Geeks, Metafiction and Feminism in Buffy the

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Honors Theses
5-18-2003
"Because it's Superman's Book, You Moron!":
Geeks, Metafiction and Feminism in Buffy the
Vampire Slayer
Rebecca Ann Downey
Dickinson College
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Recommended Citation
Downey, Rebecca Ann, ""Because it's Superman's Book, You Moron!": Geeks, Metafiction and Feminism in Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
(2003). Dickinson College Honors Theses. Paper 182.
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"Because it's Superman's Book, You Moron!":
Geeks, Metafiction and Feminism in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rebecca Ann Downey
April 21, 2003
English 404
Professor Ness
1
"Who painted the leon, tel me who?
By God, if women hadden written stories,
As clerkes han within hir oratories,
They wolde han written of men more wikkednesse
Than al the merk of Adam may redresse."
--Chaucer, "The Wife of Bath's Prologue"
"Life's a show and we all play our parts ... "
--Buffy in "Once More with Feeling" (6007)
2
Joss Whedon, creator of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has often
stated that the series (like his 1992 film of the same name) is based upon a feminist
premise. Through the character of Buffy, Whedon hoped to subvert the usual role
allotted to women in horror genre films by inserting a capable hero where such films
usually present a victim (Whedon, "Commentary").
Much of the pleasure in viewing the
show comes from watching as Buffy consistently usurps the male role in traditional hero
stories, saving her boyfriend from danger and sacrificing her own life to save the world.
However, the show's feminist project is further strengthened by including within itself a
more explicit critique of the way in which male power is constructed and reinforced
through representations of masculinity and femininity both in film and television, and in
everyday life. Buffy's interactions with the members of the Geek Trio, the selfproclaimed super-villains of the show's sixth season, provide such a critique. The
members of the Geek Trio function as metafictional characters. Aware of their status as
television characters, they attempt to become the central characters in the series and, in so
doing, to change the show's narrative conventions in ways that subordinate Buffy and
others of the show's female characters.
The narrative presentation of the trio's attempts
to take over the series remind the viewers of the sort of feminist show Buffy the Vampire
Slayer (hereafter BTVS) is, precisely (and ironically) by presenting the trio's vision of the
sort of phallocentric show that it is not.
In "Ceci n'est ce pas une lesbianne,'" "Pop Matters" television critic Todd R.
Ramlow mentions Rene Magritte's painting "The Betrayal oflmages." This painting is a
realistic picture of a pipe, beneath which is written, "Ceci n'est ce pas une pipe," or "This
1
This article was part ofRamlow's critical response to the killing off of Tara, one of the lesbian characters
onBTVS.
3
is not a pipe." Ramlow explains that the purpose of the painting was to point out that art,
no matter how realistic it may appear to be, is not and can never be reality; it is merely a
representation of the creator's interpretation ofreality ("Lesbianne" 1 ). This awareness,
according to Patricia Waugh, is the driving force behind metafiction (3).2 Waugh
suggests that the convention of fictional realism masks the constructed nature of fictional
worlds and so tends to naturalize the worldview that is expressed through the fiction ( 67). Metafiction employs the conventions of realism, but disrupts and exposes them in
order to reveal how fictional worlds are created (Waugh 18).
In addition to exposing the inability of art to represent reality, Waugh argues,
metafiction exposes reality itself for a fiction (2). Waugh states that it is impossible to
describe a real world because "the observer always changes the observed" (3). She notes
that language, the tool through which we understand our world (in everyday speech and
thought--not just in print media), is one means through which our perceptions of reality
are shaped and distorted (3). Waugh writes, "metafictional writers ... focus on the
notion that 'everyday' language endorses and sustains [dominant] power structures
through a continuous process of naturalization whereby forms of oppression are
constructed in apparently 'innocent' representations"' (10-11). Waugh sees the
conventions of literature (one can extend this to include the conventions of other forms of
representation, such as film) as another type of 'language' which reinforces these power
structures (11). Although Waugh does not mention this specifically, the reality which we
experience is also constructed through the social institutions, such as marriage, that
2
While it may be more fully accurate to describe self-consciousness in Buffy the Vampire Slayer as
metadrama, or metatelevision, drama and television can be considered more specific kinds of fictional
representation. Therefore, my foundation for this paper will be Patricia Waugh's work on metafiction, and
I will employ Richard Homby's theories ofmetadrama in order to strengthen my analysis of the
relationship between the viewer and a performed piece of fiction.
4
define and limit our expectations of the world. Through revealing the artificiality of
these conventions in fictional representations, metafiction can expose the ways in which
our own lives are constructed by these and similar conventions.
One might argue that metafictional techniques which expose the conventions of
narrative realism do not apply to a fantasy series such as BTVS. However, although
BTVS does have fantastic premises, the series is also quite realistic in many ways.
Although the world of the show is clearly a fictitious one, the lives of the characters
seem, apart from the encounters with demons and vampires, to be fairly realistic. The
Scoobies appear to live much the way white, middle-class young adults do in the 'real
world.' They argue with their parents, attend school and do homework, and have
seemingly realistic romantic entanglements with one another. Wilcox notes that Joss
Whedon aspires to create "emotional realism," which allows the series to be "grounded in
the audience's identification with what [the characters] are going through" (xxiv). The
characters' emotional responses to everyday situations, as well as to the more fantastic
ones, make them easy to identify with. Although the show's premise is fantastic, the
characters do seem to act in accord with the values and mores of contemporary American
society.
The realism of the series is further enhanced by the technique of the arc television
narrative. According to Porter, Larson and Harthcock,
The use of the story arc in a television series helps to create a sense ofrealism, a
'sense of the future, of the existence of as-yet-unwritten events,' and a sense of
the character's relationships and 'life events.' Story arcs help create an illusion
5
that the characters have existed before and continue living between and after
episodes (2).
This sense of continuity is encouraged by the series, according to Wilcox, by having the
characters change and develop because of their experiences on the show (xxiii). A sense
of continuity is also reinforced when the characters make reference to their off-screen
lives, as in "The Wish" (3009), when Willow mentions that Amy (who has not appeared
on the show since the end of season two) saw Cordelia at the mall the day before. As I
will demonstrate, the creators of BTVS call this sense of continuity and realism into
question by disrupting the sense that the characters have lives that continue between and
beyond episodes and by violating the series' values and premises.
One might expect that metafiction in BTVS would actually destroy the series'
feminist project. Calling attention to the show's fictional status would immediately
expose the fictionality of the young female hero, the construction on which the show's
feminist identity rests. However, metafiction as it occurs in the series actually functions
to reinforce the show's feminism. While the series acknowledges the fictionality of the
fantastic premise of a young girl chosen to save the world from evil, it simultaneously
forces the viewer to acknowledge the fictionality of series' with male heroes and reveals
the way in which masculinity and male power are constructed in those series'. By
showing the viewer the specific ways in which the Geek Trio must alter their characters
and other elements of the BTVS narrative in order to make it resemble, for example, a
James Bond film, the creators of BTVS reveal to the viewer the ways in which gender and
power in BTVS must be constructed differently from such films in order to support its
6
feminist premise. In doing this, the narrative ultimately reveals dominant perceptions of
masculinity and femininity as artificial social constructions that enforce male power.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: An Introduction
In order to understand how the Geek Trio attacks the narrative of Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, an introduction to the mythology of the show and its standard narrative
structure is in order. Currently in its seventh and final season, BTVS chronicles the life
(and deaths) of Buffy Summers, a young California girl who is told during her
sophomore year of high school that she is the chosen one, the latest in a line of vampire
slayers which dates back to ancient times. According to slayer lore, demons inhabited the
earth before men. Men, unable to fight the demons themselves, chained a girl to the earth
and turned her into the slayer by imbuing her with the true spirit of the demon=-the
source of her power ("Get it Done" 7015). As soon as one slayer dies, another is called,
inheriting the preternatural strength and mental skill needed to kill these creatures.
Having been kicked out of her school in Los Angeles, after burning down the school
gymnasium while fight a group of vampires, Buffy moves to Sunnydale, a fictional
southern California town which was built on the mouth of hell ("Welcome to the
Hellmouth" 1001 ). With the assistance of her Scooby Gang,3 Buffy battles the vampires
and demons that gather at the Hellmouth and, on many occasions, saves the world from
ending.
3
A reference to the animated series, Scooby Doo, in which four teenagers and a talking dog investigate
supposedly supernatural phenomena in places such as spooky old mansions and amusement parks.
Significantly, while the ghosts in Scooby Doo always tum out to be live people, the ghosts and demons that
Buffy fights serve, as BTVS scholar Rhonda Wilcox argues, as metaphors for human drives and emotions
(I).
7
The core members of the Scooby Gang, through all seven seasons, are Rupert
Giles, Buffy's Watcher (a member of the British Council of Watchers, an organization
dedicated to training Slayers in battle techniques and assisting them in researching the
demons they must fight), and her friends Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg, students
whom Buffy saves from vampire attacks in the series premiere ("Welcome to the
Hellmouth" 1001 and "The Harvest" 1002). Willow is a computer nerd who later
becomes a powerful witch, while Xander is a geek who eventually becomes a skilled
carpenter. The Scoobies are soon joined by Cordelia Chase, a popular student who at
first torments Buffy and her friends, but later becomes involved with the fight and dates
Xander; Angel, Buffy's boyfriend and· also a 240-year old vampire who was cursed with
a soul after killing a young gypsy girl;" and Oz, Willow's boyfriend who becomes a
werewolf for three nights each month. In later seasons, the gang includes Tara McClay, a
talented witch and Willow's girlfriend after Oz's departure; Anya, a former vengeance
demon and Xander's girlfriend; and Riley Finn, Buffy's boyfriend (after Angel moves to
Los Angeles) and a member of the Initiative, a military branch which uses behavior
modification devices to keep demons from harming humans. Spike, a vampire
descendant of Angel who was once an enemy to Buffy, also becomes a quasi-member of
the Scooby Gang after discovering that, although the chip which the Initiative implanted
in his brain prevents him from hurting humans, he can still hurt other demons. Spike
later falls in love with Buffy and, after Buffy ends their brief sexual affair by telling him
she could never trust an evil creature, travels to Africa and endures several painful tests
before a mystic agrees to restore his soul. Buffy's little sister Dawn is also one of the
4
According to the vampire mythology of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, vampires do not have souls. When
Liam (Angel's human name) was turned into a vampire, his soul went into the ether and a demon took
control of his body, committing atrocities for which an ensouled Angel must now atone.
8
gang. Dawn, who used to be a mystical key, was sent to Buffy in human form at the
beginning of the series' fifth season. Buffy was to protect the key because a hell-God
named Glory planned to use it to open the walls between dimensions, thus unleashing
hell on earth.
BTVS is an arc-television narrative. This means that story lines develop across
several episodes or an entire season, in contrast to television series' such as Law and
Order in which every episode tells a single, self-contained story (Porter, Larson and
Harthcock 2). In BTVS, a major villain, known as the Big Bad, is introduced during the
first few episodes of a given season and the season story arc revolves around the
Scoobies' growing awareness of the threat posed by this villain and their attempts to fight
it. Throughout the season, less significant villains are fought in stand-alone episodes, but
at least the last two or three episodes deal solely with the Scoobies' attempts to prevent ·
the Big Bad from carrying out a plan that will destroy the world as we know it. The
season finale then includes an apocalyptic battle in which Buffy saves the world and
usually kills the Big Bad.
Buffy the Patriarchy Slayer?
In order to understand the implications of the Trio's attempts to alter BTVS, one
must first understand the traditional portrayal of women in horror films and the effects of
Joss Whedon's attempts to change them. In one interview, Whedon explains his
motivations, saying:
I've always been a huge fan of horror movies, and I saw so many horror movies
where there was that blonde girl who would always get herself killed. I started
9
feeling bad for her. I thought, 'you know, it's time for her to take back the night.'
So, the idea of Buffy came from just the very simple thought of, a beautiful
blonde girl walks into an alley, a monster attacks her, and she's not only ready for
him, she trounces him ("Interview").
In his commentary on the series premiere, Whedon further explains that "the idea of
Buffy was to subvert that ... image and to create someone who was a hero where there
had always been a victim" ("Commentary").
Much of the pleasure in watching BTVS comes from watching Buffy usurp the
male role in traditional hero stories, rescuing her beefcake vampire boyfriend from
danger ("What's My Line, Part II" 2010) and sacrificing her life to save the world ("The
Gift" 5022). BTVS's construction of images of females who are heroes rather than victims
is in itself a positive contribution to television. This show promotes the notion that young
women possess the power, strength and intelligence to participate in stereotypically male
realms, whereas many filmic texts construct women as passive sex objects, lacking in
common sense. A perfect example of this construction is the stereotypical blonde victim
in the horror film, who is only seen having sex and then running upstairs to her death
when any sensible person would be running out the door. However, the series'
subversion of the horror genre goes beyond the change in the blonde girl's image.
Buffy's abilities as a slayer also allow her to escape the punishing male gaze that is
usually turned on the female victims of horror films.
Film critic Robin Wood, in his work on horror films of the eighties argues that
"the contemporary horror film invites an identification (either sadistic or masochistic or
both simultaneously) with punishment" of the female victims (195). Wood builds off of
IO
the theories of film critic Laura Mulvey, who explains that one of the pleasures in
viewing films is what Freud called scopophilia, the pleasure which emerges from
regarding others as objects and "subjecting them to a controlling ... gaze" (2184).
According to Mulvey, in a phallocentric social system (one in which the phallus is
associated with power and control), the sight of women's bodies creates in men anxiety
about the possibility of being castrated, both of the literal penis and of the power that it
signifies (2188). Thus, man feels the need either to deny the woman's lack of phallus or
to punish her for it in order to maintain his own sense of control (2188). The sadistic
pleasure with which the viewer of horror films identifies, is the pleasure of "ascertaining
guilt (immediately associated with castration), asserting control and subjugating the
guilty person through punishment or forgiveness" (Mulvey 2188).
Wood notes that horror films often facilitate this identification with punishment
by using "first-person camera to signify the approach of the killer" (198). While this
device may simply serve to add suspense to the film by hiding the killer's identity, Wood
explains, it also allows the spectator to identify with the killer's sadistic fantasy ( 198).
The male spectator, then, bolsters his own sense of control and masculinity by vicariously
identifying with violent acts against women. BTVS does not allow for this sadistic
pleasure. The narrative frequently sets up this sort of punishing scenario, with a demon
stalking Buffy or another female character, but frustrates it, by having her tum around
and fight, either defeating the demon or at least staving it off. Even when the vampire
known as the Master kills Buffy, the narrative negates his violence towards her when
Xander revives Buffy, allowing her to track down and kill the Master. Identifying with
violence towards this show's female characters would only lead to an increased sense of
11
emasculation. The fact that the punishment of the female is prevented in BTVS by an act
of the female heroine's power destabilizes the association of power with masculinity and
the phallus.
One might argue that BTVS in fact fails to destabilize the association of power
with the phallus because the stake, the primary weapon the slayer uses to kill vampires, is
a phallic weapon. Completing the female body with a fetish object which replaces the
phallus is, according to Mulvey, another means of overcoming castration anxiety through
viewing (2188). However, this argument does not hold for this show. Although Buffy
does use the stake, an artifact from more traditional phallocentric vampire legends, she
often finds other more resourceful ways of defeating the demons she fights. In "The
Harvest" (1002), for example, she decapitates a vampire with a cymbal. This round
percussion instrument can be interpreted as a more feminine symbol. In addition, Buffy
engages in hand-to-hand combat with the vampires, defeating them before she kills them.
The narrative thus divests the stake of its symbolic power by suggesting that Buffy's
power lies not in her stake, but in her (female) body.
The fact that Buffy is the hero of the series means that, as a narrative requirement
of the show, she cannot be killed. Her permanent death would end the show. Thus, the
narrative structure of the show itself proves its feminism by making sadistic punishment
of Buffy impossible. However, one must then ask whether the sadistic fantasy is enacted
upon other female characters in the show. Although other minor female characters do get
killed on the series, an equal number of male victims are stalked by the camera and
killed, suggesting that these minor characters are not being punished for evoking threats
12
of castration.
5
In addition, the identity of the villain is generally revealed before it kills,
which makes it more difficult for the spectator to fully enjoy the sadistic identification
with the monster (Wood 198).
Taking over Sunnydale: The Geek Trio Hijack the Series
By the series' sixth year, one can safely assume that Buffy's status as female hero
had become a fact which many viewers took for granted. Buffy's central position in the
series, and thus the series' feminism, is returned to the fore of the show when it is
subjected to a backlash in the show's sixth season by the Geek Trio. The Trio is
composed of three of Buffy's former Sunnydale High classmates=Jonathan,
a minor
recurring character from the first four seasons of the show; Warren, a minor character
from the fifth season episode "I Was Made to Love You" (5015); and Andrew, a new
character who identifies himself as the brother of Tucker, a minor character from the
third season episode "The Prom" (3020). Having each become proficient in crafts
ranging from robotics to witchcraft, these sci-fi nerds decide, over a game of Dungeons
and Dragons, to "team up and take over Sunnydale" ("Flooded" 6004). They are
motivated in part by greed, hoping to obtain money and access to women through crime.
As Jonathan puts it, their mission includes "shrink rays, trained gorillas, workable
prototype jet-packs and chicks, chicks, chicks" ("Flooded" 6004). However, the constant
references they make to other sci-fi and fantasy texts suggest that the trio is concerned as
much with control of the series as with wealth. By positioning themselves as the major
5
In horror series' such as the Halloween films, male characters are commonly killed immediately after
having sex. Their bodies are left to be found by their female partners, who are then hunted down by the
killer. This suggests that the male characters' deaths function to intensify the punishment of the guilty
females. In addition, the removal of the protective male functions to increase the female victim's (and the
spectator's) awareness of her helplessness.
13
villains of the season, these new and minor characters attempt to usurp Buffy's position
as the central character in the series and thus reassert in the show the phallocentric
conventions of the series' of which they are fans.
Richard Homby, in his book Drama, Metadrama and Perception, names literary
reference and self-reference as two of the most obvious and conscious forms of
metadrama (31 ). These types of metadrama are particularly relevant when discussing the
Trio. These characters constantly make references to other science fiction and fantasy
genre shows and to previous episodes of BTVS. Jonathan, Warren and Andrew are
introduced as the trio in "Flooded" (6004). In this episode, they have hired the demon
M'Fashnick to create chaos at a bank so that they can rob it. Having been spotted at the
bank by Buffy, and thus afraid for his safety, M'Fashnick goes to the trio's lair to demand
payment for his services. The geeks' offersof payment refer to the specific episodes of
BTVS from which the viewer will remember them and thus mark the characters
themselves as textual references.
Warren offers to make M'Fashnick "a robot girlfriend-- for those long, lonely
nights after a hard day's slaughter," a reference to his only two appearances on BTVS to
this point. In "I Was Made to Love You" (5015), Buffy meets Warren when April, the
robot girlfriend which he created for himself but no longer wants, attempts to be a good
girlfriend by killing his new girlfriend, Katrina, whom April sees merely as an obstacle to
their love. Warren returns briefly in "Intervention" (5018), to deliver the Buffy-bot
which a lovelorn Spike paid him to make. In this introductory scene, Andrew claims to
be the brother of Tucker, the "incompetent maladjust" who, after being rejected by the
girl he wanted to take to the prom, trained a pack ofhellhounds
to attack people in
14
formalwear and set them loose at the high school on the night of the dance ("The Prom"
3020).
Jonathan has had more of a presence in the series than the other members of the
trio prior to season six. He first appeared in the episode "Inca Mummy Girl" (2004), and
was used in several subsequent episodes, whenever a nerdy or vulnerable student was
called for, such as when Cordelia's friends taunt her by suggesting that, having been
dumped by Xander (whom they brand a loser) she should date Jonathan ("The Wish"
3009). His first major role in the show came in the episode "Earshot," where he attempts
to commit suicide in the school clock tower because he feels ignored and misunderstood.
However, Jonathan refers to his only starring role in the show, when he offers to help
M'Fashnick with "a spell, to make [him] look super-cool to the other demons"
("Flooded" 6004). In "Superstar" (4017), an episode which I will discuss in detail later
in the paper, Jonathan performs an augmentation spell which temporarily convinces
everyone that he is the best of everything-a demon-fighter who starred in The Matrix,
graduated from medical school at age eighteen, and recently released an album with his
swing band.
Homby notes that self-reference, like literary reference, has greater metadramatic
effect when the reference is to something so recent and specific in the drama that,
although the audience can be expected to recognize the reference, it has not become a
cliche in the overall culture (103). The trio's offers of payment each refer to stand-alone
episodes of BTVS that were not part of the larger plot arcs of their respective seasons, and
thus function strongly as forms of self-reference. The dedicated viewer will recognize
these lines as references to specific episodes of the series, thus calling the viewer's
15
attention to the fact that he or she is watching a television show. This awareness that one
is watching a fictional performance has the effect of breaking the viewer's identification
with the characters and the fictional world of the production, effecting "a sudden collapse
of the ego boundary back to one's everyday self' (Homby 115). This collapse of the ego
boundary, which was the purpose of Bertolt Brecht's "alienation effect" has, according to
Homby, the effect of suddenly foregrounding reality, forcing the viewer to examine the
cultural "assumptions that lie behind and control [his] response to the world of the
[production]" (115-117).
The fact that the trio is introduced in this way ensures that the
viewer will continue to be aware of the fictionality of the members.
This constant
awareness will lead the viewer to question the trio's relationship to and effect on the
series as a fictional show.
The members of the trio also seem to be quite aware of their own ontological
status as fictional characters.
They understand their world and almost always predict the
consequences of their actions through the lens of the science fiction and fantasy texts and
other television series' of which they are fans--and of which they are of course a part. In
"Villains" (6020), Andrew even looks to other television series' to understand the
experience of being in jail. As Jonathan worries about being raped in jail, Andrew
calmly dismisses these fears, explaining, "This isn't Oz. It's, like, Mayberry." He is
confident that their world is closer to the sitcom world of the Andy Griffith Show than the
gritty prison drama Oz. Thus, the rules of the former type of series will be followed and
Jonathan is in no danger of being attacked.
Another typical example of the nerds' awareness of their own fictitiousness can
be found in "Life Serial" (6005). In this episode, the trio puts Buffy through a battery of
16
tests, hoping to find her weaknesses. In Jonathan's test Buffy, who is working at the
Magic Box, Giles' and Anya's magic shop, must "satisfy a customer, with a task that
resists solving," as Jonathan explains it. As Buffy struggles to capture a recalcitrant
enchanted mummy hand for her customer, the trio discuss her progress and reveal that the
form of the test is inspired by the science fiction series' they watch.
Andrew: I just hope she solves it faster than Data did in that episode of TNG [Star
Trek The Next Generation] where the enterprise kept blowing up.
Warren: Or Mulder, in that X-Files where the bank kept exploding.
Rather than devising their plot based on the advice or experiences of others in the
supposedly real world of their show, the geeks steal from and compare the results of their
plans with other shows, calling the viewer's attention to the fact that the members of the
trio are part of a show and, in fact; have no real world to draw upon.
The nerds' awareness of themselves as fictional characters and tendency to
explain their world in terms of fiction suggests that when they propose to take over
Sunnydale, they are actually talking about usurping Buffy's position as central character
in the series. The following exchange between the geeks makes this agenda especially
clear. In "Gone" (6011), Warren tries to convince Andrew and Jonathan that they must
kill Buffy.
Jonathan: We're not killers! We're crime lords.
Andrew: Yeah. Like Lex Luthor. He's always trying to take over Metropolis, but
he doesn't kill Superman.
Warren: Because it's Superman's book, you moron!
Andrew: Well, Lex doesn't kill him, does he?
17
On one level, this exchange, with its reference to Superman comic books,
functions as a humorous acknowledgement of the fact that, while the show's characters
are portrayed as real people, who live in a real world of infinite possibilities, they are
characters in a television show, and as such their behavior is limited by the rules and
conventions of the genre. The viewer knows that, like the Master, the trio will not
permanently kill Buffy, precisely because it is her show. This exchange also suggests
that, while Andrew and Jonathan are content simply to be Buffy's antagonists for the
season, Warren really does plan to attack Buffy's position in the series. He is aware of
the rules that govern the actions of superheroes' nemeses. However, ifhe were to
become the central character in the series, then Buffy's death would not violate these
rules. In his revised series, the trio would be the central characters and the slayer would
occupy the status of expendable adversary.
While Warren aspires to alter the series, Andrew seems already to have mastered
the ability to do so. Unlike Warren and Jonathan, who were minor characters before
becoming members of the trio, Andrew almost seems to have written himself into the
show by taking advantage of one of the gaps in the narrative. As previously noted, the
arc television narrative creates a sense that characters' lives continue off-screen,
encouraging viewers to imagine events and facts that are not explicitly part of the
narrative. However, when such unknown events are written into the narrative after the
fact, they may contradict the viewer's imagined version of events.
Andrew identifies
himself as the brother of Tucker, the character who trained the hellhounds to attack the
Sunnydale High School prom. Tucker was not a recurring character. All the viewer
knows about Tucker is that he couldn't get a date to the prom and that he somehow
18
knows how to summon and train hellhounds. The narrative never explains who Tucker's
social group is, or what his family is like. These gaps are left to be filled in by the
individual viewer, or to be ignored since they are not really of any importance to the
story. Andrew seems to write himself into the show by creating a family history for
Tucker, which calls attention to the many gaps of this sort in the show. Since Andrew's
completion of Tucker's history may contradict what individual viewers had imagined
about the character, his fictionality is emphasized.
In addition, this contradiction raises
the viewer's awareness of his or her role in constructing the series' meaning, a subject to
which I will return later in this paper.
Andrew also uses Tucker's history to write a related history for himself; he claims
to have summoned flying monkeys to attack the school production of Romeo and Juliet.
However, the other characters in the series are protective of the integrity of the narrative
and slow to accept Andrew as part of the series. In the final scenes of "Gone" ( 6011),
Willow reverses the effects of the nerds' invisibility ray on themselves and Buffy. Buffy
identifies Warren and Jonathan as they become visible, but does not recognize Andrew.
Buffy: Who are you?
Andrew: I'm Andrew. I summoned the flying monkeys that attacked the high
school.
(Buffy and Willow look at him, confused.)
Andrew: (meekly) You know, during the school play.
(Buffy and Willow still look confused.)
Jonathan and Warren: He's Tucker's brother.
Buffy and Willow: Oh.
19
Even after Andrew explains who he is, Buffy and her friends do not remember him or the
incident with the flying monkeys, which was never the subject of an episode of BTVS,
although it is the sort of incident that the Scoobies would have known about and been
responsible for stopping. The fact that the Scoobies, like the audience, have never heard
of Andrew before this season is joked about throughout the season. In "Doublemeat
Palace" (6012), Xander remarks, "I get Warren being a super-villain, but I thought
Jonathan already learned that lesson. I haven't even heard of this other guy." Even as
late as the season six finale, Willow refers to Jonathan and Andrew as "Jonathan and that
other one" ("Grave" 6022). These statements demonstrate a resistance against accepting
Andrew's story, and by extension the Trio's revisions of the series, as part of the
narrative.
"If this is the world he created, what's the real world like?": Jonathan as Superstar
Whereas Andrew's attempt to infiltrate the narrative series merely involves filling
in existing gaps in the narrative, in the episode "Superstar" ( 4017), Jonathan completely
revises the narrative, reversing previous emasculating portrayals of his character and
making himself the central character in the series. In this episode, Jonathan performs an
augmentation spell which turns this lonely, young nerd into a paragon. "Superstar" is
Jonathan's fantasy show. In this episode, everyone in Sunnydale adores him. He has
starred in The Matrix, coached the U.S. women's soccer team, written a book, recorded
an album and graduated from medical school-all by the age of eighteen. He is also,
among other things, an expert demon hunter, thus taking over Buffy's position in the
series. Justine Larbalestier, writing before the show's sixth season aired, notes that one
20
theme of "Superstar" is "the [fan's] desire to interpolate into a text-Jonathan literally
inserts himself in Buffy's place; she becomes his sidekick, and he becomes everyone's
hero" (233).
Jonathan's spell, by affecting the so-called reality of Sunnydale, turns "Superstar"
into an adaptation of a typical episode of BTVS. According to Homby, an adaptation has
a metadramatic effect when and if the viewer is able to simultaneously experience both
the adaptation and the source production as separate entities during the performance of
the adaptation (93-4). The awareness of the existence of this source produces an
alienation effect in the viewer which allows him or her to more analytically examine and
interpret the choices made in adapting the source text (94). In the case of "Superstar," the
shock of seeing the Chosen One suddenly dependent upon Jonathan, the token nerd,
provides a catalyst for the viewer to step back and examine the constructions of gender
and power in this episode, as compared with a typical episode of BTVS. This episode
thus provides a powerful critique of the way male power is manifested through the
subordination of women.
Jonathan's awareness that his spell alters the narrative structure of a television
show rather than life in a real town is hinted at by the fact that Jonathan usurps Buffy's
place in the show's title credits. Quick cuts of Jonathan aiming a crossbow and waving at
his fans replace many of the usual images of Buffy fighting. Another clue that Jonathan
is a fictional character manipulating a television series occurs when Buffy looks through
Xander's Jonathan memorabilia and finds "Jonathan" comic books. Comic books are
usually about fictional heroes and not real people. (For instance, one can buy Buffy the
Vampire Slayer comic books, but not, to the best of my knowledge, Sarah Michelle
21
Gellar comic books). The fact that the comic books feature Jonathan and not his
character from The Matrix serve as a reminder that Jonathan himself is a character. In
addition, Jonathan's spell alters such specifically filmic elements of the show as the
score, replacing the usual lush string arrangements with guitar riffs that are reminiscent of
the score of male spy films such as those of the James Bond series.
Clearly, Jonathan's ideal series would feature his character as a James Bond-like
hero. In "Life Serial" (6005), Jonathan expresses his preference for the older 007 films,
when Roger Moore was Bond. The 007 films construct a masculine hero who is
irresistible to all women and a master of intelligence, technology, and physical fighting.
Women's roles in these films tend to be limited to sex objects who adore Bond, or
femmes fatales who are attracted to Bond, but use their sexuality to work for the side of
evil. This portrayal suggests that women who do exercise power and agency are
somehow bad or unnatural. Those women who do fight alongside Bond are generally
subordinate to him, merely helping to execute his plans and commands.
These films
reinforce male power by focusing on the power struggle between Bond and the male
villain. The notion that only Bond, the male hero, can stop the villain and thus save
society from corruption serves to justify the need for male power.
In order to justify Jonathan's male power in his show, he must construct female
characters who are utterly dependent on him. Therefore, Buffy cannot be a hero.
Although she remains the Slayer, he robs her of all the qualities that once made her a
hero. He even usurps her past. Two of Buffy's biggest high school accomplishments
were preventing the Master from getting free of the mystical forces which bound him
underground ("Prophecy Girl" 1012), and receiving the class protector award-a token of
22
gratitude from the many students whose lives she saved at one time or another-which
Jonathan presented to her at their senior prom ("The Prom" 3020). In "Superstar" the
Scoobies believe that Jonathan was the one who stopped the Master from rising, and that
Buffy presented the class protector award to him.
In BTVS, Buffy is a hero because of her strength, skill and intelligence-much
like James Bond. In order to bar women from occupying positions of power in such
series', narratives must portray women as lacking these qualities. Buffy's sudden lack of
all of these traits is apparent in this episode's teaser. The episode opens, like many
others, with Buffy, Willow and Xander on patrol (scoping the cemeteries for vampire
activity). However, in this episode something is amiss. Buffy, normally a skilled fighter
and head-strong leader, seems unsure of her fighting abilities and so submits to her
friends' direction. She even allows Anya to veto her plan to kill a nest of vampires, on
the grounds that the four Scoobies cannot possibly defeat five vampires. (In other
episodes, such as "Into the Woods" (5010), Buffy has killed groups of five vampires on
her own.) The severity of Buffy's weakness in "Superstar" is revealed when the
Scoobies go to seek help. The viewer assumes that they will consult Giles, or Riley and
the rest of the Initiative. Instead, they consult Jonathan. The fact that the series' token
nerd is able to step in and immediately create and execute a plan to kill the nest of
vampires only serves to emphasize Buffy's disempowennent.
Buffy's wit is also dulled in this episode. Overbey and Preston-Matto, in their
article "Staking in Tongues: Speech Act as Weapon in Buffy the Vampire Slayer," have
noted that Buffy's power and heroism are tied to her verbal agility (75). As Willow notes
in "Anne" (3001 ), "the Slayer always says a pun or a witty play on words and I think it
23
throws the vampires off and makes them frightened .... " Overbey and Preston-Matto
argue that Buffy's wit allows her to throw her opponents off mentally and emotionally,
which makes them physically vulnerable so that she can kill them (76). Buffy's use of
wit in this way demonstrates that she is not just an air-head who happens to be strong.
She is the Slayer because she has the intelligence necessary to wage the war against evil.
However, in this episode, Buffy seems to be just a reasonably strong air-head. When
Spike (who thinks her name is Betty-a sign that her character is a minor one in
Jonathan's show) taunts her, she has no clever come-back. "It's Buffy," she stutters,
"You big, bleached ... stupid guy." Jonathan, however, is witty and intimidating, telling
Spike, "you're the worst type of scum. The minute you're back to your old tricks, well,
let's just say before you've sniffed out your first victim, you'll be pretty indistinguishable
from=well what should we say?--instant soup mix."
Although Buffy is somewhat lacking in wit and skill, ultimately the real reason
she is unable to be a hero in this episode is that no one has faith in her ability to be one.
When Karen, a girl who was attacked by a monster, seeks Jonathan's help, Buffy offers
to help her, but Karen ignores her. Even Spike seems entirely unthreatened by the
vampire slayer. In Jonathan's phallocentric text, a blonde girl does not seem a likely
hero. Buffy's friends even question her authority to call a meeting, wondering when
Jonathan will arrive so the "real meeting" can start. The fact that no one has any
confidence in Buffy prevents her from realizing the potential which she believes she has.
This becomes clear when Riley remarks to Buffy, "If they just put a little trust in me, I
could get the job done." Buffy replies, "I've felt that way my whole life." Rich notes
that one way in which male power is manifested and maintained in patriarchal society is
24
through "sex-role tracking which deflects women from science, technology and other
masculine pursuits" (1767). The way in which femininity is constructed in Jonathan's
version of the show harms Buffy by stifling her potential, just as limiting constructions of
femininity in patriarchal society lead to women's access to leadership roles in certain
occupations and activities being blocked. When Buffy's friends do begin to trust and
work with her, she is able to discover the origin of Jonathan's spell and defeat the
monster that helps him to maintain his power.
Clearly, women cannot be heroes in Jonathan's show. However, they do have
roles that they can fulfill. As in the James Bond films, with which Jonathan's altered
score associates this episode, women can play the role of sex objects and pieces of
property. Jonathan's success is measured by his conspicuous accomplishments and by
his possession of status symbols such as his mansion. The pair of Scandinavian twin
sisters, dressed in lingerie and open bathrobes, who call Jonathan to bed from the balcony
are also status symbols. The twins are blonde like Buffy, suggesting that their status as
sex objects is a direct subversion of Buffy's position as hero of BTVS.
Another role which women can play in Jonathan's show is that of victim. The
monster which was created as a side effect of his augmentation spell (good must always
be balanced by evil, as Giles explains) only attacks women, until the final scene when it
turns on Jonathan himself. Because there are no female heroes in Jonathan's text, the
punishing male gaze, which Buffy the hero is able to frustrate in a typical episode of the
series, remains unchallenged. A first-person camera tracking shot leads up to the
monster's attack of Karen, allowing the spectator to identify with the monster who is
attacking her. The act break occurs as soon as the monster begins to attack. When we
25
next see Karen, she is running into the Bronze to seek Jonathan's help. The narrative
never shows the woman resisting the monster's punishment and thus the link between
power and control and the phallus is never broken.
If the mere female form evokes feelings of powerlessness in males in a patriarchal
society, lesbians present an even graver threat. In "Compulsory Heterosexuality and
Lesbian Existence," Adrienne Rich suggests that male domination over women results
from the fear "that women could be indifferent to them altogether, that men could be
allowed sexual and emotional access to women only on women's terms" (1770). One
way in which male power is enacted, according to Rich, is by denying women's sexuality
"by means of ... punishment, including death, for lesbian sexuality ... " (1765-66). Rich
agrees with Susan Cavin, who argues that heterosexuality "must ever be held by force (or
through control of consciousness)" (1773). Rich and Cavin are talking here, not about
magical mind control, but about the way in which stories and social institutions, such as
family structure, shape our view of the world and expectations for how we will live our
lives. Constructing himself as an object of desire is one means Jonathan uses to exert
control over the other characters.
6
They are reluctant to question his achievements and
power because they desire him. Therefore, Jonathan's mind-control spell must attack the
lesbian relationship between Willow and Tara.
In "Superstar" ( 4017), the mass mind-control of Jonathan's spell serves as a
metaphor for the way in which film and television representations often erase and punish
lesbian desire and naturalize heterosexual desire in women. Willow and Tara's lesbian
relationship had not been explicitly named as such on the show when Jonathan performs
6
The idea that desire is a tool through which Jonathan controls others is supported by the fact that even
Xander and Giles appear to feel desire for Jonathan. Jonathan's trumpet playing makes Xander want to
have sex and Giles owns a copy of Jonathan's swimsuit calendar.
26
his augmentation spell. However, the sexual nature of their relationship has already been
made abundantly clear, through the use of wiccan spell-casting as a metaphor for lesbian
intimacy. In the previous episode, "Who Are You?" (4016), as critic Todd R. Ramlow
writes, "we ... see the two practicing their craft, all dewy-eyed and sweaty-faced,
moaning and panting. Overcome by the intensity and power of their bond, Willow falls
backward, in slow motion, onto a bed of pillows in orgasmic joy" ("Tara" 2). The
couple's romantic involvement has also been more directly indicated by hand-holding
and flirting. However, in the first half of "Superstar," their lesbian relationship seems to
have been erased. The two do not hold hands or gaze at each other with desire. They
behave like platonic friends and their lust seems to be directed towards Jonathan. Tara is
overcome with excitement at.the Bronze (Sunnydale's coffee shop and night club) when
Jonathan plays a song from his new album. However, the lesbian relationship creeps
back into the narrative during the second half of the episode, when Willow drops Tara off
at her dorm and the two exchange a loving glance and caress each other's hands.
Jonathan's narrative immediately punishes Tara for this display of lesbian affection; the
monster attacks her as she walks to her room.
The fact that the sustainment of Jonathan's power hinges on the life of a demon
that attacks women and lesbians is telling. The beast represents the threat of violence
against women, in both film representations and everyday society, which is used to
maintain male power and access to women (Rich 1766). Women are caught in a kind of
double-bind, because they are simultaneously threatened by violence from some men and
told that they must rely on other men for protection. "Superstar" dramatizes the fact that
this threat exists to justify male power over women by having the threat (the monster)
27
and the protection (Jonathan as hero) result from the same spell. When Buffy discovers
this link and begins to fight the demon, destroying its ability to hurt and marginalize
women, Jonathan gradually weakens and Sunnydale returns to the way it was before.
Jonathan is ultimately unable to maintain control of the narrative and the women.
Although he takes over the title credits, the focus of the narrative remains on Buffy and
the effect that Jonathan's spell has on her. Jonathan does successfully put on masculine
power in this episode. His clothing and hair are uncharacteristically
fashionable and his
behavior is smooth and confident. However, because the viewer is familiar with
Jonathan's character, he or she knows from the beginning that this change in Jonathan
must be the result of a spell. In addition, visual gags mock the notion of his power. In
one scene, an officer in the Initiative is addressing his troops and explains that they have
brought in their "tactical advisor ... Mr. Levinson [Jonathan]." Riley's friend Graham
says "It's time they brought in the big guns." Although Graham is utterly serious, the line
functions as a comment on the visual joke of Jonathan, who is half the height of the
military men, advising them. Because Jonathan lacks a body that unproblematically
expresses masculine power, the viewer is more easily led to question the reality of this
power.
Whereas the viewer knows from the outset that Jonathan's position in this episode
must eventually be explained away by some sort of magic spell or alternate reality, Buffy
and the other scoobies are completely fooled. However, Buffy's dissatisfaction with the
role which she has been allotted in Jonathan's reality and her ability to see the artifice
behind his masculinity allow her to break the spell. Fed up with being inferior to
Jonathan, Buffy begins to wonder if Jonathan is really as wonderful as he seems to be.
28
She wonders how he could have starred in The Matrix without leaving town, or graduated
from medical school less than a year after graduating from high school. Thus, ultimately,
Jonathan's spell destroys itself by creating a vision of his masculinity that is so perfect as
not to be believable.
Jonathan's spell is also untenable because its oppression of women is too
complete. Buffy's desire to realize her potential causes her to question the fact that
everyone trusts Jonathan's demon-hunting skills more than those of the Slayer. She also
wonders why the beast continues to attack women when Jonathan-supposedly an expert
demon-hunter-claims that it is not violent. Jonathan is ultimately unable both to punish
and marginalize women and convince them that he is a hero who can protect them.
Buffy's task in exposing Jonathan's magic mirrors that of the viewer in
recognizing the constructed nature of gender i~ other series' as well as everyday life.
Unaware that Jonathan's power is artificial, Buffy must rely on her own sense of her own
and others' potential to contradict what she has been led her whole life to believe. The
fact that "Superstar" is a critique of gender constructions in everyday life and not just in
other artist's representations is suggested by Riley's question, "If this is the world he
created, then what's the real world like?" "Superstar" sets two fictional worlds, the usual
world of BTVS and the world created by Jonathan's spell, against each other. Both are
created worlds; neither is real. According to Todorov, if certain events in a narrative are
dismissed as being imaginary, the rest of the narrative seems more real to the reader
(Waugh 112). Although normally the fact that Jonathan's spell-world is explained away
would privilege the world of BTVS as "more real," the fact that BTVS is also a fantasy
world suggests that neither can be privileged as more realistic. The fact that the same
29
characters can be constructed so differently in two fantasy worlds, depending on who has
the creative power suggests that every day life might also be constructed very differently
if men were not in power. This episode calls attention to that fact, thus giving the viewer
the tools to recognize these constructions in everyday life.
"What's the matter, baby? You never fight a real man before?"
While "Superstar" presents Jonathan's polished construction of masculinity and
depicts Buffy's gradual realization of its artifice, the sixth season Geek Trio story arc
shows the specific actions that the nerds must take in order to construct the masculinity
and masculine power that will allow them to usurp Buffy's position in the series. During
season six, the nerds seem at first to be motivated simply by a desire to be central
characters in the series. However, as they execute their plans, it becomes clear that
masculine dominance over women is also at stake in this battle over the series. In their
attempts to become super-villains, the trio reassert the association between power and the
phallus, hypnotize the women whom they want to desire them, and alter Buffy's reality in
order to question the reality of the Slayer.
One way in which the nerds attempt to alter the series in order to deprive Buffy of
her position as heroine is to reinstate the symbolic association between power and control
and the phallus. In "Superstar" (4017), Jonathan's augmentation spell is linked with the
idea of augmenting the phallus when Riley uncomfortably asks, "What did he have, um,
you know ... ?" Riley seems to be wondering if Jonathan's superior social status is the
result of an augmentation of his penis. In "Life Serial" ( 6005), Jonathan performs spells
with a "magic bone" which becomes the subject of many penis jokes. The clearest
30
association between the phallus and the nerds' power comes in the episode "Seeing Red"
(6019). In this episode, Warren, Andrew and Jonathan steal the Orbs ofNeslicahn from a
cave-dwelling demon. The orbs, a pair of balls, clearly function as a metaphor for
masculine endowment. When Warren holds them, he suddenly becomes strong and
powerful and his face contorts in what appears to be orgasmic delight. Andrew, who has
been coded as bisexual and a sissy, looks at them and sighs, "they're everything I ever
dreamed of," suggesting that the orbs are a source of heterosexual masculine virility and
power.
This masculine virility and power clearly put Warren in a position to claim the
central position in the series. His first act after obtaining them is to slay a demon,
usurping the skill that allows Buffy to be the show's hero. He then further attacks the
show's feminism by going to a bar and hitting on a woman there. She turns out to be the
girlfriend of a young man who used to bully Warren in gym class. Warren's narrative
clearly devalues this woman. She looks uncomfortable, but does not speak. We learn
nothing about her, whereas in Buffy's series most characters who are in any way essential
to part of the plot are given a voice and some hint of character development. Warren sees
this woman merely as a means by which he can prove his superior masculinity to the
bully. She is a piece of sexual property which he can take, just as he plans to steal money
from an armored truck later that evening.
During the confrontation between Warren and Buffy, beside the armored truck, it
becomes clear that, for Warren, being central to the series is a matter of masculine
superiority. He attempts to negate Buffy's power by sexualizing and infantilizing her,
calling her "kitten." He also calls Buffy "super-bitch," a word that, like femi-nazi,
31
implies that women who are powerful are somehow deviant or evil. Emerging from the
rubble after an archway collapses on him, Warren sees Buffy's surprise and taunts her,
saying, "What's the matter, baby? You never fight a real man before?" He thus attempts
to naturalize the idea of masculinity, suggesting that the man who beats Buffy will be a
true man and that her series is a fictional world which merely pretends that men and
demons can be defeated by a petite blonde woman.
However, the phallic power which Warren derives from the orbs is artificial, not
an inherent masculinity.
Having been told by Jonathan (who still admires Buffy and does
not want her to be killed) where Warren's power source is, Buffy smashes the orbs.
Warren, still believing that his power is secure and intending to kill Buffy, tells her "say
goodnight, bitch." As Buffy smashes the orbs she says, "goodnight, bitch." Buffy thus
becomes literally a ball-busting feminist hero, symbolically castrating Warren and further
signifying his emasculation by applying the derogatory feminine term "bitch" to him.
She then executes a roundhouse kick which sends him flying across the street. She
executes this kick slowly and does not seem to put the usual power behind it, suggesting
that, stripped of his phallic power, Warren is easily defeated.
During season six, as in "Superstar," humor is a tool that emphasizes the notion
that the trio's male power is artificial. In contrast to other Big Bads Buffy has faced, the
trio is laughable.
The members of the trio are presented as a joke from the moment of
their initial introduction. In "Flooded" ( 6004 ), the trio remains out of the frame as the
viewer sees the large, frightening demon M'Fashnick addressing the "powerful men" for
whom he has been working. The viewer builds up an image of a monstrous, frightening
new group of Big Bads-possibly with tentacles for eyes, or skewers for hands-which is
32
hilariously undercut when the camera cuts to a shot of the trio, dressed in T-Shirts and
jeans and seated in bean bag chairs in front of a large-screen television. Their claim of
being "super-villains" is absurd, particularly given Warren and Jonathan's previous
history of needing to be rescued by Buffy. The nerds are also clumsy in their villainy. In
"Gone" (6011), Andrew and Jonathan get distracted by a video game when they're
supposed to be holding Willow hostage. In the same episode, Warren proves unable even
to pronounce the term 'arch-nemeses,' announcing to Buffy "we're your arch-nemesis-issees." As mentioned before, his lack of wit signals a lack of power.
Only after obtaining the orbs does Warren become a real threat to Buffy as a
villain. Up to that point, Buffy and the viewer had regarded the trio as a minor irritation
and a joke. Even before discovering the identity of the Big Bads, Buffy, Xander and
Anya belittle their villainy.
Buffy: I'm just saying, all the things that have happened lately[ ... ]the bank
robbery, the jewelry heist ...
Xander: Exploding lint.
Buffy: Is it me or do these things seem really ...
Anya: Lame?
("Smashed" 6009).
The trio is further emasculated in "Villains" (6020), when Warren discovers that no one
in the demon underworld has even heard about the trio's activities. This joking about the
trio and constant awareness of their lack of inherent masculine power serves to reinforce
the notion that masculinity is a myth. The fact that the nerds are able to construct
masculine power despite having none to begin with suggests that masculinity is always a
construction and performance that can be put on but isn't real.
33
As the hero of the series, Buffy has the power to expose Warren's display of
power for an act. In an attempt to reassert his masculinity, and punish Buffy for having
robbed him of it, Warren takes another phallic weapon, a gun, and goes to Buffy's house,
intending to kill her. In this scene, Buffy has just been poking around her backyard,
looking for more of the trio's cameras. This suggestion of being on film, in addition to
Warren's accusations, "You think you could just do that to me?" suggest that Warren is
acting out the sadistic fantasy of the horror film which, as previously discussed, BTVS has
been so successful at subverting. By using a gun and shooting at Buffy from across the
yard, Warren does not allow the female victim a chance to contradict his power by even
attempting to fight back.
Because Buffy's identity is constructed around her status as fighter, the only way
to make masculine power an absolute in the series is to erase her from the narrative, by
killing her. The trio has tried to do this once before in "Gone" (6011). In this episode,
the trio has created an invisibility ray which they plan to use to become temporarily
invisible so they can rob a beauty supply shop. Jonathan and Andrew struggle over the
ray and as Buffy walks past, the ray goes off, making her invisible. Anya and Xander at
first believe that an invisible slayer would be even more powerful, since she would be
able to sneak up on her foes. However, they soon discover that a side-effect of the
invisibility ray is that it speeds molecular deterioration. If Buffy is not made visible
again, she will literally cease to exist. As a television series and thus a visual form of
representation, BTVS's attempt to subvert limiting and punishing representations of
women in other series' depends upon the literal visibility of the female heroine.
34
In his attempt to kill Buffy in "Seeing Red" (6019), Warren also succeeds in
erasing Willow and Tara's lesbian relationship from the series. Tara and Willow, who
had been estranged for several months after Tara discovered that Willow had used a
mind-control spell to make her forget about an argument they had had, have just become
a couple again. They are in the bedroom when a wild bullet from Warren's gun comes
through the window and instantly kills Tara. The fact that Willow and Tara are in the
bedroom, where they were last seen making love, suggests that Tara is being punished for
her lesbian sexuality.
The critical response to Tara's death is further evidence that Warren's erasure of
Tara from the series constituted a serious attack on the show's feminism. After Tara's
death, Willow turns to black magic and, after flaying Warren alive, attempts to bring an
end to the world. Ramlow argues that Tara's death and Willow's subsequent attempt to
end the world through magic, which had consistently been used as a code for Willow and
Tara's lesbian sexuality, completes traditional film representations oflesbians
as unstable
and evil ("Tara" 2). In order for films to properly reinforce male power, women who do
not desire men, and hence falls outside of the realm of their power, must be coded as evil
and punished with death.
Just as Jonathan had tried to manipulate the desire of everyone in Sunnydale in
order to ensure his power in "Superstar" ( 4017), the trio want to hypnotize Buffy in order
to make her their "willing sex bunny" ("Life Serial" 6005). They never execute this plan,
but they do create a "cerebral dampener" which Warren uses to hypnotize his exgirlfriend Katrina and make her his slave. Warren has a history of attempting to exert
control over women in the series. Unable to find a human girlfriend, he created April, a
35
robot whose sole desire was to love Warren and be exactly what he wanted in a girlfriend
("I Was Made to Love You" 5015). However, Warren soon becomes dissatisfied with
the predictable April and falls in love with his fellow student Katrina. Warren explains to
Buffy that he is in love with Katrina's personality and ability to surprise him, suggesting
that he now understands that it is wrong to construct women entirely to fit his own needs.
However, whereas the totally devoted and identity-lacking April would never abandon
Warren, Katrina leaves him because she is disgusted that he would create a woman
simply for the purpose of sexually satisfying him.
"In Dead Things," Warren uses the cerebral dampener to erase Katrina's
memories and personality, effectively making her another robot, whose sole purpose is to
satisfy his needs. Although Katrina is still disgusted with Warren and refuses to speak to
him when he approaches her at the bar, the cerebral dampener, once applied, causes her
to don a French maid's outfit and address Warren as "Master." The cerebral dampener
seems to function as a metaphor for the ways in which male-centered narratives, such as
the Bond films, often construct female characters whose sole function seems to be to
provide a means for the male hero's desirability to be communicated in the narrative.
The hypnotized Katrina makes Warren feel desirable and powerful, but he is ultimately
unable to feel anything for her. Because Katrina's willfulness and personality are gone,
Warren begins to think of her as another object. He tells Jonathan and Andrew, "You can
play with her all you want, after I'm done with her," suggesting that she is now
expendable.
However, the hypnosis does not last. Katrina's desire for Warren was a construct
of his science fiction fantasy. The non-phallocentric narrative of BTVS reasserts itself
36
when Katrina regains her senses. Katrina accuses Warren ofraping her, although he had
not yet had a chance to have sex with her, making it clear that constructing such limited
images of female desire is itself a form of violence. When Willow discovers what
Warren did to Katrina, she articulates the link between power and desire, "You never felt
you had the power with her. Not until you killed her. You get off on it." Warren
attempts to reassert his own narrative by applying the dampener again to silence Katrina.
In the struggle, he accidentally kills her, suggesting once again that female resistance
must be erased in order to maintain the myth of male power.
In a further effort to undermine Buffy's power, as well as the viewer's
identification with the series' feminist premise, the trio makes several attempts to
destabilize Buffy's sense ofreality. These disturbances do trouble the audience's
identification with Buffy's perceptions of the so-called reality of the series. However,
they ultimately strengthen the series' feminist project. By causing the viewer to question
the possibility of dividing experiences and phenomena into categories of real or unreal,
these disturbances point to the need to question other ways in which one's perceptions of
life are organized.
One such disturbance of reality occurs in "Dead Things" (6013). In order to
convince Buffy that she killed Katrina, Andrew summons a Rusundhi demon. The
Rusundhi's presence in this dimension causes a temporal disfurbance. As she fights the
demon, quick camera cuts indicate a sudden loss of time. The demon disappears and she
is suddenly attacking Spike. Another time shift brings the demon back. After another
time shift she finds herself attacking Katrina. (In fact, Jonathan has performed a glamour
spell that makes him look like Katrina.) When the Rusundhi is gone and Buffy's
37
perceptions become coherent again, she finds Katrina's body, which the members of the
trio have dumped at the bottom of the hill, and assumes that she has killed her. Although
the narrative this time makes it clear that Buffy did not kill Katrina, the temporal
disturbance is nonetheless nearly as disorienting for the viewer, used to experiencing
events chronologically, as for Buffy. For a few moments, the viewer has no idea what is
happening or how to break down and organize the events onscreen.
In "Life Serial" (6005), the geeks put Buffy through a battery of tests designed to
identify her weaknesses. Each of these tests alters Buffy's sense ofreality, in relation to
that held by the other characters. Andrew's test also has the effect of unsettling the
audience's identification with Buffy's perceptions ofreality. The test involves making
Buffy look like a hysterical woman when she destroys a construction site by attacking
demons that none of the other characters can see. Unsure of what to do with her life after
having been raised from the dead, Buffy has Xander get her a job at his construction site.
Xander's coworkers first laugh at Buffy, assuming that she is too weak and feminine for
their sort of physical labor. However, in typical BTVS fashion, Buffy immediately
subverts this assumption and proves herself capable of single-handedly lifting beams that
are usually a burden for two men. However, when the foreman comes to congratulate
Buffy and ask her to stay on the job, a pack of demons attack the site and Buffy must kill
them. The demons melt when Buffy slays them and, when she has completely destroyed
the site, the men claim that Buffy went berserk and destroyed the sight with no
provocation. One of the men comments that it must be "that time of the month,"
suggesting that although Buffy may be physically strong, her feminine nature makes her
mentally weak.
38
The camera shots during the scene where Buffy fights the demons are not clearly
marked as being subjective, from Buffy's point of view. Therefore, the viewer cannot
absolutely determine whether the demons were entirely Buffy's hallucination, or if the
men were simply unable to see them. Additionally, although the viewer sees Buffy's
fellow workers cowering in a comer, a logical reaction when someone appears to be
having a violent episode, the men claim that this too was part of Buffy's hallucination.
These uncertainties, which remain unresolved, undermine the viewer's ability to make
sense of these events. This might have the effect of undermining his or her confidence in
the coherence of a narrative which, as a fantasy show, already asks the viewer to put
aside his or her usual sense of reality in order to identify with the fantastic plots.
However, the viewer knows that Andrew's spell is responsible for the discrepancy
between Buffy's perceptions and those of the men. Thus, it seems impossible to privilege
either Buffy or the men's perceptions of what happened.
Waugh explains that both reality and fiction are comprehended through frames
that help to organize our experiences of these phenomena (30). According to Waugh,
when a text blurs "ontological levels through the incorporation of visions, dreams,
hallucinatory states and pictorial representations which are finally indistinct from the
apparently 'real,"' this has the effect of calling into question the very possibility of
arranging experience into categories of real and unreal (31 ).
The viewer's inability to
determine how much of what the camera has shown him or her of Andrew's test is a
hallucination and how much is objective has such an effect. In trying to make sense of
these events, one might come to the realization that the construction workers view Buffy
as crazy not because they cannot see the demons that she is fighting, but because they are
39
predisposed to believing the gender-biased stereotype that women are frail. The viewer,
who believes in Buffy's sanity (and accepts the fantastic premises of the series), is
willing to entertain the possibility that Buffy did see demons that the men were unable to
see. This blurring of the viewer's perceptions of reality clearly suggests that such
perceptions are always shaped by social power structures.
In the episode "Normal Again," the trio sets into motion events that not only
disturb Buffy's sense ofreality, but also challenge the very feminist premise of the series
and force the viewer to confront his or her role in creating meaning in BTVS. When
Buffy is about to discover the nerds' lair and hold them accountable for their crimes,
Andrew summons a demon to attack her. The demon pokes her with his skewer,
injecting her with a poison which causes her to have an extended hallucination in which
she is a schizophrenic in a mental hospital in Los Angeles. As the doctor explains to
Buffy's parents,
Doctor: She believes she's some type of hero.
Joyce: The Slayer.
Doctor: The Slayer, right. But that's only one level. She's also created an
intricate latticework to support her primary delusion. In her mind, she's
the central figure in a fantastic world beyond imagination.
The convincing medical-sounding jargon used by the doctor to explain Buffy's
condition challenges the audience's suspension of disbelief in the show itself. As a
fantasy genre show, BTVS requires that the viewer suspend his belief in demons and
vampires and imagine, along with the creators, a female superhero. The doctor
challenges that suspension of disbelief by offering an explanation for the events of the
40
series that is consistent with the viewer's concept ofreality. In everyday life, a person
who seriously claimed to fight vampires and demons probably would be diagnosed as
schizophrenic.
This episode further challenges the viewer's suspension of disbelief in the show
by having the regular characters explicitly question the believability of their world.
When Buffy explains to Xander that she is experiencing a hallucination in which
Sunnydale is a construction of her imagination, Xander replies, "What? You think this
isn't real because of all the vampires and demons and ex-vengeance demons and the
sister that used to be a big ball of universe-destroying energy?" As he nears the end of
this ramble, his face begins to register the knowledge that the world he has just described
is fantastic and unbelievable. By mentioning Dawn's existence, Xander calls attention to
one of the fantasy elements that most calls attention to the series' fictionality.
Although
the explanation of Dawn's creation is consistent with the rules of the fantasy, her
presence still continues to call attention to that fantasy. For example, in "Dirty Girls"
(7018) the character Faith, who has not appeared on the show since season three, returns
to Sunnydale. She and Dawn recognize each other and refer to their shared experiences.
The viewer understands that Faith and Dawn remember each other because the monks
created false memories for Dawn and everyone who would have known her. However,
the viewer still experiences a moment of alienation as he or she must essentially rewrite
the show to accommodate Dawn's presence.
When this show, which regularly presents supernatural phenomena as a normal
occurrence, explicitly calls the existence of those phenomena into question, it also calls
into question the notion that a blonde girl could be a hero. Buffy herself, convinced that
41
she really is schizophrenic, voices this concern: "What's more real? A sick girl in an
institution, or some kind of super-girl chosen to fight demons and save the world? That's
ridiculous!"
This statement supports the patriarchal system of gender which naturalizes
the construction of women as fragile and defective.
In order to justify male power, it
must seem more natural for a woman to be a victim than a hero. Joyce, upon being
presented with the possibility that Buffy could recover from her schizophrenia asks, "You
mean Buffy could be like she was before any of this happened?" If Buffy chooses the
delusion rather than Sunnydale, she chooses to allow the little blonde girl from the horror
movie to be reclaimed as a victim.
"Normal Again" ultimately places with the viewer the responsibility for deciding
whether or not to continue imagining Sunnydale and Buffy as the female hero as the
reality of the show. Most episodes that present an alternate version of Sunnydale, such as
"The Wish" (3009)7 and "Superstar" (4017), end back in the Sunnydale of the series,
usually with Buffy and her friends enjoying a light-hearted conversation, reasserting the
narrative order of the series. "Normal Again," however, ends in the delusion. Buffy does
choose to reject the notion that Sunnydale does not exist and drinks the cure for her
mystical hallucination, despite the fact that returning to Sunnydale means once again
enduring the loss of her mother, who died one year earlier ("I Was Made to Love You"
5015). However, the camera then immediately cuts to a shot of Buffy slumped, catatonic,
in a comer of the hospital ward. Her parents stand nearby, crying, as the doctor says,
"I'm sorry, we lost her," reasserting the doubt in the series' premises which this
hallucination has raised.
7
In this episode, Anya grants Cordelia's wish that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale. Cordelia finds,
however, that a Buffy-less Sunnydale is overrun with demons, who kill everyone Buffy has managed to
protect, including all of her friends.
42
By refusing to completely deny this delusion, the episode refuses to impose on the
viewer a definitive answer as to whether the Buffy of Sunnydale or the schizophrenic is
the "real" Buffy. The viewer, like Buffy, is forced to choose for him or herself. The
series has openly acknowledged its own fictionality, but it has also demonstrated that the
nerds' versions of the story, which emerge from their need to justify male power in the
narrative, are equally untrue. The viewer will be embracing a fantasy no matter which
choice he or she makes.
Therefore, the viewer's choice rests ultimately less on whether
Sunnydale or the hospital seems more realistic than on whether or not the viewer wants to
believe in Buffy's power. The creators of the series cannot force this belief on the
viewer. In fact, in order to enjoy and identify with the series, the viewer had to accept
that fantasy before the narrative ever explicitly called it into question. Similarly, in
everyday life, ending the oppression of disempowered groups may require believing in a
world that seems to be beyond imagination.
"I'm making it all up": Buffy as Storyteller
The seventh season episode "Storyteller" revisits the related themes of reality,
perception and power that the trio's narrative arc had raised. By the time of this episode,
Andrew's character has become a regular guest on the show, thereby accomplishing his
goal of occupying a central place in the series. After murdering Jonathan at the bidding
of The First (an evil entity that can take the guise of any dead person it chooses-in this
case, Warren), Andrew is taken hostage by the Scoobies, who want to prevent him from
working for the First ("Conversations with Dead People" 7007, "Never Leave Me"
7009). No longer tied to a chair, Andrew has decided to make a documentary about the
43
upcoming battle that Buffy, the Scoobies and the potential Slayers will be fighting against
the First and its operatives.
The incongruity between the story presented by Andrew, as
filmmaker, and that presented by the creators of the series again remind the viewer that
there exists no such thing as objective reality.
In the teaser sequence, the viewer sees Andrew, dressed in a smoking jacket,
sitting in a chair on what appears to be the Masterpiece Theater set. He invites the
viewer to join him in enjoying a story he calls "Buffy, Slayer of the Vampyres."
Andrew's vision of his film is immediately undercut when the camera cuts to an image of
him, still continuing the same narration, as he sits on the toilet seat in Buffy's bathroom
and watches what he has filmed on his camcorder. Anya, annoyed that he has been
hogging the bathroom in order to play with his video camera, asks, "Why can't you just
masturbate like the rest of us?" This shift in scenery suggests two differing
interpretations of what Andrew is doing. Andrew believes that he is making an important
film, "a document for the ages," while the other characters see his film-making as
masturbatory. They believe Andrew is wasting time, twisting reality into stories for his
own amusement. Buffy quickly grows frustrated with Andrew's storytelling, claiming
that he uses it as a means of escaping from reality. She accuses him of turning his past
into a story, in which he cannot be held responsible for their actions because he was just
playing his role in the drama. This accusation functions both as a playful
acknowledgement that the viewer is watching a scripted drama, and as a serious reminder
of the lessons of the previous season--that representations that naturalize certain power
structures can justify and mask oppression. However, this episode reveals that each of
the characters is a storyteller, shaping reality in his or her own way.
44
In one scene, Spike's vampire persona is revealed to be a performance. Spike is a
bleached blonde punk who earned his nickname by torturing his victims with railroad
spikes and wears a leather coat that he stole from a Slayer he killed in the seventies
("School Hard" 2003, "Fool For Love" 5008). One scene begins with Spike
characteristically telling Andrew, who is filming him with his camcorder, to point the
camera elsewhere unless he wants to have his throat ripped out. Andrew's voice is then
heard telling Spike that because the light was behind him, they'll have to re-film the
scene. Spike adjusts his position and launches into the same speech, which is now
obviously rehearsed. Since Spike clearly enjoys posturing and playing the role of the
vampire, the viewer is reminded that even personalities cannot be assumed to be natural.
While Spike performs his role as vampire in order to fit into his expected place in
the world, Buffy is revealed to be a storyteller, who uses language to shape the responses
of her troops. Early in the episode, Andrew walks out of a room where Buffy is
beginning to lecture the potential slayers, commenting to the audience that "her
motivational speeches tend to get a bit dull." The subject of these speeches is returned to
later in the episode when Buffy, in an effort to get Andrew to cry because his tears are
needed to close the door to the Hellmouth, contradicts her earlier reassurances that
everything will be okay. "I'm making it all up," she tells him, "Good people are going to
die. And I don't like having to give a bunch of speeches about how everything is going
to be okay when it isn't." As a leader, Buffy uses her power to shape her follower's
interpretations of their experiences in order to motivate them and elicit the needed
responses. This suggests that storytelling is a powerful form. Buffy can use speeches to
motivate her troops; supposedly innocent films can justify and reinforce male power; and
45
the creators of BTVS can use stories to reshape the viewer's understanding of reality and
to train him or her to recognize constructions that mask and justify oppression.
The members of the Geek Trio of Buffy the Vampire Slayer function as
metafictional characters who attempt to usurp Buffy's central position in the series. In so
doing, these characters expose the ways in which the world of the narrative is constructed
to support a vision of female autonomy and power. By presenting the trio's revisions of
the narrative, the creators of BTVS reveal that reality, rather than being made up of
objective facts, is constructed through representations that mask and justify the location
of power with certain members of a society. Patricia Waugh writes that the hope of
metafiction is that it will prepare readers to confront their world "with a new awareness
of how the meanings and values of that world have been constructed and how, therefore,
they can be challenged or changed" (34). By openly acknowledging the fictionality of
BTVS 's fantastic premises and by challenging the viewer to continue to identify with the
series' fantastic premises and with the vision of female power that the series presents, this
narrative arc suggests, finally, that social oppression can be changed by those who are
willing to imagine a radically different world than the one which they take for reality.
46
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode Guide
Season One-Present
Mutant Enemy Inc. with
Kuzui Enterprises Inc./Sandollar Television Inc.
20th Century Fox
PERFORMERS
Buffy ... Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow
Alyson Hannigan
Xander
Nicholas Brendon
Giles ... Anthony Stewart Head
Angel
David Boreanaz
Cordelia
Charisma Carpenter
Oz
Seth Green
Anya
Emma Caulfield
Spike
James Marsters
Riley
Marc Blucas
Dawn ... Michelle Trachtenberg
Tara ... Amber Benson
SEASON ONE (WB)
Number I Air Date I Title I Writer I Director
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
I 03/10/97 I Welcome to the Hellmouth I Joss Whedon I Charles Martin Smith
I 03110197 I The Harvest I Joss Whedon I John T. Kretchmer
I 03/17197 I The Witch I Dana Reston I Stephen Cragg
/ 03/25/971 Teacher's Pet I David Greenwalt I Bruce Seth Green
I 03/31197 I Never Kill a Boy on the First Date I Rob Des Hotel and Dean Batali I
1006 I 04/07197
1007 I 04/ 14/97
1008 I 04/28/97
1009 / 05105197
1010 I 05112197
1011 / 05119197
1012 I 06102197
David Semel
I The Pack I Matt Kiener and Joe Reinkemeyer I Bruce Seth Green
I Angel I David Greenwalt I Scott Brazil
I I Robot, You Jane I Ashley Gable and Thomas A. Swyden I Stephen
Posey
/The Puppet Show I Rob Des Hotel and Dean Batali I Ellen S. Pressman
[Nightmares I Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt I Bruce Seth Green
I Out of Mind, Out of Sight I Joss Whedon, Ashley Gable and Thomas A.
Swyden I Reza Badiyi
I Prophecy Girl I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
SEASON TWO (WB)
Number I Air Date I Title I Writer I Director
2001 I 09/15/97 I When She Was Bad I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
2002109/22/97 /Some Assembly Required/ Ty King/ Bruce Seth Green
2003 / 09/29/97 I School Hard I David Greenwalt and Joss Whedon/ John T. Kretchmer
47
Girl I Matt Kiene and Joe Reinkemeyer I Ellen S.
Pressman
2005 110/13/97 I Reptile Boy I David Greenwalt I David Greenwalt
2006110/27/971 Halloween I Carl Ellsworth I Bruce Seth Green
2007 I 11/03/97 I Lie to Me I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
2008111/10/971 The Dark Age I Rob des Hotel and Dean Batali I Bruce Seth Green
2009111117/971 What's My Line? (1) I Howard Gordon and Marti Noxon I David
Solomon
2010111124/971 What's My Line? (2) I Marti Noxon I David Semel
2011 / 12/08/971 Ted I David Greenwalt and Joss Whedon I Bruce Seth Green
2012 I 01/12/98 I Bad Eggs I Marti Noxon I David Greenwalt
2013 I 01/19/981 Surprise I Marti Noxon I Michael Lange
2014 I 01/20/98 I Innocence I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
2015 I 01/27/98 I Phases I Rob des Hotel and Dean Batali I Bruce Seth Green
2016 I 02/10/98 I Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered I Marti Noxon I James A. Contner
2017 I 02/24/98 I Passion I Ty King I Michael Gershman
2018 I 03/03/98 I Killed By Death I Rob des Hotel and Dean Batali I Deran Serafian
2019 I 04/28/98 I I Only Have Eyes for You I Marti Noxon I James Whitmore Jr.
2020 I 05/05/98 I Go Fish I David Fury and Ellie Hampton I David Semel
2021 I 05/12/98 I Becoming (1) I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
2022 I 05/19/98 I Becoming (2) I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
2004
I
10/06/97
I Inca Mummy
SEASON THREE (WB)
Number I Air Date I Title I Writer I Director
3001 I 09/29/98 I Anne I Joss Whedon I Joss \\ibedon
3002 I 10/06/98 I Dead Man's Party I Marti Noxon I James Whitmore Jr.
3003 110/13/98 I Faith, Hope and Trick I David Greenwalt I James A Contner
3004 110/20/98 I Beauty and the Beasts I Marti Noxon I James Whitmore Jr.
3005 I 11/03/98 Homecoming I David Greenwalt I David Greenwalt
3006 111/10/98 Band Candy I Jane Espenson I Michael Lange
3007 111/17/98 Revelations I Douglas Petrie I James A Contner
3008 / 11/24/98 Lovers Walk I Dan Vebber I David Semel
3009112/08/98
The Wish I Marti Noxon/ David Greenwalt
3010 / 12115/98 Amends/ Joss Whedon/ Joss Whedon
3011 I 01/12/99 Gingerbread/ Jane Espenson I James Whitmore Jr.
3012 / 01/19/99 Helpless/ David Fury/ James A. Contner
3013 I 01126/99 The Zeppo I Dan Vebber I James Whitmore Jr.
3014 / 02/09/99 Bad Girls / Douglas Petrie I Michael Lange
3015 I 02116/99 Consequences/ Marti Noxon/ Michael Gershman
3016 I 02/23/99 Doppelgangland /Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
3017 I 03/16/99 /Enemies I Douglas Petrie I David Grossman
3018 I 04/21/99 I Earshot I Jane Espenson I Regis Kimble
3019105/04/99 I Choices I David Fury I James A. Contner
3020 I 05111/99 I The Prom I Marti Noxon I David Solomon
3021 I 05/18/99 I Graduation Day (1) I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
48
3022 I 07/13/99 I Graduation Day (2) I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
SEASON FOUR (WB)
Number
I Air Date I Title I Writer I Director
4001 I 10/05/99 I The Freshman I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
4002 110112/99I Living Conditions I Marti Noxon I David Grossman
4003 I 10/19/99 I The Harsh Light of Day I Jane Espenson I James A. Contner
4004 J 10/26/99 I Fear, Itself I David Fury I Tucker Gates
4005 J 11102/99I Beer Bad I Tracey Forbes I David Solomon
4006111109/99 I Wild at Heart I Marti Noxon I David Grossman
4007 J 11/16/991 The Initiative I Douglas Petrie I James A. Contner
4008 I 11/23/99 I Pangs I Jane Espenson I Michael Lange
4009 J 11130/99J Something Blue I Tracey Forbes I Nick Marek
4010112/14/99 I Hush I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
4011 I 01118/00 I Doomed I Marti Noxon, David Fury and Jane Espenson I James A.
Contner
4012 I 01125/00 I A New Man I Jane Espenson I Michael Gershman
4013 I 02/08/00 I The I in Tearn f David Fury I James A. Contner
4014 I 02/15/00 I Goodbye Iowa I Marti Noxon I David Solomon
4015 I 02122100 I This Year's Girl I Douglas Petrie I Michael Gershman
4016 I 02/29/00 I Who Are You? I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
4017 I 04/04/00 I Superstar I Jane Espenson I David Grossman
4018 I 04/25/00 I Where the Wild Things Are I Tracey Forbes I David Solomon
4019 I 05102100 I New Moon Rising I Marti Noxon I James A. Contner
4020 I 05109100 I The Yoko Factor I Douglas Petrie I David Grossman
4021 I 05116100 I Primeval I David Fury I James A. Contner
4022 I 05/23/00 I Restless I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
SEASON FIVE (WB)
Number I Air Date I Title Writer I Director
5001 I 09126100 I Buffy vs. Dracula I Marti Noxon I David Solomon
J
5002 I 10/03/00 I Real Me I David Fury I David Grossman
5003 I 10/10/00 I The Replacement I Jane Espenson I James A. Contner
5004110117/00 I Out of My Mind I Rebecca Rand Kirshner I David Grossman
5005 I 10/24/00 I No Place Like Home I Douglas Petrie I Nick Marek
5006111107/00 I Family I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
5007111114/00 I Fool For Love I Douglas Petrie I Nick Marek
5008111/21/00 I Shadow I David Fury I Daniel Attias
5009111128/00 I Listening to Fear I Rebecca Rand Kirshner I David Solomon
5010112119/00 I Into the Woods I Marti Noxon I Marti Noxon
5011 I 01/09/01 I Triangle I Jane Espenson I Christopher Hibler
50121 01/23/01 I Checkpoint I Jane Espenson and Douglas Petrie I Nick Marek
5013 I 02/06/01 I Blood Ties I Steven DeKnight I Michael Gershman
5014 I 02/13/01 I Crush I David Fury I Daniel Attias
49
5015 I 02/20/01
5016 I 02/27/01
5017104/17/01
5018104/24/01
5019105/01/01
5020 I 05/08/01
5021 I 05114/01
5022105/21101
I I Was
Made to Love You I Jane Espenson I James A. Contner
!The Body I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
I Forever I Marti Noxon I Marti Noxon
I Intervention I Jane Espenson I Michael Gershman
I Tough Love I Rebecca Rand Kirshner I David Grossman
I Spiral I Steven DeKnight I James A. Contner
I The Weight of the World I Douglas Petrie I David Solomon
I The Gift I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
SEASON SIX (UPN)
Number I Air Date I Title I Writer I Director
6001 110/02/01 I Bargaining (1) I Marti Noxon I David Grossman
6002 / 10/02/0l I Bargaining (2) I David Fury I David Grossman
6003 I 10/09/01 I After Life I Jane Espenson I David Solomon
6004110/16/01 /Flooded/ Douglas Petrie and Jane Espenson I Douglas Petrie
6005110/22/01 I Life Serial I David Fury and Jane Espenson I Nick Marek
6006110/30/01 I All the Way/ Steven S. DeKnight I David Solomon
6007 / 1 l/06/0l /Once More with Feeling I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon
6008 / 1 l/13/01 I Tabula Rasa I Rebecca Rand Kirshner I David Grossman
6009111/20/01 I Smashed I Drew Z. Greenberg/ Turi Meyer
6010 / 11127/01 I Wrecked I Marti Noxon I David Solomon
6011 / 01 /08/02 / Gone / David Fury I David Fury
6012 / 01/29/02 I Doublemeat Palace/ Jane Espenson /Nick Marek
6013 / 02/05/02 I Dead Things/ Steven S. DeKnight I James A. Contner
6014102112/02 /Older and Far Away I Drew Z. Greenberg I Michael E. Gershman
6015 I 02/26/02 I As You Were I Douglas Petrie I Douglas Petrie
6016103/05/02 I Hell's Bells I Rebecca Rand Kirshner I David Solomon
6017 I 03/12/02 I Normal Again I Diego Guttierez I Rick Rosenthal
6018104/30/02 I Entropy I Drew Z. Greenberg I James A. Contner
6019105/07/02 I Seeing Red I Steven S. DeKnight I Michael Gershman
6020 I 05/14/02 I Villains I Marti Noxon I David Solomon
6021 I 05/21102 I Two to Go I Douglas Petrie I Bill Norton
6022 I 05/21102 I Grave I David Fury I James A. Contner
SEASON SEVEN (UPN)
Number I Air Date I Title I Writer I Director
7001 I 09/24/02 I Lessons I Joss Whedon I David Solomon
7002 / 10/0l/02 I Beneath You I Douglas Petrie I Nick Marek
7003 I 10/08/02 I Same Time, Same Place I Jane Espenson I James A. Contner
7004 110115/02 I Help I Rebecca Rand Kirshner I Rick Rosenthal
7005 110/22/02 I Selfless I Drew Goddard I David Solomon
7006111105/02 I Him I Drew Z. Greenberg I Michael Gershman
7007111/12/021 Conversations with Dead People I Jane Espenson and Drew Goddard!
Nick Marek
50
7008 111119/02 I Sleeper I David Fury and Jane Espenson I Alan Levi
7009 I 11/26/02 I
7010 I 12/17/02 I
7011 I 01107103 I
7012 I 01121/03 I
7013 I 02/04/03 I
7014102111103 I
7015 I 02/18/03 I
7016 I 02/25/03 I
70171 03/25/03 I
7018 I 04/15/03 I
Never Leave Me I Drew Goddard I David Solomon
Bring on the Night I Marti Noxon and Douglas Petrie I David Grossman
Showtime I David Fury I Michael Grossman
Potential I Douglas Petrie I Douglas Petrie
The Killer in Me I Drew Z. Greenberg I David Solomon
First Date I Jane Espenson I David Grossman
Get it Done I Douglas Petrie I Douglas Petrie
Storyteller I Jane Espenson I Marita Grabiak
Lies my Parents Told Me I David Fury and Drew Goddard I David Fury
Drew Goddard I Michael Gershman
51
Works Cited
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the Complete First Season. DVD.
zo" Century
Fox, 2001.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale." The Norton Anthology of
English Literature. 6th ed., vol. 1. M. H. Abrams, ed. New York: Norton, 1993.
Homby, Richard. Drama, Metadrama and Perception. Cranbury, N. J.: Associated UP,
1986.
Larbalestier, Justine. "Buffy's Mary Sue is Jonathan: Buffy Acknowledges the Fans."
Wilcox 227-238.
Leitch, Vincent B., ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York:
Norton, 2001.
Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Leitch 2181-2192.
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