Pardon the serial posting today. Lots going on in the noggin.
A bit back, a Buffy-loving friend and I were discussing our allegiance to the show, and what it provides to us. We're both a bit too old for it, really--we were already in college by the time it aired, just a bit out of its teen demographic, and neither of us actually watched it ourselves until our mid-20s (my late 20s, really). And yet we've continued to watch it over and over again, to buy comic books and read fan fiction and think about it and discuss it. Why? What does it provide?
Her take on it, which I believe was meant to be offhand but it actually the most incisive idea I've heard, is that basically we're in it for the pain.
Yeah, it's a funny show. It has heartwarming moments. It has bad-ass girl power moments. But the constant, not just in Buffy but in the whole Whedon canon, is pain. I wrote yesterday about physical torture, but that's the tip of the pain iceberg. Physical pain is an important part of the story, but it's really just a stand-in for the severity of the emotional pain that the characters face. Buffy (and Angel, and Firefly) is full of betrayal, loss, death, impossible choices, people intentionally and unintentionally smothering each other with cruelty. They are talking about my torture post over at Whedonesque (and as soon as I can get a login, I'll join them--having had my post linked over there gives me a serious happy). A commenter there, ManEnoughToAdmitIt, wrote:
There's a darkness to all of Joss's work. We forget sometimes, what with all the laughing, but everything turns out so dark again and again. (Every song in OMWF has dark undertones!) And while we may not get physically turned on by it all, I think we're emotionally drawn to this on some level or we wouldn't keep watching.
Yes. Exactly. Even if the eroticization of violence doesn't do it for you (and I envy you if it doesn't), the emotional angst might. It's not so much that the emotional angst is sexually attractive (though given the amount of NC-17 rated "angst fan fiction" out there, it obviously is) as it is that it is psychologically attractive, and even addictive. The friend with whom I was discussing this mentioned that this type of programming gives her an outlet for her inner melodrama, since in her actual life she's in a happy, stable, non-angsty relationship. I wonder if it doesn't serve this purpose for a lot of people? And for others, who do have their own real life angst, it's maybe cathartic to watch it and experience it at a distance?
I've been watching season seven of Gilmore Girls these past few days, since the DVDs are around from Netflix and I hadn't watched them yet. I remember when I loved that show. In fact, I started watching it to replace Joan of Arcadia, and started watching Buffy to replace it. But it seems so safe now. So...easy. Whatever psychological imbalances Joss Whedon's shows have been feeding in me, they don't get fed from this lighter fare. It's amusing, but it's not cathartic, and when I am watching it, I don't feel active. I don't have the same drive to respond to it and interact with it. And yes, there are a lot of difference in pacing, clearly in subject matter, characterization, etc., but the biggest difference I see right off is in the pain heaped on the characters. Things in Stars Hollow are just too damn happy, and there is only so much you can react to while watching shiny happy people. (Insert obligatory Anna Karenina reference here.)
So yeah, my current thought is that I'm in it for the pain. I don't particularly like to consider what it means about me that I enjoy and am intellectually stimulated by watching people suffer, but there it is. At least I'm not alone.
Comments (3)
Oh, you're definitely not alone. But I'm trying to think of examples of narrative art (which I consider Joss's works to be), that DON'T deal with suffering and darkness, and outside of comedies, there's not much. It's the human condition, no?
I'd say I relate to the suffering, more than enjoy it, though there's that too. But I think people enjoy the suffering as part of a tension-release cycle. They expect the characters to be rescued, turn the tables, whatever. When the suffering just goes on and on, people don't continue to like it, people lose enjoyment. Witness all the complaints about Season 6 being too dark.
Posted by shambleau | April 10, 2008 12:24 PM
You said:
"if the eroticization of violence doesn't do it for you (and I envy you if it doesn't)".
I'm voting that you go with it, whatever it is.
Just don't ask me to help you across the border in a pinch.
Ok, you can ask me. My car smells, though.
Posted by simon max hill | April 10, 2008 6:53 PM
That's pretty much what I always thought, actually. But I didn't start watching it until I was 23, and then I wound up watching it starting about halfway through season five and all the way through season six (I was in Europe and they were getting it late). Which are all about suffering, which is what first attracted me to the show. I find it weirdly cathartic when everything on the show is unremittingly painful.
Posted by thistle | April 10, 2008 9:50 PM