Today on the blog we have Sheffield Gothic alum Kathleen Hudson discussing Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Season One finale 'Prophecy Girl' in relation to heroinism, victimhood, and the paradox of Buffy. (To read the inaugural blog in our Buffy Blog Series, click here). As always you can carry on the conversation using #BuffySlays20.
In “A Receipt
for Novel Writing”, her 1799 parody of novel-writing and the Gothic romances
which had flooded the literary landscape at that time, Mary Alcock describes
the popular fiction author’s process of developing and torturing their work’s
heroine: “Her fine blue eyes were made to weep, / Nor should she ever taste of
sleep; / ply her with terrors day or night, / and keep her always in a fright
[…] (Alcock, “A Receipt for Novel Writing, 1799).”
Alcock’s
‘heroine’ could be any character from any number of early Gothic works, and she
could very easily be Buffy Summers, the titular protagonist of Joss Whedon’s TV
classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003).
A California native moving from high school to college to adulthood during the
late ‘90s, Buffy speaks to a contemporary time and place. She is also a classic
heroine, a beautiful (and notably conforming to a beauty standard of blonde
hair and blue eyes) pseudo-orphan plagued supernatural “terrors” which define
her daily life, forced to negotiate social and moral values as frequently as
she is forced to battle actual monsters. Buffy is distinguished from her
predecessors, however, by those physical superpowers which make her the Slayer.
(Buffy descends into the Master's underground lair) |
The tension
between the ‘heroine-victim’ described in Alcock’s parody and Buffy’s ‘Slayer’ identity
reaches an apex in the Season One finale, “Prophecy Girl” (aired June 2, 1997).
In this episode Rupert Giles, Buffy’s Watcher and surrogate father figure,
reads a prophecy that the season’s Big Bad, The Master, will rise and kill
Buffy, and that it is only through this act that the conflict between them can
be resolved. When informed of this Buffy attempts to adjure the identity which
forces her participation, reaching for that ever elusive ‘normalcy’ which she
desires even as her core being bespeaks abnormality. Her furious “I quit” in
the Season One finale constitutes one of her most profound moments of rebellion
in the series, and emphasizes the disconnect between the ‘Slayer’ and ‘Buffy’ –
she openly admits that “I don’t care. Giles, I’m 16 years old. I don’t wanna
die” (Whedon, 1997).
Because Buffy is
by her dual nature both Slayer and classic ‘heroine’, her very existence
suggests a violation of these identities and, by extension, the socio-literary
influences which inform them. Whedon was initially criticized for naming his protagonist
Buffy, though the jarring dissonance was actually the point – Buffy is a kickass
warrior who drinks Frappuccinos, is a cheerleader, and has the kind of name one
might reasonably give to a small, fluffy dog. On a superficial level, she is
Alcock’s perfect ‘heroine-victim’, with all the inevitable ‘suffering’ that
implies both within the boundaries of a fictional plot and within the reading/viewing
audience’s perception of the heroine’s suffering as entertainment. As she
points out, she is a teenager when the show begins, and her slight stature
makes both her physical feats more impressive and the surrounding dangers more
terrifying. Even Buffy’s strategy for escaping victimization, it seems, is by
paradoxically acting like a victim – a normal teenager who, in the tradition of
innumerable slasher films, just wants to go to the school dance.
(Buffy trying on a (suitably heroine appropriate) white prom dress) |
The perimeters Buffy’s
‘heroine-victim’ role is reinforced by her progress throughout “Prophecy Girl”.
The written word determines identity – both within the plot and in larger
negotiations of genre. As she prepares to either reject or accept her role she
discusses the personal emotional loss that accompanies the death of several
fellow students with her friend Willow, and is forced to finally commit to her
decision to prevent Giles from sacrificing himself in her place, all moments
which suggest a moral awakening and self-awareness. She attempts to get her
mother, Joyce to leave town with her, while Joyce profoundly misreads the
situation and ironically encourages her to be the ‘normal teenager’, idealistically
citing the romantic possibilities that normalcy brings and giving Buffy a white
prom dress straight out of a ‘Heroines-R-Us’ catalog.
Early Gothic
heroine Emily St Aubert from Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, E.J. Clery argues, survives the unstable
Gothic space by “turning the tables and learning to treat herself as a commodity”,
namely by exploiting her predilection for heroic virtue within, rather than in
opposition to, a socially-constructed marketplace (Clery, The Rise of Supernatural Fiction, 1995). The villainous Montoni’s
derisive quote that Emily speaks “like a heroine […] we shall see if you can
suffer like one”, is a mocking attempt to undercut Emily’s identity (Radcliffe,
The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1794). However, as both Emily and Buffy
come to realize, embracing the heroine identity is its own strength. The only
way out is through and in this, as Angela Wright argues, “Heroinism thus
becomes a process in self-awareness” (Wright, “Heroines in Flight”, 2016).
(Buffy and the Scoobies in the library, having defeated the Master) |
Buffy, wearing
her white prom dress, that ever-potent Gothic symbol, goes to The Master as a
sacrificial victim. Like Radcliffe’s Montoni, The Master mocks her limitations,
her lack of knowledge, her role within the larger narrative: “You tried. It was
noble of you. […] But prophecies are tricky creatures. They don't tell you
everything. You're the one that sets me free. If you hadn't come, I couldn't go”
(Whedon, 1997). Having unwillingly unleashed The Master and kickstarted
disaster, Buffy is killed, becoming, at least temporarily, a passive object within
a larger horror plot.
However, once
Buffy dies and her self-sacrificial vitim-role is arguably ‘completed’ the
boundaries of the prophecy narrative and indeed the Gothic-horror world which
the characters occupy begin to break down. Firstly, Buffy is drowned rather
than drained, suggesting a sort of failure of ‘vampire-ness’. Her friend Xander
revives her when her love interest Angel cannot (as a vampire Angel doesn’t
breathe and thus cannot perform CPR), exposing the limitations caused by the
fictional universe’s own ‘rules’ regarding the supernatural. Her later face-off
against The Master further undercuts an already shaky reality through an
affectation of the physically-coded bubble-headed ‘blonde-ness’ which Buffy
both embodies and subverts:
The
Master: (turns to face Buffy in disbelief) “You’re dead!”
Buffy:
“I may be dead, but I’m still pretty – which is more than I can say for you.”
The
Master: “You were destined to die! It was written.”
Buffy:”
What can I say? I flunked the written.” (Whedon, 1997)
In this Whedon
points to the limits of the “written” and of visual signifiers such as attractiveness,
those elements which lock heroines into patterns victimhood, and extends the
formula past the point when a story about heroine-sacrifice would typically end.
Buffy, naturally, slays The Master and lives to fight another day, and Giles
wryly admits that he should have known no such paltry limitations could stop
her. Throughout the tenure of the show
and in “Prophecy Girl” especially, Buffy emphasizes her youth, femininity, and
vulnerability. However, because Buffy is dually ‘victim’ and superhero, she is
also an identity paradox, and one which enables a radical shift in the
boundaries of Gothic storytelling and identity. Buffy is a sacrifice, but she
survives, and in turn weaponizes the heroine’s traditional ‘weaknesses’,
turning them into tools, providing an on-going alternative ending which
incorporates and then reworks traditional understandings of horror, femininity,
heroism, and identity. She notes wryly
at the end of the episode that the white dress is a “big hit with everyone,”
from Buffy’s enemies to her love interest. The signifier of Buffy’s heroine
status becomes a fetishized object, but one which emphasizes the lengths to
which she has been consistently underestimated even as it reflects a long
tradition of ‘heroine’ identity. Buffy
as a series never escapes its roots, but rather articulates and embraces the
anxieties and tensions which define female identity more broadly – the paradox
of a character who both suffers and endures.
In this Buffy echoes her later quip to Dracula – we’ve seen the movies, and
we know that the heroine, like the vampire, “always comes back” (Whedon 2000).
Dr.
Kathleen "Queen of the Goths" Hudson is an eternal member of Sheffield
Gothic: while she lives the American Dream, Sheffield Gothic continues
to worship her from across the pond. To the best of our knowledge, she does not live imprisoned in an underground church leading a cult of vampires, nor does she teach in a school situated above a Hellmouth.
My name is Tom cam!!! i am very grateful sharing this great testimonies with you all, The best thing that has ever happened in my life, is how i worn the Powerball lottery. I do believe that someday i will win the Powerball lottery. finally my dreams came through when i contacted Dr. OSE and tell him i needed the lottery winning special numbers cause i have come a long way spending money on ticket just to make sure i win. But i never knew that winning was so easy with the help of Dr. OSE, until the day i meant the spell caster testimony online, which a lot of people has talked about that he is very powerful and has great powers in casting lottery spell, so i decided to give it a try. I emailed Dr. OSE and he did a spell and gave me the winning lottery special numbers 62, and co-incidentally I have be playing this same number for the past 23years without any winning, But believe me when I play the special number 62 this time and the draws were out i was the mega winner because the special 62 matched all five white-ball numbers as well as the Powerball, in the April 4 drawing to win the $70 million jackpot prize...… Dr. OSE, truly you are the best, with Dr. OSE you can will millions of money through lottery. i am a living testimony and so very happy i meant him, and i will forever be grateful to him...… you can Email him for your own winning special lottery numbers now oseremenspelltemple@gmail.com OR WHATSAPP him +2348136482342
ReplyDeleteI'm Melvin Martins. from the United States. I started playing lottery games 7 years ago and I have never won big. I went online to seek help on how I can win big in my lottery games and I saw some nice reviews about Dr John who has made different people huge winners in their lottery games with his prayers. I gave it a try and I contacted Dr John who told me how and what to do before I can become a big lotto winner and I accepted. He made special prayers for me at his temple and gave me the required numbers to play the lotto game and when I played it, I won a massive $235.4 million POWERBALL jackpot. I was so happy and I chose to receive my winnings in a one-time, lump-sum payment of $160,038,447.27 at Florida Lottery Headquarters in Tallahassee and the balance was given to the store that I bought & played the game from. I would love other people to seek help from him and he can be contacted through WhatsApp/call/text via this number +1 (803) 820 2671 or you can email him on: Drjohnwinlotterspell@gmail.com .
ReplyDeleteMy Name is Kelly Williams from Canada, i turn to a vampire any time i want to, I become a real vampire because of how people treat me, This world is a wicked world and not fair to any body. At the snack of my finger things are made happened. Am now a powerful vampire and no one step on me without an apology goes free. I turn to human being also at any time i want to. And am one of the most dreaded and respected person in my country. i am now also very famous and rich with the help of the VAMPIRES EMPIRE. i get what ever a want. i become a vampire through the help of my friend who introduce me into a vampire Kingdom by given me their email: templeofsuccessandlove1@gmail.com, if you want to become a powerful and a real vampire kindly contact the vampire kingdom on their email: templeofsuccessandlove1@gmail.com for help. it is real. Contact them today. templeofsuccessandlove1@gmail.com.
ReplyDelete