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Essay: Buffy the Groundbreaker
May. 28th, 2003 01:05 pm
A small essay. I've been practicing writing stuff like this just to get better at presenting an opinion or idea on paper. Expect more.
Buffy the Groundbreaker
Like most people, I've never really given the TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" much thought. OK, yeah, Sarah Michelle Geller headlining a little teeny-bopper show that featured her making high kicks, just enough voodoo to piss parents off and lesbian Wiccan love triangles. Pass, thank you.
But with the show ending a week or two ago, and a surprising amount of friends morning its end, I thought I'd look into it a bit more before passing judgement. Maybe there's something to this whole Buffy thing after all.
Buffy premiered in March 1997 as a mid-season replacement for "Savannah". This was before Jennifer Garner with the freaky lips popped up in "Alias," and before WB had cemented their status as a haven for teenage girls addicted to television. It was a risky program that no one was really wlling to take; ABC passed on it, and Fox rejected it twice. For The WB, however, it became a staple of the network's look; along with shows like Dawson's Creek and 7th Heaven, it shaped the new net into what it is today.
The series, as it turns out, was a hit, and will widely be lauded as one of the most groundbreaking and creative series of the 1990s. Why? Well, I couldn't figure it out, either, until I started reading up on it.
Of course, there's all this business of being one of the first females to actually kick ass in a horror setting. Buffy was the stereotypical blond you see in any gore flick, but designed to do a whole lot more than trip, fall and become the chow/mind slave/helpless victim of the generic villain. She was the champion of the dim-witted bimbo, the protector of the vapid valley girl and she did it all while upholding the standards that horror cliches hold so dear...looking great and not chipping a nail.
What impressed me, however, was that series creator Joss Whedon had inserted this theme into his story without making a big fuss about it. "Buffy" quietly rewrote what it meant to be a strong woman on television, all the while telling interesting and imaginative stories to boot. Complex characters, a grandiose, twisted mythology, and tongue-in-cheek parodies of the very things it represented made the series a step above everything else. Besides that, Buffy herself was a fascinating character within the framework that Whedon had created.
Even though she was a strong woman capable of doing battles with the nasties that had slain so many of her peers, Buffy was very much flawed. Emotionally unstable, she shut down numerous times throughout the series, when the strain of what she was dealing with became just too great. And admittedly, she's been through Hell and back; being brought back from the dead twice, falling in love with not just one, but two vampires and a werewolf, having your mom murdered and suddenly gaining a kid sister out of nowhere are just some of the things she's had to endure.
Twice, she's run away from home and her responsibilities as a Slayer to start a new life in LA, and her dysfunctional, almost abusive relationship with the unrepentant blood-sucker Spike proves that even strong women can make really stupid decisions when it comes to love.
I've only seen three episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in my entire life. To be honest, only one really stuck with me...but now I'm thinking that there's a whole lot more under those two unimpressive episodes that I didn't get before. I'm thinking about joining a couple of the neighbors for weekly reviewings to check it out. Buffy may have had to sacrifice her life on TV to gain another fan, but that's something she should be used to.
Buffy the Groundbreaker
Like most people, I've never really given the TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" much thought. OK, yeah, Sarah Michelle Geller headlining a little teeny-bopper show that featured her making high kicks, just enough voodoo to piss parents off and lesbian Wiccan love triangles. Pass, thank you.
But with the show ending a week or two ago, and a surprising amount of friends morning its end, I thought I'd look into it a bit more before passing judgement. Maybe there's something to this whole Buffy thing after all.
Buffy premiered in March 1997 as a mid-season replacement for "Savannah". This was before Jennifer Garner with the freaky lips popped up in "Alias," and before WB had cemented their status as a haven for teenage girls addicted to television. It was a risky program that no one was really wlling to take; ABC passed on it, and Fox rejected it twice. For The WB, however, it became a staple of the network's look; along with shows like Dawson's Creek and 7th Heaven, it shaped the new net into what it is today.
The series, as it turns out, was a hit, and will widely be lauded as one of the most groundbreaking and creative series of the 1990s. Why? Well, I couldn't figure it out, either, until I started reading up on it.
Of course, there's all this business of being one of the first females to actually kick ass in a horror setting. Buffy was the stereotypical blond you see in any gore flick, but designed to do a whole lot more than trip, fall and become the chow/mind slave/helpless victim of the generic villain. She was the champion of the dim-witted bimbo, the protector of the vapid valley girl and she did it all while upholding the standards that horror cliches hold so dear...looking great and not chipping a nail.
What impressed me, however, was that series creator Joss Whedon had inserted this theme into his story without making a big fuss about it. "Buffy" quietly rewrote what it meant to be a strong woman on television, all the while telling interesting and imaginative stories to boot. Complex characters, a grandiose, twisted mythology, and tongue-in-cheek parodies of the very things it represented made the series a step above everything else. Besides that, Buffy herself was a fascinating character within the framework that Whedon had created.
Even though she was a strong woman capable of doing battles with the nasties that had slain so many of her peers, Buffy was very much flawed. Emotionally unstable, she shut down numerous times throughout the series, when the strain of what she was dealing with became just too great. And admittedly, she's been through Hell and back; being brought back from the dead twice, falling in love with not just one, but two vampires and a werewolf, having your mom murdered and suddenly gaining a kid sister out of nowhere are just some of the things she's had to endure.
Twice, she's run away from home and her responsibilities as a Slayer to start a new life in LA, and her dysfunctional, almost abusive relationship with the unrepentant blood-sucker Spike proves that even strong women can make really stupid decisions when it comes to love.
I've only seen three episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in my entire life. To be honest, only one really stuck with me...but now I'm thinking that there's a whole lot more under those two unimpressive episodes that I didn't get before. I'm thinking about joining a couple of the neighbors for weekly reviewings to check it out. Buffy may have had to sacrifice her life on TV to gain another fan, but that's something she should be used to.
