"Bored now."
POSTED BY: Knibblet
UPDATED: Tuesday, June 8, 2004 20:04
VIEWED: 10971
PAGE 4 of 4
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Originally posted by maugwai:
You guys have said some interesting things, so I thought I'd chime in with some loose change.
Goulman, I am not a smelly fanboy. I am neither smelly nor a boy. Also, it's completely not important to anybody but me, and it's an easy mistake to make, but Hamlet didn't kill Ophelia. She went crazy and killed herself. Hamlet's actions played a major part, but she already had issues, and she did the deed herself.
I think Ghoulman meant that Hamlet the play killed Ophelia, not Hamlet the character. The analogy is that when Tara died people were angry at Buffy the show, and at the writers, NOT at Warren (well, they may have been angry at warren, but they expressed their anger at the show).
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I agree that season 6 was good. It's my personal favorite. I think one of the reasons people don't like it is because they set up an expectation of what an episode of Buffy should be. If you go in looking for every episode to be "Surprise," then you're going to be disappointed. Have no expectations, and you'll like what you see because Joss is always trying something new. I love how many episode endings found me still open-mouthed and silent five minutes later. I felt that way because I never tried to predict what would happen, so I was never disappointed. I simply analyzed what I saw, like you guys are doing.
I love that feeling of awe and silence. I was discussing this with someone recently, in response to some comments joss recently made (he said that surprise is the most holy and humbling emotion that we have, and he was talking about how much spoilers and previews sadenned him because suprise was no longer possible; he said that surprise makes us feel 'small in the world', as if things are much larger and scarier and more complicated than we imagined).
I think quite a lot of Buffy's style is about creating various kinds of shock (not just plot or emotional, but even the shocking way they hit us with jokes or style changes), and leaving us permentaly in a state of shock, and transforming that shock from comedic to dramatic to horror etc.
They play that shock so well, controlling the levels and energy, that's it's like music or like a dance. That's a large part of the art of the show, I think, and it's one of the most neglected in discussions of 'what the show is' (even though it's one of the most obvious parts of our reaction).
Refining what I said in the last paragraph:
actually, it's kind of about 'repressed shock'. I find often that my laughter is repressed, even when something is hilarious. It's like they 'keep' the shock and keep pushing the energy stronger by holding that tension tight, and transform that energy between all the different genres. It's like we live in the moment before shock, while we're watching the show. I found Hush really unnerving for this reason, becaue the stifled screams etc. were exactly how I felt when watching the show.
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Season seven was so coherent. Every episode from beginning to end was pushing to one goal. It opens with power, it closes with power and who has it. And in between it focuses on Buffy's solitude. Good stuff.
I'm definitely still re-assessing my opinion of s7, my opinions/feelings aren't set in stone. I do totally agree that it's coherent that way, that its topic was coherent ...what I'm less sure of is if what they're saying within the topic is as coherent, and whether every thread and episode in the season ties in as well as it did in previous seasons (or if what they're saying is as 'insightful' as previous seasons, though that's highly subjective of course).
Anyhow, I'm not one of the people who thinks that it's 'bad' or anything, my feeling is just that it might not be quite as coherent as the previous seasons.
But what I'd agree with, and this is perhaps what you're saying, is that it states its topic very clearly and coherently, perhaps even more so than previous season.
ah, ignore me. What I should really say is that I love hea
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No, no, no, that bastard Hamlet ripped into Ophelia and she killed herself in despair. Hamlet did it!
*chuckle*, I know, it's an old argument. 
And I'll be back to comment (Lennier! You go... er, boy? Whatever. And I'll message ya). Not sure when as I'm working late into the night. As the time index above will attest. Nite. 
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OK first... my eyes are bleeding. Lots of text. I read it last night and went over again to collect some thoughts. Nice work once again Lennier! You are the shabazz!
Oh, I didn't really change my mind (about season 6) as take in all you have pointed out. That is, I'm wrong because I didn't see the whole picture and thus not your point. And I'm aften confused about what season is what so bare with me. Bear with me? A bear! Undo it! heh heh. Sorry...
You are obviously talented in the higher order. Your sagacity and insight is the difference between mere existance and actually living. You are Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Plato once told a story to describe our reality. Reality, he tells us, is a tribe sitting in a cave watching a shadow play created by hidden men from behind. The people watch the shadows and believe them to be reality. One person (let's call her Buffy) walks out of the cave and discovers the sun, the sky... a higher reality. A truer reality. This person is called the Philosopher. Buffy is that person. And so are you.
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Lennier wrote:
Monday, June 07, 2004 13:06
I just worry that my 'voice' often comes off as confrontational, even when I don't mean to be...
I'm not a sensitive reader on a public BBS. Considering the attacks on me by everyone from Paramount producers, writers, TV drones @ SPACe the fanboy network, etc. I've grown a pretty thick skin. So don't worry, but when I'm aggressive you can't mistake it for anything else. I've made sailors blush. Then kiss my toes. And give me money LOL!
Quote:You're comments here are the very centre of BtVS in it's entirty. At it's basic premise (the true one, not the teen sex pot one I mentioned) this is what BtVS is about. If someone asks what is BtVS about you can simply answer; "it's about a girl growing up to be a woman." and it's great stuff!
About Buffy being faliable, I'm always annoyed when people use that against her, claiming that it makes her a 'bad role model' or something. I've always felt that she's one of the best role models because she and her problems are truly 'real', and she succeeds despite it all ...she wanders but finds the right way in the end.
Buffy has gone through, as you deftly point out, all sorts of troubles and conflicts that are a part of all our lives (well, not the older Vampire boyfriend part but ... you know) and it's how we deal with these classic hurtles in life that is entirely what drama and stories are about. Buffy takes all that on with alacrity, at least usually. She isn't perfect but who is? Just as you say, this is a story aboyut growth - if the Buffster was superhero perfect the show would just be the pandering crap we would have expected from the teen sex scenario... which I'll comment on next. After all, your comments are still right on.
Quote:I've noticed that critics only see the surface. And that's what I meant about the "teen sex kitten deamon fighter" thing. I'll explain a bit...
...again, I'm annoyed by critics and feminists who complain that Buffy is not fully independent and empowered in her high school years ...cause who is like that in high school?? or at any age for that matter ...buffy is as close as we'll get, I think, to a realistic 'handbook' towards independence, particularly for girls).
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Take Buffy at face value. Teen sex kitten who fights demons. Pretty comic book stuff, which is where Joss is comming from. It's a very standard school girl sex fantasy for men. All that's missing is Buffy in a Catholic mini. Now, this is certainly demonstrated in Buffy and can be said to be true. But that doesn't mean to say the show panders to this (slightly creepy) sex fantasy... though the whole Angel/Buffy romance did get so close to that even Angel and Buffy once said they were creeped out by thier own desires! Truly a show that knows itself!
So the above may seem 'bad' but the real brillience of this show is it's subversion of these comic book elements. That is, instead of pandering to sexNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I'm posting this before I read Ghoulman's response, because I'm embarassed about some of what I wrote, and want to acknowledge a problem with it---
in the 'fetish' part of the response, I became quite lost and I crossed about 5 different topics without 'realizing' it, and ended up talking
about something completely different than what I started with. The result is that what I say at the end may seem to contradict what I was saying at the beginning (i think?), and corrupt the coherency of the argument (well, it isn't coherent at all, is it? i was just sort of ranting) ...but
actually, I'm talking about something different, and if I had made that clear (and written it better) then there would be no contradiction.
Anyhow, I just wanted to acknowledge the problems with that part of my post.
One way to put it in perspective, is to say that what i SHOULD be talking about, the context within which this argument is located, is with respect
to feminist critisisms that claim Buffy is a failure as feminism, and may even be ANTI-feminist (ie. I'm not debating how the show deals with
sexuality, I'm talking about whether or not the show's message is signficantly 'corrupted' by its sexual side ...and aside perhaps for season 1, the
answer is a definite no ---for two reasons ...one is that, its active treatment of sexuality simply does not undercut its empowerment and themes, and the 2nd reason is that the dis-empowering fetishizing that COULD be attached to the show exists entirely OUTSIDE of it, and the
show should not be held responsible for how people can *choose* to objectify it).
I'm not sure if what I'm saying here is entirely clear either, but hopefully it simplifies things a little bit.
A side analogy I've been wanting to the mention is the danger of being over-cautious of female sexuality (and that's part of why Buffy's playful and wholehearted embracing of it is so important) ...eg. "women don't belong in the army
because they'll distract the men". There's a danger of going too far and
actually becoming sexist on the 'other' side, and I would say that is where some feminists have gone in attempting to trash Buffy.
One brilliant article in "What's at Stake in Buffy" actually parodied the feminist articles in this way: "Buffy can't be feminist because she has
breasts".
In a related point, there's a related set of issues regarding Buffy as a 'conventional' girl ...she's powerful, but much of her behaviour in the early seasons is 'girly' and she likes clothes, and other things that bother the feminists ...I won't get into the details, but the real issue there is that Buffy ISN'T meant to be a 100% feminist work, it's also supposed to simply be a refelction high school, and being young, which means it's wrong to judge those aspects purely in feminist terms ...and also, in later seasons Buffy clearly grows up into a better feminist model, so the critisisms really don't hold if you consider that it's supposed to be a progression. And the show never claimed that it was 'the' feminist ideal, it's more meant to be a step in the growing process (this time I mean our growth as a culture) ...though I think that by the later seasons, it's achieved a pretty good feminist ideal (regardless of whether or not it lines up with any particular version of feminism).
note to Ghoulman: I may not respond to your response for a few days. 
Also, this is getting to be a lot of words even for me, so I may just need to drop some points.
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^^^ No worries Lennier, I know you're in school so don't think you gotta reply out of politness - and you're very polite. And I hope my responces hit your meaning. I read it with an editors eye. So you went off a little, it's a BBS, it's all good.
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