Buffy the Vampire Slayer
—Review
—Photos
—About this Series
The problem with doing a series retrospective on a show like Buffy the Vampire Slayer isn’t the fact that it’s hard to find a spiritual connection, but that it's hard to choose which spiritual connection to go with. Joss Whedon is a self-proclaimed atheist, yet he is also the perfect case study for the fact that God is “hardwired� into men’s hearts. If we are created in God’s image, then much of His character and essence is part of the fabric of our being and will come out in our art. In an episode of Alias, Sydney Bristow was exhorting a dying man to give her some information. She says, “I don’t know what your beliefs are. If you have a faith. If you expect that something follows this life. You might have none. But if there is a chance that there is something else, that we face the consequence of our actions in this lifetime . . . this is your last chance to do what’s right.� That pretty much summarizes much of what was the core theme of BtVS.
When seen as a whole, which is easily done now that the show is out on DVD, one can see that Joss Whedon has woven an entire theological and redemptive model into the show’s mythology (and it bears little resemblance to the eponymous movie that spawned it). The theology of the show starts by acknowledging the reality of evil. One of the best things about the horror genre is that it most starkly, of all genres, paints in hues of Good versus Evil. That conflict is not only at the heart of all stories, it is the universal story. We live in a world of suffering and sin. Taken to an extreme point would be Buffy’s hometown, the ironically named Sunnydale, which sits on a Hellmouth, a symbol of life as a portal between one reality and the next. It’s a convergence of mystical forces that serves as the excuse for monsters to appear so commonly. Not only is evil real and accepted, it is meant to be opposed.
Another tenet of this theology is that evil is the fault of the evildoer. People, and demons, have choices and are accountable for them. One of the best things that the show does is show the consequences of people’s actions, typified by this exchange between Buffy and Giles:
“I told one lie, I had one drink.�
“Yes, and you were very nearly devoured by a giant demon snake. The words ‘let that be a lesson’ are a tad redundant at this juncture.�
Not only is evil to be opposed, but it can’t be opposed with evil, because that only strengthens the cause of evil. Evil must be opposed with good. The show does interesting things with the idea of redemption and forgiveness. Those that at different times have given in to the dark forces? Angel, Faith, Willow, and Spike?have to be redeemed, and then they set about to atone for their sins. These are not presented as easy paths, nor is forgiveness easily earned.
From the beginning, Buffy Summers is set up as a messiah figure. She is, after all, the Chosen One: “Into each generation a slayer is born. One girl in all the world, a Chosen One. One born with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires, to stop the spread of evil.� She has been given a cup that she doesn’t want to drink from: her mission, her calling, is one she would rather run from or ignore rather than embrace. It’s not wrong to long for a “normal� life. Joseph Campbell, in his book The Hero Has a Thousand Faces, would call her the prototypical reluctant hero, in the tradition of Frodo or Luke Skywalker. It’s tough for a teenager to be burdened with the idea that she’s the fulfillment of prophecy:
1) as the slayer/Chosen One and
2) that she is destined to die. This idea of responsibility for others, using your special abilities for the sake of helping others, sets the course for Buffy’s role in the show.
Though Buffy is one in a line of slayers, what sets her apart from all the other slayers, the isolated heroes of their times, is her friends. Dubbed the “Scooby Gang,� they are her closest friends, a fantastic foursome of Buffy (the slayer), Willow (the witch), Giles (the mentor), and Xander. On the surface, Xander seems the odd man out, capable of little more than wisecracks. But only in the seventh season is his role fully defined: he’s the heart and the vision. It is the fact that Buffy is grounded in love?love of her family and friends, that she has a community and is not as strictly isolated as previous slayers?that makes her great. Theirs is the power of presence, a power that literally proved to be the tide turner in the climactic battle in Season Four.
For the first three seasons, the show played on the metaphor of high school as hell. Themes of humiliation, alienation, confusion, and loneliness taken to the proportions of the demonic. Buffy is like Spider-man’s alter ego, Peter Parker. She has these cool powers, but is burdened with this overwhelming sense of responsibility. She struggles with school life, and her personal life, but she has the hero part down. Still, she was misunderstood, even mocked, by those she was there to save. Nor were her friends, her disciples, the cream of society’s crop. They were the nerds and outcasts of the world.
The show is a meditation on death (“I live in the action of death,� the Primitive, the first slayer proclaims) and the afterlife (Angel had been consigned to hell for a time and Buffy brought down from heaven, with vampires and other demonic forces trapped somewhere in between). Horror revolves around not only the idea of death, but exploring the very real human fear of it. When told that she was prophesied to die at the hands of her enemies, she had her Gethsemane moment of reluctance, then went willingly to her death. Upon her resuscitation, she was more powerful than ever. In a later episode, she descended into hell to free some captives. Death and resurrection are constants in the show. The whole idea of vampires is wrapped in these notions and steeped in religious imagery. It’s as if God is ever-present, yet off camera. In one episode, “School Hard,� a vampire says “This is the most fun I’ve had since the crucifixion.� Think of the iconography of vampires as true anti-Christ figures: they are people who die and three days later are resurrected and, through the sacrifice of blood, born into eternal life. They can be killed by a wood stake through the heart, by holy water, or by the sun’s light. The cross is literally Buffy’s salvation.
Spirituality as commonly practiced in our Western, individualistic mindset has been about one’s personal salvation. While preaching a “gospel� of honor, loyalty, and friendship, Buffy exemplifies a less self-centered mindset: she’s out to save everyone. While she lives by Mr. Spock’s code from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, in that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,� she goes out of her way to save even the one, “not willing that any should perish.� Whereas the BtVS spin-off, Angel, has redemption as its central focus, at the center of Buffy is the theme of sacrifice. This culminates in Season Five. The “Big Bad,� as the major villain of each season is sometimes called, is a mad god named Glory. She seeks to bring down the walls that separate realities, in essence, break down the gates of hell. The blood of the “savior’s� family line is needed to stop the ritual. Rather than sacrifice her sister, Dawn, which was intended, Buffy sacrifices herself. self-sacrifice, rooted in love, is the only act to bring salvation.
Season Six examines the ramifications of Buffy’s condescension from heaven. What am I talking about? As the season opens, Buffy is dead. Dead and buried dead, not the technically her-heart-stopped-beating dead of Season One. Her friends set out to rescue her soul from hell. While the precedent had been set, Angel had been consigned to hell (expected, since he did spend over two centuries as the scourge of Europe), you kind of have to ask yourselves what your friends must think of you if they assume that at the moment of your death, you must be in hell. The arrogance/naivete of such an assumption has tragic consequences as her friends succeed in yanking her from “heaven.� This is reminiscent of what is called Jesus Christ’s condescension in Philippians 2:5-11?the idea that God would take His essence, wrap Himself in human likeness, and humble Himself by coming from heaven to be like one of us on earth. However, Buffy is not Christ, and being yanked from “the powers that be� (the stand-in for God in Whedon’s mythology) sends her into a tailspin, and the darkest season of the show (though it did produce the greatest episode of the series, the musical Once More with Feeling). Part of this is the realization, or acceptance of the fact, that part of the burden of her chosen calling is the fact that it will always cut her off somewhat from those around her, even her family and friends. Because there can be only one, only one to make the tough decisions with no rule book to guide her.
Only one, until Season Seven.
In this, the last season and a return to a lot of what made Buffy great, Buffy goes missional. The “Big Bad� of the season was actually a villain let loose in Season Four: the First, the original evil. During the course of the season, Buffy and her compatriots come to realize how overwhelmed they are: the nature and perniciousness of this evil is too pervasive. The plan that they come up with involves drawing on Buffy’s essence. The mythology of the show tells us that only one slayer can operate at a time, but there must be many potential slayers at any given moment since, should the current slayer die, one must rise to take her place. The Scooby Gang in essence lets loose the “Holy Spirit,� a scene very much reminiscent of Pentecost, activating all of the potentials to carry out their divine mission. Buffy as Christ figure is still present, especially in the series finale as her side is pierced by a sword and later the shadow of a cross forms on her blouse.
Buffy is in the line of “The Suffering Servant.� Hers is a life of constant struggle. Hers is a life that by necessity forgoes any hope of a true personal life. Another hallmark of the hero’s journey is true love denied or sacrificed, in this case, the doomed romance of Buffy and Angel. Think Romeo and Juliet, if Romeo was undead and Juliet was given the charge of killing him. She loses family (her mom) and friends (Ms. Calendar, Tara, Anya). She loses her life both figuratively (her life, due to her calling, is no longer her own) and literally (she dies, twice). She is called down from the peace of heaven for the sake of her mission and humanity.
What I don’t want to be lost in all of the analysis is the fact that the main reason that Buffy the Vampire Slayer worked for so long is because of its great writing, great acting, and great dialogue. It is one of the wittiest shows, full of pop culture references and witty repartee, to ever hit the airwaves. However, in a lot of ways, BtVS is a truly postmodern religious experience. What we ultimately learn from Buffy is that true spirituality is about the journey. On the show, everyone is on a journey and along the way, the characters increase in complexity if not likeability. But it’s the journey itself that shapes them, not the distance not even the destination or completion of the goal or defeat of the villain. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is in essence, a parable with Buffy as messiah, the Scoobies as her church, and the demons as the temptations of life. Or, as Willow says (in the episode “Lie to Me�), “The dark can get pretty dark. Sometimes you need a story.�
******************************
The Complaints from the “Religious Right�
As with many things, there are those who cannot watch shows like Buffy. They have defined what lines they cannot cross for themselves insofar as what they can watch and handle. That is fine. This becomes less fine when they define their lines as the only “proper� lines that everyone should follow. The chief complaints center around two things prevalent in the show: the use of magic (the occult) and sex. But let me start off by saying that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not a Christian show. It doesn’t espouse a Christian cosmology (not a Christian version of creation, demons, or the afterlife), but it does leave much open as springboards for dialogue.
The show embraces a reality that we would more comfortably like to deny: we live in a mystical world and there are spiritual forces in play. Too often the show is seen as not being a true battle of light versus darkness, but as using the occult to banish the occult, evil to fight evil. One of the things overlooked is that our very existence is defined by a battle between our own “good� (our spiritual selves) and “evil� (our human nature).
Magic, like many other concepts in the show, is symbolic of other things. At times it has been a symbol of growing romantic or sexual interest (as in Willow and Tara’s relationship). Sometimes it has been used to explore the nature of addiction (including Willow falling in thrall to a magic “dealer�). It has been a symbol for the nature of absolute power to corrupt absolutely (as in Willow’s “Dark Phoenix� storyline that culminated season six. As an aside, it is no accident that I reference the “Dark Phoenix� storyline taken from the X-Men comics. Joss Whedon is not only a huge fan of comics, and currently writes Astonishing X-Men, but patterned the character of Buffy on one of his favorite X-Men, Kitty Pryde). The main lesson always presented is that magic isn’t something to be trifled with or approached lightly. It’s very real and very dangerous. And the show has always been clear on one thing: it is not moral to use evil, to use the powers of darkness, even to a good end. This is a constant source of temptation and the show never shied away from discussing the attraction of the darkness. Faith, another ironically named vampire slayer, succumbed to this temptation early on, falling in love with her power and the thrill of combat.
And there is the idea of consequences.
Magic is something that Willow started to dabble in during Season Two in order to contribute something to this ongoing fight against evil. In Season Six, she pays the consequences of such dabbling.
There are positive lessons to be learned from Wiccans. Thoreau said that with a keen awareness of the natural world one could find truth. God has created all things and declared them “good� (even “very good�). We’ve abandoned the a sense of “creation spirituality� from our spiritual walks, so it’s little wonder why people return to older religions in an effort to reclaim it. All spiritual people should enjoy God’s creation, embracing it the way God intended for us. We need to recover the mystical part of spirituality, learning to exist in harmony with God, others, and creation.
Then there’s the sex. By the end of the third season, all the major characters have lost their virginity and in the fourth, Willow engages in an ongoing lesbian relationship. Sex, especially repressed sexuality, is commonly linked to horror. That being said, sex not only plays out as a metaphor on the show (beyond its own titillating aspects) but the show does something that few others do: deal with the consequences of it. When Buffy loses her virginity to Angel, the consequences are tragic. Angel turns evil, first becoming a cad, the typical guy who doesn’t call the next day, before fully returning to his murderous self. And as his return to evil plays out, Buffy is forced to kill him and send him to hell. When Oz, Willow’s one-time boyfriend, runs around with a female werewolf, he realizes that one cannot live totally in thrall to one’s desires without leaving wreckage in the wake.
Look at the lexicon of the show: heaven, hell, the apocalypse, souls, evil are all taken as givens. The show, while never preachy, is a series of cautionary tales about what happens when you go too far, too fast. It is also a show that rewards a viewer’s patience and intelligence: none of its themes are tidily wrapped up within the hour, and some take episodes, if not seasons, to play out. It is simpler to live in a black-and-white world, to have a series of rules to live by. Living in the freedom of the gray areas is uncomfortable. The show refuses to take the easy route. A lot can be learned about how to tell stories, the use of visual imagery, and even the power of dialogue from watching the show. In this media-savvy world that we live in, the show resonates because it allows culture to infiltrate it, digesting and absorbing it, then turning around and infiltrating culture.
—Review
—Photos
—About this Series
—Photos
—About this Series
The problem with doing a series retrospective on a show like Buffy the Vampire Slayer isn’t the fact that it’s hard to find a spiritual connection, but that it's hard to choose which spiritual connection to go with. Joss Whedon is a self-proclaimed atheist, yet he is also the perfect case study for the fact that God is “hardwired� into men’s hearts. If we are created in God’s image, then much of His character and essence is part of the fabric of our being and will come out in our art. In an episode of Alias, Sydney Bristow was exhorting a dying man to give her some information. She says, “I don’t know what your beliefs are. If you have a faith. If you expect that something follows this life. You might have none. But if there is a chance that there is something else, that we face the consequence of our actions in this lifetime . . . this is your last chance to do what’s right.� That pretty much summarizes much of what was the core theme of BtVS.
When seen as a whole, which is easily done now that the show is out on DVD, one can see that Joss Whedon has woven an entire theological and redemptive model into the show’s mythology (and it bears little resemblance to the eponymous movie that spawned it). The theology of the show starts by acknowledging the reality of evil. One of the best things about the horror genre is that it most starkly, of all genres, paints in hues of Good versus Evil. That conflict is not only at the heart of all stories, it is the universal story. We live in a world of suffering and sin. Taken to an extreme point would be Buffy’s hometown, the ironically named Sunnydale, which sits on a Hellmouth, a symbol of life as a portal between one reality and the next. It’s a convergence of mystical forces that serves as the excuse for monsters to appear so commonly. Not only is evil real and accepted, it is meant to be opposed.Another tenet of this theology is that evil is the fault of the evildoer. People, and demons, have choices and are accountable for them. One of the best things that the show does is show the consequences of people’s actions, typified by this exchange between Buffy and Giles:
“I told one lie, I had one drink.�
“Yes, and you were very nearly devoured by a giant demon snake. The words ‘let that be a lesson’ are a tad redundant at this juncture.�
Not only is evil to be opposed, but it can’t be opposed with evil, because that only strengthens the cause of evil. Evil must be opposed with good. The show does interesting things with the idea of redemption and forgiveness. Those that at different times have given in to the dark forces? Angel, Faith, Willow, and Spike?have to be redeemed, and then they set about to atone for their sins. These are not presented as easy paths, nor is forgiveness easily earned.
From the beginning, Buffy Summers is set up as a messiah figure. She is, after all, the Chosen One: “Into each generation a slayer is born. One girl in all the world, a Chosen One. One born with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires, to stop the spread of evil.� She has been given a cup that she doesn’t want to drink from: her mission, her calling, is one she would rather run from or ignore rather than embrace. It’s not wrong to long for a “normal� life. Joseph Campbell, in his book The Hero Has a Thousand Faces, would call her the prototypical reluctant hero, in the tradition of Frodo or Luke Skywalker. It’s tough for a teenager to be burdened with the idea that she’s the fulfillment of prophecy:1) as the slayer/Chosen One and
2) that she is destined to die. This idea of responsibility for others, using your special abilities for the sake of helping others, sets the course for Buffy’s role in the show.
Though Buffy is one in a line of slayers, what sets her apart from all the other slayers, the isolated heroes of their times, is her friends. Dubbed the “Scooby Gang,� they are her closest friends, a fantastic foursome of Buffy (the slayer), Willow (the witch), Giles (the mentor), and Xander. On the surface, Xander seems the odd man out, capable of little more than wisecracks. But only in the seventh season is his role fully defined: he’s the heart and the vision. It is the fact that Buffy is grounded in love?love of her family and friends, that she has a community and is not as strictly isolated as previous slayers?that makes her great. Theirs is the power of presence, a power that literally proved to be the tide turner in the climactic battle in Season Four.For the first three seasons, the show played on the metaphor of high school as hell. Themes of humiliation, alienation, confusion, and loneliness taken to the proportions of the demonic. Buffy is like Spider-man’s alter ego, Peter Parker. She has these cool powers, but is burdened with this overwhelming sense of responsibility. She struggles with school life, and her personal life, but she has the hero part down. Still, she was misunderstood, even mocked, by those she was there to save. Nor were her friends, her disciples, the cream of society’s crop. They were the nerds and outcasts of the world.
The show is a meditation on death (“I live in the action of death,� the Primitive, the first slayer proclaims) and the afterlife (Angel had been consigned to hell for a time and Buffy brought down from heaven, with vampires and other demonic forces trapped somewhere in between). Horror revolves around not only the idea of death, but exploring the very real human fear of it. When told that she was prophesied to die at the hands of her enemies, she had her Gethsemane moment of reluctance, then went willingly to her death. Upon her resuscitation, she was more powerful than ever. In a later episode, she descended into hell to free some captives. Death and resurrection are constants in the show. The whole idea of vampires is wrapped in these notions and steeped in religious imagery. It’s as if God is ever-present, yet off camera. In one episode, “School Hard,� a vampire says “This is the most fun I’ve had since the crucifixion.� Think of the iconography of vampires as true anti-Christ figures: they are people who die and three days later are resurrected and, through the sacrifice of blood, born into eternal life. They can be killed by a wood stake through the heart, by holy water, or by the sun’s light. The cross is literally Buffy’s salvation.
Spirituality as commonly practiced in our Western, individualistic mindset has been about one’s personal salvation. While preaching a “gospel� of honor, loyalty, and friendship, Buffy exemplifies a less self-centered mindset: she’s out to save everyone. While she lives by Mr. Spock’s code from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, in that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,� she goes out of her way to save even the one, “not willing that any should perish.� Whereas the BtVS spin-off, Angel, has redemption as its central focus, at the center of Buffy is the theme of sacrifice. This culminates in Season Five. The “Big Bad,� as the major villain of each season is sometimes called, is a mad god named Glory. She seeks to bring down the walls that separate realities, in essence, break down the gates of hell. The blood of the “savior’s� family line is needed to stop the ritual. Rather than sacrifice her sister, Dawn, which was intended, Buffy sacrifices herself. self-sacrifice, rooted in love, is the only act to bring salvation.
Season Six examines the ramifications of Buffy’s condescension from heaven. What am I talking about? As the season opens, Buffy is dead. Dead and buried dead, not the technically her-heart-stopped-beating dead of Season One. Her friends set out to rescue her soul from hell. While the precedent had been set, Angel had been consigned to hell (expected, since he did spend over two centuries as the scourge of Europe), you kind of have to ask yourselves what your friends must think of you if they assume that at the moment of your death, you must be in hell. The arrogance/naivete of such an assumption has tragic consequences as her friends succeed in yanking her from “heaven.� This is reminiscent of what is called Jesus Christ’s condescension in Philippians 2:5-11?the idea that God would take His essence, wrap Himself in human likeness, and humble Himself by coming from heaven to be like one of us on earth. However, Buffy is not Christ, and being yanked from “the powers that be� (the stand-in for God in Whedon’s mythology) sends her into a tailspin, and the darkest season of the show (though it did produce the greatest episode of the series, the musical Once More with Feeling). Part of this is the realization, or acceptance of the fact, that part of the burden of her chosen calling is the fact that it will always cut her off somewhat from those around her, even her family and friends. Because there can be only one, only one to make the tough decisions with no rule book to guide her.
Only one, until Season Seven.
In this, the last season and a return to a lot of what made Buffy great, Buffy goes missional. The “Big Bad� of the season was actually a villain let loose in Season Four: the First, the original evil. During the course of the season, Buffy and her compatriots come to realize how overwhelmed they are: the nature and perniciousness of this evil is too pervasive. The plan that they come up with involves drawing on Buffy’s essence. The mythology of the show tells us that only one slayer can operate at a time, but there must be many potential slayers at any given moment since, should the current slayer die, one must rise to take her place. The Scooby Gang in essence lets loose the “Holy Spirit,� a scene very much reminiscent of Pentecost, activating all of the potentials to carry out their divine mission. Buffy as Christ figure is still present, especially in the series finale as her side is pierced by a sword and later the shadow of a cross forms on her blouse.Buffy is in the line of “The Suffering Servant.� Hers is a life of constant struggle. Hers is a life that by necessity forgoes any hope of a true personal life. Another hallmark of the hero’s journey is true love denied or sacrificed, in this case, the doomed romance of Buffy and Angel. Think Romeo and Juliet, if Romeo was undead and Juliet was given the charge of killing him. She loses family (her mom) and friends (Ms. Calendar, Tara, Anya). She loses her life both figuratively (her life, due to her calling, is no longer her own) and literally (she dies, twice). She is called down from the peace of heaven for the sake of her mission and humanity.
What I don’t want to be lost in all of the analysis is the fact that the main reason that Buffy the Vampire Slayer worked for so long is because of its great writing, great acting, and great dialogue. It is one of the wittiest shows, full of pop culture references and witty repartee, to ever hit the airwaves. However, in a lot of ways, BtVS is a truly postmodern religious experience. What we ultimately learn from Buffy is that true spirituality is about the journey. On the show, everyone is on a journey and along the way, the characters increase in complexity if not likeability. But it’s the journey itself that shapes them, not the distance not even the destination or completion of the goal or defeat of the villain. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is in essence, a parable with Buffy as messiah, the Scoobies as her church, and the demons as the temptations of life. Or, as Willow says (in the episode “Lie to Me�), “The dark can get pretty dark. Sometimes you need a story.�
******************************
The Complaints from the “Religious Right�
As with many things, there are those who cannot watch shows like Buffy. They have defined what lines they cannot cross for themselves insofar as what they can watch and handle. That is fine. This becomes less fine when they define their lines as the only “proper� lines that everyone should follow. The chief complaints center around two things prevalent in the show: the use of magic (the occult) and sex. But let me start off by saying that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not a Christian show. It doesn’t espouse a Christian cosmology (not a Christian version of creation, demons, or the afterlife), but it does leave much open as springboards for dialogue.The show embraces a reality that we would more comfortably like to deny: we live in a mystical world and there are spiritual forces in play. Too often the show is seen as not being a true battle of light versus darkness, but as using the occult to banish the occult, evil to fight evil. One of the things overlooked is that our very existence is defined by a battle between our own “good� (our spiritual selves) and “evil� (our human nature).
Magic, like many other concepts in the show, is symbolic of other things. At times it has been a symbol of growing romantic or sexual interest (as in Willow and Tara’s relationship). Sometimes it has been used to explore the nature of addiction (including Willow falling in thrall to a magic “dealer�). It has been a symbol for the nature of absolute power to corrupt absolutely (as in Willow’s “Dark Phoenix� storyline that culminated season six. As an aside, it is no accident that I reference the “Dark Phoenix� storyline taken from the X-Men comics. Joss Whedon is not only a huge fan of comics, and currently writes Astonishing X-Men, but patterned the character of Buffy on one of his favorite X-Men, Kitty Pryde). The main lesson always presented is that magic isn’t something to be trifled with or approached lightly. It’s very real and very dangerous. And the show has always been clear on one thing: it is not moral to use evil, to use the powers of darkness, even to a good end. This is a constant source of temptation and the show never shied away from discussing the attraction of the darkness. Faith, another ironically named vampire slayer, succumbed to this temptation early on, falling in love with her power and the thrill of combat.
And there is the idea of consequences.
Magic is something that Willow started to dabble in during Season Two in order to contribute something to this ongoing fight against evil. In Season Six, she pays the consequences of such dabbling.
There are positive lessons to be learned from Wiccans. Thoreau said that with a keen awareness of the natural world one could find truth. God has created all things and declared them “good� (even “very good�). We’ve abandoned the a sense of “creation spirituality� from our spiritual walks, so it’s little wonder why people return to older religions in an effort to reclaim it. All spiritual people should enjoy God’s creation, embracing it the way God intended for us. We need to recover the mystical part of spirituality, learning to exist in harmony with God, others, and creation.
Then there’s the sex. By the end of the third season, all the major characters have lost their virginity and in the fourth, Willow engages in an ongoing lesbian relationship. Sex, especially repressed sexuality, is commonly linked to horror. That being said, sex not only plays out as a metaphor on the show (beyond its own titillating aspects) but the show does something that few others do: deal with the consequences of it. When Buffy loses her virginity to Angel, the consequences are tragic. Angel turns evil, first becoming a cad, the typical guy who doesn’t call the next day, before fully returning to his murderous self. And as his return to evil plays out, Buffy is forced to kill him and send him to hell. When Oz, Willow’s one-time boyfriend, runs around with a female werewolf, he realizes that one cannot live totally in thrall to one’s desires without leaving wreckage in the wake.
Look at the lexicon of the show: heaven, hell, the apocalypse, souls, evil are all taken as givens. The show, while never preachy, is a series of cautionary tales about what happens when you go too far, too fast. It is also a show that rewards a viewer’s patience and intelligence: none of its themes are tidily wrapped up within the hour, and some take episodes, if not seasons, to play out. It is simpler to live in a black-and-white world, to have a series of rules to live by. Living in the freedom of the gray areas is uncomfortable. The show refuses to take the easy route. A lot can be learned about how to tell stories, the use of visual imagery, and even the power of dialogue from watching the show. In this media-savvy world that we live in, the show resonates because it allows culture to infiltrate it, digesting and absorbing it, then turning around and infiltrating culture.
—Review
—Photos
—About this Series
22 Comments:
You might be interested in looking at the online scholarly journal about BtVS
wow. what a great site.
I have never before read such a comprehensive overview of Buffy from a spiritual perspective other than my own, which is pagan and polytheistic. Thanks for a wonderfully entertaining write-up which makes me want to go watch my DVDs all over again from the start! Which I do from time to time anyway... *sigh* Were you aware how awful US TV shows are becoming to us Brits now all things Whedon are no longer on air? At least we still have The West Wing and one new light of entertainment otherwise known as Desperate Housewives.
at least whedon's returning to the movies with "serenity" (based on his "firefly" series.
and when in doubt, we'll just steal brit shows. our version of "the office" debuts in a couple weeks.
I will be very interested to hear how the translation of The Office goes. The original was funny but nowhere near as much as The Smoking Room. Has that hit your shores yet? Deliciously incorrect, each episode takes place in the smoking room of an office and details the misadventures of the smokers, ranging from the closeted office boy to the unhinged human resources manager. If you get an opportunity to see it, I think you would find it fascinating. From a spiritual perspective, it clearly shows how hollow lives can be without anything at their centre. The smokers literally fill the gaps in their lives with cigarettes. The scripts are always pin-sharp and insightful.
I have included your site in my Friday round-up today.
i (well, technically my brother) just got the office (bbc version) on dvd. i'm planning a review of that (since i haven't seen/heard of the smoking room).
i'll soon be working on a review of the most spiritual of all star treks: deep space nine.
thanks for the inclusion.
Ron View Delete
Season 7 Episode 2(Beneath You) the final scene has to be one of my top favorite scenes in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. To give a bit of background this particular scene takes place in a chapel in a cemetery at night. Buffy finally learns that Spike got back his soul. In the Buffy/Angel universe a vampire only has the body of the person that used to be alive. The soul is gone, and the demon is there with access to all the memories and personality quirks of the departed. To have a soul means that you have good in you, and that you can make atonement for what you have done. When a vampire gets his soul he is weighed down with all the crimes he committed as a vampire. The demon is gone, and the human is there in a body that can still be burned by sunlight, crosses, and holy water; and not to mention can die from a stake to the heart. All the guilt comes upon this creature; and in Spike's case drove him insane.He did it so that he could have Buffy as he thought that she deserved. In the sixth season(before he gets his soul), Spike is so overcome with lust that he almost rapes her. In this last scene Spike mentions that Angel should have warned him about what having a soul meant for someone such as him. He only saw what he wanted, and didn't take into account the hell that he would have to go through to get it; that is if he got it at all.I really do love his charachter, and identify with him in his attitude, music(he loves the punk rock, and in the fifth season of Angel he is driving Angel's car with the Dead Kennedy's blaring on the stereo), and his desire for wholeness with a sense of purpose. I remember being in my parent's house when I first watched this, I put my hand over my mouth, and almost cried because on that deeper level of me this is what I desired. At the time I did not think that it would ever happen; and a small part of me still thinks that it never will.
Spike: ...and she will look on him with forgiveness. And everybody will forgive and love; and he will be loved. So everything's ok, right? (Spike leans on the barren cross) Can we rest now? (The chapel begins to fill with smoke as Spike begins to burn, and stays on the cross as he makes his supplication) Buffy, can we rest now?
THIS is better, Maurice!! MUCH better!! Not that drivel which takes Miller/Rodriguez/Tarantino's lowest-common-denominator movie trash seriously!!!
Mmm, Buffy!! WHAT a truly marvellous show that was!! They shouldn't have stopped it after just seven seasons, you know. Not with the amount of time "X-Files" was on the air... Sarah Michelle Gellar didn't really have a fully-developed career to go on to.... I personally hope they bring it back somehow, in some form. "Angel" is not nearly as good, and after a while I started to turn off that.
It was the WITTIEST show on air by FAR - if ONLY someone, anyone (including ol' Joss!) could write and publish/have published any comics/graphic novels, on any theme, that were HALF that witty - I'd be happy to take out a lifetime subscription!!
And I agree with Ron that Spike is/was the best character in the WHOLE darn thing... If that's what Ron was saying!
(Didn't they say they were gonna bring him back in Angel as a ghost, or something? Seeing as he died? Did they ever do that??)
they brought back spike during season five of angel.
angel suffered during the first season, as it struggled to find its identity outside of buffy. i think it hit its high point during season 3.
feel free to disagree with this review of angel:
http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/angel.htm
i hear that angel will be back as a series of stand alone television movies.
I don't disagree with your review of "Angel", Maurice. It's detailed, factual and seems to capture the spirit of what this series was about, as well. I didn't watch it to the end so I don't know; I was too disappointed Buffy had finished, and then I just had other things to do.. Obviously the viewers agreed with me that it was not as hot as Buffy, as it would have had a longer run.
I don't however have very much time for your comparison of "Buffy is Wonderwoman; Angel is Batman". I think they're completely different entities, all of them! Buffy, the series and the character, is WAY cooler than Wonder Woman! (I used to watch the series with Linda whatshername in the seventies; I never read many of the comic books.) But anyway, Wonder Woman was some guy's idea of feminism in the 1940s; Buffy was the same sort of idea in the 1990s - there's got to have been a bit of progress!! (At least Buffy doesn't have to bare her shoulders!)
Wonder Woman was a nice gal, though! It will be interesting to see Whedon's movie of her; and how he updates her - HOPEFULLY without, boringly, making her all black leather!!
I totally reject the comparison of Batman with any vampire, however personable.
I'm sorry I couldn't have posted these comments at the end of the "Angel" review; I looked and it doesn't have the "blogger" software on there! Any reason why not? Anyway, it led me to this "gospel" or whatever it was called, message board forum, which was in depressing tiny writing, and I couldn't work out even the order of messages on there, on any of those boards, and it seemed to be full of these "evangelistic", Harry Potter hating types, as well, so I left!
WHAT is it with you Christians and Harry Potter, anyway? Why don't you attack Lewis or Tolkien on the same grounds? IS it just because a woman who didn't avow herself Christian, wrote a lot of children's books about magic? What is so WRONG with the idea of "white magic" or "white witchcraft"? Obviously you don't think there is, Maurice, or you would have denounced Willow!!
Anyway, I don't see any reviews of the Harry Potter books on here; and that is another thing I wanted to offer to do: Harry Potter reviews, because I know the books very well, for one thing; and have a confidence that I know what the author's basic messages are, and where she is going with the whole thing, which not everybody seems to have much insight into... I've read loads of reviews of the books, but little that got at the heart of the matter!
yeah, the new blogging format was set up after my angel review came out. but you can feel free to make your angel comments here as well.
last reports had joss whedon, creator of buffy and angel, directing and now possibly writing an upcoming wonder woman movie. joss has a love for comic books and that comes out in the work that he does. (i could have made the comparison between the buffy "scooby" gang and the x-men. especially since he patterned buffy on "kitty pryde" of the x-men and now writes one of the x-men comic books.)
i generally think that there is too much denouncing done in the christian community. we are in danger of being defined by who and what we are against rather than who we are for. that's why i have the tone in my reviews that i do.
plus, when i'm not doing this, i'm a horror writer. kind of hard to denounce harry potter.
For the record, not all Christians denounce Harry Potter OR BtVS... There are those loudmouths who take the popular-fundamentalist view to the papers and open up the door for a lot of flack to be given to the rest of us.
I'm a Christian who loves Harry Potter and gives credence to Buffy... as well as a ton of other shows, books, etc., that pinpoint a non-Christian or even occultic view. I think that it's appropriate for the Christian to be cautious as to what he exposes himself to, most certainly, but he also has to consider that his brother or sister might not have the same hangups, and might not need to avoid the same things.
At any rate, do try not to generalize. =)
~Crystal
Ah, Crystal, don't get "snitty" with me, girlie! (I don't recognise the smiley you used at the end of your message, =), so as far as I know you could have meant offence! Try this one :-)!)
I'm glad that you love Harry Potter; so do I; and that you "give credence" to Buffy... but what does that mean? That you think it is valid as art, or that you think its view of the occult could be "real"?
Hmm! Anyway, I'm not generalizing: as you can SEE, I don't have to go very FAR off the "permissive" oasis of THIS Christian site, ie to that OTHER, "gospel" blog, that Maurice's Angel page links to, to find a LOT of Christians who are only TOO HAPPY to slag off H.P.!!
Don't have to go far at all! To find Christians who do think like that!
But honestly I think that certain elements in the faith, as you seem to have said yourself, have made a big THING out of this, run about with it to all the papers, but not only the papers, all over the web and other Christian sites, and made a big panic about it, AMONGST the general Christian community which may have previously been indifferent or undecided. (EG, they wouldn't allow any of the Potter movies to be filmed in any of the religious-funded colleges of Oxford or Cambridge, or their religious buildings... Though I believe that one cathedral (was it Gloucester now?) gave permission to use some of their Gothic architecture (that's what they needed, you see!) for the money... And parts of the exterior of Durham cathedral are also used in the movies, to represent the Quidditch courtyard at Hogwarts.)
So you SEE, all the fuss about Harry has extended a LOT beyond the Pat Robertsons and Billy Grahams among your religion... Hitherto moderate British Christians were stirred up against it! (Maybe it's because Rowling's moral universe, rather like the Star Wars one, was far more appealing to modern youth, than is the Christian view... The conservative Christian view, anyway! Nobody likes competition!)
Yes, Maurice, including you in the response as well! I'm sure you're correct in your comments about Mr Whedon and his writings. (If only he had ALSO been a Batman fanatic, and if only HIS way of doing such a comic could have been adopted, instead of the Frank Miller and the Alan Moore and all that awful garbage! Is my wistful fantasy!)
Yes, so you're not a denouncer! You're a positive guy! I get the idea! It's not a bad one; otherwise maybe everyone WILL think ALL Christians are narrow-minded fundamentalists (but the thing is, that in the modern US, so many of them ARE... And this is NOT a coincidence or just arbitrary! It has been fostered by government and the elite; view all the multitudious comments on the relationship between Bush and the Religious Right, on www.wsws.org.) Just type in "Religious Right" or "Christian Right" in that site's search box... Oh, and it's a worldwide phenomenon too; it's in Australia and everyplace...)
Try this reference: www.wsws.org/articles/testdir/nov2004/demo-n13.shtml. Even Clinton gets in bed with the bastards!!
Oh, yes, and try THIS one, dears!! www.wsws.org/articles/2000/mar2000/elec-m06.shtml
A genuinely religious horror writer - I'd like to see what you write, then!! (How about doing something that would show the horror, in a futuristic world, if all the Christian "fundies" "got their druthers", as Margaret Atwood once said?)
(Or indeed the socialistic paradise we could build if they really WERE all "raptured" off; and Left Us Behind (and alone!) To get on with what really mattered!))
It's only fundies who get "raptured", though, isn't it??
Not liberal Christian horror writers?
Oh and look at THIS one, my dears, it's a recent article... www.wsws.org/articles/2005/apr2005/repu-a28.shtml
Basically it's saying that the Christian Right is sowing the seeds of an American fascist political movement in America... Rather LIKE the Nazis used, not so much conventional religion, but a vague mystical appeal to Nordic myths, nationalism and notions of "blood and soil" to unite large sections of the German population behind their cause... Don't think it couldn't be done AGAIN; it's just that an appeal to "blood and soil", wouldn't have much resonance with most ordinary, even rural USA folks, would it? Only to a few "Aryan nationalists". Well, because most Americans, even conservatives, aren't THAT (and don't believe in Odin!), the plotters couldn't USE naked racism in that manner; they'd have to make an appeal to contemporary religion, namely Christianity, that being the majority religion in the USA, now, wouldn't they??
(And other Americans besides this little socialist web site are aware of that - as you can see in their most recent batch of letters on that site!! At least a certain amount of people KNOW that this is what Bush et al are planning...)
Anyway, if YOU didn't hear it before, Maurice, Crystal - you heard it from me first!! Be VERY afraid!
OK, Maurice, what horror stories/books have you written? (None about the Christian Right, I'll lay!)
Anyway, what was I going to say, originally, about Christians and/versus Harry Potter?
Oh yes! This was going to be my MAIN thrust; I meandered a bit, but basically it's well backed up by the political articles I refer to above...
Well, what it is, is I've got another political accusation to make against Christians IN GENERAL, I'm afraid, not just "fundies" - but MAINLY them, of course.
It is, that when Christians are confronted with various fiction works that gain a profile (through movies, etc) and that DON'T support Christian beliefs or ideals... OK, chaps, say ONE, like Rowling, is basically harmless, right, and definitely humane, BUT promotes "magic"... To a broad, mainly child, readership/movie audience... Say it does all that (and a few Christians come out in mild defence of it, because it has themes about the importance of family, friendship, trust, honour, motherly love etc... Which "Potter" does... though a lot is in the backstory remember...)
Well say a few are in favour of it! But a lot MORE Christians are DEAD against it: simply because a) it promotes "sorcery" - ie, magical "adepts" relying on their own power over unseen forces and not on any God's (at all, so far as I can see - not even pagan gods!) and b) this work is aimed at children. Oh and c), last but not least, it is by a woman who has an obvious commitment to social and democratic values.
OOO kay. So that's the first half of my comparative pair. And say that the other half, TWO, is something like Frank Miller's "Sin City", again, a movie based on books (comic books this time), which has as its theme some very UNChristian material and attitudes; and yet, when confronted with it, most Christians' instinct is not to say as much against it, or at least not to make NEARLY such a public fuss about it as was, and will CONTINUE to be made about Potter, presumably because a) "Sin City" is not aimed at children b) it does not include "sorcery" in it, ie attempting to master the Universe on your own bat, (something ELSE which socialists, incidentally, MIGHT WELL be accused of - don't tell the ghost of Marx, he'll hate the comparison! Hee hee!)
And c), of course, "Sin City" is by a right-winger: a "right-wing militia" type, who at first glance would appear to have nothing to do with the religious right and indeed to be against all religion; but, when you look at things in the cold hard light of day, there is a LOT more connection between the "Religious" and the "non-religious" or "non-conformist" Right, than is generally admitted... (The Right sticks together! It always has!)
What I'm saying - accusing - is that most Christians will ALWAYS attack the "left" on principle, however "harmless" and "positive" its expressions, eg Ms Rowling: and they will always INSTINCTIVELY leave the Right, however depraved - like Mr Miller - to its own devices; as was the case in Nazi Germany.
As my favourite socialist reviewer David Walsh says:
"Without mincing words, it is necessary to state the elementary truth that while there is a certain division of labor between the militia-type movements, to which Timothy McVeigh belonged, and the groups on the religious right like the OCAF, they inhabit the same extreme right-wing political milieu and share many common ideological traits: anticommunism, apocalyptic fundamentalism, American chauvinism, militarism, racism and anti-Semitism. These tendencies are being secreted through the pores of a crisis-ridden system. There is no way to defeat them without raising a movement, with deep roots in the population, on a program of radical changes in economic and social life."
(www.wsws.org/arts/1998/oct1998/okc-o14.shtml)
Anyway, on an extra note to that: I HAVE noticed complaints, perhaps some "organized" degree of complaint, from Christians, about things like the modern "Batman" phenomenon, and I can see WHY they don't like a lot of it: not only is it pessimistic, not only is it a-religious; it's just thoroughly uncivilized, (most Christians, despite their faults, are generally pretty civilized!), much of this modern interpretation of the traditional comic-book hero... Especially the books by Frank Miller.
However, I don't think there HAS been much Christian protest specifically against "The Dark Knight Returns" and so on; I think that most of the murmuring in this field has been against a) the cartoons and b) the movies, because a) they are more aimed at children, which of course is what parents are going to be worried about (and yet STILL, there's nothing to STOP under-15s reading the sicker productions of Miller and Moore - not so much as a warning note exists on the cover of most graphic novels, as to to content!) and b) especially as regards the movies, they are what really gains media "attention", and THAT'S what everybody likes, isn't it... In fact, I think many "protests" about Harry Potter etc are just because it's really famous and best-selling, has high "brand name recognition", and because the people protesting against it want attention for their own agenda....
(Oh, yes, of course - and Christians would be reluctant to criticise Miller, I think, as I have found them reluctant here... There's just SOMETHING about his irrationalism that appeals to some of them!)
Anyway, I HAVEN'T yet thoroughly CHECKED the web, for all Christian sites that may be complaining or have anything to say about any variety of "Batman"; I have YET to do that (any web address tips/recommendations gratefully received!).
But a year or two ago, actually on more than one occasion, I did do a thorough trawl on the subject of "Harry Potter", and LOADS of web-sites came up, of course; most of them that were "Christian" were anti. Some of them were very "grass roots", ie home-made; and one of them even made out that Harry was a drug addict, because he made his own "potions" (!!!!)
Anything to libel Potter!
So there you are, Crystal.
But I don't really know much of what the Christian reaction against the "new Batman" has been. Maurice?
(Apart from to say, I'm not surprised that there has been one! And that not EVERYBODY in your faith has been as "positive" about it as the guys on this site!)
There's only so far you can go against basic civilized values, without stirring up dissent. Whether it's informed, or confused.
as darla put it to angel: "god doesn't want you, but i still do." (dear boy)
indeed, the show has kazillians of biblical references...and not just the vampire mythology based ones.
in season 3, lilah (queen of the gray area) tells wesley while he is still in exile from the fang gang (he stole angel's son connor because he was tricked with a prophecy that said angel would kill his son, he got his neck slashed by justine, holtz took connor into the quartoth dimension and robbed angel of seeing connor's growing up and then taught connor to hate his father...long story--angel tried to smother wesley at the hospital)...
anyway--lilah tells wesley a whole speech about how the worst spot in hell is for those who betray. and she gives him dante's inferno and points out that it is judas iscariot in the middle mouth of the devil.
Wes: "Dante's Divine Comedy."
Lilah: "Actually it's just part one, the inferno. It's not a first edition, more like the fifteen hundreds, but it's in the original Tuscan. Have you read it?"
Wes: "Several times."
Lilah: "Then you know it's a guided tour of the underworld, the nine levels of hell."
Wes: "Yes. Descending, concentric rings based on severity of the sin."
Lilah: "You know, I always forget - the very bottom of hell, in the ninth circle, the devil is frozen in ice, right? He got three heads, three mouths and those mouths are reserved for the worst sinners. Now, I can't remember - who is in the center mouth? Wh-what was his name? The one person in all of human history deemed the greatest sinner? Who is it?"
Wes: "Judas Iscariot."
Lilah: "Right. The worst spot in hell is reserved for those who betray. ...So, don't pretend you're too good to work for us."
wesley is compared to judas iscariot in this instance.
also in season 5...there are many comments such as "can i deny you 3 times." (spike, not fade away)...which are in fact religious.
joss proclaims to be atheist, but he still seems to have a huge knowledge of biblical and mythological idealogy. heck, far more than i do (i'm agnostic and a republican conservative btw).
these references really do richen the jossverse.
if you note--there's some gorgeous imagery with spike and crucifixes. most notably the end of beneath you where he puts his body over a crucifix in a church and you see his body smoke. also, in destiny--spike makes a big deal out of the fact that he is not afraid of the crucifix, whereas angel still tries to avoid it.
not to mention, angelus' big thing was slaughtering nuns. in fact, drusilla was sired on the day she was to take her holy orders. there is a beautiful scene in becoming pt. 2 of buffy, where angelus tortures drusilla in the guise of a priest in a confessional and tells her that she is a child of satan, where drusilla is tortured for having "the sight"--and her mother tells her that only god is supposed to see things before they happen. angelus of course then kills her family, drives her to a convent, drives her insane, rapes her and then makes her eternally damned and insane. or "sack of hammers" as spike would put it.
also, in prophecy girl--the whole anointed one--"and the little child will lead them" ...is commentated on using a biblical passage.
the scripts are littered with biblical references and concepts.
the entire episode of "apocalypse, nowish" in season 4 of angel is pretty much one big bible revelations episode as far as apocalyptic warning signs--so is buffy's "prophecy girl" to a much lesser extent.
and i messed up a bit--the dru bit was from "becoming pt. 1"
some more religious laden quotes for those who are interested... (in conjunction with the big judas one up there):
-----
Pavayne: William the Bloody. Scourge and destroyer. But scratch the surface...
Armless Ghost: Little nancy, still crying for his mother.
Pavayne: Know all your hiddens, dirty red things you've done. Then fell in love. Won himself a soul. No more dirty things. Thinks himself special.
Glass Ghost: Thinks it matters.
Hung Ghost: Hell still waits.
Pavayne: Knows he deserves it, like all the others.
(Hellbound)
-----
Spike: Ha ha ha ha! Oh, yeah. Look at you. Thinking you're the big savior—fighting for truth, justice, and soccer moms—but you still can't lay flesh on a cross without smelling like bacon, can you?
Angel: Like you're any different.
Spike: Well, that's just it. I am. And you know it. You had a soul forced on you—as a curse. Make you suffer for all the horrible things you'd done. But me... I fought for my soul. Went through the demon trials. Almost did me in a dozen times over, but I kept fighting. 'Cause I knew it was the right thing to do. It's my destiny.
Angel: Really? Heard it was just to get into a girl's pants.
(Destiny)
-----
::Darla pulls out a cross and presses it against his chest::
Darla: No, you stop!
::We can hear the cross burn into Angel's chest, but he refuses to budge::
Darla: See? No matter how good a boy you are - God doesn't want you!
::Angel lets go of her and throws himself back away form her cross. They look at each other breathing hard::
Darla: But I still do.
(Dear Boy)
-----
Drusilla: Me mum says... I'm cursed. My seeing things is an affront to the Lord, that only he's supposed to see anything before it happens. But I don't mean to, Father, I swear! I swear! I try to be pure in his sight. I don't want to be an evil thing.
Angelus: Oh, hush, child. The Lord has a plan for all creatures. Even a Devil child like you.
Drusilla: A Devil?
Angelus: Yes! You're a spawn of Satan. All the Hail Marys in the world aren't going to help. The Lord will use you and smite you down. He's like that.
Drusilla: What can I do?
Angelus: Fulfill his plan, child. Be evil. Just give in.
Drusilla: No! I want to be good. I want to be pure.
Angelus: We all do, at first. The world doesn't work that way.
Drusilla: Father... I beg you... Please... Please, help me.
Angelus: Very well. Ten Our Fathers and an Act of Contrition. Does that sound good?
Drusilla: Yes. Yes, Father. Thank you.
Angelus: The pleasure was mine. And my child...
Drusilla: Yes?
Angelus: God is watching you.
Goodness me - somebody's been going through their collection of Buffy/Angel DVDs!
Unless they've just made the above up... I never did get to the "ghost scenario" on Angel...
I did love handsome, moody, witty Spike though... Hope he found some release in the end.
the "ghost scenario" is from an angel season 5 episode called hellbound. we see spike trying to keep from getting pulled into hell by a ghost of a mass murderer (pavayne) who feeds hell the ghosts of w&h employees to keep from slipping into hell.
we also have a scene in there were angel tells spike that they are both going to hell. spike then asks why they try then. and it's because it's the only thing they can do.
see the whole shanshu thing is about becoming human, but it also entails having their pasts wiped clean and it means they are forgiven for the things they've done. this is another reason angel signing away the shanshu is so poignant. he is not only giving up a future with buffy and becoming human, but also being redeemed.
yeah, i have an obsessive disorder. can you tell?
Maurice,
This is by far my favorite of your reviews.
Yes, Joss is an atheist, and yes, there are things in the show that Christians need to be wary of. But the answer is not to throw our TVs out the windows, but to use thoughtful shows like this as springboards for healthy discussions about our faith with non-believers.
Thanks again!
Tom
P.S. I just re-read my post. It sounds like I'm arguing with you, but actually I'm "ditto"ing everything you said. :)
It's amazing how the author managed to completely ignore Buffy's relationship with Spike. Even when commenting upon Seasons Five, Six and Seven.
Why did he do that?
why? WHY???!!!???
did you see how long the review was? and that was with me sticking to a (often tenuous) theme.
me talking about buffy and spike ... heck, i could do a review as long if not longer on spike's spiritual journey
hey its only a show cmon it was made to entertein people but you are making it boring you suck!!!!
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