Sorry for the lateness (and rambling-ness) of this post. Anyways....
I think what makes the episode "Buffy vs. Dracula" is clearly laid out in the title - literally Buffy coming up against Dracula. When Janelle asked in class why Joss Whedon waited until the 5th season to have Dracula show up in Buffy, I started to think about it a lot. I finally came to the conclusion that it has to do with the fact that one of the most satisfying moments of the episode is, in fact, the fight between Buffy and Dracula. Iconic figures from different stories meeting always gets people's attention - from Marvel Comics' Justice League of America bringing most of their superheroes together to fight crime to the musical Into the Woods bringing famous fairy tale characters together to sing to the mystery computer game I happen to be playing called Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper (don't judge me, guys), the meeting of iconic characters is always intriguing. If Buffy hadn't been as well established as a butt-kicking slayer of vampires and demons du jour, then a dimension of the, for lack of a better word, epic-ness of the episode would be lost.
Of course, the other huge aspect of the episode is poking fun at the Gothic tradition and acknowledging Buffy as part of that tradition. In fact, the episode really does exactly what the point of our class is - it uses Buffy as a lens to study the Gothic tradition. But again, this wouldn't work as well if Buffy and her world weren't so well established. This is made blatantly obvious by the moment where Spike complains to Riley about Dracula doing more damage to vampires than any slayer. In this moment, Whedon acknowledges that Dracula is bigger than Buffy, but at the same time plants Dracula firmly within the Buffy-verse, and thereby appropriates him, making Buffy bigger than Dracula.
In some ways you could say that the tension between the characters Buffy and Dracula displays the tension between Buffy the show and Dracula the novel which shows tension present in all Gothic literature of creating a world that contains the supernatural but still seems real enough to the immersed reader that he or she can look at tensions in human nature present in the Gothic world. So basically there's a lot of tension and everyone should go get a massage :)
I think you're right that one important aspect of Buffy vs. Dracula episode is the fact that it's conjoining two very well-recognized figures in sort of an intertextual way. I wonder why viewers get so much pleasure out of that....it probably goes back to the whole "meeting your match" thing. To have two characters in their distinct worlds come together in one is a pretty bizarre move, narratively speaking. They're both at the top of the hierarchy in the respective worlds they inhabit, so when placed side-by-side, a lot of adjustment is necessary - and that's what probably interesting about it.
ReplyDeleteI (like Allison) totally agree with what you said about Buffy needing to be established as important before her conflict with Dracula could have any real significance. I think another factor in the placement of this episode, though, is the fact that Buffy eventually acknowledges that she has a lot left to learn based on her confrontation with Dracula. It's an acknowledgement of the tradition of Gothic literature that goes beyond mocking it by showing that Buffy can't completely dismiss (or even ultimately defeat) Gothic icons. If her fight with Dracula had come earlier, it wouldn't be such a big revelation that she actually still has a long way to go.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the pre-establishment of Buffy as a pop figure. What this post really gets me thinking about is, would this episode have worked if it were Buffy vs. Lestat, Edward Cullen, Tom Cruise, or even Count von Count? Most of those figures have distinct mo's and are well known. The question is not 'why Dracula?', but rather would the episode have been as effective with anyone else in the title role? Just something to consider.
ReplyDeleteJanelle's point also made me wonder about why it took so long for Dracula to make an appearance, considering that he was a template for the gothic and for the Buffyverse itself. I agree with you that Buffy had to set herself up as a big player in the gothic before meeting her forerunner toe-to-toe; but in addition to that Whedon also had to take the time to set Buffy's world apart from Dracula's, creating a distinct niche in the gothic world. Had Dracula appeared in the first episode, he would have set the standard. Just how out of place he (and his castle) is among the other characters of the show demonstrates how much the gothic has evolved since Dracula's time.
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