What Buffy Means to Me

This past weekend was the 22^nd anniversary of Buffy’s premiere, so I thought I’d take this week to reflect. Next week I’ll post another episode blog, don’t worry!

When Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted, I was a high school Freshman with very low self-esteem. I was smart, somewhat geeky, somewhat nerdy, and a theater kid. I wasn’t one of those theater kids though. I love theater and have been involved in theater since kindergarten, but when you picture the drama kids, you don’t picture me. I was an outsider, even when it came to the thing I loved most.

Don’t get me wrong – I had plenty of friends, many of whom did theater with me, but we were a small group and because we had each other I never felt like a total outsider, but I was.

When Buffy began, I was excited. I have always loved stories of vampires and witches and I really enjoyed the movie. So, I knew this show would be for me, even though my expectations were low (see my intro blog for that).

What I got was not just a show about vampires and the girl whose destiny it was to kill them. I got a friend. I got a show that got me. In some ways, it feels silly to write those last two sentences. I had plenty of friends and I was probably considered cooler than Willow or Xander. For starters, I had more than two friends and I didn’t have a Cordelia-like person constantly taunting and belittling me. And my high school was (and still is to this day) a lot more accepting than Sunnydale High was. And yet, despite that, I saw myself in Willow immediately. Sometimes I saw myself in Buffy, Xander, Giles, and even, on occasion, Cordelia.

What Joss Whedon created, and what the wonderful actors brought to life, spoke to me in a way that no other show had up to that point. Of course, I had completely missed watching My So-Called Life and tended to watch what my parents watched. Lois & Clark was my favorite show when Buffy started. So, I guess in some ways, of course Buffy spoke to me, but it was so much more than that.

I want to talk about how watching this show gave me confidence, and it did, but more importantly it brought me friends that allowed me to become confident. In high school, those of us that watched BtVS talked like we had a secret. Sophomore year I remember printing out pictures of Buffy from the internet and bringing them in. During history class I showed the other school’s Debbie because she was a fan. She was also a popular, blonde cheerleader that I didn’t socialize with. This bonded us. As soon as her best friend, one of the several Jens in our grade, asked her, “You watch that show?” our conversation ended out of what I perceived to be embarrassment on her part.

Junior year of high school we had to take a theme from The Scarlett Letter and compare it to something else. One of the most popular girls in high school and I both talked about Buffy. It’s been awhile, but I think she spoke about it in terms of how the vampires were hidden until they chose to reveal their true faces and I talked about how you think you’re watching a vampire show, but there is a hidden high school/life metaphor contained within each story. Either way, we both, and totally separately chose to compare the same theme to BtVS.

Senior year, we had to do a project on Macbeth. Someone I was friendly with was my partner and we decided to show how the themes of Macbeth are still prevalent in pop-culture. Our main example was the Faith storyline in season 3.

This just outlines how I made connections with people in class. The friends that I hung out with on a regular basis watched Buffy – well some friends. My friend Alana had a dream in which she was Buffy and she saved me from a vampire, who in real life, was a guy I had a crush on who also watched the show. There were a few others as well.

In college, I had many more friends who watched this gem of a show, and through them, and through the journey of both Buffy and Willow on the show, my confidence grew. My best friend, Amy, is the most important of these friendships, and in the early days it was Amy and Matt. I met both of them during orientation and quickly found out (specifically, during our ice cream social) that they were Buffy fans. Every Tuesday in college that Buffy was new, the two of them would come to my room, sometimes joined by others, to watch the show. Well, until Matt started dating Amy’s roommate.  She kind of stole him away from us. But that’s another story.

The other big Buffy friendship at this time is my friend, Charlotte. If you’re reading this, I miss you – we need to get together, catch up, and be in each other’s lives more. I mean it. Charlotte was not a fan – not yet. She was a good listener though and I talked about Buffy non-stop. When I talked about Spike she wanted to watch the show. Luckily for her I taped, and kept, every episode and lived 30 minutes away from college, so I could very easily drive home and get the old episodes for us to watch. I got her caught up to season 4 pretty quickly. I feel like that bonded us. We were both theater people (as were Amy and Matt – well Matt was until his girlfriend stopped him from doing that, too) and we both watched this amazing show, among other activities and similarities.

Another dear friend of mine from college is a Buffy fan as well. Shelby may not have watched the show with me while in college, but we knew we were fans and still to this day, many birthday presents from her are Buffy related. Junior or senior year I showed her the movie and she scoffed at it and kind of ruined it for me. That stung, but our friendship has endured.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended our junior year of college and Angel ended our senior year. The Buffyverse got me all the way through high school and college – no wonder my confidence grew watching this show. I was growing as I was watching and becoming the person I am today.

As I look back over the 15 years without new Buffy episodes I know that I have filled the hole it left as best I could. Supernatural comes close. The Vampire Diaries and The Originals (not to mention Twilight) did not. Surprisingly, the TVD/Originals spinoff, Legacies, is doing a pretty good job of filling that hole. Yet, re-watching this show continues to remind me that this show was special.  It was the first vampire show that showed pretty, young vampires as something other than villains (and, still as villains) that was relatively popular and not just a cult hit. It may have started that way, but it’s more than that now.

In the 22 years since the show debuted the world has changed. The feminism that was shown on Buffy is embraced by so many more people now. Toxic masculinity has been named. #MeToo, Time’s Up, and so many more things that have nothing to do with women becoming stronger. I’ve changed, too.

Could this show be as popular now? We might find out as a reboot is in the works at Fox. But that doesn’t count. Imagine if Buffy were a brand-new show, and not a reboot, this year. Would Buffy be the same? Technology has changed and everyone knows you shouldn’t say, “You throw like a girl,” and yet, I think it would still be something special. Of course, it would have to be on the CW or would risk getting cancelled if people don’t tune in by millions and millions in the first two weeks, but then again, Buffy helped to make the WB before moving to UPN, so it would have to be on the CW, right?

I can’t put into words what this show means to me, but I’ve tried. I continue to meet people who are fans, new and old and I hope that never stops. This show has connected me to people and informed who I am – and that’s almost as important as the show itself. I just hope that as new teenagers discover this show that it means as much to them as it did to me. I hope they are able to find themselves and be better people as a result of watching Buffy. If the next generation asks, “What would Buffy do?” this world will be okay.

 

“Bad Girls”

Okay, so things just got good, or bad, depending on your take.  Buffy delves back into the moral quandary pool, only this time Buffy herself is the one toeing the line.

As I’ve mentioned in at least one other previous blog, the slayer’s job is to kill, therefore Buffy is a killer. However, because she only kills monsters and demons (and evil robots) she is not seen as a villain. This episode, along with its companion, “Consequences,” takes this idea and plays with it.  With power comes great responsibility, and on this show, who has more power than the slayer (you know, other than the other slayer)?

There’s a lot going on in this episode.  It starts off with Buffy and Faith working really well together in their fight against vampires.  It’s actually really great to see them fighting together and being all friendly, cause you know, that won’t last long. After the whole evil watcher thing, Faith seems to have come back around nicely, just in time to be a bad influence on Buffy.

What allows Buffy to slowly start losing (or at least testing) her moral compass? Well, that would be the arrival of new Watcher, Wesley Windham-Pryce.  First of all, Alexis Denisof is awesome, and I have been waiting to see Wesley on Buffy since “Helpless.” And, wait, is his British accent more proper here than it was on Angel? Hmmm… it definitely sounds different than I remember, maybe it’s just been a while since I’ve seen his character on either show. Second, his character is such a great buffoon (“Preparation, preparation, preparation” says it all) that Giles now looks extremely cool by comparison. I do appreciate that Giles is still the school librarian.  I mean, the Watcher’s Council obviously got him that job to put him in the slayer’s orbit and give him a place to hide all the occult books he would need in his capacity as Watcher, yet, Wesley just shows up at the school, starts hanging out in the library and goes unquestioned? I know that schools were much more lax about these things in the 90s, but the Watcher’s Council could have made him some sort of teacher or assistant librarian as a cover – don’t you think?

Anyways, Buffy’s reaction to having a new Watcher is great – “Is he evil? The last one was evil.” Faith’s reaction is better – “Screw that.” And then she turns around and walks out of the library. Clearly Wesley has an uphill battle here. He is also the cause of Buffy being more open to rebellion. She never liked taking orders from Giles, but he was able to find teaching moments to get her to take responsibility and never treated her like a lackey. Think back to the very first episode. Buffy is at the Bronze, still resisting the whole slayer thing, when Giles shows up. She teases him, he puts up with it and then gets her to try to hone her senses to see if there are any vampires at the club. She spots one easily and explains to Giles how she knows that he is a vampire.  Giles is a bit flummoxed, as Buffy is not doing things in the traditional way, but he accepts that and he accepts her. Wesley, on the other hand, goes straight in for the orders. And he’s super uncool. She’s having none of that, so when Faith’s bad girl approach calls, she listens.

Interestingly, this is all against the backdrop of college talk. Although Buffy has applied for colleges, she still sees her future as limiting. She understands Xander, who is definitely not going to college. And Willow, of course, has early acceptances from Harvard, Yale, and Wesleyan (didn’t Joss Whedon go to the latter?). During the career fair in season 2 (the same episode that introduced Kendra) Buffy was also not feeling so great about her future.  She has a better outlook now, but it is interesting that when a story about 2 slayers working together comes along, the gang’s future is being discussed yet again.

Speaking of Kendra, Buffy is the Kendra to Faith’s Buffy.  Last season, Kendra had to remind Buffy that slaying isn’t a job, it’s who she is. Kendra was also a rule follower and Buffy was the impulsive one. Now Faith is reminding Buffy that slaying is who she is, but taking it a whole lot further. And because Faith is so impulsive, it puts Buffy in a more responsible position, the position that Kendra used to fill. Doug Petrie, who wrote this episode, says something to the effect that Faith is Buffy’s darker side in his episode commentary. This will come up again when Buffy is learning about Othello in English class. Comparing Buffy to other slayers is interesting.  Obviously, all people are different, and therefore so too are slayers. But seeing how different slayers perceive being the slayer, and what that means, is what makes this and the next episode so important.  And it’s all centered around the idea of how far a slayer can go and how far a slayer should go.  Faith takes this to the extreme with her mantra of, “Want, take, have.”

Doug Petrie also talks about Buffy’s rebirth in this episode. There’s a moment when a vampire seemingly drowns Buffy and she reemerges from the water with, “I hate it when they drown me,” recalling “Prophecy Girl.” This almost drowning serves as a baptism of sorts. When Buffy emerges, she changes and is more open to bad behavior. From that moment on, she makes horrible choices up until the moment when Faith accidentally stakes a human.

This is an understandable mistake. Vampires are coming at them as they walk down an alley, and Alan, the deputy mayor, probably shouldn’t have been in that alley. Buffy sees him as he reaches for her, pushes him away, and then Faith picks up the slack, ready to pounce. As she’s about to stake him, Buffy realizes that he’s not a vampire and tries to warn Faith, but it is too late.

Brief pause: why was Alan there? He must’ve been there to tell Buffy and Faith about the Mayor, right? We’ll never know for sure unfortunately, but he did look pretty uncomfortable in the Mayor’s office with Mayor Wilkins and Mr. Trick. How did he become the Deputy Mayor? When did he find out that the guy he worked for was evil? What made him stay and why decide to speak out now? Unfortunately, we are left with a lot of questions. Of course, none of these really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Back to the murder. I have to wonder, what if their roles were reversed? What if Faith was the one who pushed Alan, and Buffy was the one who tagged in with the stake? Would Buffy have realized he was human before shoving the stake into his heart? Would Faith have noticed from afar or would she have continued moving, knowing that B can handle herself? Since Buffy is more of a thinker and more of an observer than Faith, who again is more impulsive and more about the action, would Buffy have been able to stop the murder from taking place if their roles had been reversed? This doesn’t really matter. We don’t want the hero of our show, who will always be Buffy, killing anyone, so it had to be Faith. However, how Faith handled this crisis, versus what Buffy would have done, is how you know that Buffy is a moral character and Faith is not.

I have to believe that this event affected Faith, even if she won’t admit it. She goes back to look at the body and seems genuinely upset. But then, like a Vampire Diaries vampire turning off his humanity, she makes a decision off-camera to not care. She disposes of the body (and honestly, not very well as he pops right up again in the next episode), and moves on, not wanting to discuss what happened, not wanting to think about it, and, as she tells Buffy, not even caring that she killed someone.

What follows is fodder for the next blog.  While this feels like a natural ending point there is so much more to discuss here that I haven’t really even touched on.

I mean, Buffy is pushing Willow, her best friend aside.  And using the same lousy excuse the whole gang used on Xander in “The Zeppo.” Doesn’t Buffy get that just by being her friend Willow and Xander will always be in danger? Poor Willow. Or what about when Xander’s eye twitches every time Faith’s name is mentioned? Or how about when Joyce says that she doesn’t want to meddle in Buffy’s slaying? I guess she learned her lesson after “Gingerbread,” huh?

I haven’t even talked about what a bad influence Faith was on Buffy.  I mean, I skirted the topic, but then went straight to the murder, leaving out all the class skipping (when there’s an important test to be taken) and store robbing.  For the first time, Buffy breaks the law for fun, rather than out of necessity. And then, while escaping police custody, she and Faith injure the police officers and against Buffy’s better judgement, they leave without calling for help. Buffy gets so caught up in the whole bad girl behavior thing that she actually freaks Angel out by being way too sexual with him. Sure, they’re back together, but no one wants Angel to lose his soul again and it seems as if Buffy’s too caught up in her own feelings to realize that her behavior with Angel is inappropriate. Angel has to remove himself from Buffy and get all business-like with her.

Oh, and Wesley! Yes, I talked about him, but I didn’t mention what a horrible Watcher he is. Aside from all the negative things I’ve already mentioned, he thought that the demon of the week was dead, then got kidnapped by said demon, and then was ready to blurt out everything to that demon in order to try to save his life – what an amateur! And then, because he lacks fighting skills, Giles had to save him. Now, this isn’t entirely Wesley’s fault, the Watcher’s Council doesn’t really field train their guys. You know, cause that’s the slayer’s job anyways.

And speaking of the demon of the week, when Buffy kills him he utters one more ominous line –  “When he rises you’ll wish I’d killed you all.” We know that he is referring to the Mayor, but our characters haven’t figured that out yet. And Mayor Wilkins has that whole dedication ceremony that makes him invincible. A sword-wielding vampire slices his head in two, and the Mayor lives (and magically heals).  This does not bode well for our hero.

At the end of this episode there is also a not-so-sneaky Shakespeare reference. Faith is washing blood out of her shirt and, metaphorically, off of her. Here, she is like Lady MacBeth, only Faith’s conscious doesn’t seem to be in play here. Faith washes out the blood, but Buffy is the one who’ll have the hard time dealing with the murder, which I’ll talk more about in the next blog.