Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Discuss Their Favorite Television Show (Smart Pop series) (32 page)

A
WEREWOLF
. A demon. A witch. A vampire.

What do these supernatural icons have in common other than appearing on your doorstep every Halloween demanding candy? Answer: All of them have been, at one time or another, the primary love interest of a main character on the
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
series. As followers of the show, we all know that dealings with the dark side are a given around the Hellmouth. For Buffy and company, they are a way of life. And, affairs of the heart, or various other parts of the anatomy, are obviously not exempt from the dangers of associating with Evil and those that are under its sway.

Throughout the series, the writers of the show haven’t flinched in their exploration of all manner of issues surrounding the subject of teen intimacy. Obsession. Promiscuity. Homosexuality. Power plays. Loss of innocence. You name it, they’ve written it. And they have consistently used tremendous deftness, warmth, and genuine affection in their portrayals of teen relationships. But, clearly, when it comes to sex, love, and TV, Sunnydale couldn’t be further in overall attitude from swinging, flirtatious Manhattan.

In this Californian suburb, when a love affair goes bad, it grows fangs.

The question is, why?

FATAL ATTRACTIONS

Part of the answer may be found in taking a look at one of the basic overall premises of the show. Series creator Joss Whedon has stated in several interviews that part of his original concept for
Buffy
involved utilizing basic elements of horror to portray the teen experience through ongoing, rather twisted and dark, metaphors:

In other words, the demons Buffy and her friends confront are nearly always more than cardboard creatures for our heroes to defeat. They have emotions, needs, passion, ambition, even humor. They represent something. Just rip away the ugly masks, and you find all of the temptations, dangers, and evils that modern teens find themselves facing every day. We have all watched as the naive characters of the beginning of the series took on and defeated various archetypes of Evil and, in so doing, grew up little by little.

Monsters are more than monsters. Sex isn’t just the sex depicted on most TV series. It can destroy. It can transform. The danger can be physical or emotional, or both. But it is never to be taken lightly.

On a purely physical level, several episodes have dealt with the danger that lurks when the body overrides the mind in that teenage, hormonal sort of way. For example, take Xander’s close encounters of the wrong kind with the She-Mantis and Mummy Girl in the first and second seasons. In both cases, the attraction is clearly no more than pheromonal and Xander spends a large amount of time walking through the corridors of Sunnydale High in a lust-induced haze. And, in both cases, the danger to Xander is strictly limited to his physical body. Once the siren has been chopped up or turned back into dust, our hero returns to his normal, quick-witted self.

While the relationship of Willow and Oz isn’t a fatal attraction in a
bunny-boiling sense, it is another example of the dangers of the heat of passion. Literally. Despite Willow’s attempts to save it, their romance can’t survive once Oz finds another of his kind and his werewolf-strength testosterone kicks in. He is completely reduced to a single, primal urge and either he or “the other woman” are quite capable of ripping Willow to shreds if she gets in the way of their baser instincts. By trying to snap him out of his animal nature, Willow endangers both herself and the werewolf she loves.

But by far the most disturbing of these lustful relationships is the one that has developed between Buffy and Spike over recent seasons. There is absolutely nothing healthy in this relationship other than their mutual libidos. Physical and sexual abuse. Obsession. Jealousy. Psychological torment. The strange allure and addiction of dancing with danger. All of the darkest power struggles of sexual intimacy have been yanked into the spotlight through the mutually destructive acts of these two characters.

The difference here seems to be that, in addition to the physical act of sex having some correlation to endangerment of one’s physical body, there is the added complication of a very real danger to the emotional well-being of the participants. While it is safe to say that actual love is not a factor in their relationship, the longer that Buffy and Spike continue their lust affair, the more psychologically damaged by it they become. The complexity of their relationship is more than hunter and hunted, domination and seduction. Spike is continually tortured by his obsession and is particularly dangerous because he is (along with Drew and Angel), according to Whedon, “. . . really a part of Buffy’s life, not just external. Something emotional that she couldn’t just physically fight.” For Buffy, the danger of consorting with such darkness translates into a virtually mortal blow to her spirit. To dance with the dead can kill a vital part of who you are.

It’s been hell to watch. But, just as these two have discovered, it’s been next to impossible to turn the twisted thing off.

In Sunnydale, there is no such thing as safe sex. But, like, is it okay if you love him?

STAR-CROSSED LOVES

If simply having sex can get you bitten, maimed, or mutilated in Buffy’s world, than what’s a teenager in love supposed to do? The prognosis
for any sort of long-term relationship looks grim indeed. Grim. But not hopeless. Although Whedon and company seem to be saying that teen intimacy can have serious, even horrific, consequences and should not be taken lightly, they do not appear to come down on the side of total abstinence, either.

Take, for example, the tremendously comic romance of Xander and Cordelia who are, as Whedon puts it, “so very wrong for each other that, of course, they must have each other and they must have each other now.” It doesn’t work. It can’t. But, through that intimacy, both characters reveal aspects of themselves we haven’t seen before. Cordelia can be vulnerable. Xander can be tender. Neither is the same person they were before their relationship began. Both have edged just a bit closer to maturity.

In a more dramatic sense, the relationship that develops between Willow and Tara changes forever the shy, little science nerd we once knew and loved. It is more than a gentle discovery of sexual orientation. For Willow, it is a personal revelation that is directly linked to her own empowerment. For the first time in the series, she is not the one in constant need of protection, but is gradually transformed by her bond with her lover into a protective, and even destructive, force that is to be taken deadly seriously.

Buffy’s broken heart is revived through her romance with Riley. Anya is humanized (and dehumanized again) by her love for Xander.

But to really get to the pulsing heart of the matter, you have to look at the relationship of Buffy and Angel as the ultimate example in the series of the life-altering consequences of sexuality and love. Says Whedon:

From the beginning, we know they couldn’t be more wrong for each other. A vampire. A Slayer. It’s worse than Montagues and Capulets. Their doom is inevitable and absolutely riveting. But even as Buffy and Angel’s relationship careens out of control, the motives of the creators of
the show become a little more clear. Almost nothing could be worse in terms of finding the horror of the high school experience than turning the guy you gave your virginity to into, literally, a soulless monster. The pivotal moment in Angel’s bedroom the following day as the two recent lovers face the consequences of their sexual act has got to rank as one of the most devastating of such scenes to ever air on prime-time television.

Both characters are utterly transformed by the intimacy they shared the previous night.

Angel’s metamorphosis from tortured soul into monster strikes a terrifying chord with anyone who has felt the vulnerability of love and sexual intimacy. To allow another individual such closeness, physically and emotionally, requires a level of trust that grants the lover a tremendous amount of personal power. Power to hurt. Or betray. In the case of Angel and Buffy, the abuse of that power translates into the emotional rape of an innocent who is learning to love for the first time.

The one point of light here seems to lie in the very gypsy curse that sets the whole thing in motion. Try to forget that the whole thing is irrational. To give a vampire his soul and then, once he achieves a moment of happiness, yank it back away from him again is a ridiculous plan. The fact is, that at least for a moment, Angel truly loves Buffy and he finds ultimate happiness as a result of that love.

The curse does not take effect because Buffy and Angel have sex. Angel’s soul is stolen from him because he is in love. Whedon and company seem to be saying metaphorically here that, while sex and love are not one and the same, making love with someone you deeply care about is a somehow sublime, or even profound, experience.

And what of our hero?

Buffy’s sexual initiation is the catalyst of an epic journey that has been building for the first two seasons of the show; namely, the crossover from adolescence to young adulthood. According to Whedon:

Despite the potential dangers to herself physically and emotionally, Buffy chooses to sleep with Angel and, like most teens, finds herself in way over her head. The results are nothing short of nightmarish.

“I said I didn’t want to kill the girl who has sex,” says Whedon, “and yet, I punish the hell out of her . . . I believe that Buffy and Angel were in love and that what they did wasn’t bad . . . But, inevitably in a horror show, you end up punishing people for everything they do just so you can find the horror, the real emotional horror, of everything they go through.”

What makes Buffy such a heroic character is her reaction to that punishment. Yes, there are tears. But there are also rocket launchers.

After Angel summarily rejects her, she is spiritually wounded, but she doesn’t crumple up in a corner or retreat to whatever the modern equivalent of a nunnery might be. She tracks the creep down and they fight it out hand to hand. Their battle in the blasted mall is simultaneously an epic fight of Good vs. Evil and, as Angel taunts her in sadistic, sexually explicit fashion, the intensely personal battle of a young woman confronting the man who has wronged her. Says Whedon, “This show was designed to be a feminist show. For her to be so abused by him and for her response to be, as Spike might say, ‘kick him in the ghoulies,’ it’s very primal. It’s very important. It’s kind of empowering. And I kind of love it.”

Buffy is changed forever by her loss of innocence. She is punished. But she is also empowered by her experience as she crosses the line that separates child- from adulthood. She can no longer be the naive young lover she once was; she is warier, worldlier, and a whole lot stronger because of what she has endured. She has passed through the, “baptism of adolescent fire, the romance gone wrong,” and emerges as a heroic young woman on the other side.