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| Saying Adieu To 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer'— Musings... | ||
| by Bridget Petrella with additional writing by Sonia Satra | ||
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It’s difficult to even begin to unravel why the simple life truths this show delineated with such a subtle, undeniable compassion had nothing to do with fantasy. Instead, they were felt with more depth than anything I have ever watched… There is a famous quote I have always been aware of, I just never applied it to a television show’s multi-layered meanings— "There is a fine line between genius and insanity." Buffy, on more than one occasion… removed the line. And the real irony here— is that genius... when you really stop to ponder it all... is nothing more than insanity... usefully applied. In a humorous sense it is deemed insanity if it is discovered before it justifies itself... and genius if it justifies itself before its discovery... as perhaps a symptom of something self-destructive. It is an odd paradigm, but this is life in all of its inconsistencies… and it is also the pivotal core of the endless soul of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Body was an exceptionally structured episode which I myself related to, that I knew 99.9% of the civilized world could connect with somehow. The first half-hour pummels you, exactly like an unexpected gut punch delivered by Mike Tyson in a seedy bar, and it’s supposed to do just that. Sarah Michelle Gellar's heartbreaking performance as she discovers her dead mother will do more than take your breath away. I personally have discovered that living in a "death-denying" culture shields us from a sense of our own mortality. And being young further heightens our sense of indestructibility. The scene in Willow's dorm room where Xander, Willow, Tara and Anya talk about the death is just as wrenching, especially Anya's questions about human mortality. The questions, all of which could never be answered, were more than real and beyond our ability as humans to ponder them for too long. The death of a parent is a clear cut signal that... we are now on our own in this world. As Kurt Cobain said in his Grundge Anthem of the early 90s, "All Apologies"... "All alone is all we are." The thought of this slams us onto the hard pavement and pulverizes us into seeing how short life really is. My favorite moment in this entire episode is just a seemingly inconsequential thing, though— an obviously distraught [and yet also numb] Buffy is talking to a paramedic who arrived too late to save her mother… and the camera angle never shows us anything above the paramedic's shoulders. His head is cut out through the entire scene, even while he's talking. The perspective Joss Whedon gives us is actually our own. It's that attention to this understated detail which further illustrates that Whedon is as much accomplished a director as he is a writer.
If there is an edge to be found between the rational and the irrational; between the known and the unknown; between the conventional and the innovative, and if this edge is where creativity takes place, it makes sense that a creative mind ALWAYS runs the risk of going too far. But Marsters simply steps beyond these moments… It's a rare actor that can pull off the heartbreaking quiet moments ["God help me Buffy, it's still all about you"], the sweltering agony [Spike smoldering on the cross], the campy humor, the destruction, and the anti-heroism— all lumped into in one of the most perfectly resilient roles ever to hit the Sci-Fi universe. His attempted rape of Buffy could have easily destroyed his character, but it didn't. That is further proof of James Marsters' phenomenal performance. Actually, it is Marsters' exceptional abilities and enduring instincts that allowed him to take what could have become a two-dimensional character on paper and effortlessly make the audience believe in a cocky, emotional, slightly-hyper vampire called Spike who faithfully watched the daytime soap opera, Passions and referred to Buffy's sister Dawn affectionately as "sweet bit".
Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar reportedly wants to get down to basics and bare it all in Panavision before she hits 30. The 28-year-old is obviously trying to toss aside her teen idol image and apparently thinks she'll score better roles if she emerges naked on-screen. "I am approaching 30 and I really need a change," the actress explains. "The sort of roles I would like are not being offered, so this might just shock people into choosing me." Meanwhile, the actress' fans may have to wait a while for her daring debut. She has just signed on for the lead in Alice, a psychological thriller with a modern spin on the Lewis Carroll classic Alice in Wonderland— a role which is unlikely to require too many "revealing" moments. We here at UPBEAT are truly hoping the multifaceted actress rethinks her position as this is precisely the sort of out of the clothing thinking that the big budget studio, pseudo-corporate, suit-marketing mentality punctuates... and it really is rather sad.
Bridget
Petrella is the Publisher and Editor in Chief of UPBEAT Entertainment
News Online. At this point in her life, she's seriously contemplating a
complete and unbridled abandonment of typical network television...
opting instead for Buffy The Vampire re-runs on FX, Silver Surfer comic books, novels with wordy titles,
Retro TV Land, Xena Warrior Princess on Oxygen, HBO and Showtime's Original Programming schedule and
of course... Nick at Night where Bill Cosby reigns supreme as the
"ultimate" Dad. |
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After
seven mind-boggling, captivating, enthralling, spellbinding,
entrancing seasons of what can only be explicated as, "exceedingly
beyond intelligent", it's time to say goodbye to Buffy the Vampire
Slayer. The time passed by too quickly. That's what happens when you
actually enjoy something. All of us here at The Tube File have been
rather irritating, convention-neque, full-blown fans of this
irreplaceable "gem" long before the show had become the preferred
cuisine of endless web discussions and essays and fan fiction and
novels… and poetry... oh my. Yes, we even gave Buffy the Vampire Slayer
the highest accolade one could ever hope to accomplish here at The Tube
File... A polished and well-packaged Tube File Award was sent off to the
folks over at the WB in 2001 as we have ALWAYS believed this show to be
worthy of far more than an Emmy or a Golden Globe. And without any
further mention of the countless times we've bestowed our seemingly
meaningless awards upon Buffy while the industry's obviously fabricated,
political awards, the Emmys, have essentially ignored the show's
existence... preferring to wax and fawn superficially over The West Wing
and Everybody Loves Raymond. But we too have learned, much as the rest
of the Buffyverse, that Buffy genuinely stands alone… as an enduring
testimonial to both inventive and innovative accomplishment in what is
usually a poorly contrived medium.
Spike,
played to somewhere far ahead of total flawless perfection by the
always formidable James Marsters, was a character so complex, so
brilliantly composed that he quickly defied all of the customary rules
for villainous heroes… at least in the relative sense. But never let it
be said that a creature as intricate as Spike is challenging to love and
detest simultaneously… no, the tough part was not watching him at all.
The Buffyverse according to Spike, was more than a constant battle, it
was the stuff that nightmares and unpredictable romances were made of…
and tales of unbridled torture administered by The First, a worthy
opponent for Spike’s inner-demons, which would never stop gnawing away
at his newly refurbished soul. The ancient Greeks believed that creative
inspiration was achieved through altered states of mind such as "divine
madness." Socrates once said "If a man comes to the door of poetry
untouched by the madness of the muses, believing that technique alone
will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach
perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the inspired madman." Creative
inspiration— particularly artistic and poetic inspiration— have often
been believed to necessitate the sampling of dark "depths" of
irrationality while maintaining at least some connection to everyday
reality. 
Spike
is second only to Spock as far as we are concerned, on the list of
top ten sci-fi characters of all time. His acting talents were recently
praised in both the New York Times and the Boston Herald; his
performance in the October episode, Beneath You, was more than just an
Emmy-caliber performance. When asked about the phenomenal appeal of
Spike, the actor grins… "Five hundred people are trying to make one guy
look cool. Whoever they decide that they want to make look cool, they'll
do it, and I'm very lucky that they decided to make me that guy,"
Marsters says. "'Why didn't Spike just get killed, you know? His hair
worked and his coat worked. Whatever the heck that it was... the accent
and the coat or whatever [laughs]. If they would have costumed me a
different way, they might've just killed me, really. They had like a
see-through plastic shirt and stuff like it because it was supposed to
be punk, it was like glam-punk. If they would have done that, people
would have hated me, and I know I would have been killed. I got so damn
lucky." No James, we got lucky… and we will miss Buffy as much as Spike
and Willow and Xander and Dawn and Anya and Tara and yes, even Andrew…
