DADAISM. BtVS Intertext/Allusion.
An avant-garde art movement that aimed to challenge the complacency and convention of Western bourgeois society and civilisation through its deliberately provocative ‘anti-art’ style. It flourished in Europe and the United States in the early 20th-century during the First World War, being an iconoclastic response to the values of idealism, progress and nationalism that had led to such a conflict. The movement stressed nihilism, the nonsensical and the irrational, and absolute freedom of artistic expression. Dada was the precursor to Surrealism, which began to acquire pre-eminence in avant-garde circles in the 1920s. Famous Dadaists include: Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), Max Ernst (1891-1976), George Grosz (1893-1959), Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), Man Ray (1890-1976), Francis Picabia (1879-1953), Tristan Tzara (1896-1963).
The expression "Dadaist," as used in BtVS, draws primarily on Dada’s emphasis on nonsense and bizarre combinations of unrelated ideas. In "The Freshman," for example," Buffy uses the word in an exchange with Xander.
XANDER: Ok Buff, what's the 'what' here?
BUFFY: It's just, what if I can't cut it?
XANDER: Can't cut what? Slaying?
BUFFY: Slaying, everything.
XANDER: Buffy, this is all about fear. It's understandable, but you can't let it control you. 'Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to anger.' No wait, hold on. 'Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to the dark side.' Hold on, no, umm, 'First you get the women, then you get the money, then you...' okay, can we forget that?
BUFFY: Thanks for the Dadaist pep talk, I feel much more abstract now.
And in "Bargaining," Part 1, Xander himself makes reference to Dada.
BUFFYBOT: (triumphantly) That'll put marzipan in your pie plate, bingo!
SPIKE: (to Willow) What's with the Dadaism, Red?
TARA: Yeah, she says that pie thing every time she stakes a vamp now.
WILLOW: I-I don't know, I was trying to program in some new puns and I kinda ended up with word salad.