Trivial Only Post: "Friends"-Style Names for "Buffy" Episodes

Someone has gone through every BtVS (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) episode and renamed them Friends style. Here are a few of my favorites:

2. The One Where Cordelia Presses Deliver

Admit it: This made you love Willow even more.

19. The One Where Everyone Knows How Vampires Dress

36. The One Where They Kill the Cat

81. The One Where Xander Does the Snoopy Dance

98. The One Where They Chase the Knights of Byzantine
Alternate title: "The One Where They Almost Jumped the Shark"

116. The One Where Buffy Juggles Oranges

133. The One Where Here Endeth the Lesson

Women, Cannibals, and the Horror Movie Zeitgeist

It's always interesting to observe the different zeitgeists in horror. Though you'll see particular horror movie creatures come and go, it's interesting how one seems to catch on for a time and suddenly they're everywhere. In the late 90s/early 00s, it was vampires. Then it was zombies. Today, according to Kate Robertson of the Atlantic, it's female cannibals:

Having spent the last five years studying the female cannibal (an admittedly odd subject even in academic circles), I’ve been fascinated by how the subject has gained more mainstream visibility of late. While the female cannibal isn’t new to pop culture, she’s relevant in ways that go beyond shock value, by capturing ever-present social anxieties about gender, hunger, sex, and empowerment. These new works center on women who, in addition to eating humans, negotiate and subvert expectations for how women should look and behave. They’re motivated by physical hunger but also by sexual desire, making them an extension of the femme fatale—the beautiful woman who deceives and ensnares men. In eating flesh, characters like Justine simply redirect this fear from the metaphorical to the physical. There’s a persistent stereotype that women will “suck men dry”; well, these ones will literally devour you.

It’s significant that the grotesqueness of these women’s eating habits—their proclivity to gorge on human flesh—is rendered through beautiful bodies. Portrayals of female hunger in visual culture more broadly are tangled up in social expectations about how women manage their bodies, expectations shaped in part by fad diets, targeted advertising, and celebrity culture. Eating is thus not just about nourishment, but also about appearance. It’s why when celebrities admit that they like fast food, too, or that they don’t like dieting either, they seem relatable in a way that can feel carefully orchestrated. When these “rule-breaking” women happen to be gorgeous, their rebelliousness becomes that much more appealing.

Robertson discusses the portrayal of the female cannibal in two recent movies, Raw and The Lure, as well as a recent show Santa Clarita Diet (which is actually a zombie show, so it's not truly cannibalism, because zombies were once human but are now, well, zombies that feast on humans, but I digress). In these instances, the notion of hunger is explored as a metaphor for awakening and sex. It's not altogether different from the metaphor used by Joss Whedon in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where the literal monsters she faced were stand-ins for the figurative monsters we encounter in a traditional coming of age story.

That's probably one reason why I find the genre of horror to be so fascinating - it can be straightforward, yes (because these movies make a lot of money), but it can also be nuanced and full of symbolism. It can be used to explore hard social issues, especially in climates where such commentary might not be possible. It can be a way to camouflage statements that might be at best frowned upon and at worst censored and attacked. Think of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as less of a monster story and more of a commentary on scientific ethics and the thin line between breakthrough and playing god. Scratch below the surface of the some of the best horror, and you'll find many different messages underneath.

I'll admit, the gore/grossout subgenre of horror is one of my least favorite, though there are definitely movies in that subgenre I love (Evil Dead 2, The Thing). So I wasn't sure on first reading about it whether I was interested in seeing Raw. But it sounds to me like a thought-provoking work that gets to the heart of what I love about good horror - as symbolism and commentary.

Clothes Make the Man (or Woman)

In season 2 of my favorite show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the 6th episode "Halloween" dealt with the pandemonium that ensued when people who rented or purchased their costume from one particular shop turned into their costumes: Willow became a ghost, Xander became soldier, and Buffy became a terrified and helpless 18th century maiden.

This episode had an interesting place in the canon of the show. Xander became a fighter, and Willow had her first taste of being a leader of the Scooby Gang. But more than that, the episode is a great demonstration of a psychological concept. This isn't the first time the show has displayed complex psychological phenomena (see some of my previous posts here). But the particular concept this episode displayed was something I just learned about.

Last night, after I had reached my word count for the day, I decided to take a break, and read a bit more of You Are Now Less Dumb, and came to a fascinating chapter about enclothed cognition. This morning, I found the full-text of the original study:

We introduce the term “enclothed cognition” to describe the systematic influence that clothes have on the wearer’s psychological processes. Providing a potentially unifying framework to integrate past findings and capture the diverse impact that clothes can have on the wearer, we propose that enclothed cognition involves the co-occurrence of two independent factors – the symbolic meaning of the clothes and the physical experience of wearing them.

Basically, wearing clothes of a certain type of person, professional, etc., actually changes the way we think and behave. This effect is more than simply priming. And the researchers who originated this concept, Hajo Adam and Adam Galinsky of Northwestern University, devised an interesting study to demonstrate this difference. They used a white lab coat as their clothing selection. In the first study, participants were randomly assigned to wear or not wear a lab coat while completing a Stroop task. which is a cognitively taxing procedure that involves identifying the font color of a series of color words. In some cases, the font color and the word matched (e.g., red - the correct answer is red) but in other cases, the font color and the word were mismatched (e.g., red - the correct answer is blue). Participants who wore a lab coat made half as many errors as people who did not wear the lab coat.

Next, they conducted two more studies to rule out mere exposure and priming as an explanation of these effects. If priming were a factor, just thinking about doctors/scientists/people who wear lab coats might enhance your performance. So we would expect people who are told just to think about doctors for instance would perform as well as people who wore the lab coat.

In study 2, they ruled out mere exposure. They had three conditions: in two of the groups, people wore the lab coat, but half were told it was a doctor's coat and the other half that it was a painter's smock. In the third condition, a lab coat described as a doctor's coat was on the table near them while they completed the study, but they didn't put it on. All participants then completed a visual search task, which involves identifying differences between two similar pictures; for example:

In this study, people who wore what was described as a doctor's coat spotted significantly more differences than either of the other two conditions. In the third study, they added one more step to the people who merely saw the doctor's coat: they had them write an essay about the meaning behind the coat, how they identify with it, and so on. This time, they found that people who wrote an essay about the doctor's coat identified significantly more differences than people who wore what they thought was a painter's smock (the priming effect), but the people who wore the doctor's coat outperformed them both (the enclothed cognition effect).

What we wear really can make us who we are.

The Scoobies of Stranger Things

In a mashup that was surely created just for me (I know, it wasn't... and don't call me Shirley), someone has created Buffy the Vampire Slayer-style opening credits for Stranger Things:

Nerdist is of course loving this mashup as well, and speculated on who the various Stranger Things characters would align with in Buffy:

In this particularly apt mash-up, YouTube user Tony Harley has combined the characters of Stranger Things with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer intro credits, and it’s so damn perfect I can’t believe no one thought of it sooner. I mean, think about it: a group of lovable young weirdos band together to solve a supernatural mystery and defeat monsters? If that’s not the Scooby Gang from Buffy, I don’t know what is. But the parallels go further than that. Eleven, played to perfection by Millie Bobbie Brown, is the obvious choice for Buffy, not just because she’s the complicated young woman at the center of the story, but because she is tormented by her own powers. [spoilers removed]

Sheriff Jim Hopper (David Harbour) is clearly the Giles in this crossover universe (and we’d love to see him interact with the kids more in season two, just to keep this comparison going), and I SUPPOSE Joyce would be Joyce, although I never felt like Buffy-Joyce supported and believed in Buffy the way Winona-Joyce believes in her missing son. Brooding brother Jonathan reminds me of mopey ol’ Angel, so maybe Steve is Spike? As for the kids, well, that’s where things get tricky. Ultimately I think Mike is Willow (which yes, corresponds with some popular Buffy fanfic out there), Dustin is Xander, and Lucas is Cordelia. That leaves Tara for Nancy, which shakes out nicely. Ok, so the parallels aren’t THAT direct but you get the picture.

P is for Parasocial Relationships

Human beings are social creatures; we seek out relationships with other people in a variety of capacities and to fulfill a variety of important needs. In fact, we are so hard-wired to build relationships with others, that we may even feel connected - in a social sense - to people we have never met, often people we encounter through the media. We call this phenomenon "parasocial relationships."

This behavior begins very early on in life. As children, we learn about social norms and how we should behave by watching others, including through television, movies, and video games. Because children have such active imaginations, and often do not yet know the difference between fantasy and reality, they may come to believe the characters they watch and even interact with are real. As we grow older, we (hopefully) learn that the characters aren't real...

But the feelings and connections continue to influence us and shape how we interact with others. Even as adults, we continue to feel connections to characters and media personalities, even when we recognize that those connections aren't real. You could argue that fandom, having favorite characters, and so on, are all extensions of our tendency to form parasocial relationships.

The concept of parasocial relationships plays an important part in a theory of media known as uses and gratifications (U&G) theory - essentially, people have different motivations for using media, and will select media that fulfills their needs. In this theory, rather than being passive recipients of media information, consumers play an active role in seeking out and integrating media into their lives. However, though U&G theory is relatively new (since the 1940s), the concept of parasocial relationships has been around much longer, and could encompass feelings of connectivity with story characters, or even gods and spirits.

While we all show this tendency, some people are more likely to form parasocial relationships or rather, more likely to form strong parasocial relationships, than others. People who do not have many opportunities for regular social interaction, for instance, tend to compensate for this deficit with parasocial relationships. I actually had the opportunity to witness this firsthand several years ago. My mom is visually impaired, and since I was in school, and my dad and brother worked full-time, she spent a lot of time at home with the dog and the TV. I introduced her to my all-time favorite show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and got her hooked.

So hooked, in fact, that I noticed she started talking about the characters - especially Willow, her favorite character - as though they were real people.

Because, honestly, who doesn't love Willow?

At first, I was a bit concerned, until I started thinking back to the concept of parasocial relationships. I realized that what she was doing was actually quite normal, maybe even healthy. And though somewhat more intense, her connection to the characters was not altogether different from mine - considering that show can make me laugh or cry, regardless of how many times I've seen a particular episode, I likely also feel some strong social connections to the characters of Buffy.

And though I've focused the post so far on characters, we can also form parasocial relationships with real people, like celebrities. For instance, I know a lot about some of my favorite authors - I've read about them, even met a few of them, and can talk about them almost as though I know them. While at the logical level I know I don't actually KNOW them, it's completely normal to still feel a social connection to them.

Movie and TV Tropes, Constellations, and A Chance of Meteors

I started thinking last night of all the movies and TV shows that contain cutesy scenes about pointing out Cassiopeia. Or any constellation, really, including made-up ones. Just a few scenes I could think of...

A Beautiful Mind

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (aka: best show of all time)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I've never been particularly good at identifying Cassiopeia or most constellations. My favorite constellation is Orion, which you can see during the winter. It's very recognizable and bonus: one of the stars is a red supergiant named Betelgeuse.

Of course, last night, being able to identify Cassiopeia became important. I decided to watch the Perseid meteor shower, which occurs every year in late July to mid August. It is so-called because the meteors appear in the sky near the constellation of Perseus, which is close to Cassiopeia; in fact, an article I read said to find Cassiopeia, then find Perseus, then enjoy meteoric goodness.

It also said look Northeast. So I looked Northeast. I might have found Cassiopeia. Meh, who knows?

The best time to watch this meteor shower is in the hours before dawn. Since I am usually dead to the world at that time, I opted instead for late evening. This is the time to catch earth-grazers, meteors that graze the earth's atmosphere and leave a long trail as they burns up. I saw two, including one really spectacular one that went across the sky.

This is only my second meteor shower and the first one I witnessed on purpose. The first was serendipitous. I was driving in Kansas City, my old stomping grounds, when I saw a light fall from the sky. I thought, "Cool, meteor." Then I saw another, and another... I can't remember when this was, but I remember the sight.

I'm hoping to watch again next year and maybe even try to make early morning my viewing time. Obviously, staying up until dawn is much more fun than waking up early. So preferably not a work day. Bonus if I can get away from Chicago and the light pollution to do it.

Earth-grazingly yours,
~Sara

Trivial Only Post: Random Thoughts about Vampires

I stumbled across an old (but still funny) cartoon about Blade crossing over into the Twilight universe and slaying Edward.  Okay, not actually Edward - they call him Edgar, probably to avoid copyright infringement.  But whatever.  And I thought, "Damn, if only..."

But then I thought, "What makes us think a stake would kill him?  I mean, sunlight doesn't kill him.  Poor writing doesn't kill him.  Bad acting doesn't kill him.  He's seriously immortal, which sounds cool and all, but I don't want it if it means I sparkle."

I've also already discussed (at length here and here) that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favorite show.  Of course, I'll be the first to admit the inconsistencies in its approach to vampire lore.  First of all, important vampire characters live longer in sunlight than throwaway characters, almost as if the love (or hatred, or sometimes a little of both) imbues them with additional powers.  One of the Master's goons (or really any character bereft of a name) can be thrown into sunlight and instantly explode, but Spike can sizzle for a full minute before an appendage bursts into flame.  Second, there is marked variation in vampiric gestation.  Some vampires awaken in the morgue (e.g., the vampire at the end of "The Body").  Others awaken on the table or in their casket at the funeral home (e.g., the vampire at the beginning of "Help").  Still others are buried, perhaps for days, before they wake up (e.g., Ford in "Lie to Me").  AND BUFFY ALWAYS KNOWS.  I think I need to watch more Buffy to figure this out...

Trivially yours,
~Sara

My Best of Buffy List

As promised, here is the list of my top 10 episodes; and because I can't narrow down anything, 5 additional episodes to which I give "Honorable Mentions":

The Top 10

The Pack (Season 1, Episode 6) 

Rest in peace, Herbert

It's easy to cast-off season 1. The characters are being introduced, and with all that exposition, it's difficult to do more than monster-of-the-week without confusing viewers with far too many story lines. And much of the first season, while establishing the snarkiness I've come to know and love in Buffy, didn't really delve into the big issues of growing up in the same way later seasons did. The limited amount of time given - Buffy was a mid-season replacement and this season was only given 12 episodes - also made it difficult to do much. However, this episode remains one of my favorites, for it's examination of bullying and peer pressure. It shows how even one of the "good guys", Xander, can get caught up and become a monster. I suppose the message here is that any of us can be made into a monster in the right situation. The challenge, then, is to resist those urges, and make amends when they overtake us. This episode also sets up the presumed fate of Sunnydale High School principals alluded to again in Season 7 - that they are destined to be eaten by something horrible. The world can swallow you whole - or perhaps rip you to shreds. Just think of poor Herbert.

Becoming, Part 2 (Season 2, Episode 22)

There are so many great scenes and episodes in Season 2, that it was tough for me to narrow it down

Buffy, never one to be knocked down
without a witty comeback

beyond the whole season. For example, "Innocence", which explores changes in relationships, plus Buffy uses a rocket launcher, then fights Angelus (kicking him where it really hurts). There's "Passion", partially narrated by Angelus, in which we first learn about the spell to de-invite vampires from your home ("Sorry Angel, changed the locks," has to be one of my favorite lines ever). But all that is building toward the "Becoming" two-parter. The many things set in motion throughout this season, come to fruition here in Part 2 and carry over into future seasons: Buffy learning about sacrifice for the greater good; Willow performing a spell as part of the fight; Spike's alliance with Buffy; even the notion of prophecies and Powers-That-Be that play a major role in the spin-off series, Angel. My favorite line from this episode really sums up Buffy as a character. She is down, seemingly defeated. Angelus says, "Now that's everything, huh? No weapons... No friends...No hope. Take all that away... and what's left?" Buffy simply replies, "Me."

The Zeppo (Season 3, Episode 13)

Buffy constantly defied categorization, and no episode shows this better than the Zeppo, where drama and the tragic love story are seamlessly blended with slapstick comedy. My favorite scene is one in which Buffy and Angel are having a heartfelt, dramatic conversation about fighting, love, protecting each other, and death, only to be interrupted by Xander - it's a little like what might happen when a comedian walks onto the set of a soap opera. Not only does this episode follow Xander, perhaps my favorite character on the show, the pending apocalypse, which takes center stage in other episodes, is the side story. In terms of arc, this episode shows us - and more importantly, Xander himself - that Xander is not just the plucky comic relief; he is a valuable member of the team who will continue to grow and strengthen into the man that Buffy calls in Season 5, Episode 12, "Part of the unit."

Earshot (Season 3, Episode 18)

In my previous blog post, I discussed what I love about this episode, so I won't repeat it here. Much like a Shakespearean play (such as Othello, discussed in this episode during Buffy's English class), this episode has just enough comedy mixed in, not to make light of the events, but to help deal with the heaviness of the issues tackled: for example, when Buffy learns a little more about the night with the "Band Candy".

Fear Itself (Season 4, Episode 4)

"Bunnies frighten me."

This was the first episode of Buffy I ever saw. I think it was Anya in the bunny suit that really drew me in (Anya might just be the most interesting character ever created), but once I went back to the beginning of the series and finally saw this episode in context, I really began to appreciate it's role in character development and the arc of the series. The big bad in this episode is neither big, nor very bad. The worst he does is to manifest the characters' fears, but even then, the power of these manifestations comes not from the demon, but from the characters themselves. Sure, there were spiders and creepy crawlers, but that isn't what truly scares us; as we grow and age, our fears become much more abstract than that: the fear of being left behind, the fear of growing up and changing into something one's friends can't understand, the fear of being a monster, the fear of being alone and unloved. This episode embodies the statement that "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Fear can paralyze us, keep us from doing what has to be done. The challenge of growing up is learning to face our fears and grow stronger in the process. Though the characters make it through the episode unscathed, these inner fears have now been brought to the surface and begin to have an effect on the connections among the Scoobies. This seed is what grows throughout the season, allowing Spike to pull the group apart in "The Yoko Factor". Additionally, the ideas explored in this episode (sometimes, the biggest enemy is ourselves and our own fear) get a much larger treatment in season 6.

Hush (Season 4, Episode 10)

Pretty much any "Best of Buffy" list will include this episode, the only episode to win an Emmy for writing, which is why I thought about not including it here (gotta be original, right?), but this episode is just too good to overlook. The episode explores the issue of communication, and that sometimes words get in the way. "The Gentlemen" come to Sunnydale and steal everyone's voices. Without the ability to speak, the characters must communicate with each other on a deeper level. Plus, hilarious charades. This is also the episode where Riley, Buffy's boyfriend, discovers her identity as the Slayer (and Buffy, in turn, discovers Riley's involvement with the military group she'd witnessed on other occasions). By the end of the episode, when Riley comes to Buffy to talk about their revelations, they struggle for the words, and though their voices have been returned, the episode ends in silence.

The Body (Season 5, Episode 16)

Much like "Hush", you pretty much couldn't have a "Best of Buffy" list without including this episode. From Buffy's flashing to memories and fantasies when she first finds her mother dead, to Anya's childlike (but completely relatable) reaction, to the negative space drawings in the art room, this episode captures the feeling that the world turns upside down when a loved one dies without resorting to cliches or pensive montages set to bad music. In fact, the entire episode has no soundtrack, as though the music of life has died as well. There's pretty much no way I can watch this episode without turning into a blubbering mess as soon as Buffy tries to shake her mom awake. No matter how many times I see it, it never gets any easier to make it through, much like Buffy, who, despite dealing with death, pain, and apocalypse on a regular basis, still reacts as any of us would.

The Gift (Season 5, Episode 22)

"The Gift" might be the best season finale of all of Buffy, and I'm sure most fans would agree. While in some sense a series finale (Buffy was originally on the WB, but was canceled after the fifth season), Buffy lived on for two more seasons and on a new network, UPN, and this episode, while seemingly final, was just another event in Buffy's journey. However, this season (as well as season 7, the true final season) showed the most brilliant way to end a coming-of-age story like Buffy - go back to the beginning; give us a brief glimpse of where this all started, which makes the end that much more meaningful. The first scene of this episode says it all: Buffy, an alley, a single vampire, and a would-be victim. After Buffy has defeated the vampire, the would-be victim says, "But you're just a girl." And Buffy replies, "That's what I keep saying." This power, while not something Buffy ever asked for, is something that she accepted and used to stop the end of the world several times. But that responsibility may be too much for one person. The ambivalence Buffy has felt about her power since the beginning comes flooding to the surface, and through that, Buffy finally realizes what love truly is - love is sacrifice. And that is the gift.

Once More, With Feeling (Season 6, Episode 7)

The most depressing ensemble bow
in the history of musical theatre

What do you do when you have finally achieved something wonderful, something you've been working for your entire life? Or even simply working toward for a very long time? You wake up the next morning, and have to go on about your day as you would any other time. It almost feels like a let-down, anti-climactic. Because of this, some emotion theorists have speculated that a dip in emotion is perfectly natural after such an achievement or occasion. But still, you feel ungrateful for feeling down, and naturally, try to hide it, leading to an appearance of being numb or indifferent. Eventually something has to happen - you either get over the numbness or you admit your feelings. Once again, Buffy captures this everyday occurrence perfectly, and analyzes it through the lens of the supernatural. Similarly to "Hush", this episode explores our failure to communicate. The curse of the singing demon is almost like an intervention for Buffy and her friends, forcing them all to admit their fears and feelings. However, this forced intervention does not solve these issues, and only makes them worse. It all leads up to the season finale where, as I alluded to above, the Scoobies discover "the enemy is ourselves," but this episode is the turning point that pulls everything onto the path to lead to that conclusion. Not only is this episode pivotal, it is beautifully done, and completely organic - the musical episode has been attempted in other series before and especially after this one, but never at this level.

Selfless (Season 7, Episode 5)

Bunnies, bunnies, it must be bunnies!

As I said above in "Fear Itself", Anya might be the most interesting character ever created, and, though we've learned bits and pieces about her throughout the series, this episode is what brings it all together. We really begin to understand her, to sympathize with where she's been, and where she has ended up in the present. Though it seems easy for Buffy to cast Anya as a bad guy ("She chose to be a demon - twice."), this episode shows - as Joss is so fond of showing - that good and evil is not nearly so black-and-white (outside of the Buffyverse, see Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog). Perhaps the most surprising scene in the episode is the flashback to "Once More, With Feeling", where we hear Anya sing about her excitement at getting married to Xander, and the clarity of character and path she felt during that time. It makes what happened in the rest of Season 6 that much more heart-breaking.

Honorable Mentions: 

Helpless (Season 3, Episode 12) 

Over the years, we had watched Giles and Buffy's relationship morph from Watcher-Slayer into a Father-Daughter dynamic. One of the most moving scenes in the season 2 episode, "Passion," is when Buffy punches Giles for going after Angelus himself and they cry together as she says, "I can't lose you." In "Helpless," Buffy has reached the age of 18, at which point, the Watchers' Council introduces a test on the now-adult Slayer - a drug is administered to take away her power (temporarily) and she is forced to fight a vampire with the strength of a regular human. This test, which Giles refers to as barbaric, is really just the test of adulthood, of sending individuals, who were the day before still considered children, out into the world to sink or swim. As much as Giles disapproves of this test, he perhaps sees it as a way to see if his training has given her the skills she needs to survive, no matter how overpowered she may be. Giles, like many parents, does not want to see Buffy fail and, when the test goes horribly wrong, steps in to help. This conflict of when to help and when to expect independence and adult decision-making continues between Buffy and Giles throughout the series. But the most revealing thing about this episode is how upset Buffy is when she thinks she is no longer the Slayer.

Who Are You (Season 4, Episode 16) 

Though we can imagine it, we never know what other people see when they look at us. This episode examines that difficulty in seeing ourselves as others see us, through body-swap magic. Faith awakens from her coma (after having been put there by Buffy at the end of season 3), and uses a device left for her by the Mayor (the big bad of season 3), to switch places with Buffy. In the confusion, Faith (now in Buffy's body) is able to knock Buffy out and watch her be dragged away by the police. As Buffy tries to free herself and convince others that she is not who she appears to be, she begins to understand what it must be like to be Faith. On the other hand, Faith, appearing as Buffy to the outside world and most importantly Buffy's friends, begins to feel what it is like to be good, depended upon, trusted. This begins her path to redemption.

Restless (Season 4, Episode 22) 

I already had two season finales on the list above, and wasn't sure about including one more. But "Restless" deserves some consideration. Unlike the other seasons, in which the finale is the final battle between the season's big bad, this finale takes place after Adam was defeated (in the penultimate episode of the season). Once again, the notion of fear plays a big part, and overtakes the Scoobies in the form of the First Slayer, who will play a key role in the rest of the series; the only one not to be defeated by her in the dream is Buffy, who understands her but chooses not to be like her. The First Slayer is the voice telling you not to try something new, not to do something differently than others before you; Buffy shows the strength to tell this voice no, that she is not afraid doing things differently will result in failure. This episode also foreshadows events for the next season (and perhaps even farther in the future than that), and it only makes sense that the First Slayer comes back in dreams and visions later on to tell Buffy whether she is on the right path.

Him (Season 7, Episode 6) 

I'll be honest; this episode mainly just cracks me up. My favorite scene is when Buffy decides to follow through on her love-spell-fueled plan to kill the principal. The decision to put the insanity in the background and the mundane in the foreground just makes it that much funnier. Also, if I'm not mistaken, that's another rocket launcher. Seriously, where does she get those wonderful toys?

Storyteller (Season 7, Episode 16)

One thing we've learned in Buffy and the spin-off Angel is that even the worst villain can find redemption if he or she truly desires it. This episode is the first stage in Andrew's search for redemption, when he has to take a long, honest look at what he has done. He learns, as others before him have learned (Angel, Spike, even Willow), that not everyone will accept it, not everyone will trust it, but that doesn't mean one shouldn't try. This episode also deals with our natural tendency to tell stories and to see our lives as a story. Through the development of our personal narrative, we are able to clearly understand who we are and how we relate to the world. However, Andrew uses his storytelling to hide from the truth, and see himself and his actions in a detached way. Buffy, whose story we have followed for seven seasons now, has to set him straight. In following with the "back to the beginning" theme pervasive in season 7, this episode flashes back to many things that have happened on the Hellmouth (e.g., shy girls turning invisible), and shows the power the Hellmouth has - not just as a gateway to somewhere bad, but in and of itself.

Buffy, Role Theory, and the Horrors of Growing Up

May 20, 2013 marked the 10-year anniversary of the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - aka: my favorite show. Though the concepts explored in Buffy are always on my mind - it is my favorite show, after all - this milestone has got me thinking about what I love about the show.

I love pretty much anything Joss Whedon does, but this show is what first pulled me in to the so-called "Whedon-verse". Though it is easy to cast this show off as fantasy, horror, Vampire-love teen drama, the show is really a metaphor for the horrors of growing up.

Early in the series (Seasons 1 through 3), much of the show focused on the metaphor of "high school is hell". Though the forces of evil that Buffy and her friends fought during this time are stand-ins for the true conflicts one experiences during this age (relationships, betrayals, popularity), the show was also quite literal in its attention to some of the relevant topics.

In one of my favorite episodes, Earshot (Season 3, episode 18), the set-up begins as supernatural: Buffy, during a fight with a demon, obtains one of the demon's powers of telepathy. At first, being able to hear other people's thoughts is exciting for her. She uses it to impress her English teacher with her knowledge and interpretation of Shakespeare's Othello.

One of the deeper thoughts Buffy hears.
The High School principal, on the other hand, has "Walk Like an Egyptian" stuck in his head.

As the gift become stronger, Buffy is overwhelmed, but she is able to pick out one evil rasp in the high school din: "This time tomorrow, I'll kill you all."

Though her gift begins to weigh her down and leads her to cut herself off from others, she is able to communicate this message to her friends who seek out the killer in their midst. They think they have identified the potential killer around the same time that Buffy is cured of her telepathic abilities, and Buffy seeks out Jonathan, who has climbed into one of the school's towers and begun assembling a weapon, presumably to shoot his classmates. Buffy bursts in and talks Jonathan down, discussing the feelings of alienation head-on: "I don't think about you much at all. Nobody here really does. Bugs you, doesn't it? You have all this pain and all these feelings, and nobody's really paying attention… Believe it or not Jonathan, I understand about the pain… My life happens to, on occasion, suck beyond the telling of it. Sometimes more than I can handle. And it's not just mine. Every single person down there is ignoring your pain because they're too busy with their own. Beautiful ones, popular ones, the guys who pick on you, everyone. If you could hear what they were feeling, the loneliness, the confusion. It looks quiet down there. It's not. It's deafening."

As Buffy and her friends move on to college in Season 4, the themes become more adult, but still deal with notions of growing up. The thing I (as a psychologist) find most fascinating about Buffy is the notion of roles. Thoughout the series, Buffy struggles with the different roles she is expected to adopt, roles that are sometimes complimentary and sometimes in conflict with each other: her role as the Slayer (in which she must be a leader, depended upon by others; a hero where her focus is expected to be on others, but one in which she must fight alone); her role as a young woman, and all the thing she desires to come along with that (finding love, developing relationships and friendships with others, being able to depend on others and being able to focus at times on her own fulfillment and her own life); her role as a daughter (in which she is often expected to be a follower, to be the listener rather than the speaker); and later in the series, her role as a caregiver and mother-figure to her sister Dawn (where she has now taken on the role once occupied by her mother and Dawn stands-in for a teenage, sometimes rebellious, Buffy).

The way that Buffy moves through these different roles, trying them on and occasionally trying on different personas as well (e.g., her brief stint as a "bad girl, rule breaker" in season 3), is very much a metaphor for growing up and figuring out one's place in the world. I think this is why the show resonated with me so much when I first started watching it in college and graduate school. Though the show ends with a shift in one of Buffy's roles (and as a result, a shift in others - don't worry, no major spoilers here), she still recognizes that she has not finished developing into the person she is going to be. Even in the very last episode of the series, Buffy says: "I'm cookie dough... I haven't finished baking."

I had so much fun writing this blog post, that I hope to write another one, in which I tackle the impossible (for me): picking my favorite all-time episodes and explaining why they are my favorites. This task is not necessarily impossible, but ruling down to a manageable number will be. I don't want to commit myself to a number, like 10, because I'm sure I won't be able to meet that goal if I do. But suffice it to say, it will not include entire seasons and should be a reasonable number. (Stay tuned!)

Thoughtfully yours,
~Sara