It's difficult to overstate the dramatic irony of watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time post the MeToo awakening; post Joss Whedon's "cancellation" and his cringe-inducing, if possibly more damning attempt at rehabilitation. It's jarring to read through some of the fervent, idolatrous praise lavished upon Whedon for decades, while watching the character of Xander - the self-insert for Joss, and supposed everyman persona - speak and act in a way that relentlessly sexualizes, undermines, and belittles every strong female on the show. You know, the joking, dork best friend who you realize looking back was neither joking nor a friend.
Despite the raging insecurity and misogyny of its creator, often reflected in the characters, it's truly brilliant. The vampire show about what a horror it is to be a teenager in high school. BtVS was one of the first TV shows that struck academics, critics and fans as being worthy of study in the same way literature is studied. Star Trek the Next Generation was another, and both are absolutely deserving of all the acclaim. I don't know anything about show running, writers rooms for TV series or movies, and how much is teamwork versus personal vision. Two of the most ground-breaking episodes of television that I've ever seen are "Hush" and "Once More, With Feeling" in BtVS, and both of them were written and directed by Joss Whedon.
As probably everyone knew but me until recently, among his many stratospherically successful projects after BtVS, Whedon went on to write and direct several of the Marvel movies. I'm not a Marvel fan and I typically avoid the comic book, superhero genre (apologies to Ellen, one of my besties and a perfect SuperGirl at ComicCons). He also co-wrote Toy Story. In a stroke of all-around genius, it was Joss' idea to transform Buzz into a character who doesn't know he's a toy. The writing is inventive, kind hearted, and so off-beat funny (for Gen-Xers in particular, because we owned and played with all those toys) that it mainlines childhood nostalgia in the same way A Christmas Story did for my Dad.
On the flip side, Whedon also wrote Alien: Resurrection. As a spooky scifi fan, Alien and Aliens are two of my top 10 movies of all time. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is now in my top 3 TV shows of all time. But Alien: Resurrection is hot, vulgar, misogynistic garbage that got a lot of credit for not being as horrid as Alien 3. FYI that bar is so low that a fat dachshund could clear it. It takes all the bad, disturbing vibes in BtVS and puts them in a grown-up monster movie that's mean to both the heroines and the female alien.
Sidebar: my Dad grew up in Hammond, Indiana, in the same neighborhood, went to the same high school as Jean Shepherd, and owned all of his books. He was a decade or so younger, but that movie literally was his childhood, down to the furnace clinkers, the department store line to see Santa, and the double dog dares on the playground.
Similarly, when I first watched and fell in love with Stranger Things, I couldn't figure out exactly why it resonated with me so much. It wasn't just the time period, but they managed to perfectly capture the feeling and environment of growing up in that era. Then I found out the Duffer brothers grew up in Durham, NC. When I turned on the closed captioning (don't laugh, you'll do it too one day and you'll never turn it off) I realized that several of the places they reference - including Lochnora where the Wheelers live, and the location of Mirkwood at the intersection of Kerley and Cornwallis - were actually in my neighborhood. I grew up in Winston-Salem, but Durham has been my second home for decades. I used to own a house on Kerley Road about 1/4 mile beyond the intersection with Cornwallis, which dead ends into Lochnora about a mile away. The show itself is set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, which may as well be a stand in for Greencastle, Indiana, where I went to college (all hail DePauw, go Tigers!).
I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer may be a cultural touchstone for millenials. It serves as a near perfect reflection of their experiences in high school into young adulthood, in relationships, in friendships and with authority figures. People who grew up in southern California may also agree they nailed the environment and ethos of that community. Which is why, I think, that the rabid defenders of Joss Whedon and the series couldn't quite see the misogyny and toxic "normalized" relationships that were being depicted onscreen at the time. It requires distance and perhaps a bit of wisdom that comes with age to look back at something and realize it was kind of screwed up.
I am forever grateful that my life or career doesn't get replayed on the Jumbotron. I can't imagine being an athlete, an actor, a musician or a celebrity of any field where my development, triumphs and mistakes are memorialized for the pundits of the world to pick apart. The downside of having such a rabid following is that Buffy fans practically dictated the direction of the show at times. Two notable casualties:
- Riley, played by Marc Blucas (former Wake Forest basketball player!), had the unenviable task of being Buffy's first love interest post Angel. The character and the actor were deemed boring and unworthy by the (heavily teenage girl) fanbase, and ended up leaving the show after little more than a season, despite exceptional support from the writers and Joss himself. Note to fans everywhere: first, give some grace to people who have to perform in front of an audience as they hone their craft; second, what about crazy hot, military, "corn fed Iowa" boys do you not like? And he was both funny as heck and painfully vulnerable when he was squaring off with Angel and Spike. Good luck Marc, I hope you've found a better base.
- On the upside, Charisma Carpenter's character of Coredelia was written as vapid and shallow throughout the first few seasons, and of course she hooks up with Xander the dweeb (hello, Joss, how many fantasies were you actually living out?). Despite being one of the most uncharitably written characters I've seen in a major series, she became popular enough to be moved over to the Angel spinoff, which is a testament to her acting and audience appeal. Until Joss sexually harassed her out of a job. Though I did listen to a podcast with James Marsters who stated she was cut when he was brought onto the Angel series because they couldn't afford both of them. James seems like a stand-up guy, but it was hard to hear, particularly in light of everything that has since been disclosed. Go be a bad ass, Charisma. You deserve all the love.
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