Caption Contest

And the week of all weeks continues.

Caption contest for the current header picture. So let's get witty with it, shall we. Ready, set, go.

Kudos to BMack for the idea.

Willow Speaks Gaelic?

“Fear Itself” brings me back to the first episode we watched in class. I distinctly remember hearing the line “ we are defined by things we fear,” in “Nightmares,” and having Janelle tell us we should write it down because it would be important. Well, it’s back. This episode seems like season four’s newer take on that first episode, but it doesn’t seem repetitive for two reasons. First, we have the introduction of new characters Oz and Anya, and second the regulars might as well be entirely different people. So much has changed in the Scooby Gang since they were helping little Billy in season 1. Xander is struggling with odd man out syndrome, Willow has magical powers (and this episode seems to be a platform for many of the issues we later see in our ill-mannered friend), and even Buffy is different. It’s been x number of years, so the characters have grown, though I wouldn’t entirely say they’ve grown up. To me, that is what makes their friendship seem as genuine, or at least as genuine as one based on vampire slaying can. This strain on the group as they grow in different directions is natural. I think that’s the biggest fear I saw in the episode. In their own ways, everybody is afraid of how the group growing apart. It is not until they are all forced together in the frat house that they can overcome this fear

As an aside, did anybody else find Buffy to bit a too whiny for their tastes? She’s got some hardcore daddy issues, that seem to follow her with all the men in her life to date (Angel, Parker, and even Giles in some ways). I found myself wondering for the entire episode how she would confront this problem. In a vain hope that curb stomping the fun sized Gakkkkkkkkkkknarrrrrrr (sp?) would do the trick, I watched the next episode “Beer Bad.” I was disappointed to find her mopey as ever still hung up on Parker, to the point where I had to stop watching. Somebody please tell me she gets over this funk relatively soon, and the pleather returns.

Size DOES Matter... sort of

So it might seem like a silly topic to write about in a blog, but in comparing "Fear, Itself" and Castle of Otranto, I realized these episodes boast two very differently sized villains (although I don't really consider the giant in Otranto to be a villain, so perhaps it's more accurate to say differently sized supernatural elements). So far, the evils we've faced in class have been fairly consistently human sized, but here we come across two extremely different sized antagonists, who are also extremes of each other. So I got to wondering, what does a villain's size say about him/her, if anything?

Buffy and the scoobies laugh at the tiny demon at the end of "Fear, Itself". Still, he terrorizes them throughout the entire episode, despite his size. His powers are greater than those of anyone else in the episode, and Buffy's size advantage over him is the only way he can be defeated in the end. In Otranto, the giant certainly uses his size to his advantage in killing Manfred's heir to the throne and in making an impressive entrance, but when Alfonso was a human and thus average human size (we assume) his line ended and the kingdom was taken over by Manfred's ancestors. A reader or viewer can draw from this that size does make a difference, because in smaller forms villains are more vulnerable. Another example from our texts that supports this, I believe, is Transformations. The dwarf, who is significantly smaller than an average man, is able to win over Guido's lover in Guido's larger form.

But there is at least one instance we've come across so far that I think breaks this mold: Hyde. He is described as smaller than Jekyll, but is far more evil. The image of him as a short, gnarled, stunted man is chilling and makes him seem even more realistic... and as such even terrifying. In the two film interpretations we saw of Hyde, he was a large muscular beast. This image, while perhaps more effective in Hollywood, does not chill and disturb in the same way as the original description. So, while in larger film form Hyde might be capable of more physical damage, in the story he is more effective as a villain and more capable than his larger-than-life counterparts.

"Together they face grand, overblown conflicts against an assortment of monsters both imaginary and rooted in actual myth."

Turn of the Screw was my favorite story we read so far,  and “Normal Again,” which shares it’s ambiguity and instability to an extent—leading clearly to multiple interpretations—is one of my favorite episodes.

In “Normal Again” and “Gingerbread House” Whedon is able to address issues of …normality… that are inherent in—probably intrinsic to—“Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” From the first episode we are asked to suspend a large portion of our disbelief, in this world of the not-usually-well-hidden supernatural that is often unseen by the general populace, even through countless deaths.

In “Gingerbread House”, as we discussed in class, we are shocked to step outside of the Buffy world to inhabit a more normal world, which then becomes the abnormal world (JAS’s words from class, not mine.) The Supernatural is seen and discussed by normal laypeople, who finally react to it as we might expect, which makes for several twistings of the Buffy screw*—even if at the end, in normal Buffy fashion (she does try to dress fashionably… oh wait, wrong use of the word) the laypeople all promptly forget about it.

            *(informally: 1^st “Someone with a Soul did this?” 2^nd Nope, it’s really a demon without a soul [2.5: Fairy Tales are Real …ish], 3^rd but because of that demon, people with souls did as bad/worse as the original crime thought to be done by an en-souled being… and this bit, it seems, is fairly overlooked by the Scooby Gang, just as the “laypeople” overlook the supernatural crimes. Also—what’s the titular gingerbread house, with connotation of being eaten? Perhaps the Buffy reality.)

“Normal Again” is even more insidious.

In “Normal Again” we are presented with two different realities; each relying on the unstable device of hallucination—either “Buffy” is in a mental institution or in Sunnydale, hallucinating she’s in whichever one she’s not. At first, it seems clear that the mental institution is the hallucination, but by the end we are unsure if the last scene depicts Buffy slipping into a final hallucination of the mental institution, or reality which Buffy slips away from—and twisted-ly, this latter seems more logical, at least aesthetically (as unstable of a reason as it is), as the episode ends with this universe.

By bringing criticisms up of the reality of Sunnydale (as was also done in “Gingerbread House” in an in-universe context) in the Mental Institution world, Whedon is able to bring the criticisms into the Sunnydale world by having Buffy voice them. Once brought in to the normal Buffy reality, they are allowed to become and dissipate. Ultimately, as subsequent episodes are in the Sunnydale universe, we as viewers except that that is either the reality of the whole show, or as good as, and thus the only thing left over is the reinforcement of reality brought by addressing the criticisms within the Buffy universe. Ultimately, this is the same effect “Gingerbread House” had, but stronger because the framing of the Mental Institution allows the Buffy universe to remain intact during its reality check examination.

In this way, “Normal Again,” is different than The Turn of the Screw in which we end up with zero or even negative information about what actually happened, because, even though in the single episode we end up with around zero information, in the context of the whole series, it gives us positive information—which seems to be a subtle part of it’s intent— by reinforcing the suspension of disbelief so integral to the series.

Symbolism in "Fear, Itself"

In “Fear Itself”, one of fantastic Halloween-themed episodes of BtVS, our Buffy has been recently dumped by the cruel and unfeeling Parker. Sad Buffy, caught in an existential crisis, feels empty and without a purpose in life in the otherwise happy holiday of Halloween. Obviously, sad Buffy is a recurring theme throughout the Buffy series. Let’s face it, Buffy has a little more angst than other teenagers, it’s no wonder she ended up with High Supreme Angst King, Angel. But my tangent aside, I find it interesting that Joss and the writers used Buffy’s existential crisis to comment on the empty symbolism of not only Halloween, but the college experience, Baudrillard-style. But rather than the ever-optimistic French philosopher, who believed that everything in this world is an empty symbol of something significant rather than anything actually significant, Joss and the writers use the magic of the episode and fear itself to reinstall significance that has become empty to Buffy.

The haunted house stands most obviously as a symbol in the episode. Erected by fraternity brothers (who create symbolic relationships of “brotherhood”) it is full of replicas: fake skeletons, spiders and heads. These decorations stand as cheap imitations of the real and significant: real human remains and real, living insects. When they decide to draw an occult marking on the floor, they draw it for the decorative effect, thus removing significance from an actual symbol. The holiday itself, to the frat bros, is not representative of anything with the occult, but has been replaced in their minds as an excuse to “get laid”.

The Scooby Gang, in their experiences and their costume choice, reinforce this idea of symbolism. Buffy dresses as a Red Riding Hood, an innocent (cheerleader anyone?) with unexpected weapons hiding in her basket. Willow as Joan of Arc, dresses as a symbol of what she is, a witch. Xander, as Bond, sees his costume as the unattainable: coolness and confidence. But what distinguishes the Scooby Gang from the haunted house is their belief in the symbolism. While none of them “become” their costumes as happened in season 1 or 2 (I don’t remember!), they all become corruptions of their costumes. Willow loses control of her magic and it does her in, much as Joan of Arc was done in by her proximity to other-worldly forces (Loaded topic, let’s leave it at that). Buffy, gets victimized by a big-bad much like her costume would suggest. Oz, who dresses as God, an all-powerful being, loses power over his ability to control himself and his werewolfery. The magic within them corrupts the symbolism of their costumes as well as their acceptance of reality, as each of them fall prey to a hallucination…not a actual fear, but a symbol of fear.

When the haunted house becomes real, Halloween evolves from a holiday based on the simulation of fear (controlled, safe environments) to reality of horror. As the house attacks the Scooby Gang, each member must put a name to their own fear, and while they do not actually confront and move past their fears, they accept them, and therefore become cognizant of their own selves. For Buffy, she actually does fight fear (the cute fear demon) and recognizes her fear of abandonment is what has been leaving her empty. When we see the fear demon, and realize that it is all of two inches tall, we realize that the actual fears of the Scooby Gang are in fact exacerbated by their own neurosis. The Buffy at the end of the episode, no longer sad Buffy, is now a fulfilled Buffy—who through the acceptance and confrontation of her fear now is an authentic individual, no longer symbolic of anything but Buffy Summers herself.

Halloween, Buffy and the show therefore gain recognition on their own merit, for being significant only of themselves. Joss’s use of symbolism in the episode, to me, reveals that he sees the show not as a symbol of both the gothic and teen drama traditions but as a significant show in it’s own right.

How many times did I use the word symbol in this post? Honestly, I am too afraid to count.

Happy Giles Appreciation Week! (Buff-iesta!)

Who needs candy when you could have Giles in authentic Mexican garb?

The METAmorphisis of Buffy and that sly fox, Joss Whedon

Season 6 of Buffy has never been my favorite season. She works in a fast food restaurant, every one is super angsty, and the villains aren’t exactly creatures to be feared. They’re nerds. Aren’t we supposed to root for the nerds? At least, that’s what my library of 80’s movies has taught me. So when I watched Normal Again, well, again, I experienced a feeling I have only felt one other time in this class. I felt bamboozled.

Now, everyone remembers that moment in Northanger Abbey discussions when we realized that that saucy little minx Jane Austen had turned us into our own worst enemy and (gasp!) taught us something about how to read a novel. As I had already seen Normal Again, I wasn’t expecting to be so easily duped by Joss and his sly ways. Yet, here I am now, on a Diet Coke high, cursing my naivetee. Let me explain myself.

The episode highlights all I hate about the 6^th season. Everything, as the psychologist tells Buffy, is coming apart in both the series and Buffy’s life. Xander and Anya have split, Willow and Tara have split and Dawn, well, Dawn. Nuff said. Buffy is no longer the spritely cheerleader we expect her to be, facing giant supernatural evils with a happy quip and returning home to her mother and a pat on the back from Giles. Instead she faces a sad, lonely, shockingly, well… normal existence. While the doctor and her parents in Buffy’s mental hospital universe (thus forth to be referred to as BMHU) criticize the Buffyverse, pointing out the ridiculousness of the fantastical world, we as the audience are forced to reflect on our own adherence to the fantasy. We too, have given in to the fantastical world, suspended our disbelief so much that when Buffy faces normal problems (The death of her mother, a sister who shoplifts, the end of relationships) we are upset, even angry at how the fantasy has been shattered. And why is that? Because we, like Buffy, now see the supernatural as normal, and the normal as an oddity. The idea of villains who are, like our run-of-the-mill murderers, humans with souls who cannot be so easily and ethically killed, upsets us even more.

So Joss, in his infinite wisdom, has created a season with a very unhappy Buffy. And a very unhappy Becca (notice how I somehow reverted to the royal we in that last paragraph? What was with that? Way too much BBC over break.). But by doing so, he has forced us to take a step back from the supernatural and realize that underneath all the gothic lies the most important element: the human element. In Normal Again, Joss Whedon creates a meta-critique of the series as a whole through the lens of an alternate reality. By causing Buffy to question her own reality and the normalcy of her life, we become advocates for the reality we know: the supernatural gothic, unreal world of the Buffyverse. So my discomfort with the season is the same discomfort of Buffy in a world that does not adhere to the normality of the past 5 seasons. Ergo, I am supposed to feel this way... like I've been spoon-fed the Buffy philosophy without even realizing it.

And that is how Joss and BtVS did me in. What a tricky man. Damn him and his bamboozling.

Technology and Tradition: Moms Gone Wild

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 20^th 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.

And now that I talked myself into a circle, I think I am going to go have some pie. All this talk of Gingerbread is making me hungry.

Giles Appreciation Week

Okay, so I've officially woken from my food coma, and decided what better time of year for Giles appreciation week? I know that I am thankful to have spent my semester with the smartest, sexiest librarian (and class) there is. So, in the spirit of feminist Ryan Gosling, I give you Anthony Stewart Head.

*Suggestions for the rest of the week are encouraged*

Into the Woods

I got a similar message from the episode, “Fear, Itself” as Nicole discussed in her blog post; however, I found that the "Fear, Itself" and The Castle of Otranto not only suggest controlling your fear, but accepting fear and not allowing it to skew things out of proportion. From the very beginning of the episode, we see Buffy as feeling emotionally fragile and being distant from her friends because she is afraid that if she allows herself to open up and be close to people than she will get hurt. Thus, we she enters the haunted house and her fears become real, she ends up isolated and deep in the filth with monsters beneath the house. This relates to Buffy’s fear that she’s somehow wrong or messed up, and that she isn’t loveable. Similarly, we see Xander, Willow, and Oz dealing with individual fears that they then have to face later in the episode. Willow feels as though she isn’t powerful enough to be a strong witch, and that Buffy doesn’t take her seriously enough. The conversation with Buffy while getting food from the cafeteria demonstrates that Willow feels frustrated by the lack of support for her interest in Wicca. These feelings come to a head in the haunted house when she confronts Buffy, saying, “I’m not your sidekick.” She tries magic and, as predicted, it goes horribly wrong because her deepest fear is that she isn’t a good enough witch. As Anya rightly targets in her conversation with Xander earlier in the episode, Xander fears that he doesn’t fit with his friends anymore. He feels as though he’s invisible guy since he doesn’t go to college or live in a dorm, so he literally becomes invisible in the haunted house. Oz, as usual, is terrified of being a monster, specifically a werewolf. I think the interesting message from this episode is that fear only has power if you allow it to overcome you. The characters allow themselves to be overwhelmed by their fears, and this is what causes them to be separated and terrified. Common objects become imbued with terror when we give them that power. The skeleton with the knife turns back into a plastic decoration as soon as Buffy punches it. We get a similar comic effect with the demon. The characters have faced their fears and no longer feel weak in the face of terror; thus, the demon of fear himself manifests as tiny and easy to squash. This suggests that nothing is actually as horrible as it seems when we allow it to overpower us.

I think this idea of being overpowered and overwhelmed by fear also relates to The Castle of Otranto. Manfred is terrified of breaking his lineage and having the title of Otranto move to someone beyond his bloodline. This fear dominates his reason and morality; thus, causing him to act as a tyrant in order to prevent his fear from manifesting. However, the more he fights against his fear, the worse the situation becomes. At first, we get the death of his son at the hand of a giant helmet, which is fairly unnerving. Then, when he tries to rape Isabella, we see giant legs in the castle—again, pretty creepy; and things just keep getting worse as he struggles against his fear. Eventually, his actions against his fears become so irrational that he kills his own daughter. The novel also demonstrates that you can’t allow your fear to take over your life. If Manfred had faced his fear and accepted that the throne of Otranto wasn’t his to have, then the damage to his home and family wouldn’t have been so horrific. Struggling against your fears only gives them power. Both the novel and the episode seem to suggest that accepting fear as best you can, and not allowing it to cloud your vision or guide your actions, is the only way to master your fear and achieve the desired outcome.

truth/illusion

Absolutely loved "Normal Again". The ambiguity factor that reared its head in episodes like "The Replacement" is ramped up to eleven in this episode. For what it's worth, I also loved the meta-commentary on how implausible certain aspects of the show are, like Dawn's sudden appearance a few seasons back. To reimagine these writerly inconsistencies as the deranged, desperate acts of a broken mind is pretty freaking cool, to be honest. Whedon is taking these extradiegetic concepts (things like the audience's necessary suspension of disbelief, which exist outside of the imaginative world of the show) and reinventing them as diegetic -- that is, reinserting these concepts back into the context of the show itself. Thus we have a character essentially breaking the fourth wall and meditating on her constructed status as a "character."

The whole thing was just incredibly postmodern -- in a good way! It was definitely thought-provoking. I know that it's really difficult to describe exactly what postmodernism is, but if I may put forth a partial definition, I always thought that one of the central tenets of the movement was the notion that truth and illusion were no longer distinct -- in fact, each flows into and informs the other. After all, who is to say what is real and what isn't? We are all the protagonists of our own lives, the heroes of our own quests, the characters at the center of our respective solipsistic universes. Even as you (rhetorical "you") read this, you have no definitive proof that the person you think wrote it -- that is, me -- actually exists separately from you. Perhaps, as Spike grumbled, I'm just a figment of your supposed reality. Fact is, you don't have proof that anything exists outside of you, because it is impossible to completely remove yourself (your "Self") from your powers of perception; in other words, it is impossible to experience anything 100% objectively. (A good deal of Eastern religion would argue that it is possible, however, if you practice meditation.) You have always seen out of your own eyes, heard from your own ears. You cannot inhabit anyone else's consciousness but yours (though who is to say there are "other" consciousnesses anyway)? In a sense, you are the God of your own life, because everything you've ever perceived has been mediated, translated, constructed by your brain. Consciously and unconsciously, you write it all; you are your own author.

Which leads to Buffy's interesting case: at the end of the episode, the distinction between truth and illusion no longer matters for her. It only matters that she is happy and that she is surrounded by love. And if that means she must live an illusion, then so it goes. Even in the final minutes, she still isn't sure whether Sunnydale is an artificial reality (I mean, who can really be sure of anything?) but nonetheless she consciously chooses her Slayer life, which could very well be a fantasy, because it is more personally fulfilling than the truth. She prioritizes subjectivity over objectivity.

On a semi-related note, I was reading this fascinating study earlier that corresponds to this discussion. It has been reported that some victims of torture, during the act, really would retreat into a fantasy world from which they could not wake up. In this catatonic state, the victim lived in a world just like their normal one, except they weren’t being tortured. The only way that they realized they needed to WAKE UP was a note they found in their fantasy world. It would tell them about their condition, and tell them to WAKE UP. Even then, it would often take months until they were ready to discard their fantasy world and please WAKE UP

fear, itself

I'm not sure if we had to watch this episode, but I went ahead and watched it anyway. I quite liked "Fear, Itself" -- definitely a funny episode with some neat twists. I was reminded of "Nightmares" from earlier in the semester (similarly, when everyone's worst fears come to life), but this episode is definitely a bit more mature and extrapolates things a bit further.

Also, did anyone else notice the Wizard of Oz parallels? In the episode it seemed that Buffy was meant to be Little Red Riding Hood but, to me at least, she looked more like Dorothy -- and her friends were the motley trio. We have Oz (...obvious reference #1) as the cowardly lion/wolf, who's afraid to turn into his beastly self. Then there's Xander as the scarecrow, who's afraid that he doesn't have a brain (aka, he's dumb) and no longer fits with the rest of his collegiate friends. And finally Willow as the Tin Man, who needs to... lubricate joints before physical exertion? I don't really have a parallel for that one, but I'm sure someone can think of something. Nevertheless Willow has that biting line -- "I'm not your sidekick!" -- that she deploys after Buffy assumes the role of leader once again, and I'm sure that at some point the Tin Man must have thought, too, that creepy woman-child Dorothy and mongrel Toto were spotlight hogs. Anyhow, finally there's also Gaknar (sp?) as the Wizard himself, who is much less than he initially seems to be, or as Xander says is "big overture, little show." Then Buffy/Dorothy gets out of her situation through... creative use of her shoes.

Moving on. Two things struck me about this episode: the first is Giles (who was incredible in this episode, by the way) mentioning that real demons consider Halloween "too crass" to even make an appearance. So then do demons have standards? An air of sophistication or polish to uphold in the eyes of us mortals? Nonetheless it sets up a nice dichotomy between the artificial tidings of our human "holiday" and the genuine supernatural horrors that serve as the models for our playtime. Halloween, as an event, is pretty interesting when we consider it among the pantheon of Gothic tropes to which we're accustomed. After all, Halloween is truly the epitome of the Gothic aesthetic: ghoulish specters, haunted houses, grotesque monsters and creatures, countless screams and lunatic laughter. The Castle of Otranto, for example, would be an ideal place to hold a Halloween party. So then why do "real" monsters consider Halloween -- and, by extension, the Gothic aesthetic -- so "crass" and unappealing?

Which leads to the second thing that struck me about this episode: that the superficial constructions of Halloween transform seamlessly into their real and horrifying counterparts, and vice versa. The plastic skeleton turns into a liche-swordsman, the real bats turn out to be rubber, a fake spider suddenly becomes a creepy-crawly tarantula. Or have they actually changed at all? Are the characters hallucinating? The line between "real" and "fake" grows blurrier. I quite liked that Gaknar (albeit only being a few inches tall -- gee, is there a moral to be learned?) masterfully manipulated the characters' skepticism in order to exacerbate their vulnerability. Xander says, for something like the fifth episode in a row, something along the lines of "Holy crap, is this real?" -- yes, Xander, you should know this by now. And you should realize that, ultimately, your disbelief in the "bad things" is exactly what enables them to bump in the night.

undermining assumptions

"The Replacement" was enjoyable... I didn't love it, didn't hate it. What I found most interesting was the sense of ambiguity that pervaded the whole episode; Whedon managed to evoke a similar sort of atmosphere to Turn of the Screw, in that the audience's assumptions are constantly being challenged and undermined. The first "turn" is immediately after Xander gets hit by the magic spell in the city dump, and the Scooby Gang helps him to his feet. The audience expects something -- probably something gruesome -- to happen to Xander, but then lo and behold we see that there's yet another Xander still lying in the garbage. Alright then -- so which is the real Xander to begin with? Or are they both real?

We eventually recognize the second Xander as the "real" one -- mostly through his bumbling antics and wacky derrings-do, which is what we as viewers are used to from Xander. And this is the assumption that the whole episode aims to subvert, because by identifiying that second Xander as the "real" one, we A) are reducing a human being (or a fully-rounded personality) to the expression of certain characteristics and B) are automatically assuming, by logical extension, that the first Xander is some kind of imposter, or less "real." So some questions are brought into play: how can we ever justify identifying Xander by outward qualities alone? Why is it that we initially assume that Replacement-Xander is evil or otherwise "wrong"? Is it because he's smooth and suave and charismatic, and we're sure that Xander is none of these things?

By the end of the episode we realize that Replacement-Xander is much like Vamp-Willow; they are the outward expressions of certain latent characteristics that audience rarely sees in Xander and Willow. Therefore it makes sense that both of these doppelgangers are sublimated, or somehow consumed, by their "normal" counterparts and cease to exist within the frame of the show. On that note, however, I thought it would have been interesting to reshoot the scene where the two Xanders become whole again. As it stands, we see the two Xanders standing next to each other, the "real" one on the left, the Replacement on the right. We cut away briefly and then return; the Replacement is gone, leaving only the "real" Xander still standing on the left side of the frame. I thought this was a little too neat, since it doesn't follow with the rest of the episode trying to undermine our assumptions. I thought that if "real" Xander disappeared, leaving only the "Replacement" standing on the right, the disorienting effect would have been that much greater, and the moral that much stronger: because the Replacement isn't really a replacement at all. A replacement necessarily suggests an original, which is somehow nonfunctional, and a copy, which takes the original's place; what we have with the two Xanders, however, are two originals vying for some sort of joint identity. To assume that one is somehow greater or lesser is to take the easy route. It's much harder to rid ourselves of these reductive binaries and to reconcile two seemingly opposing, and yet utterly viable, options.

repressed characteristics

A while back, out of sheer curiosity, I decided to watch "Seeing Red" and "Villains", two episodes from the latter half of the sixth season. "Seeing Red" is notable because (...we're beyond spoilers, right?) it is the episode in which Willow's girlfriend Tara, whom we've already met in "Hush", is unexpectedly killed. The subsequent episode, "Villains", follows Willow as she avenges Tara's death and hunts down the man who shot her. As far as I'm aware, this is the first real appearance of "Dark Willow", who apparently goes on to try to destroy the world out of rage and grief. (I can only assume that she's stopped before it's too late.)

Nonetheless it was a neat experience to watch these episodes after "Doppelgangland", which is the first time that we get to see Willow in a villainous role -- in the form of a vampire from another dimension. "Vamp Willow" is physically identical (with the exception of a different hairstyle and sense of fashion) to the Willow of our dimension, but differs in personality. Or does she? Vamp Willow is interesting because she is more of a personal foil, an aspect of character, rather than a fully-rounded character in and of herself. Ultimately she plays off yet another aspect of Willow that we typically see: the meek wallflower. I would argue that the "normal Willow" that we, as classroom viewers, have been watching (even "normal" is a bit of a misnomer) is also more of a type than a fully-rounded character... at least until this episode, which Whedon uses to further develop and define Willow as a whole. I mean, where is all of Willow's resentment and jealousy when Xander essentially rejects her? Where is her anger at being considered a loser and an outcast? The more dominant are Willow's traits of timidy and meekness, the deeper and more suppressed must be the negative feelings that inevitably ajoin the social repercusions and social consequences of those traits. (Sorry for the Yoda sentence, but hopefully that makes sense...) And so enters Vamp-Willow, the manifestation of those dark impulses, the return of the repressed.

At one point Our Willow asks: "that's me as a vampire? I'm so evil and skanky. And I think I'm kinda gay." Of course, Vamp-Willow's "otherness" is really just an outward expression of latent desires in Our Willow; the doppelganger brings to light certain aspects of Willow's character that we wouldn't see otherwise. Vamp-Willow and Our Willow are merely two sides of a more whole character. Hence the reason that Vamp-Willow is immediately killed off once Willow has her personal revelation (I shouldn't stand to be stepped on! etc.) at the end of the episode; from an author's perspective, Vamp-Willow's existence is now simply redundant. Vamp-Willow's qualities, such as her confidence and aggressiveness, have been consciously subsumed and expressed by Our Willow, who in turn has become more whole as a person and as a character. Therefore I would argue that Vamp-Willow's appearance is crucial as a sort of prelude to Willow's dark turn in season six; through Vamp-Willow we can better understand that Willow does indeed harbor certain deeper-seated, potentially destructive qualities, which finally burst out in full force after Tara's death.

Whose Reality Is It Anyway?

Reading Nicole and Madeline’s blog posts inspired me to think about The Turn of the Screw, “Gingerbread”, and “Normal Again” in terms of the juxtaposition of the supernatural, fantasy world and so-called “reality.” Nicole wrote about how in “Gingerbread” and “Normal Again” reality comes across as more disturbing than the fantasy world we’re used to, and Madeline further added that she finds the ambiguity in the episodes and the book to be the most disconcerting element. For the two Buffy episodes, I found it interesting to see how the characters themselves react to the clash of the two different worlds.

In “Gingerbread” Joyce and M.O.O see the threat as stemming from the supernatural world, and try to impose their “new world” techniques and methods on what they view as being “old world” problems. Therefore, we get this clash of a scary, imposed reality on the fantasy world we’re used to. Before finding out about Buffy being the Slayer, Joyce lived in a world grounded in a reality similar to our own: no monsters, no demons, no forces of darkness, and definitely no slayer. Her horror comes from realizing that the world is a much more crazy than she initially believed. However, Buffy sees the threat as coming from the opposite direction since she’s comfortable with her demons and daily apocalypse. Joyce feels threatened by the supernatural, Buffy feels threatened by the onset of normality. From Buffy’s point of view, M.O.O, the police, and the riots are much more scary than the demon she can beat up and slay at the end of the episode because she can’t control and overcome them like she does with the demons.

However, the opposite seems to be the case for Buffy in “Normal Again”. After being brought back to life, her classic crazy world of demons and slaying seems to be too much for Buffy to handle. Thus, when she’s given the opportunity to believe that it’s all a lie, she leaps at it (until she almost kills her friends). She wants to believe that she’s just a messed-up normal girl with mental problems, rather than a badass slayer who’s been killed twice and still fights vampires. In this episode, it’s the fantasy world that comes across as more threatening than the idea of a normal reality where everything falls within the expected rules and explanations.

I think these episodes demonstrate that what we find terrifying is often that which we can’t understand or control. Like Madeline suggested, it’s this sense of ambiguity, of not knowing that we cannot stand. This makes The Turn of the Screw a terrifying text: we can’t get one straightforward answer, and we can’t force out a well-formed conclusion of what happened because we simply don’t know enough. Buffy finds “reality” terrifying in “Gingerbread” because she can’t understand or control it, and wants the simple explanation provided by the demon world; yet she yearns for reality in “Normal Again” when her demon world becomes overwhelming, and her false “normal” reality provides her with a simple explanation that washes away her complicated feelings about being the slayer.

The Fear of Parental Evil: "Gingerbread" and The Castle of Otranto

I know this post is a little late, as well as a little repetitive (considering how many people have already written on the same topic), but I think it's an incredibly important aspect of the Gothic tradition and modern culture.  As we've often noted in class, the Gothic genre examines Western society's most important fears.  "Gingerbread" and The Castle of Otranto give voice to one of these most potent fears: perverted motherhood.  Modern society has been bombarded, especially in recent years, by examples of bad and dangerous mothers.  Casey Anthony and Andrea Yates only begin to scratch the surface of mothers who performed violence against their children and met with the ire and disgust of the public.  Yet, this fear and the feelings it engenders are not new to modern society.  Indeed, they have reigned over the public consciousness since the appearance of the Gothic genre.  The advent of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, particularly the political aspect of that movement, which stated that society represented a contract between individually sovereign beings, brought the importance of motherhood to the forefront of societal concern.  Republicanism gave women a larger role in political society by painting them as the educators of future rulers and politically active individuals.  As such, they had to be virtuous and represent the peak of feminine virtue.  Walpole gives voice to the eighteenth-century concern over the dangers that this new intellectual development could have for society through a perversion of this idea and of motherhood.  "Gingerbread," and the case of Casey Anthony, demonstrates that this idea still has resonance today.

Although Hippolita is clearly a model wife - she obeys Manfred without question, defends his actions to others, even when she herself questions them, and acts against her morals and happiness so that he can accomplish his desires - she isn't truly a good mother.  Walpole goes out of his way to stress the love that Hippolita bears for Matilda and how sharply it contrasts with Manfred's indifference and dislike for his only surviving child; however, Walpole also tells the reader that Hippolita's obedience to her husband's wishes trumps the love she holds for Matilda and her ability to protect her.  When Manfred asks Hippolita for a divorce, she agrees though she knows that it will disinherit her daughter and put her at tremendous risk.  While Hippolita is certainly a better motherly figure than the governess in The Turn of the Screw, she too fails at her motherly duties and perverts them.  She neglects the welfare and happiness of her beloved daughter in favor of her husband's selfish desires.  She fails to protect Matilda as she ought to do.  Unlike the governess, Hippolita doesn't directly bring about her daughter's death; however, I would argue that her decision to forbid Matilda from seeing Theodore and her unwillingness to stand up to Manfred inevitably leads to Matilda's unhappy death.  As such, Hippolita represents a perversion of motherhood.

Joyce Summers in "Gingerbread" serves as a perfect analogue to Hippolita.  Like Hippolita she wants to and tries to be a good mother.  At the beginning of "Gingerbread," she's the consummate mother of a teenager.  She realizes that Buffy has been growing away from her - thanks in large part to her occupation as a slayer.  Because of this, Joyce follows Buffy to the park while she is on control with snacks and a drink.  Although she is clearly finding the news about Buffy's secret identity hard to process, she wants to have a strong relationship with her daughter.  That all changes when she discovers the bodies of the dead children on the playground.  Instead of acting like a parent and comforting Buffy, Joyce becomes despondent and forces Buffy to assume the active parental role.  Buffy is the one who comforts Joyce and tells her, "I'm sorry you had to see that."  We see a similar thing happen in the Castle of Otranto, where Matilda feels the need to protect her emotionally unstable mother, Hippolita, from the machinations of Manfred and her (Matilda) own inability to follow societal conventions.  From the start, the viewer gets the sense that Joyce is not and will not be the best mother in this episode.  After seeing the dead children, Joyce becomes increasingly hostile towards Buffy and her identity as the Slayer.  She eventually turns on Buffy, telling her that being the Slayer is a useless occupation and ultimately trying to burn her at the stake.  Willow, of course, goes through a similar journey with her own mother.  While Whedon eventually reveals to the viewer that Joyce is acting strangely thanks to the influence the ghosts of the dead children hold over her, this only happens towards the end of the episode.  "Gingerbread" creates a sense of horror and suspense by hiding this fact and portraying Joyce as a bad mother, who would endanger her child for no apparent reason.  She tells Buffy that because she gave her life she can take it away whenever she deems it necessary.  In many ways this speaks to the tension of the modern parent-child relationship, where both sides think the other should be more grateful for what they do.  Anyway, "Gingerbread," like The Castle of Otranto, plays with the eighteenth-century idea that to be a good mother a woman must be virtuous, kind, and willing to place the well-being of her children above her own and that of outside interests.  Women, like Joyce and Hippolita, become bad mothers when they are corrupted by outside interests and the desires of others.  In the end, Hippolita and Joyce Summers are bad mothers because they favor the wishes of outside forces over the health and happiness of their children. 

A Question of Resolution

“Gingerbread”, “Normal Again”, and The Turn of the Screw have left me a bit puzzled in my ever changing definition of the Gothic. I wonder whether or not resolution is a true gothic trope. At the beginning of this course I would have said absolutely. Dracula and episodes like "Nightmares" led me to believe that this was standard. That Gothic tales are meant to terrify, but ultimately conclude with a solid, however dissatisfying ending. For example, the vampire Carmilla ultimately gets destroyed and Laura gets to live out her life. Same thing goes inNorthanger Abbey, as we watched Catherine Moreland's future unfold. So in a tale like Henry James's, it is easy to see why I might get confused. The story itself is twisted in a Gothic manner, right down to the actual Gothic manor. The ending, however, is all wrong. Does the governess intentionally strangle Miles, or does he truly see the ghost of Mr. Quint? You have to stop and decide for yourself how to interpret the ending. And that, is driving me just about as insane as the governess(shameless debate group self promotion going on here). While "Gingerbread" does have a definitive ending, it is a painful episode to watch because its resolution is unlike any in previous episodes. For a good 35 minutes, I was truly concerned as to how Buffy and Willow would make it out of this scrape. There wasn't that comfort that comes with seeing the Scooby Gang slowly but surely defeat the evil du jour. In "Normal Again", I was, well, again struck by that same panic, that same uneasiness throughout the episode. Maybe I'm just too gullible, but even though I knew Buffy's friends and family weren't actually just her mind playing tricks, I was still worried about her. Or were they just tricks? Are you just tricks? Mid-blog existential crisis, go. But really, though both episodes have a more solid conclusion than The Turn of the Screw, they both gave me the same sensation. The feeling that I was just missing out on a bit of information that would make things ever so much clearer.

Also, just so we are clear. The governess, yeah she cray cray.

Ambiguity: What may or may not have happened in "Gingerbread", "Normal Again", and The Turn of The Screw

In The Turn of the Screw as well as the two Buffy episodes "Gingerbread" and "Normal Again", aspects of realism and fantastical Gothic elements are intertwined. Nicole talked about the real world in the two Buffy episodes as being scarier than the normal Buffyverse that the audience is used to, and I would like to sort of agree and sort of expand on that. I think that these two episodes are scarier than an average Buffy episode, and I agree that the scariness is due to the presence of "the real world" or storylines that are much closer to reality than the normal vampires and monsters are. (Normal for Buffy, that is.) But I think that it's the ambiguity as to what comes from the real world and what comes from the Gothic ghoulies that makes both episodes, as well as The Turn of the Screw, really creepy.

In my opinion, The Turn of the Screw is scarier than either Buffy episode. This is because the ambiguity is never resolved - we never really find out what's up with the ghosts, exactly how Miles dies, why Flora turns into an old woman, or what made Mrs. Grose start murdering everyone in sight. (I'm seriously a fan of this explanation. I plan on rereading this story in search for evidence supporting it. But I digress.) Ultimately, the reader comes away chilled because he or she doesn't know whether or not the ghosts exist.

"Normal Again" is the second most disturbing, because again we as an audience are not given an answer as to whether or not the entirety of Sunnydale is a figment of Buffy's imagination. However, because this is a TV series and the mental ward is never really brought up again, the audience can kind of forget about that mildly disturbing possibility that we're watching a show about a girl's delusions. I would argue, however, that if we knew definitively that Buffy is crazy, this episode would be far less disturbing - it's just a sad story about a mental patient. But because we don't know either way, it's disturbing both when Buffy ties up her friends to kill them (which wouldn't be upsetting if we knew that she's definitely crazy, emotional attachments to the characters aside), and when Buffy re-enters her coma (which wouldn't be upsetting if we knew for sure that the whole mental patient thing was due to the gross demon poison). If you could follow that sentence, what I'm trying to say is that the ambiguity is what freaks us out - we don't know which side to cheer for.

Similarly, in "Gingerbread", the moments where we don't know for sure what's going on are the most unsettling. The end where it turns out that the entire mob was pretty much driven by the influence of an evil demon reassures us and is extremely relieving - it almost feels like a letdown because all of the tension due to not knowing goes away. For awhile in the beginning and middle of the episode, it seems like Joyce is just acting a little bit strangely because she found two dead children. When it is revealed that the dead children are talking to Joyce, another layer of ambiguity is added. For one thing, the way the children are presented they could be figments of Joyce's imagination. We don't really believe this due to our status as jaded Buffy viewers, we are very much still unsettled because the extent of the children's influence on Joyce is unclear. Joyce still for awhile seems to be looking out for Buffy's best interests as best she can until the whole burning at the stake thing happens. Because we don't know how much of Joyce's behavior comes from her and how much has to do with the creepy dead kids, the episode is highly unsettling until the resolution.

Sorry for how long this post has been, guys. So for a final quick sum-up: Ambiguity is a really good tool for creating a scary atmosphere, because if we're not sure what's going on we can't even begin to try and do something about it.

What's up with moms?

In “Gingerbread” and The Turn of the Screw, the Western concept maternal instinct is perverted (not the adjective, but rather the verb). Many early societies worshiped women and their fertility because women were able to bring forth new life, which is amazing when actually thought about. In Western society, mothers are supposed to be warm and caring. They have an obligation to their children, while fathers do not have the same kind of social contract. When mothers kill or abuse their children, the media goes into a frenzy (see the Casey Anthony Trial and Mommie Dearest) but the same attention is not given when fathers kill their children. In The Turn of the Screw, the governess becomes a bizarre mother figure for Flora and Miles. She acts like a mother in that she wants to protect the two children, but she develops an unhealthy fascination with Miles. She always mentions his beauty and as the end draws nearer, she begins to repeat the words “perverse” and “unhealthy” more and more when talking about not only the ghosts’ relations to the children, but also her own. As a mother-figure, the governess can only fulfill very certain roles as laid down by society (i.e. protector, caregiver, etc.), but the increasing sexual tension and Miles’s death are certainly not part of society’s expectations. In “Gingerbread”, an older idea of maternity is shown: the mother as not only a life-giver, but also as a taker of life. In many non-Western societies, the original mother (Earth), both nourishes life and destroys it. Buffy’s and Willow’s mothers refute all Western expectations of motherhood: they betray their daughters, hurt them, and attempt to brutally kill them. When Buffy and Willow are being burned at the stake, Buffy’s mother says something along the lines that as Buffy’s mother, she knows what is best for her daughter. The underlying message seems to be that as the person who brought Buffy into the world, she can take Buffy from it. To us, as Americans, the idea of mothers acting in these ways is terrifying. Because of that, Joss Whedon takes pity on his audience and lets life return to normal after the wicked demon is vanquished. Henry James, however, refuses to change the governess and leaves us with the uncomfortable image of Miles dead in the governess’s arms.

The Terror of Loneliness

In “Normal Again”, and The Turn of the Screw, there is an overwhelming feeling of loneliness. The doctor in “Normal Again” informs Buffy and her parents that she has created this fantasy to have a place in which she is the central figure surrounded by amazing friends and going on crazy adventures. He addresses the central aspect of humanity. People are defined by their connections to other people. For example, a person is only poor because there people richer than they. Most people thrive off their relationships with people, whether family, friends, or lovers. Buffy is an inherently lonely person and as any person who has ever felt lonely, it is wonderful to imagine a place where you are the most important person in the room.

In class, a question was brought up: whether the governess in The Turn of the Screw is simply crazy and has made up the ghosts. If read from that point of view, the governess could be seen as the loneliest person. Loneliness (a theme that the gothic loves to explore) could drive a person mad. The governess is in love with her employer who does not even acknowledge her existence. She is alone in a large estate with only another woman and two children. She could have completely made up the ghosts in her mind to force the children to become closer to her and free herself from her crushing loneliness, like the other Buffy in “Normal Again”. United against a common fear, the governess tries to convince the children to trust only her and it gives her an excuse to be with them at all times.

It is such a terrifying thought to be totally alone that most people and possibly Buffy and the governess would rather choose madness. Whether they are actually living out their delusions is a different question. I feel for both Buffy and the governess and I prefer the end of "Normal Again" to that of The Turn of the Screw because Buffy is left with friends, rather than the governess who is once again completely alone.