The
following paper summaries are drawn in part from the Symposium Program and
partially from my own notes. I have, at times, put forward my own arguments
against (or in support of) what I believed the speakers to be arguing. Many if
not most of the papers from the Symposium will be posted in the next issue of
the Cinema Studies e-Journal, "Refractory" in January, 2003.
(Note:
I have attempted identify all episodes discussed by season and episode number.
However, season 6 episode numbers are either guessed or not attempted.)
Session One - Critical Approaches and Interpretations
Dr Sue Turnbull - ‘Who am I? Who are you?’: On the Narrative Imperative of Not Knowing Who You Are in
Buffy
Dr
Turnbull began by differentiating the narrative approach of Buffy from
other forms of television series, particularly the strictly episodic form (such
as Star Trek: Original Series, which is easily syndicated, because of the lack
of story arcs such as those in Buffy, or indeed in the final season of
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). In Dr Turnbull’s assessment, Buffy is
closer to the narrative structure of a soap opera, although it employs at least
four narrative structures simultaneously: 1) Episodic: the monster-of-the-week;
2) Seasonal story arcs: each season’s finale would not make as much sense if
viewed in isolation; 3) Cross-season character development: Spike’s
development/redemption/non-redemption; and 4) Cross-series story arcs: Buffy
plots further developed in episodes of Angel. To quote the Symposium
Schedule; "Such a proliferation of story arcs depends on characters and
their relationship being in a constant state of flux. However, while this
fluidity is also a constant of the soap opera cosmos, in the Buffyverse character and identity are even more unstable
and mutable. Characters split into two, become their opposite, switch identity,
forget who they are, turn into animals, morph into demons and generally enjoy a
polymorphous perversity which guarantees their constant unpredictability."
As an
example of this, Dr Turnbull cites the existential crisis of Dawn in season
five. Discussing the opening of ‘Real Me’ (episode 5.2), Dr Turnbull sees this
episode, and its featuring of Dawns ‘voiced-over’ diary entries, as our
‘reintroduction’ to the characters of the show through Dawn’s eyes. The episode
reorients the audience in the wake of the introduction of the new character,
who has - according to everything we see on screen - been there all along.
Then, in ‘Blood Ties’ (episode 5.13), Dawn lives the fantasy of most (Dr
Turnbull said every, but I don’t want to generalise
myself out of existence) adolescents: her parents really AREN’T her parents.
Nevertheless, finding out you don’t technically exist is not exactly a walk in
the park, and Dawn both destroys her diary and cuts herself. Although the
self-harm is a physical attempt to destroy the self, she is also symbolically
destroying herself, by destroying the medium (the diaries) through which the
audience came to know her.
Identity
in Buffy is not humanistic identity - totally determined and
unchangeable. Rather, the conceptualisation of
identity in Buffy is eminently post-structuralist:
unfixed, socially constructed, and infinitely mutable. And it makes for great
TV drama.
Leonie Cooper - Furnishing Buffy’s House:
The Buffyverse and My Place in It
A very post-modern paper on boundaries and space. To quote:
"In Buffy… Sunnydale is the site of
struggle over who gets to speak, who gets to look and who gets to slay as the
boundaries between Buffy-space and monster-space are constantly renegotiated.
Buffy’s Monster Shopping and the Gang’s Slayer Speak are a means of navigating
the multi-dimensional space of Sunnydale and a mode
of critical self-reflection that authorises their
location within the public places of the cemetery, the schoolyard and the
shopping mall. Just as the Gang self-reflexively engage with
their own place within the mediated geographies of postmodern life a la Sunnydale, this paper creatively works with the imaginary
and dream-like association that were (and are) activated by my own encounters
with Buffy’s Place."
Yeah.
What she said.
The
main focus of the paper was a moment in Buffy’s dream-sequence in ‘Restless’
(episode 4.22), where she looks into her old bedroom. Ms Cooper saw this as
(and knowing Joss, it probably was) a prefiguring of the appearance of Dawn.
She also linked this moment to one in ‘This Year’s Girl’ (episode 4.14), where
Buffy is again dreaming. In this dream she and Faith are making the bed (also
part of a dream sequence in Graduation Day pt 2 (episode 3.22)) and Faith says
‘Little Sis coming’, which links forward again to ‘Real Me’ (episode 5.2) and
the appearance of Dawn, on her bed, writing her diary. For an intriguing
analysis of the extent to which Joss pre-plans his plots, and prefigures them
in Buffy’s dream-sequences, see Keith Topping’s updated version of Slayer:
The Unauthorised Guide to "Buffy the Vampire
Slayer" (London: Virgin Books, 2002).
As
part of an (incomplete) argument on the way the Vampire myth has been reshaped
through Spike, we did get to see a great clip from ‘Checkpoint’ (episode 5.11)
where Joyce and Spike discuss the latest plot developments in the scarily bad
soap Passions. This paper was accompanied by an ‘installation’ out in
the foyer that is part of Ms Cooper’s ongoing PhD project - the Buffy Chair,
complete with diary for participants to record their thoughts on their own
place in the Buffyverse.
Saige Walton - Careful What You Wish For:
The Magic of Multiple Worlds in Buffy
Focussing on Buffy’s two classic ‘Alternate
Universe’ episodes - ‘The Wish’ (episode 3.9) and ‘Superstar’ (episode 4.17) -
this paper was all about something that, as a Star Trek fan, I am entirely
comfortable with: the concept of multiple worlds. As a result, some of the
explanations of the concept were a bit old hat for me. At one point in my
notes, after Ms Walton had been discussing the ‘infinite possibilities’ of the Buffyverse, including examples of the ways that Buffy’s
world can change abruptly, I have written, ‘IDIC, silly’.
Well, not everyone’s a Trek fan. (For anyone reading this who
isn’t, IDIC is the Vulcan concept of Infinite Diversity in Infinite
Combinations.)
Anyway. Ms Walton’s paper was actually talking about the
moral consequences of the ‘creation’ of alternate realities - which is
definitely what happens in both ‘The Wish’ and ‘Superstar’. To quote: "[B]oth episodes centre upon the formation of an alternate
reality or parallel world which has been brought about by the teens’
inappropriate use of magic. … Jonathan, in ‘Superstar’, employs dark magic to
become the main protagonist of the series, and Cordelia
in ‘The Wish’ voices her desire for Buffy-free Sunnydale,
which results in a parallel reality that has been overrun by vampires. The
multiple worlds of the Buffyverse are invoked by an
inappropriate use of magic, which has far more in common with the corrupt
adults of the series."
In a
tangential comment, Ms Walton commented on the importance of the Buffy characterisation in ‘The Wish’ as an explication of the
series’ view of ‘family’ as a whole. In Buffy, ‘family’ is actually
composed of friends, rather than necessarily from biological relatives. Thus in
‘The Wish’, Buffy is without the Scoobies, and has
been for longer than in the ‘canon’ universe. This lack of family, of support,
is the reason for her death in ‘The Wish’. The importance of the Scoobies is made clear if you consider any season finale.
(Or, in fact, the first ensemble number in ‘Once More, With Feeling’ (episode
6.5?), in which the main theme is "what can’t we face if we’re
together?") Although most clearly articulated in ‘Primeval’ (episode
4.21), each season concludes with every member of the Scoobies
having a role in the prevention of yet another apocalypse.
Katy Stevens - The Hum of the Box: Critical
Listening in the Buffyverse
Television
relies on sound to hook its viewers; as Ms Stevens put it, to keep you
interested in what’s on the box, rather than preoccupied by cooking dinner or
keeping your children from killing each other. (Dialogue, in particular,
however, means that you can, to some extent, continue to follow a show while
simultaneously cooking dinner or preventing child massacres. Usually.)
In general, Buffy maintains the importance of sound: consider the
importance of ‘Buffyspeak’, the rapid-fire dialogue
that is one of the key factors in attracting viewers. In two key episodes,
however, Joss Whedon has challenged the primacy of
both diagetic and non-diagetic
sound. (Diagetic meaning the sound
that occurs within the world of the show - dialogue, sound effects, etc - and
non-diagetic referring to music and scoring.)
‘Hush’ (episode 4.9) was a show without dialogue, though both diagetic and non-diagetic sound
was still present, and, in fact became even more important than usual. ‘The
Body’ (episode 5.15) was stripped of all non-diagetic
sound, and the diagetic sound was subdued and
remixed.
As Ms
Stevens pointed out, ‘Hush’ is not silent. The episode is heavily scored by Christophe Beck, and because of the lack of dialogue, the
scoring and the diagetic sound becomes doubly
important. Part of the discussion of ‘Hush’ centred around the theoretical work of Michel Chion
differentiating the feminine ‘scream’ from the masculine ‘shout’. Sadly that
discussion was so interesting I forgot to take notes (no, I am not being
sarcastic), and I will now have to chase up Chion and
read it. Or read someone else’s summary of Chion,
which, given that he’s a French post-structuralist,
will probably be much easier. In the meantime, to quote: "Of interest
within the text is the production of an interactive matrix between voice,
silence, anxiety and what Michel Chion terms ‘the
screaming point’. The silent scream and its resultant anxiety informs much of the affective force of ‘Hush’, and the
story’s culmination in the liberating scream of our heroine Buffy engenders
peculiar fascinations with the female scream."
Where
‘Hush’ limited diagetic sound, ‘The Body’ had no non-diagetic sound whatsoever. Interestingly, given the general
presumption that scoring enhances the emotional resonance of television, ‘The
Body’ is almost unbearable in its emotion. The diagetic
sound of ‘The Body’ was also subtly manipulated, with Joss using ‘close-miking’ techniques, and re-mixing the diagetic
sound so that, for instance, at the point where Buffy retches, the background
noise of children playing outside is actually more evident than her retching.
However, one of the best examples of the ‘reality’ of sound used in ‘The Body’
is the scene were Buffy tells Dawn of Joyce’s death. The two girls are filmed
through a glass wall, and as in reality, the audience can only hear the
high-pitched sounds that can penetrate through the glass. This scene is diagetic realism with a vengeance.