|
||||
|
|
+BUFFY
THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: A MODERN TEENAGE ALLEGORY+ Hot damn! It's an essay! Well, kinda the point of this site was to make something that wasn't just the usual image gallery/message board/links/fanfics etc. type-thing, as there're already plenty of those around. The point was also to encourage people to notice that BtVS isn't really like any other 'teen' programs on TV, like Friends or Dawson's Creek in the US, or Hollyoaks in the UK. Don't ask me why, but there seem to be more kids (by which I mean 12-15) who watch Buffy in the UK; but then they do watch Friends and other programs aimed at the 16-25 market (known as the 'oxy 5' age band). I don't know if, in the US, you have all these 11 year old kids wanting to get their hair cut like Sara Michelle Gellar or Jennifer Aniston; but this sort of accelerated maturity is a part of UK culture which on started emerging in my generation (I'm 20), but now seems to be getting more and more prevalent. I always thought it was weird
that the kids who read the 'Just 17' girl's magazine were really about
14 or 15, but I suppose the point here is that kids look up to characters
like Buffy (19 in the show) and Rachel (30-something in 'Friends'!) not
just as role models, but as someone to copy and try and become. When I
was 14, I'm not really sure if this was the case in quite the same way,
and I'm not sure if this is the case elsewhere in the world. Personally
I find it very freaky.
But
anyway, probably part of the reason why kids are turning away from some
of the conventional TV programs is that they're just not intelligent enough,
I like to think. BtVS fills that void; Joss Whedon, the writer, is unquestionably
one of the most talented people writing and directing for TV today, and
one of the best writers for film, too. It's not without reason that people
keep giving Buffy awards, and I don't mean the 'Biggest Cleavage in
a Television Series' type, I'm talking serious stuff here. Equally,
once they realized it was okay, the critics can't get enough of telling
you how good BtVS is. Well, for once, they're right. An allegory is a story told to express certain things in a framework which is different from the circumstances of the original. Genesis is often seen as an allegory for evolution, but it's described in a more impressive, and more entertaining form. In a similar way, what Joss Whedon does is take the experience of growing up, through high school and college, and turn it into an allegory. The vampires are allegorical metaphors for the troubles of adolescent; the beast which teenagers have to battle, but made real and tangible. All the characters are in some way wrestling with aspects of growing up. Buffy is the character all others look to; confident and popular, but constantly almost overcome by the forces of the Hellmouth. Rather than a acne or boy trouble, she gets Zakkhan the Slayerkiller and a spell gone awry. To combat them she doesn't have Oxy 5 and an understanding friend, she has a stake and the Council of the Watchers. But of course part of the genius of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is that while there is this allegory, and Buffy has to combat the demonic hordes, she also has very conventional boy trouble and so on (although not acne, oh no!), and conventional ways of combating these problems of growing up. So while the vampires and the Hellmouth are metaphors for adolescent problems, they're also, like, real vampires, and Buffy & co. have to fight them while also having trouble with their spots. That's what separates Buffy from a simpler form of allegory; it's not just a big obvious metaphor, but it's also perfectly possible to largely be unaware of this and still enjoy the show to the same extent. In Buffy, being a teenager is both hell literally, with fire and demons, and hell otherwise, with no demons but bad hair days. At the same time. That's good, that is.
|
