It is unsurprising, I'm sure, for those readers who didn't know me in my sulky adolescence (circa 1992-2000), that I was, for a spell, a bit of a vampire dork. I loved me some Anne Rice (back when she wrote steamy New Orleans-based vampire books and not scary pseudo-Christian crap). I could, at one point, recite long passages from Interview with the Vampire. I burned through two paperback copies. I'm not bragging, here, just giving you the necessary history. I was never really goth (though there is a period in my photographic history that would force me to qualify that statement), but I got heavily into the vampire mythology and hell-to-high school metaphors. I was miserable, the world was miserable, add hormones and stir. You know the drill. I'm too young for The Cure (sadly), but I listen to an awful lot of Concrete Blonde (still do, actually).
It may well have been fear of reverting back to my cuter but far less pleasant adolescent self that kept me from watching Buffy for so long. After all, angst that's annoying-but-understandable on a teenager is just kind of pathetic on a woman pushing 30. Be that as it may, though, I gave in and started watching, and I am so right back there.
It's amazing the silliness that can bring up the past. I mean, it's a TV show. That's over. That everybody else, even dorks of my caliber, got over quite some time ago (or moved on to other things, anyway). And yet, here I am, fiending for more episodes (and thank you so much to the friend who lent me the first three seasons, and the one who gave me my fix today, lending me seasons 4-7 on DVD) in a way that I recognize only because I experienced it already, waiting to get my hands on Queen of the Damned. I am embarrassed to admit I gluttonously motored through the first three seasons of the show in less than a week, but I'm also not really surprised--I read Interview the first time overnight, and some thing don't change.
So what is it that got to me then that still gets to me now? I mean, there are some parallels between Anne Rice's books (and I'm talking books here, please note, not that horrible freaking movie) and Buffy, but really not that many. Did the show strike this adolescent cord with a lot of adults--does that account for the popularity? And what is it in us (or, you know, in me) that responds to, of all things, vampires?
I'm not headed out to buy Manic Panic and 18-eye Docs or anything (are those still goth things?), but I'm still a bit concerned at how very teenaged this show makes me feel. Christ. I am so not old enough for a second childhood.
Comments (3)
I just finally watched Buffy last year and had similar feelings. And lately I have been watching My So-Called Life again, and it takes me right back to how I felt in high school, too. Sigh.
Posted by kasia | July 6, 2007 7:54 PM
I also watched Buffy late--I started watching it with Season Six, which was airing in Italy when I was there. I have all kinds of theories about why I love it as totally obsessively as I do--something to do with the show's idea of community, something to do with its idea of duty, something to do with its depiction of suffering. Maybe I'll write about it elsewhere at some point.
Posted by thistle | July 9, 2007 8:28 AM
OK, I did not know this about you. The whole vamp thing. But now you have to go rent The Addiction. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112288/ Grad student vampires tearing into their advisors. Philosophy and anthropology! Drug metaphors abound. Plus, Lili Taylor!
I don't think you would like Near Dark as much but, if you get in a vampire mood, this is a must see: Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break) movie about hick vampires using most of the cast of Aliens.
Posted by balzac | July 10, 2007 10:47 AM