Believe it or not... Buffy praised by The National Review

[BBOvenGuy]

Has hell frozen over? Is it the apocalypse? I don't know, but there's some sort of omen afoot. Buffy has just received glowing praise from one of the premiere conservative publications in the United States, The National Review.

Here's the article.

quote:

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Morality Tale…From the Crypt
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of TV’s most morally serious shows.

By Chandler Rosenberger, assistant to the president of Boston University
May 26-28, 2001

At the end of the season finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there was only the tombstone.

BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS
1981-2001

BELOVED SISTER
DEVOTED FRIEND

SHE SAVED THE WORLD
A LOT

In the show's final episode, Buffy faced a cruel dilemma — save the life of her sister Dawn, or save the world? The Vampire Slayer had tried all her trademark weapons — the battle plans, the pointed quips, the martial-arts kicks. But in the end she had to hurl herself into oblivion to save both her friends and her kin.

Buffy — dead? After five years, was the show finally over? The chat room on the official Buffy website went berserk. Was the show ever going to appear again, or had UPN backed out of its deal to take it over from the WB?

Joss Whedon, Buffy creator and impresario, logged in to reassure the show's fans. "BUFFY WILL BE BACK NEXT SEASON," Whedon wrote. "How will we bring her back? With great difficulty, of course. And pain and confusion. Will it be cheesy? I don't think so."

Great difficulty, pain, confusion, but no cheese — that has been Buffy's life thus far. For five years, Whedon has subjected his heroine to nightmarish boyfriends, demon resurrections, petty jealousies, and six or so narrowly averted apocalypses. Buffy has faced it all, all the while offering up color commentary in her crisp, Valley-girl lingo.

But as entertaining as Buffy has been, the show also deserves respect for being one of the most morally serious on television. Loyal fans have watched as Buffy has struggled to be good in a world that, for all its supernatural foes, is still riddled with the anguish and difficult choices that teenagers across America face every day.

Buffy began her career battling the demons of Sunnydale High School, not all of them supernatural. There were, of course, plenty of horrors. The sexy substitute teacher who turned into a giant praying mantis. The swim coach who turned his team into championship-winning monsters. The hyenas that possessed kids on a class trip to the zoo. Sunnydale, it turned out, had been built on a gateway to Hell and as such attracted all manner of beasts.

But some of Buffy's worst opponents were all too human. Snyder, the school principal, seemed determined to expel her, while Cordelia, the hallway's queen bee, was frighteningly adept at dispatching self-esteem. "Nice dress!" Cordelia once remarked to a cowering classmate. "Good to know you've seen the softer side of Sears."

Buffy was the strange new kid, one who shunned the cool clique to hang out with the school's untouchables. She made friends with Willow, the geeky computer whiz, Xander, the class clown, and Rupert Giles, the school librarian and Slayer mentor. Slowly, the outsiders bonded together to battle high school's dangers, both mortal and moral. And one of the biggest challenges, they discovered, was tending to one's soul.

Since the very beginning, Buffy has always been more than a battle between the living and the living dead. Vampires can take life, but that's not really why they are dangerous. Vampires are dangerous because they steal the soul, the moral compass that gives life its direction and worth.

This is a threat that Buffy takes very seriously. One of the show's most powerful themes is that the vampires often seem to have the better deal. An eternity of leather, sex, and will-to-power, after all, can seem very attractive to your average high school kid. Vampires are not hobbled by conscience, and seem to be masters of adult indulgences. One minute, a high-school guy is nervously babbling as he tries to ask Cordelia out; the next he's confident, sexy, mysterious. You just don't see him much during the day.

But again and again, Buffy shows that this rock-star life is empty and brutal compared to the more difficult and more rewarding business of becoming a responsible adult, soul intact.

In the search for a worthy, mature life, the actual adults on Buffy haven't been much help. Buffy's father abandoned her. Her late mother, while loving and supportive, tended to turn on the psychobabble whenever Buffy had a real battle on her hands. Mayor Wilkins, villain of the show's third season, was a hilarious caricature of the clean living Pharisee. As he plucked Handi-wipes from a cabinet full of skulls, Wilkins would insist on good etiquette from his vampire lackeys.

"Remember," Wilkins once said as he ordered a massacre, "fast and brutal. And boys? Watch the swearing."

With its finger on the pulse of contemporary America, Buffy has cut frighteningly close to the anomie rampant in its high schools, where no adult seems interested in an honest discussion of right and wrong. In one episode, Buffy became clairvoyant, and discovered that students' minds were lost in a swamp of worries, fears and resentment. "This time tomorrow," she heard one mind think, "I'll kill you all."

The episode was ready to air in late April 1999, but was yanked in the wake of the Columbine High School shootings, which happened just a week before it was scheduled to appear.

With no adults to guide her, Buffy has had to learn her lessons the hard way. Her first serious boyfriend, Angel, was the show's only "good vampire" — one whose conscience had been restored. But he was cursed to lose his soul again after his first moment of "true happiness." When Buffy and Angel slept together for the first time, Angel's demon side took over. The "bad" Angel mocked a stunned Buffy for surrendering to him so easily, then abandoned her to go on a killing spree.

Naturally, Buffy had to have "the talk" with her mother, but the story of Buffy's troubles with Angel explored more than just propriety and hygiene. Sex, it turns out, is a risky not only because it has physical consequences, but — more importantly — because it unleashes such powerful passions. Where is the sex-ed class that teaches that?

Of course, it's possible to lose one's soul while remaining human. There was, for instance, the brilliant, charismatic character Faith, whose troubled childhood had given her a lust for mindless gratification. Faith seemed to be "girl-power" on wheels, driven to have men as she pleased. "It's strictly get some, get gone," she told Buffy. "You can't trust guys."

But for all her willfulness, Faith was shown to be wretched, living without real trust or love. In one of the show's most poignant episodes, Faith swapped bodies with Buffy, intending to escape in her new disguise and keep living as she pleased. Instead she discovered that she yearned to live out the moral life that Buffy had made for herself.

Buffy is sharp commentary, but it has not stooped to the snide American Beauty-style satire of suburban life. Even as a college student, Buffy has stuck close to home, and seems to want nothing more than freedom from schemes to overthrow her world. Her chief villains, on the other hand, are power-mad professors and velvet-clad, decadent, aristocrats waxing ponderously about schemes that will make the "very stars hide."

Buffy may be just an ordinary middle-class kid, but she knows how to put such vaunting ambition in its place. When Dracula himself appeared early this season, she wasn't sure whether to take him seriously.

"You're sure this isn't just some fan-boy thing?" Buffy asked the Prince of Darkness. "'Cause I've fought more than a couple pimply, overweight vamps that called themselves Lestat."

It's enough to make you wish that college students could treat Foucault with that kind of disdain. And another good reason, among many, to look forward to Buffy's rise from the dead.

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My thoughts? It's a great write-up. The National Review gets it. They were able to look past the silly title and the horror-movie monsters and see just what Joss has been trying to do. Yay them.

However - they didn't go far enough. Note that there's no mention of Willow and Tara at all. Of course there isn't! Carrying their argument as far as Willow and Tara would mean that Joss is taking homosexual relationships seriously and showing that there can be legitimate devotion and commitment in them. Naturally, The National Review can't be caught admitting that.

On the other hand, a write-up this good will probably prompt a number of people who have never seen Buffy before to start tuning in - and when that happens they can't help but see the Willow/Tara-y goodness. I can hear their brains sizzling now. So all in all, I think this is definitely of the good.

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Remember the Kitten Board Mantras:

"Joss is nuts about Tara, Willow/Tara and Amber!"

"Willow and Tara are the most romantic couple on the show, and that's exactly how Joss is treating them."

[This message has been edited by BBOvenGuy (edited May 28, 2001).]quote:

[Dazey]

I agree...this is an insightful, well-written piece and it's wonderful to see the show getting this kind of attention. It's disappointing that there's no mention of W/T, sure...but then there's no mention of lots of things. The article really focuses on Buffy, and that's fine--she's the centerpiece, after all.

The only thing that bugs me a bit is the writer saying that "Buffy has struggled to be good" without really defining what "good" means. As we know, the Buffyverse is a landscape a lot more complicated than any simplistic Good vs. Evil dichotomy can ever hope to map. I'd like to see this writer tackle the sort of moral questions raised by Giles's murder of Ben in "The Gift." But all in all, kudos for recognizing the "moral seriousness" of the show.

I had to smile at the description of Willow as Cordelia's "cowering classmate." It's amazing and inspiring to think how far she's come.

[This message has been edited by Dazey (edited May 28, 2001).]

[WbBuffyfan00]

Wow thanks Bob for posting this.

I'm really impressed with this article...I too am miffed that W/T aren't mentioned...but the rest of the article was enough to make me overlook it this time.

-Amy

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"You want to take a picture of my butt?...ummm...OK...You've got two seconds." -Amber

[Zahir]

In essence, I agree. The National Review, while conservative, is not reactionary. Their writers are insightful enough to actually perceive some of the values in BtVS.

Of course, they're also fighting some of the conservative agenda, because BtVS is easily one of (if not THE) most gay-positive shows ever!

Irony is ironic like that.

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"O let my name be in the Book of Love.
If it be there, I care not of
That other book Above...
Strike it out! Or write it in anew.
But let it be in the Book of Love!"
--Omar Kyam

[Hugin]

It amuses/saddens me that this is a more accurate article about the show than many I've seen in genre sci-fi and horror magazines/websites.

-len

[Roxton]

Thanks for posting this article Bob. It was actually insightful and while I was disappointed there was no mention of Willow and Tara it's a definite step in the right direction.

[darvangi]

Thanks Bob. This article really captured, in a relatively succinct way, the moral concerns of the show, which is very handy for shallow thinkers like me! A lot has been written about specific ethical and philosophical issues of Buffy, but this is an excellent overall description of its moral themes, which is fitting coming from a writer who could be considered an 'outsider' to the average demographic of Buffy fandom because of his affiliation with the National Review.

[Kabuki]

Wow! That's such a good summary of why Buffy is more than a "silly vampire show". I'm not surprised the writer left W/T out.. it could have caused some readers to immediately tune him out, considering what kind of publication this is.. and now a few people might tune in and be exposed to a certain loving witchy couple without any predispositions. Love the trickiness. But the focus was mostly on Buffy anyway.

I have to disagree with the whole American Beauty comparison. Annette Benning's character wasn't too far from the Buffyverse vampires. It's that whole soul-less thing that the other characters struggled against. It's not so unlike Buffy's portrayal of suburbia, when you think about it. Plus, it's really good too.

[Shewolf]

Nice,balanced,well-written article, even though it didn't mention a lot of things. Still, it's good to know that some serious journalists "get" Buffy.

[wolliw]

Thanks for posting this; a very interesting, and gratifying, read.

I started watching Buffy for some "light" entertainment, but when I became a regular viewer, its deeply moral center really struck a chord with me. By "moral", I mean what the National Review writer meant; not in a simplistic sense of preaching some rigid code of behavior, but by showing in an emotionally real and engaging way the challenges of human life, the struggles we have to act in ways other than completely self-serving. It is a struggle, for everyone; and even though on Buffy, this is often depicted in non-ordinary, epic terms (literally matters of life and death!), I think it still has the power to move us because the humanness of Buffy and the other characters — their love, their pain – shines through all the monsters and Big Bads.

As for W and T, that's of course another hugely praiseworthy component of the show, but more as part of another, more specific theme to do with depicting romantic relationships in complex ways; and since that wasn't the main thrust of the NR writer's argument, I think it's not too bad an omission in this case.

[Superstar]

Well now...my bumping this thread from May may set an all time record, but I hope the members here will indulge me, I am a newbie. I found it looking through the board archives, catching up on what I've missed, and just had to comment.

I for one was not at all surprised at this article appearing where it did. I am a regular reader of NR, and I vaguely remember reading it there when it came out. There is plenty of other good stuff in that magazine...I particularly recommend Jonah Goldberg, who rocks, and may well be a fan of the show...along with its share of crap, as in any magazine.

I would hope also that members here would not lump together all NR readers as crude reactionary homophobic paleoconservatives. The magazine's readership has a good sized libertarian contingent, among which I count myself. We may not agree with everything we read there, but we do find it quite entertaining, and thought provoking.

[Eyes Without A Face]

I am a Canadian Liberal, which in some southern circles brands me as a bloody socialist, but I have always enjoyed reading National Review. Too many years ago, watching the erudite William F. Buckley on television and reading his articles were absolute treats for anyone who likes to see a master at work, verbose yet incisive at the same time... and oh so smart. I like to watch eye candy but this was mind candy and of the sweetest kind.

They used to make fun of him on Saturday Night Live but the man was a genius, not a cockalorum. Like Zahir pointed out for the magazine, Bill Buckley was conservative but not reactionary and he did not suffer fools gladly. On quite a few occasions in television interviews, he humbled the Pat Robertsons, Oral Roberts and Jerry Falwells of the world.

Mr. Buckley writes less often in his old age but here's an archive of his recent cogitations for those who wish to grasp his style.

That article is written well and contains many truths about what makes the show so thoroughly enjoyable compared with the tripe that is fed to us on too many occasions. The fact that W/T aren't mentioned is probably because it concentrates on Buffy rather than on the relationship between Willow and Tara.

As a side note, did anyone notice how the current crop of female conservative analysts on television (e.g. Ariana Huffington & Ann Coulter) tend to be real dishes (even though some left-wing radicals might use the term bitches instead)?

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Wallpapers
To the popemobile!!!

[This message has been edited by Eyes Without A Face (edited December 30, 2001).]

[Puff]

Thank you Bob for finding this and posting it. It really is a good article and it is good to read something by someone who has obviously watched the show for awhile and enjoyed it.

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Bloody hell, sodding, limey, shagging, knickers, bollocks...oh God...I'm English