Rules of Engagement: Violence and Hyperreality in the Buffyverse

[lostboy_lj]

rebcake recently posted a poll regarding the onset of Buffy and Spike's sexual relationship in the BtVS episode "Smashed."  I answered "neither" and began to post a comment to explain, but it started to get long-ish, so I thought I'd just do a long-ish blog post instead.  What I wrote turned out to be somewhat off-topic in terms of her poll, and more

Comments

[aycheb]

For instance, what they are doing in the abandoned house scene isn't important -- physical combat is part of their nature. It comes as naturally to them as taking in air, and there's nothing unusual about it within the violent hyperreality of Sunnydale. What is important in this scene is what they're saying:
I agree that the violence is illustrative not literal. It expresses underlying emotions in the same way a dance sequence might in a musical. But for many people this particular dance evokes something more like “The Red Shoes” than “Cheek to Cheek” more George and Martha than Han and Leia. Verbally Spike gets the first blow in with a vicious left hook of “you came back wrong” and that more than political correctness is why I think people remember it as him beating her not the other way round. Verbally, he has her on the ropes from the beginning. Ever the game-changer Buffy mutates the rules when she kisses him but it’s a Samson move, she still loses. This final scene is even more unsettling in context. Spike *is* creepy in

[lostboy_lj]

But for many people this particular dance evokes something more like “The Red Shoes” than “Cheek to Cheek” more George and Martha than Han and Leia.

Sure, I can see a little of those too. The point is that that we have two dance partners, one of whom is willing to dance, and one of whom who wants to, but won't admit it.

Verbally, he has her on the ropes from the beginning. Ever the game-changer Buffy mutates the rules when she kisses him but it’s a Samson move, she still loses.

I couldn't disagree more. Buffy doesn't "lose" anything, because the moment she kisses him, it is ceases to be a fight. It's not just what happens textually that tells us this. When she kisses him, there is a dramatic shift in the score, the cut-in shot of the wall breaking, the looks on the actors' faces as the realize they both need this. The change in the entire mise-en-scene tells us that they have crossed the rubicon, and that the battle is over... for now. Meanwhile, the war has just begun.

This final scene is even more unsettling in context.

[aycheb]

The point is that that we have two dance partners, one of whom is willing to dance, and one of whom who wants to, but won't admit it.
That's Spike's position but The Red Shoes is a solo not a duet. We have two dancers but they're in two different shows. or two singers singing different songs (as happens at the end of OMWF).
Buffy doesn't "lose" anything, because the moment she kisses him, it is ceases to be a fight.
The music changes but the house continues to fall down around them. It becomes more destructive not less. Not so much crossing the Rubicon as diving in. Drowning not waving.

And yet, their first kiss outside the Bronze in "OMWF" happened when Buffy follows Spike out the door, and the next one happens when Buffy follows a retreating Spike inside the club at the end of "Tabula Rasa." Before the events of "Smashed" Buffy has twice followed him when he was leaving her personal space.Buffy having her fair share of creepy doesn't mean Spike's isn't. He lashes out at her too but with him it's less of a pattern. The inability to

(longish - so, part one)

[lostboy_lj]

We have two dancers but they're in two different shows. or two singers singing different songs (as happens at the end of OMWF).But the story of "OMWF" doesn't take place inside a vacuum, any more than "Smashed" does. They may be singing different songs at first, but the lyrics converge at the end ("I just want to feel/ You can make me feel"). They both yearn for feeling, because feeling is evidence of life. Buffy feels dead inside, and yearns to be fully alive ("I want the fire back"), with all the fraility that goes along with it

(part 2)

[lostboy_lj]

I think it's more that we don't agree on what the story is or who the characters are. Your "context" is my "imposing a particular mythology" on the show.No offense, but your first comment didn't really contend against anything I actually argued in my post(for instance, you brought "creepiness" into it. I never argued anything about whether or not I thought what Spike was doing was "creepy"). And from the above, it still sounds to me like you are making a kind of anti-argument ("Your view of this thing is wrong, but I'm not to tell you how, or present my own

[sueworld2003]

"No offense, but your first comment didn't really contend against anything I actually argued in my post(for instance, you brought "creepiness" into it. I never argued anything about whether or not I thought what Spike was doing was "creepy"). And from the above, it still sounds to me like you are making a kind of anti-argument ("Your view of this thing is wrong, but I'm not to tell you how, or present my own.")"

Well spotted. *g*

Re: (part 2)

[aycheb]

I’m a biologist. I may step in post-structuralism accidently but while being vaguely aware that those people are the enemy I’d have to google it to know why. Still I do remember being underwhelmed by the Orpheus in the Underworld myth when I read it as a girl. It was romantic of him to try but the point of the story seemed to be that he failed and spend the rest of his days in terrible manpain. All of these trips to the underworld to save someone else seem to either end in failure, semi-failure or someone else having to be sacrificed in the hero’s place (or the child-bride’s in OMWF). Not in Star Wars but just because George Lucas gets it wrong doesn’t mean Joss and Marti have to. Or maybe Orpheus is simply the wrong model anyway

Re: (part 2)

[aycheb]

No offense, but your first comment didn't really contend against anything I actually argued in my post(for instance, you brought "creepiness" into it. I never argued anything about whether or not I thought what Spike was doing was "creepy").

At least part of your post seemed to be arguing that Buffy/Spike in Smashed were following the standard romantic comedy script “one party who is ready to admit their feelings, and another party who is afraid to do so.” I’m pretty sure I contented that wasn’t the case, that something much darker was going on on both sides. That on Spike’s side there was the desire to posses and control and on Buffy’s to lash out.

And from the above, it still sounds to me like you are making a kind of anti-argument ("Your view of this thing is wrong, but I'm not to tell you how, or present my own.")
You asserted that I’d taken Smashed out of context, I felt I’d explained how in the context of the season as a whole a less romantic interpretation of Buffy and Spike's behaviour makes more sense.

Re: (part 2)

[lostboy_lj]

According to Wikipedia (yes I know...)Let's stop right there for a moment: what do you know? You know what I'm going to say about Wikipedia

Re: (part 2)

[aycheb]

Instead of saying it, let's do a thought experiment. Suppose you were trying to make a detailed point about, say, cellular mitosis, in service of an argument that you devoted plenty of thought and reserch to. And suppose I then told you that you were wrong, because I just spent five minutes looking at Wikipedia article. I admit I don't know what you'd say, but I'm guessing your reaction would be similar to mine regarding katabasis.
As it happens the Wikipedia entry on mitosis gives a pretty comprehensive and largely accurate introduction to the process. It usefully distinguishes it from cytokinesis and points out that it encompasses endomitosis. Certainly there’s enough there that, had I defined mitosis as cell division in the interests of simplicity, I’d have no real defense to being called on that but to ‘fess up. At least it would mean people were listening. But yeah it was late, time was limited, I was rude. Still with Harrison Ford on George Lucas’s writing but that wasn’t really the point.

it speaks to humanity's embedded

Re: (part 2)

[lostboy_lj]

But yeah it was late, time was limited, I was rude.

Ha, okay. I'll ignore the various snark surrounding that and accept the little kernel of an apology in there. Here in Internetland, that's about as good as anyone could hope for. :D

Your following words regarding the katabasis makes me wonder if whether actually disagree about how it's explored in "Buffy." You started out by saying, "According to Wikipedia (yes I know) katabasis isn’t “a hero's journey to the underworld to rescue someone” but a hero’s journey to the underworld full stop," but now you seem to be acknowledging there's a little more to it than that, and that the ending is usually not so happy. It's no coincidence that both the end of season six and the end of Sunnydale's tale contain a component of tragedy, too. Spike, after all, does not physically journey back from the abyss, a fact which Buffy's final, bittersweet line of dialogue pays homage to.

What she needs is not just to be back but to know why. She needs the purpose, the connection to the world that

Re: (part 2)

[lostboy_lj]

At least part of your post seemed to be arguing that Buffy/Spike in Smashed were following the standard romantic comedy script...

Where did I say anything about this scene being funny? I talked about "romantic conflict" not "romantic comedy" The similarities I mentioned were: "...the chase and the rebuke; the denial of feelings; the hurled barbs; the well-known buttons pressed". I also mentioned "one party who is ready to admit their feelings, and another party who is afraid to do so for a certain reason that the audience may or may not know."

There was nothing in there at all about comedy. A scene of romantic conflict can be comic or tragic, depending on the context, which is what the post is really all about. There is plenty of comedy to be found in the Buffyverse, but not in this scene. If you'll note, after I made the comparison to Han and Leia's Hoth scene, I said this

Re: (part 2)

[aycheb]

Where did I say anything about this scene being funny? I talked about "romantic conflict" not "romantic comedy" The similarities I mentioned were: "...the chase and the rebuke; the denial of feelings; the hurled barbs; the well-known buttons pressed". I also mentioned "one party who is ready to admit their feelings, and another party who is afraid to do so for a certain reason that the audience may or may not know."

Your choice of examples was rather telling. Sex in the City is a comedy, so is Cheers, so was Moonlighting, so was the Muppet Show. Blade Runner was the one exception but in any case funny isn’t the point. Romantic comedies, like musical comedies aren’t called that because they have jokes in them (have you seen any Kate Hudson movies?) but for the assumed happy ending. The implication, which you also made explicitly, is that both parties have romantic feelings for the other and that these feelings should and will triumph in the end whether that end is comic or merely bittersweet. Here’s a radical suggestion. Buffy isn’t

Re: (part 2)

[lostboy_lj]

So, I decided to reread the thread, and see if I could trace your actual argument. It's clear that something bothered you about my post enough to comment, but it's been tough figuring out exactly what.

You kicked things off with a straw man ("Spike *is* creepy in Smashed.") It seems you somehow got the impression that my Han and Leia example was intended to show a similarity in theme, rather than in structure. Having reread the post, I honestly can't see how you extrapolated that. For instance, you write above:

Sex in the City is a comedy

Well, sure it is. And Star Wars is a "sci-fi/fantasy/western" film. Genres generally describe a story's tone and setting, but not necessarily its structural elements or themes. "Sex in the City" is a comedy that has plenty of laughs in it, but does that mean that all its scenes are funny? Is this a funny scene?

A scene can have any kind of tone, regardless of genre. That's particularly true when it comes to "comedies" and "tragedies", which are dramatic properties that rarely exist in a