Thats so meta... Suspension of Disbelief through Self-awareness

One thing I have always loved about Buffy is the extent to which it is a very self-aware show. A blonde high schooler who fights evil might be a difficult concept to get into, if Joss Whedon had not led us towards this suspension of disbelief alongside the characters observations. As Xander and Willow are introduced to the supernatural world, their continuous jokes and questioning voice the doubts of the audience. As they overcome their doubt and accept the vampire world as reality through these jokes, so do we, and we suspend our disbelief. Even in Once More, With Feeling, Buffy refers to the reality of their continuing fight against evil “Apocalypse, we’ve all been there/ the same old trips/ why should we care?” and even the supernatural aspects in the show, that, in the light of day, might seem altogether ridiculous: “It’s do or die/ hey I’ve died twice”.

But as the themes of the show get stranger and stranger, the character’s acknowledgement of them allows the audience to suspend their disbelief even further. Yes, to make an episode in which the characters burst into song is strange, but the fact that the characters too see it as a strange occurrence means that the audience can move past the supernatural and see the very real emotional development that the singing uncovers. A singing episode then, in comparison, is not so different from other episodes in which the characters experience supernatural events that lead them to natural conclusions about their lives.

The vehicle of song changes this element of the show. Normally, Buffy’s fight with the villain du jour mirrors her or the others’ internal battle. In Buffy vs. Dracula, Dracula is the manifestation of her personal acceptance of the dark side of slayerhood and her own ambiguity as a hero who kills. In "Living Conditions", Kathy seems to represent Buffy’s struggle with living in a world that is both normal and supernatural. Yet in Once More, With Feeling, the songs reveal that the characters’ real struggle is against their own personal demons. Xander and Anya’s 50’s sitcom romp “I’ll Never Tell” reveals their trepidations about their upcoming marriage. Yet never so obviously has Joss Whedon revealed personal truths this way, and he can only do so by using the happiness of the songs as a shield. As the two dance their way around their apartment a la Fred and Ginger, it becomes clear that this sitcom-y music is a commentary on their own playacting at happy-coupledom. They voice their fears obviously to each other, but their happiness and the music-sheilds the audience from the outright truths there are revealing. Instead, like their relationship, the dancing and pep covers the real flaws. The songs, not the villain, reveal the problems the Scoobies are facing in one of the most self-aware episode I have ever seen.

The musical episode of Buffy endeared me to the show even more than I thought possible. But it was neither the songs nor the dancing that I loved. It was the fact that all the characters of Buffy acknowledge not only the gimmick, but the absurdities about the show itself. While in the beginning of the series it might have been hard for the audience to move past the vampires and darkness and onto the social and personal commentary Joss Whedon uses the characters to make, by now we have accepted them as normal alongside the characters. In Once More with Feeling, we alongside the characters are introduced to the singing as an oddity in their lives, and we, like the characters recognize that their extreme honesty in their songs is rare. Only through their self-aware comments onto the strangeness of the situation can we accept the musical episode as more than a gimmick, but a vehicle of character development.