, and have been known to skip it on past re-watches. Mainly because it focuses on a recurring theme in horror/supernatural fiction - which is well - the witch hunt. It's been explored in a lot science fiction series as well, from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to the The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" (a classic Twilight Zone Episode). And historically with the Salem Witch Trials and the Holocaust - where a group of people become scapegoats and people hunt them down and kill them as if they are demons or animals with no worth. I'm not fond of the theme - because, well, I find it frightening and incredibly frustrating, not to mention annoying, especially right now. I'd rather not think about it or watch it. Out of sight, is out of mind, right? Well unfortunately not always.
Also, I remembered Gingerbread being somewhat cliche and eye-rolling in places. (It's not. I was mistaken.)
I was surprised by how cleverly written this episode actually is, and how it manages to involve all of the main contracted cast, with the exception of Faith (who isn't a lead cast member and recurring).
It manages to take a well-known fairy tale and flips it on its head, in a way no one else has done before or since. What if the villains in the fairy tale were in reality the protagonists or victims, and they weren't what they seemed?
At this point in the series, Joyce Summers, Buffy's single Mom, has learned of Buffy's nocturnal role as the slayer (of pretty much every monster in Sunnydale that isn't human). And has decided on a whim to join her on her slaying - to see what it is like. If you can't stop them? Join them? Buffy's father is no longer even mentioned - and the writers have at this point for good or ill turned him into a deadbeat Dad, who has completely abandoned his family. (I honestly think they would have been better off killing him off - then having him abandon Buffy completely, but I think the writers pulled heavily from their own and the actress's experience and chose the later.). Oh interesting casting choice on the Dad? He played the husband of Laura Ingells Wilder in Little House on the Prarie for about two years. So they cast a wholesome actor to play the deadbeat dad. We don't see him past S2, when he appears in When She Was Bad - that is the last time that we see him. So he appears briefly in two episodes, Nightmares and When She Was Bad, both before the Angel/Buffy relationship takes off, or she begins to really bond with Giles as a father figure.
Anyhow, Joyce has joined Buffy on "patrol" much to the annoyance of Buffy - who tells her mother to stay out of the way as much as possible. Bored the mother goes to the playground to sit on swing, and stumbles upon two dead little blond haired children, who have symbols on their hands and appear to have been sacrificed in a horrible ritual. Freaked out - Joyce calls the police, and sees this as something she can take action on. It's her fear talking mostly, and I realized that when I read the quote on FB. It's not anger - it's fear. It's the fear of the monsters in Sunnydale, of her own daughter, of what her daughter is doing, and the lack of control. Terrified and frustrated - because she can't protect her own daughter let alone herself, if anything her teenage daughter is protecting her instead - she calls all the adults in town, all the parents, and asks them to help her stomp out the threat - which is obviously human in nature. That she can stop. Or so she thinks. And it's obviously the teens. And it's clearly what they are studying or reading. Anyone can see where this is going...
Buffy being a bit of a satire - throws in all sorts of humorous and clever gags. Joyce starts MOO - Mothers Opposed to the Occult. Buffy is appalled at the acronym. And even more so, by her mother. But honestly, what can one expect from a woman who named her daughter "Buffy"?
Other better gags are Cordelia being the one who finds an unconscious Giles - poor Giles is always being knocked out once he discovers the solution.
And of course she slaps him awake, and exclaims how much it hurt her hand.
Then states, "Giles, I swear, you are unconscious constantly - I'm amazed you haven't woken up in a coma by now."
Xander and OZ attempt to save them - by journeying through the duct system to the locked audience room in the middle of city hall - where the town, for reasons I don't quite understand, has elected to burn the alleged culprits (Buffy (for being the Slayer), Willow, and Amy (the two witches), the third witch managed to escape and warn everyone else. What I don't understand is why the town decided to burn them "inside" city halls auditorium, as opposed to you know outside? Was this due to set constraints and that an outdoor local wasn't possible for the writers? It's odd, and kind of hilarious. Because if you set books and people on fire inside the building - you are also setting the building on fire and ahem, yourselves?
Anyhow, OZ and Xander fall through the ceiling in front of them, after Giles reveals the ghostly children entrancing the town as in fact a demon, Buffy manages to haphazardly slay the demon, and Cordelia puts out the flames, along with various town council members and parents standing in the way of her hose.
The demon is actually fairly clever. Some of the monsters in this are rather clever. It's a 7 foot tall red ugly demon - who's only power is to seduce folks into acting on their fears, and pass those on to others. It conceals itself with a glamour of sorts - so it appears to be two little children, Hansel and Gretel of the fairy tale. Except in reality the Hansel and Gretel of the fairy tale were the demon, and the innocent witch the victim. It appears throughout history and in different locals doing much the same thing - inciting a lynch or burn mob to kill innocent women.
This is a favorite theme of the writers - by the way - because it reappears in Firefly, and in Angel. It also pops up in the Agents of Shield. The persecuted or scapegoated - is among the main themes of the series - which is about feeling like an outsider in society, or persecuted.
How Buffy kills the demon is also clever and humorous - she stakes him with the stake she is tied to, and can't tell if she got him or not - and is facing upside down on the stake - asking the gang - if she got him.
Willow: Cordelia, could you untie us please?
Buffy: Did I get him? Did I get him?
OZ and Xander falling from the ceiling to Buffy's feet: We've come to save you.
I was rather amused. Also it's reassuring in that the paranoia of the town is so easily squashed.
A main takeaway from it - is Amy, after everything that happened to her mother using magic, and what happened in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, clearly has learned nothing - and is still practicing it. And as a result - ends up a rat at the end of the episode. She turns herself into a rat to escape the flames.
Buffy: She could have done that to us first?
ME: Be thankful she didn't. Or we'd have the adventures of Buffy and Willow the Rat for the next three and a half years.
Amy stays a rat until Willow finally figures out how to change her back in S6. Amy's pissed that she didn't do it sooner in S6, if I recall? And to be fair to Amy - Willow probably could have in S4 or 5.
This is important because Amy comes back again for two episodes in S6, and an episode in S7. This character makes an appearance in just about every season, but four (where she is a rat - which I guess counts?). There's a couple of minor characters in the series that pop up in all the seasons: Jonathan, Harmony (except for S7, she does however jump over to Angel), and Amy. Of the three - the only I liked was Amy. The other two annoyed me. YMMV.
I found this episode, like all the other episodes in s3, to date rather well - and to cross-over well into the modern age, in that we've always had this problem. And it is an universal one. People get afraid of something or someone - and feel the need to tell everyone else about it - to share this anxiety or fear. Right now it's immigrants - and the fear that the immigrants will take away their jobs, their homes, and their way of life. Irrational as this fear is, they believe it is a real threat and they must fight to make sure it doesn't happen by any means necessary.
I once had a frightening debate with a poster named peasant in my journal way back in 2017. Peasant, a Brit, was convinced that the evil immigrants were coming to take away their job, home, and everything they held dear, and they had to stop them. That the evil socialists would help the evil immigrants. Fascism was better in Peasant's view than the alternative. And Capitalism was the best approach, everyone was happier under that. Peasant was terrified of socialism. Peasant's political views scared me, not just the views themselves, mind you, which were scary in of themselves, but the fact that someone actually thought that way? That they had demonized a group of people in their head to that extent. An otherwise rational and from what I saw kind person who cared about animals, gardened, etc - felt like this? That scared me. Peasant scared me, not the immigrants. I was afraid of Peasant. And I'm not an immigrant - my ancestors came to the United States in the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s, both my parents, grand-parents, and for the most part great grandparents and great great grandparents are US Citizens. I was afraid for the immigrants, Peasant hated, and the their view that fascism was the better choice. That scared me. So badly, that I eventually blocked them from my journal.
Fear divides people and unites people - it also starts wars, and kills millions. It causes debilitating anxiety.
Peasant in attempting to pass their fears on to me, much like Joyce does to the other adults in town including Willow's mother - caused me to block them and ended our correspondence.
Another example? JK Rowlings fear of transgender has resulted in various people distancing themselves from her, and book stores no longer selling her books and removing them from their shelves. I don't see them at all in area book stores any longer. She has been deemed a lost cause, and repeals people with her hate and fear, and her attempts to pass it on to other people. Even those who agree with her, such as Musk, have attempted to reign her in on Twitter (aka X).
Passing fear on to others - may be rewarding in the short term, but it isn't in the long term. It did Joyce no favors - at the end of the episode, it is implied not shown by Buffy that Joyce has retreated to her gallery, and (potentially her booze), appalled at her actions, and her friends have disassociated themselves from her. This is shown with wry humor in the episode, but at the same time - as a kind of twisted morality lesson? Not to take things at face value, to question fears, and to try not to instigate a lynch mob.