Reflections on Fear and the Gothic Genre

As someone who has watched Buffy since middle school, I am very familiar with the series; however, this class has provided me with an opportunity to examine the show through an academic lens. In the past, I have always watched the series in order to see how Buffy and her friends’ actions relate to my life and my choices. Now, I’m able to focus on how the series takes mainstream issues and tints them with elements of the Gothic.

A quote from the first Buffy episode we watched in class stood out for me, “We are defined by the things we fear.” These fears can manifest in a multitude of ways, from vampires to witches; even the most mundane object can become fair game for the Gothic genre because the Gothic feeds off our fears; thus, in a certain sense, our fear is what gives power to the evil we find around us.

In the episode “Living Conditions,” Buffy faces the real-life challenge of adjusting to college life and living with a roommate. In this episode, we are presented with an example of how a common fear—that of having a difficult roommate—can be adapted for the Gothic genre. In this episode, Joss Whedon takes this common fear, exaggerates it, and brings it to life: Buffy’s roommate is literally a monster from another dimension.

But what does this say about Buffy? If, as the quote says, we are indeed defined by that which we fear, what does this reveal about her as an individual? What does this say about humanity in respect to our cultural fears? In “Living Conditions,” we see Buffy struggle not only with her roommate Kathy, but also with the idea that she herself is not as understanding as she initially believed. Thus, I think that there is another kind of fear which lies much deeper than the fear of the external, and that is the internal fear of oneself. Often these two reflect one another. Thus, fear often stems from that which we cannot reconcile within ourselves.

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As we've discussed in class, one of the most striking features of the show Buffy is the contrast between the "ditzy valley girl" heroine and the dark, grotesque elements of the world around her. Aesthetically speaking, it's a pretty pleasing concept: what's cooler than a blonde high-schooler sassing up a league of eldritch abominations? But I think it also hits a bit deeper.

It's really pretty disturbing, clashing two ends of the spectrum like that. Take for example Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. It's a pretty wacked movie in general, but the scene that stands out is when Alex, the protagonist, brutally rapes a random stranger while singing, of all things, Gene Kelly's "Singin' in the Rain." I'm hardpressed to think of another movie scene that so effectively enmeshes something so horrifying and something so (supposedly) cheery. The effect on the viewer is profoundly unsettling... perhaps because it somehow makes the horror aspect more personal, more intimate. Similarly, I think that's why all of those gruesome fairy tales (Snow White, Rapunzel, Cinderella) continue to endure, to fascinate generation after generation -- they tap into some deeper, shadowy consciousness that captures our childlike imaginations and continues to enthrall us even as adults.

Look at the setting of Carmilla, for example: "Nothing can be more picturesque or solitary. It stands on a slight eminence in a forest. The road, very old and narrow, passes in front of its drawbridge, never raised in my time, and its moat, stocked with perch, and sailed over by many swans, and floating on its surface white fleets of water lilies." It sounds like a fairy kingdom. And while, yes, it's a very lonely place, ripe for disquiet and horror, there's a certain beauty about it that makes the aforementioned horror that much more... horrifying.

Also, can we talk about how, in this strand of the mythos, vampires bite into the chest, and not into the neck? I think you could look at it two ways (or both): either it seems ~sensual~ and increases the homoeroticism of the story, or it seems analogous to a baby nursing from its mother's breast. Except it's not milk. You know.

Am I supposed to feel bad for...Kathy?

I do not think we are supposed to feel bad for Kathy, but in the end, I felt guilty for the way I had perceived her throughout the episode. The episode is set up in a way to make her look like the "roommate from hell" but I cannot help but feel sorry for her. In the end, all she wanted to do was attend college and have an opportunity at a new life. I certainly do not forgive her for trying to take Buffy's soul however I think it is important to point out the human aspect of her plight. Throughout the episode there were villains, blood drinking, and dark holes, but the whole circumstance was COMPLETLY human. We all have trouble with roommates and we all make major sacrifices to attend college. Ultimately though, in a world of the supernatural, the plot line was commonplace. The point I am trying to make is that even though she is a monster (or whatever she was), it is hard for me to perceive her feelings as monstrous. She may be different in OUR world, but in Sunnyside, it is important to treat Kathy as you would any other character. Even though I know very little about the show, I think Buffy contradicts herself when she insinuates that because Kathy is evil, she is therefore a monster. I feel this way because from what I can tell, there are good monsters too, like their werewolf friend. If reality is pushed as far as it is in the show, shouldn't monsters/vampires have the benefit of morality, even if it does not align with how humans understand it?

Suspending Disbelief with a Little Help from our Friends

While many of the posts here have focused on the fact that Buffy looks for supernatural explanations of her problems because she is more comfortable in that realm, the reverse often holds true in gothic literature. While we roll our eyes at Laura because she seems to be so slow to realize that Carmilla is bad news, this is because in normal life, we do not look for supernatural beings (as Buffy is so used to doing). The reader might be surprised if Laura was immediately suspicious of Carmilla’s behavior and accused her of vampirism, because this is simply not how normal life works. We, too, might be slow to recognize that someone we knew and liked was a vampire—that is not within the realm of possibility in our minds, because of course we do not suspend disbelief in our everyday lives.

We need some serious convincing before we can jump on board with gothic concepts, so it makes sense that protagonists in traditional gothic literature would need the same type of persuasion. When they are actually persuaded, the result becomes extra scary because it seemed so improbable to them (and to the original readers of gothic literature, who may then imagine similar happenings in their own lives).

Joss Whedon plays with the reversal of this dynamic in Buffy, wherein every character is quick to jump to supernatural conclusions. It is only because of the wealth of gothic literature that preceded Buffy that we are comfortable with the world Buffy lives in. But Buffy does dwell in a highly supernatural world, which is why it is so painful when she has to deal with her friends' disbelief when she has supernatural suspicions.

This plays into her fourth season adjustment from a high school world in which she was comfortable to college (a new playing field). In high school, Buffy’s friends trusted her explanations implicitly, because it seemed obvious that Sunnydale High was overwhelmed by the supernatural, which is quite simply Buffy’s territory. In college, however, they expect a shift to more normal life, and Buffy’s explanations seem to them like a manifestation of her refusal to move on. If Willow, Xander, Giles, and Oz immediately believed Buffy about Kathy, the episode would not have very much emotional impact. Buffy’s realization that no one believes her is the truly painful part of the experience. Similarly, Laura’s childhood experience of Carmilla is characterized by the fact that the adults around her say it was just a dream. It seems to me that the isolation that comes from involvement in supernatural events is already emerging as an important part of the gothic genre.

Ultimately, Buffy comes to the conclusion that she’s in it alone in very important ways throughout the series, although her friends often do support her. She is the “chosen one,” and it comes with the job, but it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with when those closest to her doubt her.

Light vs Dark, Blond vs Brunette

Some of us have already pointed out the parallels between "Carmilla" and "Living Conditions". One similarity in particular I would like to exaggerate on is in the physical appearance of the characters we would pair based on the role they play in the story: Buffy and Laura both have lighter features, while Kathy and Carmilla both have darker hair and eyes. All are meant to be quite beautiful in their own right.

We tend to pair Carmilla and Kathy together because they are the antagonists of the story. Both put the protagonist through terrifying ordeals which they (that is to say Buffy and Laura) percieve as nightmares, and both claim to share those nightmares. Kathy and Carmilla also feed off of Buffy and Laura, respectively. What they take in both cases is what could be considered a person's life force: Buffy's soul and Laura's blood. For this reason the two seem at first glance to be the same, and this is why the dark features they share are appropriate. The same applies to Laura and Buffy, who at a basic level are the innocent victims of dark creatures and thus boast light features to contrast their enemies.

In the case of Buffy and Kathy, these stereotypes are only skin deep. If we examine the two as characters, we find that Buffy is the truly dark one. Kathy comes to college for the same reasons most freshmen do: to escape her home life, get and education, make some friends, and have a little fun. What could be more innocent? Even though she is a demon, she does not have a dark soul. She is a fan of Cher and Celine Dion (as we see in the episode before "Living Conditions" for those of you who haven't watched it), and her flaws are simply being a little over eager about college life and also territorial. Sure, she tries to suck out Buffy's soul, but where she comes from souls are not important. In fact, they don't even exist. As far as she knew, she was doing nothing more socially unacceptable than borrowing Buffy's sweater. It is Buffy who is the darker character, a fact which becomes indisputable in later seasons. She was chosen to fight the forces of darkness, and as such she is irreversibly tied in with dark creatures. This breaking of stereotypes is what makes the gothic universe, and more specifically Sunnydale California, such a dangerous place to live: you never can accurately distinguish between light and dark, good and evil.

Buffy and the Body

Although I'm not extremely well-versed in gothic literature, I was drawn to this course because of the element of psychology I suspected would be involved in both the show and the works we'll be reading. Because I'm a comparative literature major, I enjoy finding traces of other disciplines in the books I read, the movies I watch, and the music I listen to. So what I found particular fascinating while watching "Living Conditions" was the degree to which so much of what was happening was rooted in how we perceive our own personal space. Like we discussed in class, one major theme in this episode was adjustment; Giles notes several times that what Buffy's going through is typical of the college freshman experience -- she's learning to live with someone else. So I think lines like "we're almost like sisters now," are certainly creepy because they articulate the foreboding possibility that the each of the two girls will morph into a version of the other. More importantly, though, the loss of self is entirely due to the fact that they’re living in the same space -- they’re intruding on each other’s territory. In this way, I think the psychology of space (or however you want to call it here) is very apparent here and I think it’s probably going to turn up again in some of the books we read.

To bring up something else we talked about in class, I think that this episode is not as much about seeing the self in a new light – or confronting the self – as it is maintaining the self. In both Kathy’s and Buffy’s nightmares, spiders crawl across their bodies and a demon paints red occult-like marks on their skin; I think these things portray the psychological damage that physical intrusion inflicts. Physically occupying the same space as someone else (even if it’s just a new college roommate) can result in some pretty nasty mind games; in order to combat that, Kathy and Buffy use defense mechanisms like flossing (the upkeep of the self when something else is impinging on it) and headphones (blocking out noise, a sign of some outside presence or influence). I even think that Buffy’s pencil-tapping and Kathy’s Cher obsession are ways they sort of play the offense in this battle for integrity of the self. That’s why I think this episode is called “Living Conditions” – there’s something very gothic about the idea that the body/self as it’s located in space has profound effects on our psychological state. --Allison

Blurred Lines Between Good and Evil

I loved what Sydney said about Joss Whedon blurring the line between black and white and good and evil by defying stereotypes, and though I initially wrote this up as a comment to her post, I realized that I wanted to expand on it so much and it deserved to be its own post. But still, props to Sydney! Anyway, I think that Whedon defying stereotypes is one of the things that makes the show so great. Whedon creates this grey area with his characters, giving the pretty blonde cheerleader some super strength, the nerdy bookworm badass magical powers, and the goofball Xander the sensitivity to talk people off of a ledge. I think that this is a trend in the Gothic that not everything is good vs. evil or black vs. white. We talked today about how Buffy had to make her roommate "Evil", because she is an "Evil Fighter" and then the answer to her problems seemed simple. Then, in the monster realm and in Gothic literature, there are monsters and there are heroes, but then there becomes this grey-ness when we can't distinguish between the two. What I mean is that Kathy, though a demon, is really not that radical of a roommate. Annoying, sure, but I think we all know of someone who has Kathy-esque tendencies...plus, I really wouldn't want Buffy as a roommate either. I find myself almost feeling bad for her, even though she is a soul-sucking demon, she was just doing what she had to do, and besides, in her realm, she is good and Buffy is evil.
I can relate this sensation to something I have experienced first hand, and forgive me for getting off topic of the class, but I think this is important to understanding my point. I have acted a lot in my life, but the most meaningful role for me was playing a villian, Nurse Ratched of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and had to learn how to turn the tables. To play a villian, an actor must learn how to view a situation in the reverse of good and evil. See, Ratched doesn't see herself as doing wrong, no, she sees herself the hero. She genuinely believes that she is a protector. Through the eyes of a villian as opposed to a hero, we might still see a situation as dark and light, good vs. evil, but which role is which is entirely based on individual perception, and so, how can a third party like an audience for a TV series or a reader for a gothic novel truly deem one person evil and worthy of suffering while declaring another person a moral heroine? I think that what is so beautiful about the Gothic is that it acknowledges this paradox and uses it to the advantage of the storyteller. Gothic writers harness this internal conflict for the audience and create a greyness, so that once a character like Carmilla or Kathy is defeated or wiped out, the audience cannot feel entirely satisfied with the defeat.
Even though this isn't really from "Living Conditions," I can't help but bring up Angel and Spike into this conversation, as throughout the series, they are the epitome of the grey area between good and evil, both being vampires who fight alongside the vampire slayer. In Carmilla and even in Dracula, we see this Gothic trend of blurring the lines between the darkness and the light. Carmilla confuses Laura; Laura is unsettled by her, and senses that something is wicked and dark about her, but at the same time, she is her companion, and she speaks to her of (morbid as it is) love and eternal friendship. It seems that Joss wasn't the first to devise a meshing of good and evil to throw a protagonist off guard.

"Living Conditions"

What I found most interesting in “Living Conditions” was the way that Joss Whedon took the stereotypical fears of college, such as living with a roommate, and twisted them into an actual monster. Initially, Kathy is portrayed as the most annoying roommate that there could possibly be. I’m not sure that there is a single other human being that could stand her. Buffy does her best to deal with the life hurdle in a normal way, but completely fails. In a normal situation, without vampires and demons, Buffy would have had to continue to deal with her in the ‘normal’ way. However, Joss Whedon takes the ‘evil’ roommate idea and turns her into a true demon, giving Buffy something more tangible to fight. It is ironic, because there are so many times in our own lives when it feels like someone must be evil- perhaps a particularly difficult professor or annoying roommate, but there is really nothing that can be done about it. We can’t really call them evil, because they are only evil from our perspective, but in Buffy’s case, Joss Whedon turned the tables and the roommate turns out to actually be a demon- something that Buffy can easily fight. This concept that something we fear manifests itself into something truly evil plays along the same theme that we discussed with “Nightmares”, where everyone’s bad dreams became reality. Kathy is Buffy’s own personal nightmare of a roommate that then becomes something that is even more tangibly evil. Buffy’s change in mood during the episode, as she becomes angrier with Kathy, is a natural occurrence when dealing with a bad living situation. It almost feels as if the annoyance with the person consumes you, the more it gets to you, the more problems that you find in the person and the more annoyed you become. However, Joss Whedon turns the tables in the same way and attributes Buffy’s ‘symptoms’ to the actual event of her soul being gradually taken by Kathy. Therefore, the symptoms that Buffy was experiencing were really caused by a demon possessing her, rather than the metaphorical demon that takes us over in such situations in real life.

Buffy the Roommate from Hell(mouth)

While Kathy in "Living Conditions" is portrayed to be one of the most annoying roommates imaginable, not to mention the fact that she's also a demon, what struck me most about the episode was how obnoxious Buffy also would be as a roommate. Even though I had seen the episode before and knew that Kathy turns out to be a demon in the end, I was still extremely irritated on her behalf for many of the unpleasant things Buffy does throughout the part of the episode before Kathy's demon side is revealed. I personally would want to kill anyone who left their used gum out for my book to get stuck on. Beyond that, Buffy never really gives Kathy a chance - she doesn't even ask Kathy to turn off the Cher, which could have easily solved that problem.

I think Buffy's obnoxiousness is what makes the episode so enjoyable. Although supposedly Buffy's "bitch attacks" are due to Kathy slowly stealing her soul, it's fun to see the hero behave badly and still turn out to be right in the end. I think this is part of why the bait-and-switch technique is so prevalent in the Gothic genre.

The Monster You See and the Monster You Don't

Something that I found in common between “Nightmares” and “Living Conditions” (and this will probably be true for many other episodes as well) is that, as we discussed, ordinary, explainable problems manifest themselves as supernatural. Even though the roommate Kathy did turn out to be evil, Billy and Buffy both sought out to make their problems bigger and scarier than they needed to be. In Buffy’s case, as we discussed in class, she tried to cast her roommate as a demon because she knew how to solve that kind of problem. But why did Billy?

Billy’s mind turned his crazy little league coach into “The Ugly Man,” a hulking monster that could always find him when he was hiding. On some level, this is worse than the human coach, because The Ugly Man is a frightening, unbeatable monster that chases people for no apparent reason, other than that he is a monster. But at the same time, it’s better than the coach: how could a little league coach be so sick as to beat a child into a coma, and then “check-in” on him in the hospital to see if (or rather, to make sure that) Billy was still unconscious? At least the Ugly Man had the excuse of being evil. The Ugly Man is the monster you see, and the little-league coach is the monster you don’t. Which do you find scarier?

I feel like a lot of Gothic literature probably gives a supernatural facelift to pretty normal problems. Is this done to make a good, scary story? Or instead to explain away something that seems too horrible to exist in the natural world?

<3

P.S. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAnuhQ55O1E

The Soul - Mine or Yours?

Today we briefly discussed the properties of the human soul in the Buffy episode, and someone posted previously about the same thing in Harry Potter. What strikes me as rather disturbing is the transportability of the soul in both Buffy and Harry Potter. That another creature should have the ability to steal one’s soul seems blatantly wrong and totally unnatural. After all, that which is essentially ours is the part of us that does not die, but retains everything we think and feel and desire. To lose that, and to lose it to someone or something else, is repugnant. I’ve noticed that the Gothic often revolves around this idea of the tortured, soulless vampire or the stealing of another’s soul, but it doesn’t make perfect sense to me because if the soul is immortal and exists as the essence of self even without a body, then how can another usurp it? I understand the portrayal of a shell of a person with nothing behind the eyes, but honestly I think that whatever that person was that my have suffered the Dementor’s Kiss (or what have you), still exists, if elsewhere, and what’s left behind is irrelevant and not representative of a human in any sense but the purely physical. And for that matter, literature is rampant with the idea of the all-powerful self relative to the self. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” As I see it, this essentially means that the self belongs exclusively to the self, and none other may divide self from self. It’s simply not possible. But, granted, the idea of losing one’s self is certainly terrifying, though utterly confusing given that once lost, the self is no longer present to feel the despair… Thus, of course Gothic culture exploits this frightening idea to make us all think and wonder what it would be like to lie prostrate as a bad roommate sucks our souls out.

“Living Conditions”

I have never watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer before this class, although I have dabbled in True Blood, Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, etc. However, after our first meeting and my first exposure to the series, I found myself in my dorm room searching the Internet for Season 1 of the show. I have always loved mystery books and spooky castles, which are hallmarks of many gothic novels, yet I have just recently become fascinated with the supernatural. Our discussion this afternoon really resonated with me when the idea of “suspension of disbelief” was brought up. I very strongly agree that you must “let go” of the reality that we know and love in order to simply lose yourself in the fantastic realms that Buffy and many other gothic novels, movies, and shows present us with. I would hypothetically like to believe in the idea that ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and other ghoulish creatures could potentially be roaming around campus right now, except in our reality, that just sounds crazy. However, in modern day takes on gothic themes and monsters, men and women are fighting and interacting with these very same creatures in typical, everyday settings that we ourselves could be found in. I think Buffy is a great outlet in which to let go of reality and imagine living an unnatural life that seems almost completely normal.

"Living Conditions" and Harry Potter

While I watched Kathy suck Buffy's soul out today in "Living Conditions," I couldn't help but think about Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  For those that don't remember the movie too well, the dementors, who were stationed around Hogwarts to prevent Sirius Black from killing Harry, find Harry and Sirius by a lake in the Forbidden Forest.  They quickly overcome Harry's weak patronuses, an attempt at protecting Sirius, and begin to suck out their souls, which take a similar wispy appearance to that of Buffy's.  Although dementors can't "use" the souls of their victims as their own, which Kathy apparently can, it is incredibly hard to ignore the similarities between dementors and Kathy.  I'm sure, given the attitude of Buffy and her friends towards demons, they would consider dementors to be evil and seek to destroy them.  The soul, as we established in class today, is often used as a metaphor for humanity or "humanness.  The loss of one's soul, and, by extension, was a central concern of the Gothic tradition, as "Living Conditions" and "Carmilla" both demonstrate.  As Kathy reveals to Buffy, she needs her soul in order to avoid the notice of her demon family.  When they came to retrieve Kathy, they would see she possessed one and assume she was human.  Buffy then would've been taken down into their dimension.  In many ways, Carmilla operates similarly to Kathy.  Though she doesn't directly try to steal Laura's soul, by drinking her blood she takes away Laura's strength and will to live.  Carmilla might as well have been sucking away Laura's soul bit by bit, for, as Harry learns, the dementor's kiss, which drains a person of their soul, leaves them an empty, weak shell with no sense of who s/he was.  A similar thing happens to Carmilla's other victims, including the General's niece and the villagers around the castle belong to Laura and her father.  As such, "Carmilla" reveals that blood, like a soul, makes one human.  

"Nightmares" and "Living Conditions": My First Buffy Experience

I have to begin my first blog post with a confession: I have a somewhat limited experience with the gothic. I’ve read Frankenstein, seen a handful of “scary” movies, and since my high school years were mostly spent going to local all-ages shows, I have also paid $10 to see suburban teenage boys do their best Marilyn Manson impressions more times than I care to admit.
Despite these brushes with the “dark”, I have never identified myself as a lover of the gothic. I never had any inclination to watch Buffy or read Dracula. It’s not like I’m the president of the One Tree Hill fan club either; I have a mildly unhealthy obsession with crime dramas, which can certainly be dark in their own way. It’s just that I’ve always had more interest in material that dealt with interpersonal relationships and the “real-life” monsters that populate shows like Law and Order.
However, my newfound exposure to Buffy has opened my eyes to what I have been missing by largely shunning the gothic tradition it represents. Much of the literature I am typically drawn to derives its conflict from its characters’ decisions to suppress certain aspects of themselves. Whether it is Elizabeth and Darcy hiding their true feelings from each other and themselves in Pride and Prejudice or Gatsby reinventing himself in order to be “worthy” of Daisy in The Great Gatsby, I am always intrigued by the characters tendency to shy away from what scares them, as it mirrors the very real pressure to deny one’s own “demons”, however minor, even when doing so has negative consequences. While gothic literature has no lack of secrets lurking in the rafters of its ancient castles, I have noticed that its characters do not shy away from what frightens them. As much as I was frustrated with Laura for not getting as far away from Carmilla in LeFanu’s story, I must admit that there is something refreshing and almost cathartic about watching a character travel towards the “dark” instead of away from it. This is the appeal of the gothic for me; it lies outside of our social structure which teaches us to repress our own “darkness” and keep that of others at arm’s length. Buffy, from what I've seen in "Nightmares" and "Living Conditions" takes this anti-social aspect of the gothic and injects it into what are perhaps the most hyper-social times of our lives: high school and college. Buffy easily overtakes her demon roommate by sending her back to the dimension she came from, but she is left to deal with the potentially more difficult problem of how to live with a best friend without destroying said friendship. The show combines all the social commentary that I love about Jane Austen novels with all the danger of a story like Carmilla. The juxtaposition of the control required by society and the recklessness found in the gothic has the somewhat unexpected consequence proving that the scariest things aren’t necessarily vampires, but ourselves.

As a person who is obviously less familiar than many of my classmates with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, I wanted my first blog post to be an attempt to grapple with the reasons for the “cult following” that the show has amassed. What initially struck me as very odd about the incredible devotion of many of my classmates to Buffy is that the show is not contemporary to our childhood. The show predates us, in a sense. I remember being a little girl and catching snippets of Buffy from the television in my parent’s room. My mom has always loved “vampire-esque” fiction, but I never really understood the fascination. Even though I have not historically read Gothic novels or been drawn to shows about vampires and werewolves, many of the books that we are reading in the course have always been on my “literary bucket-list,” so I decided that I would sign up, despite the concentration on a series with which I had little interest. I have now seen two episodes of Buffy in their entirety and I have to say that I still wouldn’t call the series my “thing,” but I can understand why it was (and still is, apparently) a very popular series. Interestingly, if one were to study the demographic of the “Buffy-obsessed” in our class, it appears as if the majority are young women. There is obviously something very appealing in the idea of a young, effervescent, and attractive blonde, who defies all stereotypes in being the “chosen slayer” of evil. Whedon’s portrayal of Buffy may also be called “feminist” because she is able to retain her femininity, while at the same time, being the ultimate power to conquer monsters of all kinds. In the episode we watched in class today “Living Conditions,” there were many elements to which a younger crowd of women (and men) could relate. I found myself laughing out loud about the hellish roommate, Kathy, who actually turns out to be a demon. As college students, I feel as if most of us can empathize with the perception of our roommate as an “actual soul-sucking demon from another dimension” when he drinks our milk, “borrows” clothing that is perhaps not her size, or refuses to turn off the lights when it is evident we are attempting to get precious sleep before a final. However, despite the silliness of the show, I think that it is important to address what many of my classmates were discussing regarding the constant blurring of lines and the lack of adherence to a strict binary that appear throughout the series. In life, there are gray areas. As humans, we are quick to put a label on something. In fact, this is how we often operate. If someone is pretty, we assume they’re not smart. If someone is studious, we assume they aren’t funny and so on and so forth. By creating a show in which the protagonist defies stereotypes, Whedon is perhaps pushing his viewers to readjust their initial instinct to label something as strictly “black” and another as strictly “white.” In that way, despite how ludicrous the show does appear at times, there is a certain profundity in it. Perhaps this is why so many of my classmates and even my mother, were (and are) so drawn to this show. There are certain formulaic and predictable Gothic conventions to which the show adheres (which is appealing to viewers, or it would not be done time and time again), but at the same time, pushes people to expand their perceptions and challenge the Gothic genre as a static entity.

Living Conditions

Of all the things we hit on in class after watching "Living Conditions," we didn't really say too much about making old situations come together with new situations. We seemed to focus more on the separation and differences between Buffy’s high school and college life, and never talked about the things that still played a very strong role in both. For example, regardless of Buffy’s new surroundings, she still had to go patrolling every night and maintain her slayer duties. Just as Buffy continued slaying, college students often carry over activities that are important to them, such as music, art, and sports, to make their experience more comfortable and stable.

A word to replace "slayer"...

In "Living Conditions," Xander uses "Buffinator." We could potentially be a class of Buffinators. :-)

Living Conditions

As I was watching Living Conditions I could not help but notice how similar the two were. The most striking similarity to me was the true dreams. Both Laura and Buffy dream that terrible things are being done to them, but when they wake up, they believe they were simply dreaming. Both Carmilla and Kathy also claim to suffer the same nightmares as Laura and Buffy, making them seem like victims as well. Although Buffy and Laura know that something is off about their new roommates, they do not really understand. It is only when the danger becomes imminent and the vampire and glowing-eyed creature are near to succeeding that Laura and Buffy are finally made aware that their dreams were reality. The needles that Laura feels are actually Carmilla’s fangs as she tried to drain Laura of blood. The animal blood and scorpions are part of a ritual that Kathy was using to suck out Buffy’s soul. It is awful to think that what seems like nightmares are actually reality and that because of their claim of innocence, Carmilla and Kathy could have succeeded in killing Laura and Buffy.

Buffy vs. Edward: Twilight Remix

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZwM3GvaTRM