From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V4 #38 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Sunday, March 10 2002 Volume 04 : Number 038 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: b/parents and children ["Hilary L.Hertzoff" ] Re: b/parents and children ["David S. Bratman" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 10:58:21 -0500 From: "Hilary L.Hertzoff" Subject: Re: b/parents and children On Friday 08 March 2002 12:20, you wrote: > At 06:23 PM 3/7/2002 , Meredith wrote: > >I've never gotten that feeling. It hasn't been mentioned recently, but > >earlier on in the show Xander made frequent cracks about his clueless > >parents. And Willow's parents' disconnection from their daughter's life > >was a big part of the "MOO" episode (the one where Amy turned into a rat). > > "It hasn't been mentioned recently." And the one episode about Willow's > parents. > > >I'm not so sure about this. Xander has made references to not wanting to > >turn out like his family before. And in "Restless", we saw some of his > >fears manifest. > > I did mention "Restless". And Xander mentions this - his parents don't > really impact on his life much, even when he was still in high school ... > > >Um, he and Anya moved out into their own place early on last season ... > > ... and then living with them. If he's no longer there, that reinforces my > original point that his life circumstances are not the result of abusive or > neglectful parents. Okay, I'm lost here - what are we discussing now. I thought the point was that Willow and Xander's parents are not mentioned on the show as often as they should be, so I gave a number of examples of literary parents who are absent emotionally or literally from their children's lives. Now we seem to have gone on to Xander's life circumstances, which really wasn't what I was addressing at all. In all of the cases that I mentioned, I was focusing on the absence of the parents, less than the effects of the children involved. For the record my take on the current topic is that Xander's and Willow's parents are so involved in their own lives that they play very little part in their children's or vice versa. I'm not talking about how this affects them, except to say that this is one of the reasons why they rarely were shown or mentioned on the show. Two other points on this subject. The focus of the show is _Buffy_, her life, her friends, etc. In most teen novels of any sort, unless a friend's parents have a direct impact on the plot, you will rarely see them. Also we've seen maybe 22 hours per _year_ of their lives...Joss is not going to fit everything in. And a third point that just occured to me...if we had had more scenes with Willow's and Xander's parents, what would you have left out. Hilary - -- Hilary Hertzoff hhertzof@panix.com Mamaroneck, NY hilaryh@dm.net Bunnies aren't cute like everybody supposes They've got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses And what's with all the carrots What do they need such good eyesight for anyway...Anya Buffy the Vampire Slayer Once More with Feeling ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2002 22:48:59 -0800 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/parents and children Hilary - Whatever point you're trying to make, the one I've been trying to make all along is that the parents' absence from _what we see of_ Xander's and Willow's lives is much greater than can be explained by pathological neglect, because whatever parental problems they have are not that severe, or not of that kind. (We can see this by contrast with Tara, who really does have pathological family problems.) This applies not just to the parents' physically showing up on the screen, but in how much Xander and Willow talk about them. At least in seasons 1 and 3-date. In other words, there's a dissonance here. It's not the only one on BTVS, but it's the one I'm mentioning. It misses the point to say that fundamentally the show's about Buffy and her relationships, and that time is limited. So far, we've had a whole show each in which full or primary attention has been given to Xander and his parents, Willow and her mother, Tara and her family. That's actually a heck of a lot for a series that's not really about these things. But it throws the relative absence elsewhere into contrast. I'm not asking for more shows focused on that. I'm just saying that casual references are remarkably absent. In high school, at least in season 3, Buffy and Willow were in and out of each other's homes all the time. We often saw Willow with Joyce, which made Willow's mom only the more conspicuously absent. When Xander was living in his parents' basement, we never actually saw his parents - it was like they were phantoms. That his father was mentioned on occasion only underlined this. I've already explained why they're physically absent - surely the creators didn't want to have to keep more actors under part-time contract than they already do. But if they did, occasional brief appearances could have rectified this problem without raising the need for eliminating something else from scarce show times. This isn't a big deal, or even a major flaw. I am only repeating and emphasizing this in a desperate attempt to make a simple, minor, and (I thought) straightforward point clear. At 07:58 AM 3/9/2002 , Hilary wrote: >Okay, I'm lost here - what are we discussing now. I thought the point was >that Willow and Xander's parents are not mentioned on the show as often as >they should be, so I gave a number of examples of literary parents who are >absent emotionally or literally from their children's lives. Now we seem to >have gone on to Xander's life circumstances, which really wasn't what I was >addressing at all. In all of the cases that I mentioned, I was focusing on >the absence of the parents, less than the effects of the children involved. > >For the record my take on the current topic is that Xander's and Willow's >parents are so involved in their own lives that they play very little part in >their children's or vice versa. I'm not talking about how this affects them, >except to say that this is one of the reasons why they rarely were shown or >mentioned on the show. > >Two other points on this subject. The focus of the show is _Buffy_, her >life, her friends, etc. In most teen novels of any sort, unless a friend's >parents have a direct impact on the plot, you will rarely see them. >Also we've seen maybe 22 hours per _year_ of their lives...Joss is not going >to fit everything in. > >And a third point that just occured to me...if we had had more scenes with >Willow's and Xander's parents, what would you have left out. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V4 #38 ****************************