Part I
Panorama
Chapter 1
There Will
Never Be
A âVery Specialâ
Buffy
Symbol and Language1
Buffy: | I told one lie. I had one drink. |
Giles: | Yes, and you were very nearly devoured by a giant demon snake. The words âlet that be a lessonâ seem a tad redundant. |
I have often said, âThere will never be a âVery Special Episodeâ of Buffy.â
From the start, it was different. In the comment aboveâmade in 1997, the year the show beganâJoss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, repudiates those television series which aim for redeeming social value by focusing episodes on unmediated presentations of social topics such as AIDS or alcoholism: sending Hallmark cards of virtue. Whedon specifically mentions Beverly Hills 90210, but one could add the names of many seriesâThe Wonder Years, Party of Five, Seventh Heavenâto the list of those which over the years have advertised those âvery specialâ episodes. Whedon expected more mental action from his audience. The opening seasons set the template. In Buffyâs world, the problems teenagers face become literal monsters. Internet predators are demons; drink-doctoring frat boys have sold their souls for success in the business world; a girl who has sex with even the nicest-seeming male discovers that he afterwards becomes a monster. From the earliest episodes, it was apparent to attentive viewers that Buffy operated on a symbolic level. Furthermore, some of the symbols began to extend. For example, underlying the various threats is a repeated one: the horror of becoming a vampire often correlates with the dread of becoming an adult. Yet even in the face of all these monstrosities, the context of dialogue and interaction makes the characters believable.
In fact, Buffyâs dialogue establishes a second level of significance directly related to the symbolic social monsters. Language is always a matter of delight in Buffy; and the larger language patterns are themselves symbolic. The striking differentiation of the teen language in Buffy has often been commented on. The language of the teens starkly contrasts with that of the adults. This linguistic separateness emphasizes the lack of communication between the generations, as does the seriesâ use of the symbolism of monsters to represent social problems. The teen attitude towards parentsâ inability to deal with real-world horrors is suggested through Buffyâs concerned but naive mother, who throughout two seasons never truly sees the monsters or knows her daughter is the Slayer. The symbolism recreates the need to bridge generational division which is suggested by the language patterns. Viewers must understand both the language and the symbolism to see the reality of teen life. Life and language are not so simple as problem-of-the-week TV would suggest, and Buffy acknowledges that fact.
The situation and relationships in Buffy are on the surface mundane. As the series starts, sixteen-year-old Buffy Summers, a high school sophomore, has moved from LA to the small California town of Sunnydale with her divorced mother, after having been expelled from her earlier high school. Her looks and conversation at first win her an entrĂ©e with high school social queen Cordelia Chase. However, she refuses Cordeliaâs advice to avoid Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris, who are stigmatized as, respectively, a brain and a geek. Buffyâs refusal to scorn the twoâin itself a bit of heroism in the teen social worldâcombined with the discovery of her past expulsion leads to her being consigned to âloserâ status.
The other side of Buffyâs life, however, roots her even more firmly in loser territory. As soon as she enters the school library, librarian Rupert Giles informs her that he knows she is the Slayer: Into every generation a single girl is bornâthe one chosen to fight the vampires, the demons, the powers of darkness. Giles has moved from a job as curator of a British museum (âor the British Museumâ) to be Sunnydale Highâs librarian expressly in order to be Buffyâs Watcherâher adult advisor and trainer. While Buffy has exercised social heroism, she has absolutely no desire to be a superhero. âA Watcher,â says Giles, âprepares [the Slayer] âŠâ âPrepares me for what?â asks Buffy. âFor getting kicked out of school? For losing all my friends? For having to spend all my time fighting for my life and never getting to tell anyone because I might endanger them? Go aheadâprepare meâ (âWelcome to the Hellmouth,â 1.1). Buffy Summersâ life is considerably more difficult than Clark Kentâs.
Her romantic life is even more problematic. Charming but hapless Xander falls for Buffy literally from the moment he crashes his skateboard at first sight of her outside school. Since Willow has been romantically fixed on Xander since their childhood, this is an inconvenience only made worse by the fact that Buffyâs affections lie elsewhere. Angel, a dark, handsome, mysterious stranger occasionally appears to warn Buffy of threats from the vampire world. He cites his being older as the reason he is resisting a relationship, but when, inevitably, they kiss, he âsprouts fangsâ (McDonald 20). In the Buffy variation on vampire lore,3 vampires have the memories and personalities of humans, but the human soul has been replaced by a demon. The single exceptionâthe single trustworthy vampire to be found as we enter the world of Buffyâis Angel, who was cursed by gypsies after he killed one of their teenagers, and who himself appears much younger than the standard first-season vampire in Buffy. Rather than stake him, the gypsies decided to expel the demon and restore Angelâs human soul so that he would feel the pain of the knowledge of his misdeeds. The gypsies want him to exist only to suffer, and indeed, Angel, who no longer feeds off humans, is a tormented creature who is as much an outsider of the vampire community as Buffy is an outcast in the high school world. The fact that these two fall in love with each other only makes their lives more difficult. As Giles says, âA vampire in love with a slayer. Itâs rather poetic, reallyâin a maudlin sort of wayâ (âOut of Mind, Out of Sight,â 1.11).
It might come as a surprise to some that when the magazine George published its September 1998 list of â20 Most Fascinating Women in Politics,â Sarah Michelle Gellarâs Buffy was the second in the list (right after Elizabeth Dole, but with a much bigger picture). George contrasts Buffyâs healthy strength with the teenage girls discussed in Mary Pipherâs Reviving Ophelia, and notes â... what sheâs really taking on is the regular assortment of challenges that threaten to suck the lifeblood out of teenage girls, like a suffocating high school hierarchy and a sexual double standardâ (Stoller 113). Kathleen Tracyâs 1998 guide to the series includes, with every episode synopsis, a brief description of the âReal Horrorâ to which the plot correlates. In Our Vampires, Ourselves, Nina Auerbach provides a larger symbolic context when she notes that âevery age embraces the vampire it needsâ (145)âor, one might add, the slayer it needs. And while Auerbachâs use of the term âageâ refers to cultural period, her statement could be extended to apply to a stage of lifeâin this case, adolescence. Instead of a patriarchal Van Helsing, Buffy provides a short, slight, teenage girl. It is nothing new for the science fiction and fantasy category of television series to symbolically represent teen difficulties: Harvey Greenbergâs essay âIn Search of Spockâ explains how in the 1960s Star Trek represented teensâ alienation in the famous half-Vulcan character. Buffy is especially successful at that symbolic representation.
The first episode, âWelcome to the Hellmouth,â establishes the seriesâ mapping of the high school social minefield and the seriesâ satirical stance. The show starts with a role reversal: a series of shots of the darkened high school explore the building after hours, and we are then shown two teens breaking inâa pretty, stammering, demure little blonde named Darla following a teenage boy who clearly hopes to âtake advantageâ of her. When she gets his assurance that they really are alone, her face changes to the demonic feeding visage of the undead. It is the little pleat-skirted cutie who will eat the boy alive. Their images descend from the frame, leaving only a school trash can in the distance of the shot. This is the teaser.
After the credits and theme song, enter Buffyâin nightmares, dreaming of the demons she has to fight. (It was her fighting of vampires at her old school that resulted in her expulsion.) She is awakened by her mom to tackle instead the difficulties of her first day at a new school. The seemingly un-Shakespearean Cordelia4 warns her, âYou want to fit in here, the first rule is know your losers. Once you can identify them all by sight theyâre a lot easier to avoid.â At this stage, Xander and Willow have another friend, Jesse, a slightly taller, geekier version of Xander who internalizes the high school code. At the local teen hangout, the Bronze, Jesse is humiliated by Cordeliaâs rejection. Chatting with her girlfriends, she later classes him among âchildrenâ and says heâs like a âpuppy dogâyou just want to put him to sleep.â In fact, Jesse is put into the sleep of death when he is taken by the vampires. When the vampire Jesse shows up at the Bronze, he is immediately able to make Cordelia dance with him; dismayingly, he embraces the change. Confronted by his old friend, Jesse says, âI feel good, Xander; I feel strongâ and later, again speaking of himself, adds, âJesse was an excruciating loser who couldnât get a date.â
Harvey Greenberg, in his psychoanalytic discussion of teens and Spock, suggests that Spockâs half-alien body reflects the physical changes adolescents sense taking place in themselves. The physical changes in this seriesâ vampiresâ faces, along with their greater bodily strength, might be said to perform the same function (not to mention the fact that they stay up late). In the first season, the series focuses on confronting adulthood through confronting distinctly older vampires. âThe Old Ones,â both Giles and the vampire Master call themâand both their physical traits and their language (of which, more later) suggest adulthood. And as Brian Aldiss says, aside from its sexual qualities, the typical vampireâs most notable characteristic is that âIt is ancientâ (x). Of course, vampire feeding has long been paralleled to sexual activity,5 a rite of passage to adulthood which none of the teen protagonists of Buffy have undergone (in the first season, at least). When Jesse becomes a vampire, his sexual maturation is clearly suggested. But it is his rejection of âloserâ status that really damns Jesseâhis willingness to do whatever it takes to be accepted in high school, whether it is embracing vampirism or losing his virginity. At the moment he makes his declarationââIâm a new man!ââhe is destroyed, staked, turned to dust, the stake held in the unwilling hand of his best friend Xander (âWelcome to the Hellmouthâ).
It is a distinct element of the heroism of Buffyâs teen protagonists that they will not go to any lengths to avoid âloserâ status. Buffy, Willow, and Xander endure regular mockery, but pursue what they see as right. Buffy and Xander, both of whom are considered irresponsible by adults, take responsibility for their friends time and again. Auerbach notes that early, pre-Stoker, nineteenth-century incarnations of vampires seemed to stress, in their relationships with chosen humans, the intimacy of friendship (14). In Buffy, the most notable bond of friendship is among the teenage vampire-fighters.6 âJesseâs my responsibility,â says Buffy, and, as they skip school to go looking for him, Xander says, âJesseâs my bud, OK? If I can help him out, thatâs what I gotta do. Itâs that or chem classâ (âWelcome to the Hellmouthâ). For her part, Willow declares, âIâm not anxious to go into a dark place full of monstersâbut I do want to help. I need to.â The result of this heroism is not praise, but the painfully realistic irritation of those whom it inconveniences. When Buffyâs mom gets a call from the principal about her skipping class, the mother grounds the Slayer just as she is about to go out to face the demons. âMom, this is really, really important,â Buffy pleads. And mother answers, âI knowâif you donât go out itâll be the end of the world.â In fact, it may be exactly that; according to Giles the Watcher, hundreds of vampires are making a concerted attempt to release the vampire Master, open the mouth of hell, and end the world as we know itâunless the reluctant Slayer saves the day. As the mom says, âEverything is life or death when youâre a sixteen-year-old girl.â
Buffy does succeed in her life and death struggle; though she, Willow, and Xander canât save Jesse, they do save the world; they do make it possible for life to go on. And so Xander says, the morning after the vampire battle has been witnessed by a nightclub full of teens, âOne thingâs for sure; nothingâs ever gonna be the same.â Perhaps the most important moment of the first episode, and one of the most important in the series, comes in the sunshine of the next morning at Sunnydale High, when absolutely nothing has changed. Almost all the adults and the vast majority of teens have managed to deny what they saw. âThe dead rose,â says Xander; âwe shouldâve at least had an assembly.â But, led by Cordelia, the students have decided it was ârival gangs.â Giles, the Watcher, one of those rare adults who really sees what is going on, explains: âPeople have a tendency to rationalize what they can and forget what they canât.â And of course his words apply to the social problems of the real world just as emphatically as they do to monsters.
Even the socially heroic are sometimes vulnerable to peer pressure. The first-season episode âThe Packâ (1.6) is ostensibly about Masai stories of possession by animal spiritsâin this case, unusually vicious hyenas imported to the local zoo. But the humans the laughing hyenas possess are a clique of mocking high school students who take Xander into their fold. The episode opens with the four students teasing Buffy for having been kicked out of her earlier school. When they shift to weaker prey, the timid young man ironically named Lance, Xander pursues them into the off-limits hyena house to protect Lance, and so happens to be present when the possession takes place. In many episodes, Xanderâs lines are often jokes; but in this episode, after he is possessed, for the first time his jokes pass over into cruelty. Buffy canât believe that Xander would act this way, and so she consults Giles about possible supernatural explanations. âXanderâs taken to teasing the less fortunate?â asks Giles. âUh huh,â says Buffy. âAnd thereâs a noticeable change in both clothing and demeanor?â âYes!â âAndâwellâotherwise all his spare time is spent lounging about with imbeciles?â Buffy says, âItâs bad, isnât it?â and Giles replies, âDevastating. Heâs turned into a sixteen-year-old boy. Of course youâll have to kill him.â
Since this is the world of Buffy, it is not merely hormones at work, but possession. The result is different only in degree, however, not in kind. Xander finds it impossible to study; is cruelly rude to the adoring Willow; and lustfully leaps on Buffy. The latter activity is rather fortunate than not, since, while Buffy subdues Xander, he is separated from the pack for long enough to miss their attack on kindly Principal Flutie. In some schools, a teacher or administrator may be stabbed or shot by students. In Buffyâs school, the students eat him. In the end, with the help of Giles and Willow, Buffy is able to return Xander to himselfâand the instant after he comes to himself, he saves Willow from the knife-wielding, animal-worshipping bad-guy zookeeper who arranged the possession. But the upshot of the whole episode is that Xander is left deeply embarrassed by his own animalistic/adolescent behavior. âShoot me, stuff me, mount me,â he says to Giles, the only other male regular in the first season.
Some episodes of Buffy deal with more specific external threats. In âI Robot, You Janeâ (1.8) shy, sweet Willow is drawn into the clutches of an internet predator. When Buffy notices that Willow, an outstanding student, is missing classes, she is concerned to find that her friend is skipping school to chat online with the mysterious Malcolm. Willow, who is attractive but far from glamorous and even farther from popular, is indignant at Buffyâs concern over her online relationship. âWhy does everything have to be about looks?â she wonders. And Buffy replies, âNot everything, but some stuff is. What if you guys get really intense and then you find out he has a hairy back?â From worrying about the fact that Willow has not met Malcolm, Buffy and Xander soon move to worrying that she will meet him. As Xander says, âSure he can say heâs a high school student ⊠I can ⊠say Iâm an elderly Dutchwoman. Get me? And whoâs to say Iâm not if Iâm in the Elderly Dutch Chat Room?â As Buffy observes in alarm, âThis guy could be anybody. He could be weird, or crazy, or old âŠâ The series implicitly calls attention to generational conflict and the horror of facing adults/adulthood as well as the particular horror of the internet predator. As viewers would have known since the beginning of the episode, Malcolm is downright ancient: he is in fact the demon Moloch, the corrupter. Once again, the friends put themselves on the line, and this time it is Willow who is savedâfrom one of the diabolical corrupters who are indeed out there on the internet.
In the second-season episode âReptile Boy,â Cordelia, who is only gradually and unwillingly drawn into the circle of friends with knowledge of the supernatural (read: adult) world, puts herself and Buffy in jeopardy when they go to a college fraternity party. One of the frat boys has decided he wants the good-looking Buffy to come, and to Cordeliaâs irritation her invitation is conditional on her bringing Buffy along. Buffy and Angel have been fighting over his reluctance to enter into a relationship with her; as he says, âThis isnât some fairy tale. When I kiss you, you donât wake up from a deep sleep and live happily ever after.â âNo,â says Buffy to her vampire, âWhen I kiss you I want to die,â the death/sex metaphor echoing through the scene. As a result of their argument and Gilesâs insistently overworking her, Buffy decidesâto the dismay of Xander and Willowâto lie to Giles and attend the party with Cordelia. Buffy and Cordelia end up easy prey at the party: âGod, I love high school ...