Buffy Summers & Beyond Good and Evil (5th post)
July 1st, 2009 | 
Author: (((Notice: I try to maintain the philosophy that much of what it means to be a human being is that you have to at least make an effort to take the bad with the good, in yourself as well as in others, so I won’t apologize for my previous post. But I will say it did not reflect my best intentions.
While I do believe the human condition is infinitely more complex than most of the pop spirituality and psychology pablum frequently thrust upon us by corporate media and celebrity, I understand many find that believing in some claim to perfect truth (even those that prove themselves to be, upon any sober reflection, altogether incoherent) is generally more comforting than believing in nothing at all.
And it has been pointed out to me on occasion that I may cherish a few incoherencies myself. So, my regret. If you were offended by the post but otherwise enjoy this blog, I simply ask that you try to overlook it.)))
Now, with all that out of the way, again, a warning. As with this post my blogger incisors begin to gnaw deeper into the marrow of BtVS, it will be a major spoiler in more ways than one (and actually, you may not even be able to follow some of the argument) if you are not already familiar with the entire TV series (and if you’re not, stop reading this claptrap right now and go watch Buffy for Slayer’s sakes!).
As I was about to spew the last time around (in BS & BG&E post 4), in many respects the main characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer seem all but severed from traditional family ties. What few kin they do have seem alienated or just as often, in utter denial, and — as is often made emotionally evident in the show — these characters’ real "family" are each other.
I would agree with anyone who might wish to suggest that one of the most readily apparent explanations for this is that such relationships would likely overly complicate matters for the writers, i.e., with well developed family relationships, each of the characters would be constantly juggling their responsibilities to family while being simultaneously overwhelmed with their responsibilities battling evil, and further, they might find themselves drawn into conflict between trying to protect their family members while also trying to protect each other (which might not be such a bad dramatic circumstance from the viewers’ standpoint).
And though I haven’t yet found anything in Joss’s comments to suggest this, I would also agree that it may be that Joss simply wanted to reflect the reality of the viewing audience. After all, how many of us actually come from a stereotypical traditional family these days, and even of those of us who do, how many of us feel emotionally alienated — perhaps especially as teens and young adults — from some of the very people to whom we are supposedly the closest?
So was the relative lack of familial relationships merely efficacious, or indicative of some purpose grounded in a psychological bedrock that lies much deeper? Was it conscious on the part of Whedon to set things up this way, and if so, was it to reflect some of the experience of his viewing audience, or simply to make the task of stroytelling easier? Or can we think of a few thousand other interpretations that would be just as, or more, valid?
After all, in Joss’s words, BtVS is a show to which you can, "bring your own subtext."
Or perhaps the only meaning we should read into this — and of all possible conclusions I consider this to be the most compelling one — is that the creators of BtVS simply dispensed with anything that could get in the way of creating the kinds of relationships between the characters they wanted?
Keep in mind that I’m speaking only of the TV series and only of the above-ground "in the sunlight" world of Buffy Summers, not the comic, nor the world of Demonic forces, both of which I hope to get to eventually.
But back on topic, I do think this is the meat of the matter, for if we ask what kind of character relationships the creators were trying to create, I believe the only possible answer is that they set out to create relationships between their primary characters that would, almost entirely, dispense with all known hierarchies.
Or another way of saying that, is that the relationships between Buffy, Giles, Joyce, Willow, Xander, Cordelia, Oz, Tara, Dawn, and even many other characters throughout the series, are all almost exclusively built on a very emotional (and very personal) scaffolding that almost always trumps the hierarchical relationships in the show.
Okay. So if that’s my working thesis — that the the creators of BtVS were determined to (to reiterate my phrase above) "dispense with all known hierarchies" — can I cite adequate evidence to justify it? And if so, what might I conclude is its significance?
I’ll begin that journey — in my next post.
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