I love fairy tales (been to Disney World over 40 times now, a fact I am not proud of) so it is no surprise that the fairytale based episodes of Buffy have always been my favorites, and of course Gingerbread is one of the better ones. While re-watching it in the comfort of my own home after overindulging on turkey leftovers, just feet away from my own mother, I was struck by mothers in the episode and their relationship to technology. Now my own mother still calls Skype “the skype machine”, so I probably come from a skewed perspective, but the episode spoke to me as a commentary on the continuing struggle between the traditional role of the gothic and the modern world of technology emphasized by the contrasting reactions of the mothers and their teenagers to the death of Hansel and Gretel.
Mothers (and those in the older, wiser set) often represent the traditional, so I found it interesting that the reaction of Joyce to the death of the children was so wholly modern. While Buffy wants to find the answer to their deaths in her books, Joyce is a stark infusion of reality to the world we have, over the past 3 seasons as canon—a world in which people die, cops never appear, and a single teenage girl uses crossbows and little wooden spikes to defeat mythical creatures. Yet Joyce takes the road less traveled- the modern one. She calls the police, she calls a meeting, she makes buttons and has a vigil- she is a regular tour-de-force of modern efficiency. Though the death of a children is a traditional fear- the corruption of innocence, she takes modern means to rectify it.
While Joyce is a bastion of modernity (I know, I said bastion of modernity, sue me, its break) Buffy seems to represent the traditional- tied to the pagan witchcraft, the dark arts, and an old European watchers council. While her mother is going through lockers in a distinctly 20th century Orwellian move, Buffy is wandering around graveyards and looking through antique books for a traditional explanation. Even her boyfriend, while he seems the archetypal teenage rebellious type in his black trench coats and lurking, is in fact a two hundred year old a vampire rooted in tradition. While we would expect Buffy, Willow and Amy, as teenagers, to represent modernity, they, in the beginning of the episode, represent the traditional.
Yet as the episode progresses, the mothers and their teens reestablish themselves in their traditional roles. As they face a threat to their traditional role- the role of motherhood, the mothers attempt to burn their daughters at the stake over a pile of books. The teenagers, when deprived of their tradition, use the internet to research the demons. And of course, Cordelia puts out the fire with a very modern implement- a fire extinguisher.
So what does this all mean? What is technology and what is tradition? (Why am I having an existential crisis while writing this?) It seems Joss Whedon is once again commentating on the duality of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy, based on the gothic tradition, one that focuses on the ancient and the traditional- ghosts, vampires and ancient castles- uses a modern premise and a modern medium to make it appealing to us, the modern audience. Remind anyone of Stoker and Dr. Seward? It seems that the gothic has long had a tradition of incorporating modernity into tradition.
Becca, really interesting points. Definitely did not talk yourself into a circle. I had never considered how the mother's are so "wholly modern," as you so nicely put it and how the younger generation, ironically, seems to represent the more typical gothic traditions.
ReplyDeleteI think another interesting aspect of this idea of modernity and tradition is how each is combated, a theme that we see in the novels we have read as well. As you pointed out, Joyce Summers chooses to fix a supernatural problem with modern solutions and Cordelia uses a modern fire extinguisher to put out the fire. The use of the modern to fight the old is something that we discussed extensively in "Dracula" because of its prevalence in the text and the struggle that the characters had with it. Something that we hadn't really mentioned (I don't think...) was that this all relates back to the idea of fear. We fear what we don't know or understand, so what does this mean in terms of technology and history? We fear the change and the unknown future that technology brings, but at the same time crave the way that it makes our lives easier. We fear the old because it isn't always understood and in our modern age, we fear being held back from progressing forward. Although superficial, in our contemporary world, the concept of not having the latest, most up to date technology is horrific and might cause the end of the world. Modern art in the 20th century was entirely about making something new, something that had never been done before. Since the dawn of the modern era, or industrial revolution, we have been obsessed with doing something new and innovative, but at the same time this is scary. We can't help but fear change and question the affect that it will have on our future.
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