ONTD Original: Top 10 Buffy the Vampire Slayer 'Hellmouth' Metaphors for Real Life Struggles

[ummnothx]

Hello, you beautiful human. I hope you're having an excellent day, and if you're not, I hope this post will make you smile...or at least distract you for a bit.
Welcome to another Buffy the Vampire Slayer ONTD Original!
If you missed my last post, check it out here.

Comments

[blorpz]

i thought the addiction stuff was kinda muddled but i loved your 7 and 8. i love horror as a metaphor and miss that aspect of the monster of a week format

[ummnothx]

The addiction stuff was definitely a long, drawn out story arc and I think a lot of people were kind of annoyed about the whole thing, honestly. Mainly because we had gotten tastes of Willow being out of control for so long, that when it started to become a real problem, we were like, "WE GET IT." And it's challenging for a lot of people, because she also goes back to using magic "the right way", and it sort of goes against the rules of recovery for many.
I appreciate your feedback. <3

[blorpz]

it's been awhile since i watched it (last time i watched, the end of season 5 wrecked me so i took a break and never got back to it), but i had two issues with it:

1) it felt like they made up that it's addictive kinda late? like, there were no negative repercussions until she started going to the magic opium den
2) it was more interesting (to me) to see willow blur ethical boundaries than to have a legitimate addiction. they did this a bit when she flayed what's his name which i did like

regardless, i'm glad you liked it and i'm glad the show was ambitious enough to try it!

[dianakingston]

The problem wasn't even necessarily the addiction metaphor itself (even though it was pretty bad, because season 6 of BtVS was not the place for subtle storytelling), it's that the writers had come to rely on magic so many times as a get-out-of-jail-free card that Willow literally had no other skills to fall back on at that point.

[carolinalily]

OP I really liked your other post and this one too. I was way too late to the other one and didn’t comment but you’ve put a lot of work into these! 🙂

This show was my jam back in the day. I need to do a rewatch. I agree with a lot of the metaphors where the vampire community represented real life “other demographics” as far as being accepted (or looked down on) for who you are.

I think the writing was pretty tops and knew how to create narratives that were relevant to its core demographic.
.

[ummnothx]

Thank you so much! Fun fact: I did this post last night, submitted it (with clickable gifs), and it was rejected. For some reason, LJ was not emailing me updates, so my draft was LOST. Today I completely redid it from start to finish. So this was actually take 2. Hah!
I love Buffy, and making these posts is a nice way to be able to geek out about Buffy without talking my friends' ears off (none of them have watched it all the way through, so they don't care anyway. hah)

[helyanwe89]

Willow was catfished by a demon in the computer early on. There was also episode where Xander was split into two people with different aspects of him - split personality.

I did not dislike high school (I had friends, was in theater, etc...) and had a harder time with 5th/6th grade when I felt like nobody liked me anymore but then made friends in 7th grade. I do think the show had a good variety of situations arise, like you mentioned with invisible girl etc..

I know Season 6 gets a lot of hate but I liked how Buffy had to get a job (but was annoyed Willow & Tara lived there too and did not contribute towards the bills) and deal with more adult stuff.

[ummnothx]

I thought the internet thing was a good one, but it didn't make my top 10 because it was so early on in the series, and the internet was still sort of 'new.'

[rihaty]

I think season 6 makes a ton of sense for Buffy and her arc. She's sacrificed and lost so much it makes complete sense she'd be depressed, and it'd be unrealistic for a young woman to have suffered so much, be ripped from heaven when she's finally at peace, and come back the same. I also understand the reckless affair with Spike, whether you like them together or not it makes sense to me. Still, the execution and a lot of the overall writing choices were not great to say the least. But the arc and a lot of the episodes I find really fitting, and also appreciate more as an adult.

[richyrich909]

Excellent post OP!!! I’m loving this!

[sadmagikarp]

i'm started rewatching this during quarantine and had to stop cause of the racist bullshit. the kendra character was a hate crime and the comments about black women's hair would be enough to get a writer fired in 2021. also where they at in california cause how are there zero people of color in a 90s high school

[ummnothx]

I literally had to go look this up, and omg. I didn't even realize Buffy's comment was SO inappropriate about the original slayer's hair. Omg! Thank you for calling this out for me.

[zizy]

I listened to a podcast a few days ago looking back on Buffy and apparently most of the black characters were stereotypical and either spoke in jive or exaggerated accents (in Kendra's case). I never picked up on that when I was a kid but I'm planning on doing a Buffy rewatch soon and I know I'll have issues with how problematic it was.

[cicigal8]

It spills over into Angel too. The Gunn character is a walking stereotype. Even just his name being Gunn is problematic.

They needed some black writers cause Joss and company really didn’t know how to write black characters.