Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not something I ever thought I would be studying at university. But alas here we are, and it seems it is not just this Popular Genres class looking at it -- according to Ulaby (2003, as cited by Wikipedia), there exists an area of study among academics called "Buffy Studies". It appears to be very popular, with a number of books being written on the Buffy series, looking at it from a "wide range of disciplinary perspectives including sociology, psychology, philosophy, theology and women's studies".(Wikipedia, n.d, para. 3). Interesting -- it is more than just a kick-ass vampire-slaying teenage TV show, and to show this, this blog entry will be looking at the way Buffy deconstructs the traditional literary notions of good and evil.
Braun (2000) states that there is a "moral ambiguity" within many characters, including humans and non-humans, in modern supernatural -type shows, Buffy included. No longer is a character simply good or evil, rather they are extremely complex and demonstrate "both decent and demonic traits and behaviors". (Braun, 2000, p.1). An example that Braun talks about with regards to the Buffy series is that of the Angel story line in season 2. Angel was a vampire who had had a curse put on him that restored his human soul, however unbeknownst to him, if he were to achieve "perfect human happiness", i.e sex, then the curse would be lifted and he would become a vampire again. A romance between Angel and Buffy began, with Angel being there to help Buffy whenever she needed it, and saving her life on several occasions. Coupled with other non-supernatural themes present in Buffy, such as teenage angst, Angel and Buffy were involved in an intimate encounter, resulting in Angel going from a good guy, there for to help Buffy, into a blood-thirsty vampire, who wanted to kill Buffy. (Braun, 2000).
At the end of the day, this "moral ambiguity" relates to the complexities of the human condition. It brings the television series to life and allows us to relate to the characters in a way, because, as Braun (2000) asserts, "underneath our civilized demeanors, we all the have capacity for evil". (Braun, 2000, p. 6).
References
Braun, B. (2000) The X-files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The ambiguity of evil in supernatural representations.
Wikipedia. (n.d.). Buffy Studies. Retrieved October 2, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffy_studies/
High quality comment here, matthew, and well referenced too! Great the way you have learned to interweave the secondary sources into your own view. How does this moral ambiguity play out in the two episodes we watched?
ReplyDeleteHello Matthew. I want to add my idea with yours. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer slough off from the narratives of good versus evil by the behavior of character in its story. According to Braun (2000), there are the ambiguous morality and sexuality in this TV series such as the relationship between Buffy and another main character Angel. Angel is the vampire who has positive and negative splits in his body and become partner of Buffy nevertheless he is an enemy of vampire slayer. They fall in love and become sexual relationship but it turns Angel to evil aspects and finally Buffy should be kills Angel to stop his wrongdoing. Braun (2000) says their relationship clearly shows the tension between love and aggression and these psychoanalytically charged themes through the use of supernatural mythology make different from any other television series. In fact, Angel finally opposes to Buffy but however the chance comes from their decision for love it means the love and Buffy choose to kill him for her aggression, not the ambition to keep justice. It can say the characters in this story are just human who has got their own morality and background for thinking, cannot categorizes into good or bad person. Therefore, the story also constructed with love and aggression, complex relationship between characters that completely different from the simple good and evil structure. In my view it is deeper theme than simple dualism of good and evil.
ReplyDeletei have posted my one as 'Traditionally or religiously the notion of good and evil can be distinguished by that bad people will go to hell and good people will go to heaven.' but “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” broke the traditional notion of good and evil. Probably Angel is a big factor in that.
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