Spontaneous Musings

The odd thing about posting in blogs or on facebook is sometimes you feel as if you are just adding a layer to the babble page. All these voices. Any listeners?

Been rewatching Buffy S7 now. And found myself blown away by the layered metaphors and prose poetry in the first four episodes. These are a lot better than I remembered. I think removing the anticipation and not watching them with a critical posting board mumbling in the background may have made a difference? Or maybe I just see things now that I didn't before? (shrugs) Buffy is one of those rare tv shows that you actually see new things in it each time you watch. Even more with the appropriate distance.

It's a huge shift from S6, which was in some respects less poetic in style and more raw. Here we are going back to the beginning or roots of the series, but much like Stephen King's novel "IT", the monsters aren't the ones the teens feared, but rather ones that adults do. Old demons haunting the hallways of the high schools we may have physically left behind, but emotionally never quite did.

[ETA - post below has been edited slightly, I added a paragraph and changed some dialogue. If you are at all curious about why I am obsessed with this show still and the characters of Spike and Buffy, this meta and the three or four before it - are the places to figure it out. ]

( Manifest Spirits - Lessons through Help, BTVS S7 Meta )

Read the following essay today :

Here's the link to the essay in case you are interested - http://amberbenson.yuku.com/topic/2516. (It's on a Tara fanboard)

The essay basically states that Tara should not have been killed. Her death did not further Willow's emotional arc in any way. The magic as crack or addictive substance metaphor does not hold up or make any sense, since prior to that it had only been used as a metaphor for "romantic" love and Giles never ever mentioned that it could be additictive or used for dark purposes. And killing Tara off was just lazy writing, as was the build up to it. Also, they go on, to add, in detail, how it supports the Lesbian Cliche (ie. the lesbian in films is killed off). Yes, I know, we've all read this before, one too many times, and by a lot better essayists - there was one on ATPO Board way back in 2002, who did a rather in depth analysis of the whole thing that was quite convincing at the time - referencing several films and documentaries along the way - at least I think it was ATPO, it may have been BC&S. If you were on any spoiler boards or Buffy fanboards in 2002-2003, you have already heard this argument ad naseum. Not only did you hear it? You probably discussed it. Although many of us, myself included, veered sharply away from it - because emotions were high and one risked being called nasty names. At this point, to those of us who were fans of the show and online in 2002, it is bit like flogging a dead horse. So why, you ask, am I bringing this up again?

Because - I noticed something in my own re-watch of the series regarding magic, metaphors, and Willow - which more or less pokes holes in the entire argument detailed above and changed my mind regarding the weakness/confusion/inconsistency of the "magic as crack" metaphor in S6. I don't believe it is a weak metaphor - never really did, to be honest, and I don't believe it is a sloppy one - if anything, my only quibble is that they got a bit, shall we say, didatic regarding it in 6 and 7, while in earlier seasons they erred on the side of sublety.

The problem with addiction storylines on television is they have a tendency to come across like Afterschool Specials if you aren't careful. Afterschool Specials for the uninitiated are preachy movies of the week that aired on ABC or CBS during the 1970s and early 1980s, before cable existed and just after school - a la, 3 or 4pm, between cartoons and news. They were hour long morality plays about a kid in trouble. There were a couple of good ones - such as one that was based on the memoir Go Ask Alice, and another based on A Separate Peace. But most were sort of like the flicks we see now on Lifetime or Hallmark channels. Heavy-handed morality tales. I think in a way, the writers were making fun of these "specials about addiction" in season 6. They do go a bit over the top at times - in a way that is almost comical (specifically the removal of all magical perpherinal from the house including candles in Gone - a sort of homage to out of sight out of mind pov. Gone is in a lot of ways a homage to that S1 episode, Out of Sight Out of Mind - about a nerdy girl who disappears, and is literally out of sight and out of mind. Then seeks vengeance on all who made her that way.)

While I may not be fond of certain aspects of the magic arc - from a purely objective pov it does work. The writing is tight, layered, and furthers the arcs of all the characters. Actually Willow's entire arc makes sense, Whedon clearly knew ahead of time what he wanted to do with Willow, and why, because he starts building up to it as far back as Season 1. He just changes a few particulars here and there.

( In Defense of Willow's Magic Arc and why Tara's Death was necessary )

[Found a rather interesting essay on Dollhouse here:

http://tigerbeatdown.blogspot.com/2009/04/dollhouse-joss-whedon-and-strange-and.html

It's different than most of the stuff - I've read recently and in some respects a breath of fresh air. (It's an essay from a feminist who loves Dollhouse and is not fond of Buffy.)

Also, as an aside, does anyone know where I can see a repeat of tonight's House - not online, but on tv? I know it will be repeated, but forget when and where.

Another bit - I know I've said this before, but bears repeating, I think people forget that Joss Whedon is a 'horror' writer, specifically psychological horror. True horror, not the comfy Stephen King variety, but true classic psychological horror makes you cringe and squirm and keeps you awake giving you nightmares. It's not nice. It's not meant to be. It's meant to be skeevy and squicky. Whedon not only writes horror, he studied it in school, analyzed it, and is a critic of it.

ETA: the below essay has been edited to incorporate moscow-watcher's comment below.]

The following essay came out of a somewhat heated discussion with a poster several posts below...and has been skirting about in my brain most of the day.

Not sure how many people reading this journal are fiction writers? If you are, regardless of the fiction, you probably at one point or another fell in love with a specific theme or plot idea and ended up writing yourself into a corner that you could not get out of because of it. Sure it was a brilliant idea at the time. But now, dang it, you are stuck. And your options are limited. You can either give up on the fic entirely. Continue with it and see if you can write your way out of it. Go with the flow so to speak. Or take an easy way out and either retcon or do some sort of reset button.

In 1997, Joss Whedon created a show entitled Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He had etched out about thirteen episodes - that would tie up all the plot threads for the first season, because he did not believe it would get renewed. The series was a mid-season replacement and had gotten derisive industry buzz because of the movie that preceeded it and bombed, financially. Originally, Angel was supposed to die the first season, but Whedon changed his mind and realized that it would be too complicated to pull off. When the series got renewed for a second season, surprise, surprise - Whedon and Greenwalt came up with a twenty-two episode plot arc - culminating in Angel's death by Buffy, the heroine's hands.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was his first television series and a chance to redo the movie that had bombed, right. The story was to take place in high school - and to be marketed mainly at teen girls. The central metaphor was high school is hell - he envisioned it as a hip horror series featuring a young girl as the heroine. And the demons were metaphors for the horrors of highschool and teen life - the horrors teens fear, and must slay to reach adulthood.

( spoilers for Angel and Buffy )