I know I have mentioned here before that I tend to be a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to pop cultural phenomena. Basically, I ignore things or am irritated by them while they are the rage, and then get into them later and figure out what people were so excited about. This is problematic only because by the time I am all up into something, usually everyone else has moved on and nobody wants to talk to me about it anymore. Well, also because I get made fun of for it.

And so is the case this time. Finally, after literally years of recommendations by a couple of my friends, I watched Buffy.

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.

So I think I'm entering a depressed period. Well, I don't think I am--it's clear I am. And I have a telltale sign now, too--when I start watching lots of Buffy, I'm depressed. There are worse ways to deal.

Anyway, even though I missed yesterday and am now out of NaBloPoMo for this month, I thought I'd favor the three readers I still have with a list of my favorite Buffy episodes. These are the ones I re-watch at random.

I have come to redefine the words pain and suffering since I fell in love with you. Spike, Never Leave Me

So I've been re-watching some season five and six episodes, and thinking about Buffy and Spike. And I noticed something I hadn't noticed before.

In Smashed (6.09), before Buffy and Spike get it on, when they're fighting, he says he's in love with her. She responds with "You're in love with pain. Admit it. You like me ... because you enjoy getting beat down."

It was clear I was going to do this, right?
10. Fool For Love (5.07)
9. Becoming, Part II (2.22)
8. Out Of Mind Out of Sight (1.11)
7. Normal Again (6.17)
6. Graduation Day, Part II (3.22)
5. Lovers Walk (3.08)
4. Hush (4.10)
3. I Only Have Eyes for You (2.19)
2. Restless (4.22)
1. Once More With Feeling (6.07)

I am working on compiling a list of critical work on Buffy. It's definitely in-progress. Leave suggestions in the comments?

I'm thinking about how much effect the non-Joss writers of Buffy had on its awesomeness. Obviously, Joss is a genius. That's not under discussion. But what about the other writers, directors, and producers? What can I discover by looking at their eps?

Marti Noxon is first, because Marti Noxon got so much grief for season six. Fans all over fandom either blamed or credited Marti with the darkness, the SM overtones, etc. They even said Marti had the hots for James Marsters and that why Spike was so naked. Was it really her? Was it good or bad?

So last week I listed and analyzed the Buffy episodes written, directed, and produced by the very misunderstood Marti Noxon. Today, I thought I'd take a closer look at my personal favorite (besides Joss, natch) Buffy writer, Jane Espensen. One thing of interest, before I start on Buffy, is that Jane also served as a co-executive producer for Season Four of Gilmore Girls.

Jane got involved in Buffy during Season Three. She was the "Executive Story Editor" for most of that season, as well as writing a few episodes (below). During Season Four, she became a co-producer, then a producer during Season Five. Season Six saw her as a Supervising Producer, and Season Seven a Co-Executive Producer.

OK, next up on my look at Buffy writers/producers is David Fury. Fury was involved in Buffy from the end of Season Two, when he wrote his first episode, through the show's finale. He became a producer in Season Four, a Supervising Producer in Season Five, and a Co-Executive Producer in Seasons Six and Seven. He also wrote the following episodes:

First, even though I don't think anybody (with the possible exception of Sofiya) will be interested, I wanted to let you all know that I've decided to continue step-by-step blogging of my Buffy article (and maybe eventually book) project. The first step is to keep track of the criticism I'm reading with what will turn out to be a literature review or bibliographic essay. It's in progress (and probably will be for quite some time) and can be seen here.

Now, on to today's Buffy writer/producer, Douglas Petrie. Petrie started with Buffy in season three, as a story editor. In season four, he served as executive story editor. In season five, he became a co-producer, in season six a producer, then a supervising producer, and in season seven a supervising producer, then a co-executive producer.

This is mostly for my own later reference, but if someone else had it out there I wouldn't be having to make it now, so in case someone else needs it, here it is.

A bit back, I wrote this entry sticking up for TV. I argued that TV is a morally-neutral medium like any other, and it is how you interact with it, what you choose to watch and how actively you watch it, that makes watching it better or worse than any other use of your leisure time. I have been thinking more about that since I wrote it, and last night I came across something in a book that I thought spoke to my point very well.

In Undead TV: Essays on Buffy the Vampire Slayer there is an essay by Mary Celeste Kearney (a faculty member right here at UT!) about Sarah Michelle Gellar as a teen "cross-over" star and what that means in the late 90s, when the teen market demographic is huge and when a star's presence is not limited to television or movies, but television and movies and the Internet (and music and video games and...). In the essay, Kearney mentions that when the WB started showing Dawson's Creek, they also opened up an online space where viewers were encouraged to go after each episode and fill out private or public diaries about how they felt about the episode, their thoughts, etc. Folks, in my liberal arts education, we called that a reading journal. You know, to encourage active reading? Sure, 90% of those Dawson diaries were probably full of comments like "Dawson iz so hawt! OMG!" but just the fact that kids were logging on and writing anything is a start. After all, do you really think there is nobody who was hooked on Pride & Prejudice because they had Darcy-lust? Come on.

First, a trigger warning: I am not going to get unnecessarily graphic here, but this post is about erotic torture in Joss Whedon's work, so the subject matter itself may be triggery. Proceed knowing that.

OK, now then. I was just reading the Undead TV essay "At Stake: Angel's Body, Fantasy Masculinity, and Queer Desire in Teen Television" by Allison McCracken (who I think is an American Studies professor at DePaul). I didn't finish it (ran out of time), but the beginning was about Angel's body as a site on which erotic and violent fantasy is played out by female and queer viewers of Buffy and Angel. Which got me to thinking, it's not just Angel.

So as soon as I hit save on that last post I started thinking that there was much more I should say. See, April is "Sexual Violence Awareness Month." Last night, there was a Take Back The Night rally on campus. All over the country, similar events are taking place to acknowledge the sexual violence in our lives and recommit ourselves to fighting against it. Sexual violence, the majority of it against women and children, continues to be a literal monster in the lives of so many people, all over the world. The horror cannot be overestimated.

And here I sit, writing about the connection between sex and violence on a television show. A show that, I realize more and more the farther into it I get, has sex and violence as one of its primary foci. In a way that is not always critical. The interplay between sex and violence is, if I am honest, one of the most intriguing elements of the show for me. So how do those things balance? My commitment, as a feminist, as a woman, as a human being, to the eradication of sexual violence, and my fascination with the fictional portrayal of it? How do they balance for any of the millions (?) of women who watched with baited breath while Spike and Buffy fought and fucked until the house fell down around them, squirmed when they saw the beaten and shirtless Angel? For the smaller but still significant number of women who have interacted with this show (and other examples of similar) not just as viewers, but as writers, as critics, as scholars, as fans? How do we acknowledge the dark sexuality of our own natures without minimizing our commitment to standing up against the violence, the rape and abuse, that has been plaguing us for centuries?

How does it all fit in?

I wrote what I think is probably my best Heroine Content piece yet this week, and it hasn't garnered a single comment. Which makes me sad. So I'm linking to it here in hopes someone will go and read it?

Firefly and Serenity.

OK, this is another one of those spewing forth my thoughts, probably in list form, with no definitive conclusions, posts. I got to thinking about who is "redeemed" in the Jossverse, how hard it has to be to get redeemed for different characters, etc. And I am hard pressed to see a pattern. For example, Andrew gets off way easy with his redemption, no? He is part of the Trio, attempts to rape Katrina, and kills Jonathan, and he just sort of gets forgiven for it. This got me to thinking about the things that "good" characters need to be redeemed for, so I thought I'd make some lists and see what kind of patterns emerge.

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.

OK, another idea I'm working out. How does the idea of a villain with a soul change over time in Buffy? First, a list of Big and Little Bads of the soul-having variety--i.e., humans.

I was making lists in my head last night when I couldn't sleep (I do that). And I am just narcissistic enough to share them with you.

So comics. Not something I've ever been interested in. Not even a little bit. I've picked up the occasional Dykes to Watch Out For, and I read Fun Home a little while back, but that's it. I even got a couple of Tank Girl compilations for my birthday last year and never cracked the covers.

And then Buffy came and changed everything. Joss is so killing whatever was left in me that was not totally dorky already.