Buffy Really IS the Best!
Here is the essay I wrote in class for my final paper in WR 122 I am SO relieved to have that damn class over you have no idea. I realize by posting this I am openly and blatanly pronouncing my extream geekiness to the world, (according to http://www.innergeek.us/ I am actually a "Super Geek" take the test, its a riot!) but heck, while I'm at it, I'll tell you I'm a Trekkie!
GRIN
Enjoy!
Cori
Buffy—It Slays me!
The title of the show is just ludicrous enough to work. “Buffy The Vampire Slayer.” I mean paring a fluffy-silly-I-haven’t-got-a-thought-in-my-head name like “Buffy Summers” with “Vampire Slayer” something from a low rent horror flick. That same dicotomoy applies to the shows over arcing theme. Take B-movie monsters and pair it with shopping malls and teeny-bopper angst, throw in a little kung-fu, and blend with an artfully hidden dash of pathos and realism and you’ve got “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” the one of if not the best show of this new millennia. That is quite the claim, I realize, but if you’ve every watched the show, you know what I’m taking about. Or that is, if you’ve watched the show and listened to the base line running reassuringlyly beneath the lighthearted melody.
The show was the offspring of Joss Wedon the man who wrote the Hollywood cult classic “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. He wrote it and then lost all creative control of his baby when the voracious waters of Hollywoodome sucked it out of his grasp (which is why the Movie is just plain silly and campy with out the rewarding punch line and the T.V show is nothing short of art, but I digress).
Joss explained the birth of Buffy, coming from his long time fondness of classic horror films. Simply put what if that shrieking blond bimbo ran down the alley, and instead of being there to get eaten, is actually expecting it and even planned it? What if instead of getting horribly slaughtered she’s the one doing the slaughtering? Thus Buffy entered the universe, and we’re all better for it.
The biggest reason Buffy is such a fine show, is that it doesn’t duck the big issues; in fact it hunts them down and ‘slays’ them. In one episode, ‘The Judge’- Buffy battles a big horned-smurf-blue-incinerate-you-from-the-inside-with-a-touch demon, she obliterates with a rocket launcher in a shopping mall. The Judge is a blatant representation of evil or more specifically 'lust' burning one up from the inside. In the commentary of the episode (on DVD and just for the record, listening to Joss's witty asides has pretty much ruined me for any other audio commentary out there, but once again I digress...) The creator of the show, put it best when he said. “We take these B movie monsters and let them personify some emotional teen age angst, but the feelings are real, the situations feel real, they resonate with people and that’s why people watch it, they can identify with it. You know that show T.V. show Party of Five? I loved that show, it was a moving, well written drama, I cried buckets, and it had great emotional resonance, but what happened? It got canceled. Why? Because that isn’t enough, we here at Buffy are such a success because we have the emotional resonance, and rocket launchers. That my friends is the true secret of our success, emotional resonance and rocket launchers.”
I for one couldn’t agree more. Joss and the other talent writers have emotional resonance by the bucket full. The second reason it works, is the undeniable humor, it is easily the funniest, most witty, and most cleverly written shows I have ever seen (except maybe Angel the spin off). Drama, vampires, teen angst, emotional resonance, and some really big, quotable humor and you can't help but have one of the very best shows ever.
GRIN
Enjoy!
Cori
Buffy—It Slays me!
The title of the show is just ludicrous enough to work. “Buffy The Vampire Slayer.” I mean paring a fluffy-silly-I-haven’t-got-a-thought-in-my-head name like “Buffy Summers” with “Vampire Slayer” something from a low rent horror flick. That same dicotomoy applies to the shows over arcing theme. Take B-movie monsters and pair it with shopping malls and teeny-bopper angst, throw in a little kung-fu, and blend with an artfully hidden dash of pathos and realism and you’ve got “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” the one of if not the best show of this new millennia. That is quite the claim, I realize, but if you’ve every watched the show, you know what I’m taking about. Or that is, if you’ve watched the show and listened to the base line running reassuringlyly beneath the lighthearted melody.
The show was the offspring of Joss Wedon the man who wrote the Hollywood cult classic “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. He wrote it and then lost all creative control of his baby when the voracious waters of Hollywoodome sucked it out of his grasp (which is why the Movie is just plain silly and campy with out the rewarding punch line and the T.V show is nothing short of art, but I digress).
Joss explained the birth of Buffy, coming from his long time fondness of classic horror films. Simply put what if that shrieking blond bimbo ran down the alley, and instead of being there to get eaten, is actually expecting it and even planned it? What if instead of getting horribly slaughtered she’s the one doing the slaughtering? Thus Buffy entered the universe, and we’re all better for it.
The biggest reason Buffy is such a fine show, is that it doesn’t duck the big issues; in fact it hunts them down and ‘slays’ them. In one episode, ‘The Judge’- Buffy battles a big horned-smurf-blue-incinerate-you-from-the-inside-with-a-touch demon, she obliterates with a rocket launcher in a shopping mall. The Judge is a blatant representation of evil or more specifically 'lust' burning one up from the inside. In the commentary of the episode (on DVD and just for the record, listening to Joss's witty asides has pretty much ruined me for any other audio commentary out there, but once again I digress...) The creator of the show, put it best when he said. “We take these B movie monsters and let them personify some emotional teen age angst, but the feelings are real, the situations feel real, they resonate with people and that’s why people watch it, they can identify with it. You know that show T.V. show Party of Five? I loved that show, it was a moving, well written drama, I cried buckets, and it had great emotional resonance, but what happened? It got canceled. Why? Because that isn’t enough, we here at Buffy are such a success because we have the emotional resonance, and rocket launchers. That my friends is the true secret of our success, emotional resonance and rocket launchers.”
I for one couldn’t agree more. Joss and the other talent writers have emotional resonance by the bucket full. The second reason it works, is the undeniable humor, it is easily the funniest, most witty, and most cleverly written shows I have ever seen (except maybe Angel the spin off). Drama, vampires, teen angst, emotional resonance, and some really big, quotable humor and you can't help but have one of the very best shows ever.
posted by Deb Bluth at 6:09 AM
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