|
||||
|
|
+WHY SUNNYDALE IS REALLY ENGLAND+ Sunnydale, the fictional town where Buffy the Vampire Slayer is set, is really England. No. Really. I admit this is a pretty bizarre statement, for three good reasons; 1, it's California, 2, it's California and 3, it's California. The cusp of this point is that it's California, you see, and not England. You can tell because they speak with American accents and spell colour without the 'u'.
Let's look at the evidence, shall we? Well, obviously there's the general proliferation of English people; Giles, Wesley, Spike and some other minor characters are undoubtedly English. Also the whole hub of the Watcher organization and occultiness in general is England. So, fair enough. There's an English theme going on.
Guns. There aren't any. At all. For those of you who don't know, handguns are completely illegal in the UK and it's nearly impossible to get a license for anything apart from a single-shot shotgun. While every other US action entertainment 'solves' all problems with guns, Buffy either hits people of stabs them, which is what we do over here in England. We're nice like that. Cultural references. These are the key to setting up the situation. Do any of the characters in Buffy watch baseball? Or maybe American football? Or perhaps go bowling (more than once every three years, that is) or to the pictures. No. They sit around in some sort of bar and drink. Yeah, so they only drink soda (mostly), but drinking is the operative word. From the age of about 16-17 onwards, almost the entire social life of English/British people consists of sitting around in pubs and bars and drinking. It's what we do. It's also what the Scooby gang do. Racial differences. It always struck me as a bit odd that there are almost no black or other 'minority' characters in Buffy at all; kind of odd considering the US is a nation of immigrants. Whereas in England, the non-white population is only about 15% or something. You see where I'm going with this? But what's the reason? Well, Joss Whedon, as usual. He grew up in England, and Buffy is after all about teenhood, so it's logical that he'd take the setting of his teenhood. Giles is the key authority figure, and he's English; maybe he's even loosely based on one of Whedon's former teachers. How conscious this Englishifying is, well, I don't know. But as far as I'm concerned, Buffy is a more accurate representation of (middle-class suburban) English culture than anything else I can think of. Apart from the vampires that is. Those we do not have.
|
However,
Sunnydale is England not the USA. I don't mean it's metaphorically
England, in the way that the vampires are metaphorical acne (see my 
But
that aside, Sunnydale itself is English. No, really. Think about it. First
of all, no one drives. Well, we do drive in England, but the car plays
a much a smaller part in our life, rather than being a great phallic symbol
of freedom is represents to North Americans. Seeing as Buffy is mostly
about growing up, it's odd that the stereotypical learning-to-drive motif
is more or less completely absent. Buffy just doesn't do cars. Okay, so
there's Riley, Mr Captain America, but he's the exception rather than the
rule. Otherwise, there's precious little movement of the automotive sort,
and rather a lot of walking, which is something we tend to do in
the UK rather more than the Americans do in the US.
