From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #63 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Sunday, March 19 2000 Volume 02 : Number 063 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: b/comments 3/11 ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/whiplashes ["David S. Bratman" ] b/comedy ["David S. Bratman" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 23:59:01 -0500 (EST) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/comments 3/11 Catching up with old comments ... On Sat, 11 Mar 2000, Donald G. Keller wrote: > (Note to music analysts: B and F of course define an > interval of a tritone, the =diabolus in musica=, the most dissonant > interval.) Amusing, as long as you don't think there's anything significant in it ... though it's worth keeping in mind for any composers (Daugherty, or Crabtree, perhaps) who write a musical work based on _Buffy_. > So when B/F says "You can't win this [because I'm going to beat you]," F/B > just snaps. And the whole "you're nothing, murderous bitch" is exactly in > line with what Faith said to Buffy on campus. So I'm still inclined to use > Occam's Razor in this case and say Faith was talking about Buffy, not > herself. I agree, though the overtones are perhaps significant: as you discuss elsewhere, Faith and Buffy keep seeing themselves in each other, and thus each other in themselves. > One more thing for this go-round. I've been thinking what an achievement > it is that the writers have taken these two young women (SMG and Eliza > Dushku), not so different in "type" from dozens of their peers in other > teen shows and movies (though obviously in the upper talent bracket) and > created for them (in collaboration with the abilities of the actors > embodying them) two characters who are not only strong, independent women, > but who are =scary=, downright menacing, whose sudden appearance on the > scene (see Faith turning around in the campus scene, for example) can be > absolutely chilling. A pair of really great characters. What Faith's sudden appearance in the campus scene reminded me of was Anya's sudden revelation to Cordelia in the "Life without Buffy" episode last season. She also, I think, turned around, or at least turned towards Cordy while giving her demon face. Faith gave much the same effect, and without any demon makeup, either. Chilling, indeed. And her bristling body-language during the confrontation, plus her remark to Willow ("try it, Red, and I'll ..."), made for a great moment. Only her getting away from Buffy at the end was disappointing. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 00:20:51 -0500 (EST) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/whiplashes On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, Donald G. Keller wrote: > taking hold. Here's the embryo of my consideration of the Gothic aspect of > the show which I just mentioned again. It seems to me that this is a > separate angle about the show from =The Dharma of Buffy=, and also > separate from "The Dream Life of Buffy" and whatever I do with the > alchemical interpretation I've been puzzling over; I don't really see > these very different approaches melding into a single sustained > book-length essay, but rather as a collection of differing angles all by > the same writer. I would hope that, rather than devoting all your attention to finishing the ne plus ultra essays on every possible angle of _Buffy_ you can think of, that you could also use a "The Many Aspects of" approach, and come up with either a book or an introductory article, or both, pointing out how rich the show is (and distinguishing it from other programs that aren't, so your more skeptical readership won't assume you're just imagining this). > In considering what we now can refer to as the =Clueless= genre, it > seems clear that one of the seminal works in the form is =Heathers=. > That film's utterly black satire is largely absent from the amiable > =Clueless= itself (call it "=Heathers= Lite" in Greg Cox's phrase), > but the latter does preserve =Heathers=' other most salient quality, > its quite contemporary social comedy. > > =Buffy= restores the darkness to the mix, but in a different > relation to the comedy. In the usual formulation, =Heathers= is > mainstream: it's about =inner= demons, one's own self- > destructiveness. =Buffy= is fantasy, and externalizes the demons > (vampires). There's another, equally important difference, which you only touch on later on: _Heathers_ is Swiftian and _Buffy_ isn't: it's not a black comedy. I wonder, also, to what extent Josh's stated aim of creating a metaphorical show that externalizes inner demons is useful in understanding the creation. Mostly it works in relation to the high-school fears, but in terms of Buffy's own psychology, the more interesting angle is the pressure of an unwelcome but acknowledged calling, in which case it might be interesting to compare her with tennis players or child-prodigy pianists. > A further expression of the chronological and generic relationship > of the three works derives from the fact that we know =Clueless= to > have been explicitly based on Jane Austen's =Emma=. In the same > schema, =Heathers=' black satire could be described, loosely, as > Swiftian; and =Buffy=, which as supernatural horror ultimately > descends from the Gothic, and in fact closely adheres to the > =Encyclopedia of Fantasy= definition of "new Gothic" (urban fantasy), and > also retains the social comedy, would by the same token correspond to the > Brontes. And think of =Wuthering Heights=: if Catherine Earnshaw were a > martial-arts superhero and Heathcliff a vampire... I agree that _Buffy_ is more Brontean than Austenian; but if the EoF (which I don't have here) says that urban fantasy and "new Gothic" are the same thing, I must disagree: "new Gothic" may be a good way of describing _dark_ urban fantasy, a subset of horror, but the whole point of urban fantasy as a subgenre was the discovery that fantasy with contemporary settings need not be dark or Gothic at all: de Lint isn't, and he's virtually the defining example of the genre. > The opening of the second-season premiere is another case in point. > We get a leisurely end-of-summer scene between Xander and Willow, > taking its time assessing their relationship at that point; suddenly > a vampire attacks. Equally suddenly a hand enters the frame; in a > quick succession of comicbook-panel cuts--biff, bam, pow!--he goes > down. Cut: Buffy (for it is she) turns her head to the camera. "Hi, > guys." Turns back as vampire rises again: more comicbook, he turns > to dust. Matching shot: Buffy turns to camera again: "Miss me?" > Blackout. That's the long and the short of it. I hope you don't need me to point out that scenes like this (i.e. that make the same point you're making with this one) are exceedingly common. > The answer, I gradually realized, is that the moment is > simultaneously joyful =and frightening=. The key to the moment is > that for that instant we are seeing Buffy from Spike's point of view > (the camera angle is right over his shoulder); and to Spike, =Buffy > is a monster=. (The sudden apparition and banal tagline are > characteristic of Freddie Krueger and his ilk.) cf what she is to Faith. Good point to throw in more of Buffy's many characteristics. It occurs to me, for instance, that it's not enough to say that Willow is Buffy's sidekick: they're _each other's_ sidekicks, and Buffy's role as such is apparent from a couple of Walsh's lecture scenes, e.g. the one at the start of "Hush". This is an expansion of Willow's otherwise limited role as sidekick learning-whiz girl. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 01:29:02 -0500 (EST) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: b/comedy The March 13th New Yorker had an interview with George Meyer, script editor of _The Simpsons_, which had what I thought were some very insightful comments on current tv comedy: "On most shows nowadays, almost all the characters are stereotypes, or they embody one basic trait and very little else. And you have shows where all seven characters talk exactly like comedy writers. All the characters seem to be constantly cracking jokes -- and, specifically, jokes meant to injure other people. My old girlfriend Maria once said that if anyone ever said to her even one of the things that the people on sitcoms routinely say to each other she would probably burst into tears and go running out of the room. ... I never dreamed that television comedy would turn in such a dreary direction, so that all you would see is people in living rooms putting each other down." Having seen a few episodes of _Friends_ and _Drew Carey_, I think he has a point; and the relevance of this to _Buffy_ is that, while the show is not basically a comedy, too much of what is comedy fits this description. In particular, much of the time Xander seems to be acting like somebody who has wandered in from one of these living-room shows that Meyer is complaining about, and this behavior accounts for my increasing dislike of what was once an appealing character. He is, in fact, moving into the Cordelia role, which would appall the Xander I remember. And while I didn't like Cordelia either (I like her much better now), at least I could understand why she behaved that way, and the odd dynamics of her relation to the group. When Xander acts this way, I merely wonder how and why the others tolerate him. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #63 ****************************