Storyteller - Getting Involved

This episode concentrates on how Andrew has tried to remove himself from the narrative going on in Sunnydale. At the end though, he is forced to acknowledge his role as murderer and player in the dark events going on. Andrew has to eventually become a part of the story he’s recording from an outsider perspective. Jane Austen makes us do the same thing. She uses humor to peak our interest, but then proceeds to force us into the story by making characters relatable and inviting our criticisms of those characters – she’s teaching us how to read a novel in Northanger Abbey, so that we understand when reading other novels how the process of becoming involved works. This is the magic of novels – even when they’re totally fictional the author still forces his/her readers into the narrative by creating similarities between the fiction and the reality of readers’ worlds. Andrew is always trying to sugarcoat his past and remove the gritty details from Buffy and the events going on in Sunnydale. I see it as a defense mechanism. Andrew feels unprepared to face the reality of his past and the world around him, so he sees it through a lens (rose-colored? Yes.), but Buffy forces him to come out from behind that lens and own up to his mistakes. At the very end of the episode, we see the result of this realization; Andrew has nothing left to say to the camera after the raw, one-sentence truth he speaks, and turns it off. I often experience the same silence after making a connection to a novel. I just have to sit there and think about it for awhile.

So basically I see a parallel between the way Andrew was eventually forced to acknowledge his role in the “story” and how novels force readers to do the same. Austen shows us this when she teaches us how to read the novel.

Catching Up on Gothic Feminism, Literally

To me, defining feminism in the Gothic, seems as difficult as defining the Gothic itself. In Michele Byers article, she notes that “it is important to think about what it means to claim the label feminist,” and though they span generations, continents and hairstyles, this applies to Buffy, Ampata, and even Carmilla

All three of the ladies are plagued by a sever case of damned if they do, damned if they don’t. They are in situations that can be either read as empowering or imprisoning. For Buffy, it is the perpetual struggle with her role as slayer versus being your typical 90’s teen. Ampata battles with her destiny and her desires, and Carmilla so badly wants the affections of Laura, but as a vampire, cannot have them fully.

So if feminism is “paradoxical, ambivalent, and fluid,” how do we find it in these characters. For me, the paradox is the key point. Carmilla can be looked at two ways, as a wanton seductress or as a poor, lost soul. Ampata is either a vengeful woman looking for a second chance at any cost, or tragic teen seeking the life that was so cruelly stripped from her. And Buffy. Buffy’s paradox is much less black and white. On one hand she is a demon destroyer, protecting the world. On the other, she has a deep connection to the darkness which she fights both in the physical and mental sense. Regardless of your interpretation, all 3 women operate outside of typical gender roles. Carmilla is a powerful bloodsucker, who chooses to prey on women rather than men, and Buffy and Ampata share the role of “chosen one,” bearing a burden that benefits all of society.

One quote that struck me in Carmilla is when she says “love is always selfish.” She is explaining to Laura why she cannot be entirely truthful. But when compared to Xander’s heroic actions in “Inca Mummy Girl” we see that this too is a paradox. Xander is willing to give his life for Willow because her loves her (strictly platonic, sorry Will). But at the same time, Ampata is acting on similar feelings toward Xander. Just a final though before you decide who to stake in the heart.

Redemption in "Storyteller"

Without a doubt, my favorite part of "Storyteller" is Andrew's quest for redemption. He wasn't an evil person, just a weak person who made some bad decisions. I think it was important that this is the episode where he finally comes to terms, and admits to the fact that he killed his best friend Jonathan, because he's documenting the way "heros/heroines" are acting. When he sees the things that Buffy has to do for the common good, and how self sacrificing the majority of the others are, he realizes that he has to cut the crap, stop trying to be heroic, and admit that he's done something wrong.

In a similar way, although it's during her "act" that Andrew has to die, when Buffy points out that she's sick of acting like everything is going to turn out okay, because it's not, and people are going to die, she has to admit that no matter how much of a hero she is, she can't save everyone. While she feels guilt (it seems) that she can't save everyone, she understands that it's more important for the greater whole to survive than certain specific individuals.

I'm sorry that post had no tangible train of thought.

The Irrational "Brain": Willow and Tabula Rasa

The article "'My God, It's Like a Greek Tragedy': Willow Rosenberg and Human Irrationality" by James B. South is mainly an analysis of Willow's irrational behavior towards the later episodes of the series. It discusses her desire to be a best friend, not a side-kick (It also discusses her anger in season six, but that's irrelevant because it hasn't happened yet.)

The main quote from this article that interested me was "Willow Rosenberg's character trajectory over six seasons provides us with a compelling study of the issue of irrationality, and forces us to confront the possibility that irrationality can be unintelligible, not just a mistake" because while watching Tabula Rasa, I was thinking about how as the show progresses Willow just starts making bad choice after bad choice, and it's hard to notice at first because it happens gradually, and often it seems like little mistakes at first.

I think "Tabula Rasa" is the defining point in which the audience finally realizes that Willow is not just making mistakes and slipping up, she's being irrational. The irrationality of a character who has had such a solid, intelligent, and reliable personality throughout the series throws the audience for a loop, and forces them to realize the development of characters over the years. On Wheedon's part, I think this is genius. To be able to develop characters as he does and keep his audiences guessing, he is able to turn Buffy into something tangible that audiences can relate to.

(Sorry this post was so late.)

South, James B. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale. Vol. 4. Chicago and La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 2003. Print. Popular Culture and Philosophy.

It's Hard Being a Hero

So, I was going to write my blog post about the differences between Andrew and Catherine, but I think that has been beaten to death already, by you all early bird posters, and by my lengthy comments (Sorry Sydney, I didn't mean to write a novel). So, I guess I will talk about something else.

One part of the episode that really stuck out to me was this section:

ANDREW(pleading): I know. But you don’t need to kill me. You said we could all get through this.
BUFFY: I made it up. I’m making it all up. So what kind of hero does that make me?
ANDREW: No, you’re doing a great job, really. Kudos.
BUFFY: Yeah, well, I don’t like having to give a bunch of speeches about how we’re all going to live, because we won’t. This isn’t some story where good triumphs because good triumphs. Good people are going to die. Girls. Maybe me.Probably you. Probably right now.

I think this goes back to what I was discussing with Tabula Rasa as to what makes a hero. Throughout the "story" of Andrew's video, Buffy is "The Girl Who Knew No Fear." the "Slayer of, The Vampires," and she is shown majestically and heroically. And throughout the episode, Buffy protests this portrayal. She doesn't want this beacon of hope of future generations to capture all of their preparations and struggles, because she is scared, and knows that she is dealing with something she may not be prepared to handle. She is the heroine, and has always dealt with things and saved the world, but here, she is not so sure that she is going to have the strength to be a hero. She says that what she does is too important to show the world, because after the fighting, after the violence, she is vulnerable, especially as a leader (which will come up towards the end of the 7th season).

So we say again, what makes a heroine? I think that these doubts are crucial to heroism. Andrew says that Buffy "fights and she knows she will win because there is no alternative" but Buffy doesn't believe that. We see in the above quoted scene that she is afraid. If a hero is constantly aware of being a hero and of being the able and victorious defender, then what kind of hero would they be? Boring, I think. Catherine, like Buffy, doesn't see herself as the ideal heroine, even though we are told that she is. Both girls have happy endings, save the day, get the guy, whatever, but it is their vulnerable moments and struggles that make it worth the while. Buffy is hyper aware of her role as hero, which is vastly different from Catherine, who views herself as plain, and these polar opposites serve as points of weakness for each heroine. It gives them something to overcome, something to battle with, before they can prove themselves as true heroines.

Buffy knows that people will die and that she can't save them all, and I think that this adds to her heroism. She acknowledges that her fight will not be perfect, but that doesn't mean that she isn't going to stop fighting. Catherine sees that the General has faults that can't be altered and that the Thorpes were not the friends she hoped they would be, but she does not take her entire experience to be a loss. Yea, I guess that is kind of a stretch, but Catherine isn't such a literal heroine as Buffy, so I kind of read between the lines...

Yea, so this post kind of drifted from where it began, but those are my thoughts on Storyteller. Also, I love this episode, so much. I think it is a great way to pick apart each character, especially Buffy and Andrew. Thanks for that, Joss.

Storyteller: The inablity to live one's own life?

“Storyteller” is ultimately not about Buffy (and the Scooby gang) saving the day once again, but rather about Andrew confronting his inability to accept his role in Jonathan’s death. The episode confronts the need for a story in a person’s life. Andrew hides his feelings in creating a video of Buffy’s life and struggle against evil. Instead of living his own life and dealing with his “bruised soul”, he chooses to become a narrator. He observes other people’s lives and lives vicariously through them, pretending that he is contributing to the cause. When Anya and Xander talk about their failed relationship, Andrew secretly films it and then watches it, pretending to be Anya. He knows her lines word for word, but he cannot even correctly remember murdering Jonathan. He creates pretty pictures of each character (including himself), making them seem better than they actually are. According to Buffy, however, “life isn’t a story” and by constantly creating stories for himself, Andrew is creating situations where no one has to take responsibility for their actions. Andrew created a story for himself where he murdered Jonathan because he was told to do so by a ghost. As a “storyteller”, Andrew is in fact a liar. In Buffy’s mind, a narrator is a weak-minded person who is unable to live their own life. Unlike a story, life is uncontrollable. Good does not necessarily triumph and nice people do not always survive. As a heroine, Buffy is able to face the knowledge that she will likely die without any fear; she does not need embellishment to be able to accept a truth. Catharine is more like Andrew. She tries to narrate her life to make herself feel better. Andrew does so to make him feel like he is working with Buffy and contributing to a good cause. Catharine wants to make her life more exciting like the lives of the gothic novel characters. She enters Northanger Abbey with a specific storyline in mind: an evil husband killing his wife or locking her away in the bowels of a dark, old castle. She alone knows this truth and even though she is provided information to the contrary (e.g. Northanger Abbey is actually quite modern), she, like Andrew, sticks to her fantasy. Both Andrew and Catharine suffer unpleasant surprises when they are made to realize that their fantasies are not only untrue, but they are also harming their creators. Mr. Tilney is shocked when he discovers Catharine’s suspicions of his father and Catherine is forced out of Northanger, alone and without protection. She must confront the fact that she cannot allow her fantasies and naïve idealizations of other people to dictate her actions. Like Buffy, Catharine must learn to rely on herself and accept the seemingly-mundane reality of her life. Andrew’s unwelcome awakening comes in the form of Buffy, who forces him to confront the fact that he is a murderer. He becomes an active participant in his own life when he takes responsibility and accepts the weight of his guilt.

Do You Get It? ("Tabula Rasa" vs. Northanger Abbey)

Much can be said about the similarities between “Tabula Rasa” and Northanger Abbey. Some of these include the critique of female friendship as embodied by Isabella and Willow, the comparable sense of predictability combated by reaching conventional endings in unexpected ways, and the similar goal of redefining heroine archetypes. All of these comparisons are important examples of how “Tabula Rasa” and Northanger Abbey are complimentary texts that are fitting to read together. However, instead of focusing on just this episode in light of Austen’s novel, I’d like to compare the overarching structure of Buffy to that of Northanger Abbey.

I believe that one of the most gratifying qualities of both these texts is that they possess a sense of self-awareness. For Buffy, it is an understanding of Gothic texts, and for Northanger Abbey it is a knowledge of the form of eighteenth century novels. As George Levine says in his article “Translating the Monstrous: Northanger Abbey,” “parody always involves itself in certain contradictions, not only because the need for mockery is invariably a sign of respect for the power of the thing mocked, but also because the parody must exist in the medium of its predecessor” (337). Both texts play with the respective conventions of the Gothic and the novel in this way, and in doing so are able to be playful and entertaining.

A poignant example of such use of parody can be seen in the episode “Buffy vs. Dracula,” in which the Dracula mythos is turned on its head and satirized. Yet this humor is out of reverence, and is used to legitimize Buffy in the Gothic world in comparison to Stoker’s renowned Dracula. Similarly, and perhaps more consistently, Northanger Abbey satirizes the conventional expectations of the novel and the Gothic form. Austen continually uses narrative intrusion to point out how the story deviates from convention. For instance, in the opening paragraph of the book Austen writes of Catherine’s mother, “she had three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might expect, she still lived on” (15). This example illustrates how Northanger Abbey is aware of, and plays with, past literary traditions – here, that a heroine should be without a living mother as a role model. Similarly to Buffy, Northanger Abbey uses self-awareness and parody to create a new, legitimate, and elevated work of Gothic fiction that teaches its readers how to read anew.

I think that the use of self-awareness and parody in these texts is both successful and captivating. However, as we discussed in class, a less well-read audience member might miss much, if not all, of the satirical references in these texts. For example, when Henry jokes, unbeknownst to Catherine, about what her stay would be like at the Abbey if life were like a gothic novel, he references in content and near quotation the Mysteries of Udolpho, Romance of the Forest, Castles of Otranto, and The Recess. Only a reader with a substantial background in gothic literature would be able to discern these allusions. A less well-read viewer of Buffy would similarly not understand the significance of Xander’s behavior in “Buffy vs. Dracula.” Thus, to varying extents Buffy and Northanger Abbey are pleasing to two different audiences, one that is well-read and one that is more naïve. My only lingering curiosity is whether there is a third viewer category for Buffy: the portion of the audience who has seen the series in its entirety? Based off of the various discussions of Willow’s role in “Tabula Rasa,” – some advocating that she is a truly bad Isabella-like “friend” and others deeming that she is a kind-hearted sturdy companion throughout most of the series – I believe that this third category does indeed exist. As a result, though perhaps unintentionally, Buffy successfully manipulates the modern media sphere to augment the criteria of what makes a well-read viewer. In my opinion this feat, although technologically impossible in 1798, is comparable in importance to Northanger Abbey’s overall accomplishment of redefining the possibilities of fiction in the eighteenth century.

Levine, George. "Translating the Monstrous: Northanger Abbey." Nineteenth Century Fiction. (1975): 335-50. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. .

Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. New Chronology and Updated Further Reading Addition. London: Penguin Books, 2003. 15.

Storyteller

The episode, “Storyteller,” really illustrates how Buffy is constructed as a new and more complex kind of heroine. We talked in class about how she is a different (and possibly “better” heroine in comparison with Catherine). One of the initially attractive things about Buffy, at least to me, the childhood karate enthusiast, is her physical strength. She is a force to be reckoned with; someone who dispels the notion that a woman is necessarily passive, or inherently the victim.
However, I think what makes Buffy even more revolutionary than the fact that she is a blonde cheerleader who “kicks butt,” is that she has some characteristics in common with Catherine. Part of what makes Catherine so endearing, despite, and in fact because of, her ignorance, is her willingness to think the best of people. Buffy, despite having suffered multiple deaths and having battled the worst the Hellmouth has to offer, still sees the good in people. When the principal questions the prudence of trusting the formerly “dark” Willow, Buffy replies that everyone makes mistakes. Buffy is interesting precisely because she is not just a vampire killing machine who sees everything in black and white.

The Differences Between Andrew and Catherine

Maybe it was because I am less familiar with the sixth and seventh seasons of Buffy, but I really didn't like the episode "Storyteller." What I have appreciated so much about Joss Whedon's scripts in the past is how literary they are. There was something about this particular episode that felt more concerned with action, blood-drawing, and sort of "C" grade humor, than staying true to Gothic literary traditions. Where I did find strengths in the episode was when Buffy says to Andrew, "Stop telling stories. Life isn't a story." I completely agree with the comparisons that Katherine draws between Northanger Abbey's, Catherine Morland and "Buffy's" Andrew. Katherine has already done a very good job describing the similarities between these two characters so I am going to attempt to point to some of the marked differences. Andrew is not a blank slate, a "tabula rasa." He retreats to the world he creates behind his camera, being on the "side" and not a player in life's action, because he is hiding from his guilt. Andrew murders his best friend/lover? because Andrew was seeking greatness. Throughout the episode, he says that he is looking for redemption. By befriending Buffy and the "Scooby Gang," and by memorializing Buffy's "good" through video footage, Andrew is finding a mechanism to cope with this guilt. However, it is not until he is confronted with the seal, when Buffy is threatening the coward's life, that he finally seeks repentance. There is obviously something manipulative in Andrew. He was once a super-villain, sure, but even though he has supposedly reformed his evil ways, it is evident that he still manipulates those around him to make himself appear in the most favorable light. Catherine Morland, like Andrew, gets in trouble when she relies more heavily on "stories" than her limited, real life experience. An integral difference between these two characters is that Andrew is inhabiting a fictional world to escape the actual crimes that he has committed, whereas Catherine is not intentionally living in a storybook world to avoid living in the real world. But because Catherine has so little experience, the fancies of fairytales become what she understands as experience and universal truth. There is obvious irony in me starting out this blog post by saying that I don't like this episode because it isn't as self-consciously literary as the other episodes I've seen, and subsequently connecting the episode to literature, but it is necessary to allow for small blips of hypocrisy in a person from time to time.

Life as a Story

After watching the episode in class today, I was fascinated by Buffy saying, “Stop telling stories. Life isn’t a story.” This quote seems to both support and run contrary to what we’ve discussed about novels and real life in Northanger Abbey. In the beginning of the novel, Catherine Morland views her life as though it were a gothic romance, and expects to see ghosts and haunted mirrors behind every door. Thus, when she visits Northanger Abbey, she takes Henry’s teasing as fact and tries to bring to light the terrible murder she has imagined in her head. After her confrontation with Henry, Catherine experiences severe disillusionment when she realizes that real life is not, in fact, like a novel. This encounter would support Buffy’s claim that life can’t be summed up by stories. Furthermore, we see how Andrew avoids facing the truth of his crime by telling himself stories to cover up the fact that he murdered his friend. He uses stories as a way of glossing over the hard edges of reality, and these stories become a fictional world that he can hide in. Similarly, Andrew uses stories to romanticize Buffy and the apocalypse that she must prevent.

However, the very fact that Joss Whedon presents this quote to us through a character in a TV series would suggest that, in a way, life is a story. Each person’s perception of life is shaped by past experiences and emotions. Thus, no human perception can be without bias. Memories are stories that we tell ourselves over and over in order to relive past events. We learn about people and real life situations through how we experience them in our heads, on screen, or in novels. As we discussed in class, Jane Austen uses Northanger Abbey to teach us about life through the medium of a novel. She demonstrates, through the experiences of Catherine, that novels have a purpose for instruction and gaining knowledge about real life. Girls with overactive imaginations, like Catherine, learn about the costs of applying fantasy to real life situations through Catherine’s mistake. As Catherine learns how to behave in society, so do we as the readers. In this way, Austen herself seems to argue that life is a story, and telling stories is a real way to learn about life. Similarly, Joss Whedon presents Buffy as a story about a vampire slayer who deals with average real-life issues such as high school, friends, roommates, and feeling inadequate. Even while Andrew narrates his movie about Buffy, he seems to impart some knowledge to the reader. He says, “She's like a woman fighting for more than life. She fights like fighting is her life. It's like the air she breathes, and she knows she will win because there is no alternative.” It sounds kind of corny, but also contains some truth. Buffy has to believe in herself because if she doesn’t the world will, quite literally, end. I think the reason we still read novels or watch movies is because we do realize that in many ways life is a story, and through stories we can learn some essential truths about life.

Identity - Who's Who in "Tabula Rasa" and Northanger Abbey

And now I'll apologize for posting twice in a row.

In his article "She's Not All Grown Yet: Willow as Hybrid/Hero in Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Jes Battis discusses how Willow's character changes throughout the series. To me, this morphyness is interesting in the context of "Tabula Rasa" where everyone's character is kind of obliterated because of, not insignificantly, Willow. Battis argues that Willow's character varies more than the other characters do throughout the series, citing her vampire doppelganger, Dark Willow, Light Willow, and her various identities as straight, gay, computer geek, shy high schooler, and powerful witch. When everyone forgets everything they know in "Tabula Rasa", different things happen to their identities. Although Buffy doesn't remember that she is the slayer and she names herself Joan, she still takes charge of the situation and realizes that she's a "superhero". Giles, Xander, and Anja's characters seem to stay pretty much the same except that they forget their relationships. Tara's shy and quiet nature remains unchanged. Spike re-identifies himself as a good vampire, and I would argue to Battis' article that Spike's character changes nearly as much as Willow's does throughout the show. Willow's identity also changes drastically when her memory is wiped. Though Buffy and Spike discover their "superpowers" almost immediately and begin to use them, Willow does not ever identify as a witch until her memory comes back. Even though Buffy's identity doesn't change much while Spike and Willow's do, I think that how their identities change might be more important. But more on that later.

As we discussed in class, we can use the memory wipe to represent the process of discovering ones identity, which we can compare to Catherine learning and growing and defining her character along the way in Northanger Abbey. I think Catherine begins to define herself for the first time when she makes up her own mind that she no longer wants to be on the carriage ride with John Thorpe because he mislead her into thinking that the Tilneys had abandoned their walk. By making up her own mind, she begins to choose her own identity. This is similar to Buffy naming herself Joan and taking charge of the situation in "Tabula Rasa". I would argue that Willow, unlike Buffy, does not actually redefine her identity when her memory is erased - her identity as a witch simply goes away and while she does rediscover her identity as a gay female, I think that her sentence "I think I'm kinda gay" doesn't act in the same autonomous redefining way as Buffy's "I think I'll call me Joan" does. I think this is because Buffy is the heroine and Willow, much as I love her, is only the sidekick. Spike also takes an active role in creating his new identity as a good vampire by defining himself as such, so maybe he is acting as the hero in this episode. Do you guys think autonomy in defining one's identity can make a character a heroine?

Citation:

Battis, Jes. "She's Not All Grown Yet: Willow as Hybrid/Hero in Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Slayage: The Journal of the Whedon Studies Association 2.4 (2003): n. pag. Web. 14 October 2011.

Storyteller

By comparing the character Andrew from the Buffy episode Storyteller, to the protagonist of Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland, one can see just how Joss Whedon, the creator of the series was influenced by Jane Austen’s Gothic novel. In Storyteller, Andrew, a captive of the Scooby Gang due to various crimes committed in the past, decides to document Buffy’s battle against an impending apocalypse. Similar to the way in which Morland creates her own Gothic world based on her readings, Andrew fabricates large parts of his documentary to add entertainment value. The camera that Andrew carries around for the episode is essentially a metaphor for the particular biased lens that he sees the world through, as the camera only records when Andrew wants it to, so he can shape the world around him in any way he sees fit. An example of this is the multiple takes of Spike Andrew captures, each one demonstrating a different version of the vampire, as the viewer of the documentary, not the episode as a whole, only can form an opinion on Spike based on a very brief clip. The episode as a whole demonstrates the power a narrator has to shape a story in the manner that he sees fit, and how this ability can entirely affect the way in which an audience can interpret events.

Folklore and Fairy Tales in “Hush” and Dracula

First off, apologies (again, sorry!) for the late post.

What strikes me most about “Hush” is the line, or rather written scrawl from Giles describing The Gentleman, explaining that “They are fairy-tale monsters.” While in reality Joss Whedon created The Gentlemen, he designed them to be reminiscent of the Grimm fairy tales and was, in my opinion at least, very successful. There is something about the idea of a folklore or fairy tale monster coming to life that is so horrible no one wants to believe it. (When I say fairy tale here, I mean it in the historic and strictly non-Disney sense.) This happens to Jonathan Harker in Dracula when he completely writes off all of the warnings the peasants give him as he travels to meet the Count the first time. In "Hush", the local news station has a similar reaction to the Gentlemen - they report that a laryngitis epidemic has broken out in Sunnydale. Buffy and the Scoobies immediately believed in the existence of the Gentlemen, but they deal with the supernatural every day. This is similar to Van Helsing in Dracula who, immediately upon becoming aware of the circumstances surrounding Lucy's illness, goes to look up folklore surrounding vampires. Ultimately, it is Van Helsing's and Giles' respect for and knowledge of the folklore surrounding their respective enemies that allows the groups of humans to defeat the monsters. We talked about this in class with as a representation of old and new world knowledge, and Sydney talked about it in her post as well. Along with the different reactions to folklore showing the differences in old world and new world knowledge, I started to think about how, outside of the worlds of the novel and the show, the "old world knowledge" is actually myth. Requiring the reader or viewer to suspend disbelief is clearly a tenant of the Gothic, but it occurs to me that it is interesting that old world knowledge seems to be equated with myth. I'm not sure if this makes old world knowledge seem more reputable or less, because even though the old world knowledge is being equated with myths, it is also the only correct knowledge that the protagonists have about the monsters they are fighting. Thoughts?

Setting Trends- How Fashion Relates to the Greater Image of Buffy

While watching "Tabula Rasa", I was intrigued by the fact that Buffy wears a long black coat very similar to Spike's throughout the majority of the episode. I thought this must be to highlight the fact that at the end of the episode, Buffy would be driven to Spike once more for comfort, thus continuing her downward spiral into darkness. Noticing this, I decided I wanted to learn more about the fashion choices made on Buffy. I accomplished this in reading "Real Vampires Don't Wear Shorts: The Aesthetics of Fashion in Buffy the Vampire Slayer", an article by Leigh Clemons.

Clemons explores the meaning of costume choice presented through style, whether or not trends are followed, and color scheme. She mentions how in the very first episode of Buffy, fashion is presented as very important to the show. Not only is Buffy proven to be fashion conscious in "Welcome to the Hellmouth" as Cordelia quizzes her on the latest trends, but she also spots a Vampire because his out-of-date clothing suggests he's been dead for many years. Clemons also describes how character arcs throughout the series are further defined by the clothing choice of those characters. For example, Willow abandons her geeky and colorful garb for something much darker as she is drawn further and further into her magical powers, and as Buffy matures she begins to dress more and more like a motherly figure (at least a very stylish motherly figure).

"Tabula Rasa" is mentioned a few times in the article, and I think it is an excellent example of how clothing choice accentuates character traits. As previously mentioned, Buffy dawns a dark coat which I think reflects her eventual fall to Spike and spiral into darkness. She begins the episode in all white or light tones, suggesting she is trying to compensate for kissing Spike at the end of "Once More, With Feeling". Willow is also dressed in all dark tones, and also looks very fashionable and quite witchy, with the tattered shirt and tight jeans. This again emphasizes her movement into Dark Willow. Furthermore in this episode, we see how clothing choice can be deceptive. Spike sees the name in his stolen suit and thinks his name is Randy, and Willow notes the name Harris on her jacket and comes to the conclusion that she and Xander must be dating.

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger?

After class on Wednesday and after reading the Grace and Amelia’s blog posts, I started thinking about the differences between Buffy in “Tubula Rasa” and Catherine Morland in the way experience changes characterization. Although Catherine Morland has been criticized for being a weak heroine, I would argue that she demonstrates increasing strength of will and integrity throughout the course of Northanger Abbey. On the other hand, Buffy, who normally embodies all things strong and super, breaks down after gaining back her memory in ‘Tabula Rasa.” As we’ve discussed, both Buffy and Catherine start out in the novel and the episode as “blank slates,” and this allows their innate characteristics to shine through. However, as any student learns from Psych 101, it is the combination of nature and nurture that creates the final product of a character.

In her post, Amelia wonders whether or not ignorance is bliss. She notes that while Buffy had no memory of her past, she was able to regain her happiness and drive to be a force for good in the world; however, when she remembered her misery and pain from being brought back to life, she curled up in the fetal position and literally gave up. It’s Spike who rescues her by beating up the vampires around her, showing the distinction between pre-memory, heroine Buffy and post-memory damsel-in-distress Buffy. Although Buffy’s innate make-up seems to be that of a strong, independent person, her experiences shape her outlook on life in this episode and turn her into a weak character that doesn’t want to fight.

In the beginning of Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland does not seem to have the same innate strength as Buffy. She is described as a character who, “never could learn or understand anything before she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive, and occasionally stupid” (Austen, 38). She comes across much more as a damsel than a heroine, especially when she befriends Isabella and John Thorpe, both interested in her for selfish reasons. However, as the novel progresses and Catherine gains experience, we see her take on the role of heroine. She consciously turns down John Thorpe’s proposal, and terminates her friendship with Isabella after recognizing Isabella’s inconsistent character. Furthermore, Catherine learns from her experience at Northanger Abbey. Henry Tilney, who seemed superior to Catherine in the beginning of the novel, proposes to her at the end of the novel at the risk of displeasing his father. This action suggests that the two characters have become equal partners. Catherine moves from her position as a damsel to that of a heroine, as her experiences help her face the difficulties she encounters.