scattershot
Feb. 4th, 2003 07:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyDis. reading: Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580
---
[grammarbitch]
"All right" is TWO words. TWO FUCKING WORDS. Do NOT perpetrate a back-formation from "already," because it's wrong wrong wrong. ***TWO WORDS***.
[/grammarbitch]
Okay, I feel better.
And that isn't aimed at anybody in particular. It's just my current internet-typography bete noire.
***
New Buffy tonight. Am praying and praying that it will be good Buffy. (Well, okay, really, I'm praying that it will be superlative Buffy, but I'll take what I can get.)
Had another thought (my first thought, also with the spoilers, is back here) about why S7 has gone slightly wonky.
Talked about this with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
heres_luck, but thought I'd also post it here. We've been watching S5 with MH (who was appalled with two p's that neither "The Body" nor "Forever" got any kind of recognition from the TV orthodoxy), and it occurred to me that something BtVS has always been very good at is the social realism around the edges of the plot. As a high school student, Buffy genuinely has to cope with BEING a high school student: teachers who don't remember her, getting expelled, always having Snyder breathing down her neck, the traumas of dating or not dating, etc. As a college student likewise, although UC-Sunnydale isn't observed with the same love/hate attention that Sunnydale High is. But still, mean professors, unbearable roommates, bad dates ... the social reality is THERE. And one of the beautiful things about "The Body" and "Forever" is the way that the mundane, nit-picky, burdensome details of Joyce's death are there: Giles shouldering the paperwork, Buffy trying to figure out how to word the funeral program, the later crisis over Buffy's custody of Dawn.
S6 manages this, too; "Doublemeat Palace" isn't a great episode, but it is trying to deal with the reality of being (a) clinically depressed and (b) stuck in a shit-job. The social worker turns into comedy in "Gone," but she is a real threat. Yes, they boot this badly with the whole magic-addiction metaphor, but I think they do Willow as recovering junkie quite beautifully. The Troika are nothing if not socially realistic. And although Buffy sleeping with Spike isn't SOCIALLY realistic, the EMOTIONAL realism of "Dead Things" simply takes my breath away.
And now here we are in S7, and somehow that's gotten lost. As many people have remarked, Buffy is TERRIBLE as a school counselor (nowhere moreso than in "Help"); there is no social realism here of any kind. She has no training, she seems to have no paperwork, her "counseling" sessions are being played increasingly for laughs, she grossly abuses her authority, and all with no repercussions. Buffy's job has become a plot device, not a JOB. And the others are no better off. We get hints of Dawn's social life at school, but only hints. Willow's taking classes ... I think ... but we haven't heard a word about that since "Selfless." I sure HOPE Xander's on top of things, again in a more than plot-devicey way (e.g., "Showtime"), but we can't tell from context. And what the fuck is Anya doing for cash now that she's human again? That was one of the things the Magic Box was extraordinarily good for--that social realism. The customers, the bickering between Giles and Anya in S5 & 6, Anya's death-grip on capitalism. (Drew Goddard remembers this, bless his socks.) And nobody has a love-life (except in this dysfunctional and practically subliminal way between Buffy & Spike and Xander & Anya). There's nobody OUTSIDE the Scooby gang; they've become endogamous to the point where I'm starting to worry seriously about incest. And the Junior Slayers don't count (although I heart Rona muchly), because, hello, five (is it five? I've lost count) extra teenage girls in a three bedroom house with all the bedrooms already occupied by, well, teenage or barely post-teenage girls--Cloud Cuckooland much?
So that's my second offering as to why S7 feels weird.
***
Ch. 9 and more dis. reading today. I persevere.
Also must go to the store, so as to have something to eat for breakfast, so I'm going to stop now. Will post thoughts on The Mummy Congress later. Some of them may even be interesting.
---
[grammarbitch]
"All right" is TWO words. TWO FUCKING WORDS. Do NOT perpetrate a back-formation from "already," because it's wrong wrong wrong. ***TWO WORDS***.
[/grammarbitch]
Okay, I feel better.
And that isn't aimed at anybody in particular. It's just my current internet-typography bete noire.
***
New Buffy tonight. Am praying and praying that it will be good Buffy. (Well, okay, really, I'm praying that it will be superlative Buffy, but I'll take what I can get.)
Had another thought (my first thought, also with the spoilers, is back here) about why S7 has gone slightly wonky.
Talked about this with
heres_luck, but thought I'd also post it here. We've been watching S5 with MH (who was appalled with two p's that neither "The Body" nor "Forever" got any kind of recognition from the TV orthodoxy), and it occurred to me that something BtVS has always been very good at is the social realism around the edges of the plot. As a high school student, Buffy genuinely has to cope with BEING a high school student: teachers who don't remember her, getting expelled, always having Snyder breathing down her neck, the traumas of dating or not dating, etc. As a college student likewise, although UC-Sunnydale isn't observed with the same love/hate attention that Sunnydale High is. But still, mean professors, unbearable roommates, bad dates ... the social reality is THERE. And one of the beautiful things about "The Body" and "Forever" is the way that the mundane, nit-picky, burdensome details of Joyce's death are there: Giles shouldering the paperwork, Buffy trying to figure out how to word the funeral program, the later crisis over Buffy's custody of Dawn.S6 manages this, too; "Doublemeat Palace" isn't a great episode, but it is trying to deal with the reality of being (a) clinically depressed and (b) stuck in a shit-job. The social worker turns into comedy in "Gone," but she is a real threat. Yes, they boot this badly with the whole magic-addiction metaphor, but I think they do Willow as recovering junkie quite beautifully. The Troika are nothing if not socially realistic. And although Buffy sleeping with Spike isn't SOCIALLY realistic, the EMOTIONAL realism of "Dead Things" simply takes my breath away.
And now here we are in S7, and somehow that's gotten lost. As many people have remarked, Buffy is TERRIBLE as a school counselor (nowhere moreso than in "Help"); there is no social realism here of any kind. She has no training, she seems to have no paperwork, her "counseling" sessions are being played increasingly for laughs, she grossly abuses her authority, and all with no repercussions. Buffy's job has become a plot device, not a JOB. And the others are no better off. We get hints of Dawn's social life at school, but only hints. Willow's taking classes ... I think ... but we haven't heard a word about that since "Selfless." I sure HOPE Xander's on top of things, again in a more than plot-devicey way (e.g., "Showtime"), but we can't tell from context. And what the fuck is Anya doing for cash now that she's human again? That was one of the things the Magic Box was extraordinarily good for--that social realism. The customers, the bickering between Giles and Anya in S5 & 6, Anya's death-grip on capitalism. (Drew Goddard remembers this, bless his socks.) And nobody has a love-life (except in this dysfunctional and practically subliminal way between Buffy & Spike and Xander & Anya). There's nobody OUTSIDE the Scooby gang; they've become endogamous to the point where I'm starting to worry seriously about incest. And the Junior Slayers don't count (although I heart Rona muchly), because, hello, five (is it five? I've lost count) extra teenage girls in a three bedroom house with all the bedrooms already occupied by, well, teenage or barely post-teenage girls--Cloud Cuckooland much?
So that's my second offering as to why S7 feels weird.
***
Ch. 9 and more dis. reading today. I persevere.
Also must go to the store, so as to have something to eat for breakfast, so I'm going to stop now. Will post thoughts on The Mummy Congress later. Some of them may even be interesting.
