Session Two - Fans, Fanfiction and
Buffy Icons
Peter Mattessi - Sarah Michelle Gellar: A Star for a New Millennium
To
quote: "As Buffy, Sarah Michelle [Gellar] has become an icon for the
teen-focused demographic of Buffy…, a position that she has encouraged
by appearing in a number of teen texts like Cruel Intentions, I Know
What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2, and Scooby-Doo, as well as hosting events such at the MTV Movie
Awards. … Sarah Michelle, through her roles, encourages audiences to read
across these texts, drawing meaning from both intertextual
and extratextual information,
and using Buffy as an ‘official role’ around which repetition and variation
occurs."
Mr Mattessi was arguing the common
proposition that today’s teen movies (and by extention,
television), are self-referential beyond anything seen previously. This ties in with post-modern theories of self-awareness and
subject position. Using the example of (I think) I Know What You Did Last
Summer (though it could have been Scream 2, in which Sarah Michelle
Gellar played a fainthearted blonde who ran upstairs when she should have run
out the door (a paraphrase of a Joss Whedon quote
that will be discussed in the next paper summary), this paper argued that all
Sarah Michelle Gellar roads lead back to the character of Buffy. Due to the
longevity of her character (now into its seventh
In
the process, Sarah Michelle has been defined as a "teen property".
Any movie with her in it becomes defined as a "teen movie". This may
cause problems for her when (if) she decides to look for roles in other
genres…and it also shines an interesting light on the fact that I don’t
actually know any teenagers who watch Buffy. I only know people aged 20
and up. Though there were a couple of teenagers at the Symposium.
To
conclude, Mr Mattessi made
the interesting point that while, in previous generations, actors carried their
personal image into their roles (Patrick Stewart, Shakesperian
actor making use of that element in creating the role of Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, for example),
Sarah Michelle Gellar has carried her role of Buffy into real life.
Nb: This was the session in which we were treated to a clip of Sarah
Michelle singing and dancing (with someone called Jack Black?) at the MTV Movie
Awards.
Janelle Tassone - Buffy: The Evolution of a Valley Girl
Joss Whedon has said that the idea for Buffy came from
all the horror movies he had seen featuring a helpless young blonde who would
almost always be the first to die. He felt she ‘needed a better image.’ In this
paper, Ms Tassone links the ‘helpless young blonde’
to the concept of the Valley Girl.
The
"Valley Girl" archetype was crystallised as
a product in the 1980s. Ms Tassone’s brief
description was that a Valley Girl is a ‘living, breathing Barbie Doll’. Her
more lengthy description was that a valley girl must be popular, in possession
of both a cash supply and a highly fashionable wardrobe,
must be thoroughly at home at the local mall, provided with transportation and
a hunky, equally popular boyfriend, and have her own, personal way of speaking.
Recent additions to the Valley Girl persona include possession of a mobile
phone and/or pager. Examples are rife in movies such as Bring it On,
Legally Blonde and 10 Things I Hate About You (Bianca, not Kat.)
To
quote: "While it may not seem that the Buffy we are now familiar with fits
within this stereotypical mould, one only has to look at the 1992 film Buffy
the Vampire Slayer to observe the full extent of Buffy’s bleach blonde
Valley Girl roots. Important to this notion of how Buffy is the evolutionary
and transformed Valley Girls is also the tradition of female heroes[/victims]
in horror films. Notions of gender and authority come into play when reading
Buffy as a strong female and improved Valley Girl. The seemingly insignificant
fact that Buffy Summers cannot drive becomes important in the context of the
Valley Girl. Just how does Buffy represent an evolution of the Valley Girl and
the heroine, if she does not possess one of the most significant indicators of
teen independence and coming-of-age: the driver’s licence?"
Ms Tassone never really drew any conclusions on the question
of Buffy and cars being "un-mixy things"
(‘Band Candy’, episode 3.5). It could be said, however, that Buffy has plenty
of independence, despite not being able to drive. After all, she has saved the
world from apocalypses (plural). In any case, Buffy
comes-of-age (repeatedly) by fighting demons and the council, in the place of
parents and civil authority, in particular, in ‘Helpless’ (episode 3.11).
I’m
not summarising her argument particularly well,
although I agreed with it at the time. Certainly, in comparison to Kristy
Swanson in the movie, Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Buffy is far preferable as a
Valley Girl. Presumably, having evolved into someone not totally brainless (see
Legally Blonde) via Buffy, there is still some hope for the 21st
Century Valley Girl.
Gwyn Symonds - ‘Bollocks!’:
Spike Fans and the Reception of Buffy
One of the best papers of the day, due in no small part to Ms Symonds’ immense enthusiasm for her task. She is a
freely admitted Spike fan, which showed. (It was she who suggested that a
highlight of the show for her would be for Spike to ‘clock Xander
one’. She got some boos from the audience for that particular suggestion!)
Ms Symonds used Joss’s theory of "bring your own
subtext" as the basis for her discussion of the role of the fan in Buffy.
Both she and the next presenter challenged the view of fan culture as marginal,
presented by Henry Jenkins. Now, I’m a big fan of Jenkins, and I think that in
general, he’s right about the forced marginality of the fans. What I felt both
Ms Symonds and Ms Rust forgot/ignored/avoided was that
the creators of Buffy are the exception, not the norm. Jenkins’ major fandoms are Star Wars and Star Trek, neither of which have
Powers That Be who are exactly considerate of their fans. But that’s my beef:
I’m supposed to be talking about what Gwyn Symonds said.
To
quote extensively: "The nature of fan engagement with the content of the
quest of ‘an evil soulless thing’ for redemption, an engagement that is
activist in its dynamic response to the text, creates a volatile discourse
between text, audience and authors that is emotionally charged and uniquely
expands the text beyond the on-screen story. In this discourse, fan reactions
to Spike’s story, fate and moral and dramatic status challenge notion of
textual determinism asserted by various writers of the Buffyverse
canon and, on occasion, resist the content of the text itself, using the
ambiguity or inconsistency of representation of the character to support
variant readings. The impact of Spike’s anti-hero status, the implanting of his
chip, his love for Buffy and grief at her death, his attempt to rape her, his ensouling and [spoiler deleted] are discussed in the light
of fan reactions, comments by the writers and the acting method used by the
actor who portrays him. … The volatile and emotive fan reaction to the
character, warring as it often does with the text or subverting its meaning,
leaves us dissatisfied with some of the theoretical terms currently available
to describe the dynamic of audience reception and fan culture and that the
richness of the character of Spike challenges the authorial and story canons of
the Buffyverse itself." (I said it was an
extensive quote!)
Having
discussed the "Ulyssean journey" of Spike
from his first appearance in season two, Ms Symonds
moved on to deal with some of the more controversial elements of the season six
Spike, particularly Buffy beating him up in ‘Dead Things’ and his attempted
rape of Buffy, which must have been in ‘Villains’. (If I’m wrong, please let me
know…) Along with this, she referred briefly to the issue of Domestic Abuse in
season six, an issue which has certainly occupied my thoughts since it was
brought to my attention. (For the original article, see http://www.btvs-tabularasa.net/essays/DomesticAbuse.html
The article is from a site that hosts one of the lists
Ms Symonds belongs to, so I am assuming that she
knows of this article.) In relation to Spike’s actions in ‘Villains’, Ms Symonds quoted a Marti Noxon post
from the posting board, to the effect that TPTB, "knowing" that a
Buffy/Spike relationship simply isn’t fully possible, needed to turn the fan
momentum back. Certainly, this attitude from Noxon
shows that, for Buffy at least, the fans are important, and if they can’t
be taken into account in the storylines, they need to be convinced that the
direction the plot does take is realistic. (In comparison, I could mention the Vulcans in
Except
that he’s not, anymore; and the paper ended with a clip from season seven,
apparently the second episode. Slightly harrowing, that one was - but it makes
me long for next February and the appearance of season seven on our antipodean
screens.
Linda Rust - Welcome to a House of Fun:
Buffy Fanfiction as a Hall of Mirrors
Most
of this paper was simply discussing the existence of fanfiction,
explaining it to those who didn’t know it existed, and identifying episodes of Buffy
that were to some extent inspired by or reactions against fanfiction.
These included ‘Superstar’ (episode 4.17) as a "Mary Sue" (or the
male equivalent, a "Marty Stu"), ‘Something
Blue’ (episode 4.9) as a standard ‘shipper-fic,
‘Restless’ (episode 4.22), although I can’t think of any category of fanfic that goes along the lines of
"weird-dream-sequences-plus-Cheeseman", and
‘The Wish’ and ‘Doppelgängland’ (episodes 3.9 and
3.16) as alternate-universe fics a-la Star Trek. In
the case of ‘Superstar’ and ‘Something Blue’ in particular, it was Ms Rust’s
argument that these episodes were intended to make fun of fanfiction
by making it seem ridiculous. The problem with this argument, in my mind, is
that Buffy is almost as far from reality as you can get (except maybe
for pure, futuristic or other-world-entirely sci-fi), and thus everything, if
viewed strictly from a ‘realism’ point of view, will seem ridiculous. In terms
of her episode categorisations she didn’t really
convince me, except where ‘Superstar’ was concerned. Then again, I’ve never
quite understood the Mary Sue concept, as there has to be a line somewhere that
allows original characters. This, again, is a discussion for another time.
From
my perspective as someone who has also written academically on fan fiction,
there was nothing new in what she said. I’ve already commented that I don’t
agree entirely with her challenge of Henry Jenkins’ theoretical work on fan
culture, including fan fiction. In my own work, I’ve extended his theories,
rather than accepting them outright, but Ms Rust’s argument that the
receptivity of Joss Whedon to fanficcers
overturns the basic antagonism of Creators to Ficcers
is applicable to a very narrow band of shows - possibly only those with Whedon at the helm.
Nevertheless,
there was one element of the paper that intrigued me, and bears further
elucidation. To quote: "For the fans, the show is much more than just a
television event that occurs once a week; it has expanded to include the
writings of thousands of fanfiction authors. For
these authors, their relationship with Buffy is not just a two-way flow between
text and viewer[/author]. Fanfic
is influence by fanfic, until the process resembles a
funhouse hall of mirrors, each image reflecting another and distorting or
changing some part of it, while still remaining a reflection of the original
text. Authors write about fanfiction itself, parodying
the entire process in a wickedly funny manner." This is a marvellous description of fanfiction,
dealing both with the affect that fanfic characterisations can have on viewing the original text,
and with the creation of internal fanfic-canon.
Simply for this description, I am thankful I went to the symposium. Hopefully
I’ll have a chance to quote this description in some of my own writing on fanfiction one day.