What struck me in the episode “Hush” was the extent to which citizens of Sunnydale will go to in order to come up with excuses and explanations about the supernatural occurrences that impact their daily lives. You would assume that after watching a student or an innocent bystander die in every episode that people would be curious about the high death rate and the mysterious circumstances surrounding these demises. However, the people of Sunnydale, whether on purpose or simply because of naivety, turn a blind eye towards the supernatural monsters that haunt their town. In this episode in particular, the local media goes to great lengths to cover up the supernatural nature of the loss of voices of the entire town. In the news report, they blame sickness as the reason no one can speak and use words such as “epidemic” and “quarantine” to bring home the message of disease. Ironically, going along with the disease metaphor that relates to lack of communication, The Gentlemen eerily resemble doctors gone mad.
People suffer from confusion and chaos when they realize they do not have the ability to speak, however no one really questions why or how this happened besides the Scooby gang. People subconsciously realize something unnatural is happening yet they don’t seem to make any connections to the unluckiness and normal dangers that their town usually suffers from. However, in the prom episode, there is reason to believe that some citizens of Sunnydale are more aware of the supernatural and what is truly going on than you may think. Although no one comes out and simply says that their school is on a Hellmouth and that they are plagued by the supernatural, vampires, and untimely deaths, the students do recognize that odd things happen in their town and that, thankfully, Buffy is always there to save the day, which she obviously does once again in “Hush” while the town looks on unknowingly.
This is a great point. I think it really brings us back to that quintessential movie scene where some scantily clad woman is about to walk into some dark basement. We know it's a bad idea, but what we are really afraid of is the unknown. We are afraid of what we think is behind the door, because we don't actually know/understand what is there. The same can be said for the citizens of Sunnydale.
ReplyDeleteI think the point you raise is a valid one. But I think the reason is that the general population would rather believe in something completely natural like disease rather than the super-natural. I think what makes a character heroic, in the things we have seen thus far, is the ability to gradually lose all sense of what is supposed to be normal. If a character cannot conceptualize the dark underworld how can they be heroic? And lets face it, not everyone can be a hero/heroine.
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