Buffy!

So I have returned from WisCon where I had a fantastic time. A lot of conversation we had about Joss Whedon had to do with his supposed feminism (which I refer to as girl power, a de-fanged, patriarchal reinterpretation of feminism). Even then I usually feel like Buffy is the only one of his shows that really holds this sensibility for any length of time. A couple of months ago I ended up buying the entire collection of Buffy on DVD. I had been toying with the idea of rewatching the whole show from beginning to end already and these talks at the conference simply made me want to go through with it.

See I was pretty young when Buffy premiered, in fact I was year behind her which I think is one of the reasons I connected with the show so strongly. So the premiere season where she was a sophomore in high school I was a freshman and dealing with a lot of the things that I was dealing with. Yes the bully was disguised as a deformed monster and the abusive boyfriend was a Jekyll & Hyde analog and on and on but they were dealing in metaphor with things that I was dealing with in real life. While this definitely allowed for a greater connection to the show it most likely also gave me blinders for some of the issues of the show. I’ve critiqued Buffy before and certainly will again but there are certain issues in episodes that friends have brought up and I’ve realized I completely missed even a hint of it.

Since the show ended I have rewatched episodes I love (Oh I wanna see the musical episode! or Oooh how about where Willow rips the skin of that guy?!) but never the whole thing from beginning to end. I think it’ll be interesting to see who I love this time around versus the first time around. To be honest the only characters that I can remember really dis-liking in the core cast is Buffy. I can also remember being heavily on Xander’s side through most of the show. Wonder if it’ll be the same this time around?