Buffy, gothicism, postmodernism

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goldenboy

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OK, here's another ramble. Someone around here knows much more about this stuff than I ever will I'm sure...

The popularity of gothic art, architecture started to rise as a kind of nostalgia, curiosity about Medieval culture. Enlightened Europe looking back at its exotic, "irrational", Catholic past, is that right?

The first novel considered to be gothic is The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole. It seems like that feel, those themes kind of come up again in Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, even Dickens a bit, starting in the 1840's, into the 1850's. Dread, irrational fear, ghosts, the macabre...

Then, does it start to peter off in America right after the Civil War? Not sure. Anyways, the Victorians really loved their ghost stories, into Spiritualism. By the 1920's, German Expressionism starts to dominate film to a degree: Metropolis, Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Nosferatu...Leads to the rise of the first American classic monster movies of the 30's.

Goes away for awhile, post WW2. Gothic horror morphs into a parody of itself by the 40's"”Abbott and Costello monster comedies. Then, by the 60's there are still serious (lower budget) Dracula movies, but we also have The Addams Family, Munsters, Batman TV show, Bewitched. Goth is now complete kitsch. Roman Polanski has his Fearless Vampire Hunters, then Rosemary's Baby"”kind of a satire. And later the great spoof, Young Frankenstein.

The 70's seems to be a time of yet another attitude shift. The Excorcist, '73. The Omen movies. Then the rise of Stephen King novels, adaptations. Real dread and classic gothic themes are creeping back.

By the 80's, you'd almost think it was the 20's-30's again. Anne Rice gets huge, birth of the goth music scene, Tim Burton gives us a new version of the original, serious gothic Batman. David Lynch and his creepy gothic America. Into the 90's with Silence of the Lambs, X-Files a bit, Millenium, Buffy the Vampire Slayer... Buffy's an interesting case in that it's both a satire of and deadly serious about gothic themes.

I wonder, do gothic themes reach more of a fever pitch in America in times of chaos and doubt? Times of institutional decay and cynicism? Seems like we have it rising before the Civil War, before the Depression/WW2, and it started to really fly again in the 80's. Maybe I'm reading too much into things, creating a pattern that doesn't exist, not sure...

Another thing: I think you can make a connection between what we call postmodernism and gothicism. There's something fake, contextually odd about gothicism. It's taking Medieval themes, ideas out of context, dropping them into "modern" Europe. What could be more post-mod than building fake ruins of an old Medieval chapel on the grounds of an Engish estate, for example?

Also, don't gothic novels make use of "fake" documents, formats? Like the diary format of Dracula for example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_document

The X-Files is one giant fake document, in a sense. It presented everything with documents, voiceover-narration-as-official-reports.

And philosophically, postmodernism is really sort of anti-reason, rationality. Hostile towards The Enlightenment, Modernism. Gothicism seems like an anti-reason phenomenon as well. The German Expressionist artists, writers, filmmakers were, I assume, influenced by some of the German philosophers who were suspicious of The Enlightenment.

I think the gothic, post-mod "thing" Joss was working with may have a long history, tradition actually. Or am I full of it? Any goth experts out there?
 
Pretty interesting collection of details there.

Not a Goth expert myself, but the following passage kind of caught my eye.

goldenboy said:
I wonder, do gothic themes reach more of a fever pitch in America in times of chaos and doubt? Times of institutional decay and cynicism? Seems like we have it rising before the Civil War, before the Depression/WW2, and it started to really fly again in the 80's. Maybe I'm reading too much into things, creating a pattern that doesn't exist, not sure...
Click to expand...

I need some education with the depression thing. I think I might be mixed up. Weren't the days leading up to the depression generally considered to be happy times? Wasn't the crash kind of an unexpected thing?

Also (and I'm pretty sure about this one) isn't the period of the Dirty Thirties depression kind of famous for all the happy, escapist entertainment like the musicals. Weren't they the most popular things going at the time. Admittedly though it was also the period of probable birth for Film Noir, and the Universal studios horror classics such as Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolfman really got on as well.

I'm not sure what this does for your theory if it's true. Does it contradict it, or add to it. Hope it's the latter. 🙂
 
That's the wierd thing, I'm looking for patterns, but I'm not sure...The 20's strike me as cynical, chaotic. Prohibition, gangsters, moralism and also living it up, hypocrisy, extreme market speculation, on the verge of collapse. Sorta like the 90's.

And we get Silent Era Hollywood influenced by German Expressionist films"”but it doesn't really seem to kick in until the 30's with American horror films. Almost like a delayed effect. Do the Dracula, Frankenstein movies reflect American angst, fear about the chaos in 30's Europe, fear of foreigners, foreign entanglements?

You're right about the feelgood films too. Nothing's ever simple, is it?
 
Movie styles of the time could be reflecting an advancement in technologies etc, so it could not be that 30s horror films are because of a bleak time, but rather cause cameras became ever slightly more mobile (although still not very), the industry was picking up and thus expanding and they were figuring out new ways to make someone look like Frankenstein.

Likewise, the 60s Hammer Horror could be because of the era, a time where youth was in charge and reject tradition notions.
 
Well... For starters I used to be a goth, but it certainly doesn't make me an expert.

First N4H is right on his point that the days leading up to the depression were considered extremely happy. Although the "Roaring 20s" is a misrepresentation since the working class was very poor and the upper class was very rich, the 20s is know for the beginnings of big band and swing music (largely considered happy).

I still think that your pattern has some merit. Even in times of "gothic surges" there were happy things as well. After all pop didn't disappear when Marilyn Manson became famous. I think there is definitely a pattern here though, when dealing with dark and depressing things in their daily lives people want something to match their mood in terms of music, literature and film. For instance if I'm in an angry or frustrated mood I tend to play music that is heavy or dark.

Gothic "culture" is not necessarily completely without uplifting aspects. Most modern gothic novels, movies and music has a redeeming value to it (as in the possibility of redemption). It also deals with questions of death and immortality without preaching.

Even though I am no longer a "goth" I still greatly enjoy gothic styles, music, movies and literature. Generally I use the rule, "The darker the better."

On a side note, goth is certainly on the rise again. Could this be added to the pattern as a symbol of the constant reminders of death we are seeing on the news. Murders, the war in Iraq and Middle Eastern strife could be relative causes for the modern rise, evidenced by the growth of bands like Evanescence.

Great topic BTW.
 
It's interesting. You guys are right about the "Roaring 20's", that it was wild, fun. Chaotic. The Jazz Age. But we also have increasing angst, cynicism of the Lost Generation writers for example. "The Great Gatsby" wasn't even very popular when it was first published. Kind of an "alternative" theme of despair, doubt below the surface that was creeping in. The 20's were a wild mix of moods, ideas. That's why I'm so tempted to draw comparisons to the 80's-90's. Seems like there's increasing hedonism, materialism, lawlessness in the 20's. Kind of an exhaustion towards the end.

I'm suggesting that as the culture gets more sort of fevered and wild, eclectic, cynical"”that gothic themes get more popular somehow. Not sure...

But the "goth effect" didn't seem to manifest itself in Hollywood until the 30's, after we'd crossed the line into crisis with The Crash.

found some interesting monster movie info...



"The Advent of Classic Horror Films of the 30s: Universal Studios

Actor Conrad Veidt and German expressionistic director Paul Leni were recruited by Universal's boss Carl Laemmle in the mid-1920s. Paul Leni was already known in his homeland for the spooky horror classics Backstairs (1921) and Waxworks (1924). After moving to Hollywood, Leni directed The Cat and the Canary (1927), a derivative from a stage-bound 1922 melodrama. The influential film is considered the first Gothic 'haunted house' horror film. Veidt was cast as an ever-smiling, grotesque carnival freak named Gwynplaine in Leni's next film for Universal, The Man Who Laughs (1927), a superb romantic melodrama.

By the early 1930s, horror entered into its classic phase in Hollywood - the true Dracula and Frankenstein Eras, with films that borrowed from their German expressionism roots. The studios took morbid tales of European vampires and undead aristocrats, mad scientists, and invisible men and created some of the most archetypal creatures and monsters ever known for the screen. Universal Studios was best-known for its pure horror films in the 30s and 40s, horror-dom's characters (Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, the Invisible Man, and the Wolf Man) and its classic horror stars, Hungarian matinee idol Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff...."

"...The worst ignominy suffered by Chaney, Jr. was in Universal-International's comedy Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) with the two screen comedians. Here was evidence that classic horror films in the genre were beginning to go out of style after the real 'horrors' of World War II..."

http://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms.html



Another thing, I claimed that gothicism is like postmodernism in that it's sort of a reaction against The Enlightenment, modernism, rationality. "Frankenstein" seemed to be prescient in its fear, dread about science, man's hubris in "creating life". Also, maybe dread about the nascent Industrial Revolution, technology.

The 20's seems to be another extreme in the advance of Modernism: the continued growth of industry, technology. The birth of Art Deco"”the worship of mechanical motiffs in art, fashion, architecture like never before. Maybe the goth phenomenon is a simultaneous reaction, fear of that...

Again, starting in the 80's we have another technology revolution. The birth of the home computer. And with Reagan challenging the Soviet Union, there's increased nuclear war dread. In the 90's there's the rise of the Internet revolution, and also new extremes in genetics, genetic manipulation.

Buffy sometimes seemed to be anti-modernism, anti-technology. Most obvious in season 4.
 
goldenboy said:
Another thing, I claimed that gothicism is like postmodernism in that it's sort of a reaction against The Enlightenment, modernism, rationality. "Frankenstein" seemed to be prescient in its fear, dread about science, man's hubris in "creating life". Also, maybe dread about the nascent Industrial Revolution, technology.

The 20's seems to be another extreme in the advance of Modernism: the continued growth of industry, technology. The birth of Art Deco"”the worship of mechanical motiffs in art, fashion, architecture like never before. Maybe the goth phenomenon is a simultaneous reaction, fear of that...

Again, starting in the 80's we have another technology revolution. The birth of the home computer. And with Reagan challenging the Soviet Union, there's increased nuclear war dread. In the 90's there's the rise of the Internet revolution, and also new extremes in genetics, genetic manipulation.

Buffy sometimes seemed to be anti-modernism, anti-technology. Most obvious in season 4.
Click to expand...

I always thought that Buffy was a spearhead or a frontrunner for a fantasy backlash against the 'science worship' of the eighties and nineties. For instance, Star Trek.

Star Trek, the original series, was big. But The Next Generation (1987-1994) and Deep Space Nine (1993-1999) were huge. TNG was essentially TOS with a better captain, as far as story-telling and writing goes. The classic "Trek" mold of single episode arcs and two-parters were only broken a few times, and the stories almost always relied heavily on what the Buffy writers call the flabautnem (sp?) or the fantasy element that makes things happen. In TNG, the alien or the technology or the ship gaining a personality was nearly always the focus of the episode, rather than a character's response to it. This changed in DS9, which dealt with religion, marriage, betrayel in war, and even drug addiction. DS9's long run and huge sucess could be attributed to superior writing, arc-based story-telling (such as the Dominion War) and real characters with real emotions, rather than any addiction the public had to science fiction. Rather than the classic "Star Trek" ending of an episode, with the crew standing around the captain's chair laughing with Captain Kirk, angst and tears were often the order of the day. DS9 was the first Star Trek series to kill off a beloved crew member, who was even married to another (And before you bring up Tasha Yar, she was only around for half a season, Jadzia Dax was a part of the crew for five years). I think that these are the reasons DS9 endured as long as it did (Seven years) even into 1999, when American film and literature were already beginning to make the shift from science-fiction into fantasy. DS9 bridged that gap, by taking elements that are inherant in fantasy (well, really in good writing) including characters who display honor, courage, love, and the ability to make mistakes, and humanity and put them in a sci-fi setting. No Star Trek series before (or, I would argue, since) has done it nearly as well, and none has touched audience's hearts in the same way.

Beginning around the end of the 90's fantasy and historical fiction began to become the 'money-maker' or the genre that would pull in the crowds. There were earlier clues to that effect, with the success of movies like Braveheart, but fantasy film and books came into their own with the huge success of movies like Lord of the Rings and books like Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl, even among adults. But even before these huge projects made fantasy mainstream, Buffy had been pushing that envelope for four years. The focus of these 'fantasy' or historical fiction books and films is no longer the success of technology, but instead the courage, honor and humanity of it's characters (even if they're not human). This appeals to audiences through their heart and their hope that, in similar situations, they would react the same way, rather than through our fascination with technology (which is there!). Buffy began doing that in 1997, when Lord of the Rings was nothing but a two-movie treatment on Miramax's conferance table and Harry Potter was one little book by an unknown British author. And in the face of this better-written, better-realized fantasy, Star Trek crumbled, ratings for Enterprise were the worst ever, and Star Trek: Nemesis flopped. Star Trek fans claim that it's the writing, but it's not. Enterprise and Nemesis where no worse than TNG or Star Trek IV, but they were no longer giving the audience what they wanted: real characters with recognizable human emotions in a setting that bears at least some resemblance to our own. Fantasy fans were always there, always under the surface, appreciating and loving the characters and situations in shows like Buffy, but it was with Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Season 5 of Buffy that fantasy 'went mainstream' around 2000. And it's up to the fans to decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Wow, that was long!
 
Lots of good stuff there Anchovy. Sounds like the makings of a book or at least a term paper....

I never followed the Trek phenomenon too closely, but you make sense to me. I look at the different Treks partly in terms of the generations of the creatives driving the show (which I often do).

Roddenberry was a member of "The Greatest Generation", the GIs that won WW2. The original Trek strikes me as very bold, confident in man's basic, good nature. Supreme confidence in technology. Optimistic about future race relations. Predicting some sort of bright, techno-socialist future. Still fairly sexist (by today's standards).

TNG seems like a product of the Baby Boomers to me. Still optimistic, yet more skeptical of technology (like you said), it's ability to solve all our problems. Race equality, sex equality. Kind of humorless and uber-PC at times, injecting environmental, gay-discrimination themes. And the Ferengee (sp?). A gross, clownish anti-capitalist message there, seems like.

Only saw a few DS9 eps, but it seems like the 90's post-mod, Xer mindset is sneaking in a bit there. Everything's very morally murky, overly-complicated. Definite themes of techno-phobia. And much more spiritualism, like you said.

The other two just seem like tired re-treads. Although, the last one almost seemed to be going for a sort of crisis scenario (like WW2) or 24/JackBauer action adventure. Reflecting a post 9/11 America maybe...

There was one TNG ep that was very goth. Sort of a ripoff of Anne Rice's "Lasher" book as I recall. Beverly Crusher goes down to some planet that has a human, Scottish (!?) colony. Encounters some kinda ghost or something...

Anyways, you're definitely right about the decline of sci-fi and the rise of mythology/fantasy, I think. Star Wars and the new superhero movies are really more mythological fantasy than sci-fi. Spidey's always battling scientific monstrosities as a matter of fact. Spidey2 was like Frankenstein deja vu.
 
I think you have a good point about the 'generation' lense to view Trek. I love that you brought up the Ferengi, because that shows haw the attitude towards characters changed between TNG and DS9. On TNG the Ferengi were always gross over-simplifications, charicatures of capitalists. DS9, with the development of characters like Quark, Rom, Moogie (their mother) Nog (the first Ferengi Starfleet officer) and the Grand Nagus (a comic, grandfatherly figure who supports Moogie in her uber-feminist ideas, like that females should be allowed to WEAR CLOTHING,) the DS9 writers turned the Ferengi into real characters who we cared about, and so did their comrades on Deep Space Nine.

And yes, Star Wars has always been more like an epic poem, like if Homer lived in a galaxy far away.

It always seems to me as if the easy nobility of Star Trek, the idea that these people are out, traveling the galaxy, helping people, without compensation, was a sweet idea, but it never meshed with what I know about human nature. It seemed that the crews of the Enterprise never struggled with their position as the beneficiaries of the galaxy, and the people they helped always seemed to welcome them with open arms. DS9 still has that idea, that the Federation personnel really do want to help people, but it's always a little more complicated than it used to be. (Even with the Prime Directive) For instance, the Maquis. They are Federation citizens who have left the Federation. That's never happened before. And for example, the citizens of the planet in the Gamma Quadrant in "The Quickening" don't want Dr. Bashir giving them a false hope of curing the blight that they have lived and died painfully with for a century. Hmm, Dr. Bashir seems to be at the center of moral dilemmas a lot of the time. Is there something about his position as a doctor? Hmm...

And I think it's that moral murkiness (as you put it 😉 ) that kept audiences clamoring for DS9 (some people argue that it jumped the shark in late season six, but ratings never dropped significantly after the Dominion War began until the end of the series) and it's that same struggle of people trying to decide between right and wrong that makes good myths and fantasy. Characters that aren't black and white, but grey, are the trademark of good story-telling, but good fantasy in particular.

I don't think critics give the public enough credit as far as appreciating good storytelling goes. Hollywood keeps making movies like Gigli, like Monster-In-Law, like Maid in Manhattan, (ooh, I didnt mean to dump on J. Lo. She can SING, and I think she's pretty!) thinking that they're going to make huge sums of money (and they do, sometimes) but they never have the massive success of Ray, Lord of the Rings, even Star Wars, because the heroines are all the same, from movie to movie, these are the same characters played by different actors. Even within that 'fantasy/historical fiction' genre, there are stories and characters that are flat, or indistinguishable from each other (Did y'all see King Arthur?) But people expect better of these movies. Even in stories that use archetypes (as Star Wars is famous for) these stories satisfy some desire to see people on-screen who also stuggle with right and wrong, even if they do so on a galactic scale. And those are the movies that keep people coming back.

And that is DEFINITELY a trademark of Buffy: struggling with the grey areas. And for those who don't live in the grey (like Kendra, who strays to far into the white, and Faith who goes to far black) there are severe consequences.
 
Hollywood follows trends, wants to make money. Even from the beginning, Hollywood imported German Expressionists to make monster movies...Tons of Europeans became Classic Hollywood stars, even more so than today. Partly that reflects America's immigrant tradition and also extreme extroversion you might say. (can also be isolationist at times)

Hollywood follows trends 'cause moviemaking is such a huge investment of time and money. But maybe some of it is just inertia, lazyness or even extreme contempt for its audience.

I think the first Dirty Harry movie had the bad guy being impaled by a harpoon at the end. By the late 80's, I'd watch action films with my buddies and just wait for the bad guy to get impaled. He'd always fall from a great height and get impaled on something! (what was that!? lol) Hollywood deals in cliches, whatever keeps the cash rolling in. Then someone tries something new and it's a massive success and they copy that over and over. I'm glad we at least have the vibrant indiefilm industry now...

It's interesting to see the recent (relative) failure of the historical epics in America. (Troy, Alexander, King Arthur, Kingdom of Heaven). Something seems to be missing in the formula: a strong romance, simple moral messages, something. Maybe the classic mythological formula, archetypes are screwed up, not sure. Maybe they just suck...

We want good, smart entertainment is all.

...Just thinking again. Hollywood now truly serves an international market. So they have to be broadly appealing and generally inoffensive. I think with Kingdom of Heaven for example, Ridley Scott apparently went to great lengths to please and comfort Muslims who might be offended. I think he may have watered down things so much, ended up with both cliched Christians and cliched Muslims. Probably ends up either boring or offending large amounts of people. Similarly, Stone's "Alexander" sort of implied his homosexuality, just sort of. Ended up offending Greeks and boring the rest of the viewers. I've heard that for whatever reasons, these films have been doing better overseas than in the States.

Pure mythological adventures have an advantage in that they don't have to appeal to any one particular worldview or perception of historical events. They're a little more universal, abstract. And proven successes as drama.
 
Anchovy and this piece got me thinking:

http://www.darkecho.com/darkecho/horroronline/scifi.html

There's a convergence of science fiction and gothic themes that I think may also fluctuate with the American national mood too"”but it's probably even more of a stretch...

In 20's, 30's cinema we get Metropolis, then Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...science fiction/gothic horror hybrids. By the late 40's, early 50's, it seems a little different. There's straightforward, hard sci-fi and outer space, UFO movies. Outer space adventures. Doesn't seem like there's that much traditional gothicism per se in sci-fi. Seems more like veiled commie/atomic war fear and dread.

But by the end of the 50's, gothic-themed dread seems more common again. There was Plan 9 from Outer Space ("˜59), other schlocky B-movies that attempted to tie gothic horror to UFO's. There was the sci-fi of the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, which had some goth/sci-fi experiments. Dystopian, freakish, Brave New World type stuff.

And it seems to sneak back a bit in the 70's with Soylent Green, The Omega Man (based on I Am Legend, one of the best vampire stories ever.), Planet of the Apes, Logan's Run. Dark sci-fi, dystopias.

Again, I wonder, does truly horrific sci-fi start to dominate movies once more starting in the 80's? Alien, Blade Runner, Terminator, Predator, and all the sequels, knockoffs of those themes...all the way to The Matrix. It's not just that the future will be bleak, but that technology itself is monstrous, or at least leads us to monsters. The classic gothic theme. Technology spawns soulless, meaningless killers. Optimistic Star Trek TNG is really kind of an anomoly, a 60's throwback. (a thematic exception, the Borg storyline, was hugely popular). 90's TV, There's the techno-dread of The X-Files, Buffy, etc.

And think of Tim Burton's version of the Sleepy Hollow story. Ichabod Crane is a cop: rational, supreme confidence in technology, his crime solving inventions. He's totally at a loss when confronted with the Headless Horseman. The classic goth/science formula.

And lately even Spielberg, the king of optimistic fantasy gets into the act. A.I., Minority Report are classic dystopia stories, though he can't quite resist tacking on slightly optimistic, fairy tale endings. And his latest War of the Worlds, a far cry from Close Encounters.

From the 80's to today it seems to be mostly dark, if not apocalyptic sci-fi.
 
110% agree with the idea of gothic themes in sci-fi. Hadn't thought of it, honestly, beyond Star Wars, but you're right. And I love AI, but I stop it when the kid (suddenly can't remember his name) gets trapped in the ice. That long slow, 'crane' shot pulling away from the little ship. Because that's where I think it should have ended. Minority Report...mostly confused me. I liked it after I saw it for the second time, and I can definitely see the similarities, the 'technology leads to monsters' theme. You could make a case for Gattaca as a classic, anti-utopia story as well, with a character on the outside, looking in on this lovely, wonderful, but dark, world. (I love the look of Gattaca btw, an awesome throwback to 20's and 30's art and architecture and culture and clothing. The whole tone of the movie is a lot like the old 'horror' movies.)

One could argue that the lack of that darkness, and even more belief in the merits of technology (as a throwback to fifties 'atomic' heroes) is part of the reason for the less-than-impressive box office for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. It's a straightforward adventure story, once you get past the special effects and the art choices (costuming: amazing). I feel like America at least, long ago pulled away from that sixties/Victorian belief in the power of technology tosolve all of our problems, and that Hollywood is recently reflecting that. Maybe TV (Buffy, Firefly, DS9, Dark Angel, X-Files, genre tv in general..Stargate SG-1 is a HUGE exception...) is closer to the feelings of the people, because it is faster in it's production. It's easier to get a major network to pick up your show (ha! Easy...) than it is to get a major studio to make your movie.
 
Spielberg has yet to create a true dystopia picture, always tacks on a fairy tale ending. Yuck! (heh). He's mixing tones in a bad way, I think. One undercuts the other. War of the Worlds would be similar, you'd think. Forgot about Gattaca"”great, understated sci-fi.

OK, here's another one: evil magic children. Starting in the 60's, you get the Children of the Damned movies, Rosemary's Baby, that Twilight Zone ep with the omnipotent evil child, The Witch Mountain movies with spooky psychic kids, The Omen movies, Excorcist, Stephen King's Carrie, Firestarter...Something back then about evil psychic, telekinetic kids. It's almost like a fear, loathing of childhood innocence, naivate, (fear of spirituality, irrationality?).

But eventually, psychic powers, magic is seen in a much more postive light. By the 90's we've got Sam Raimi's The Gift, The Sixth Sense, The X-Men movies, The Dead Zone's psychic is now a tv crime fighter. In the X-Files, there's good and bad psychics. Most of the "magic children" are either misunderstood or something precious, something that Mulder and Scully desperately act to protect. With the 'verse, psychic powers are mostly good: Buffy's dreams, Willow's abilities, Lorne...

"Irrational" psychic abilities are still mysterious, yet apparently now seen as generally a good thing.

And Cordelia's visions: a burden, but a weapon against evil.
 
Hmm...not sure what to make of this one:


"CBS MOONVES: 'GHOSTS SKEW BETTER THAN GOD'
CBS head Leslie Moonves declared this week: "I think talking to ghosts will skew younger than talking to God."
Moonves made the starling comments during a breakfast with reporters where he announced his new fall schedule.
"The Ghost Whisperer," a supernatural drama about a woman who communicates with the spirit world, will replace "Joan of Arcadia," which features a young woman who speaks to God.
"They called us the geezer network," Moonves explained.

http://drudgereport.com/flash3lm.htm


http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServlet/showid-33483/


"”The Dead Zone, Medium, now this. Lots of psychic detectives (following in the wake of Millenium, Sixth Sense, even Angel)
 
There definitely seems to be a trend for psychic dramas on tv now. They always have a trend to flood the market with successful premises until people become bored with them. This can be shown in all aspects of hollywood, for example the trend to historical epics that are no longer making the big money at the box office.

Psychics over God is definitely an interesting subject. There has been a growing trend to merging the two, definitely seen in books and slowly moving into movies and tv.
 
Yeah, I'm sure it's at least partly Hollywood copycatting, not just the national mood or psychology. I dig all this supernatural stuff.

I still suspect that the "low point" for serious religious, gothic themes on TV was the late 60's. Could a show like The Flying Nun or The Munsters succeed today? People want these things, but want them to be taken more at face value it seems. Traditional spiritualism, mysticism is like a novelty again or something.

Also, the huge success of The Passion of the Christ. Probably creeps out some of the secular Hollywood types, but they follow the money trail...


"The greatest master of horror in the silent era was a cheerful man, much loved by his collaborators, even though they might lose consciousness from time to time while enveloped in clouds of steam or surrounded by tongues of flame. F.W. Murnau (1888-1931) made two of the greatest films of the supernatural, "Nosferatu" (1922) and "Faust" (1926), both voted among the best horror films of all time on the Internet Movie Database: "Faust" surprisingly in fourth place, just ahead of "The Shining," "Jaws" and "Alien....""

"...Like all silent-film directors, Murnau was comfortable with special effects that were obviously artificial. The town beneath the wings of the dark angel is clearly a model, and when characters climb a steep street, there is no attempt to make the sharply angled buildings and rooflines behind them seem real. Such effects, paradoxically, can be more effective than more realistic ones; I sometimes feel, in this age of expert CGI, that I am being shown too much -- that technique is pushing aside artistry and imagination. The world of "Faust" is never intended to define a physical universe, but is a landscape of nightmares. When the elderly Faust is magically converted by Mephisto into a young man, there is a slight awkwardness in the way one image is replaced by another, and oddly enough that's creepier and more striking than a smooth modern morph."

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050508/REVIEWS08/505080301


"”Gothic fakeness again. Tim Burton's stuff is very stylized, "fakey". Something fakey, artificial about much of David Lynch's stuff too. I think Ebert's on to something here. There's something extra disturbing about the "fakeness" of the gothic presentation.
 
OK, so, to extrapolate the fake goth/post-mod theme into the Buffyverse a bit....

There's fakery, artificiality in the 'verse, and I'd argue that this provides some of the ickiest moments in the shows. Some of the most disturbing eps involve dreams or deception. Like when they go to that Halloween frathouse party and get trapped inside. Buffy and the Scoobs are all tricked by illusions"”skeleton hands, glowing bug things, Oz getting all wolfy"”it's all illusion, deception. Almost like a silly joke.

When Buffy brings back that evil spirit and it possesses folks: Anya, Dawn"”it's especially creepy 'cause of the contrast. These are the good guys, yet they're evil somehow. And in CWDP, The First deceives. It's especially freaky 'cause it appears in the form of good dead people. And in Angel: that Power in the White Room, disguised as a little girl"”fakery, deception. It's like creepy cognitive dissonance.

And even Sid the Dummy. Ever since I was a little kid, I get especially freaked by images of malevolent clowns, toys, dummies"”seemingly innocuous things that aren't what they seem. Do you laugh or scream at the absurdity, irrationality of it all?

In Restless, the dreams aren't exactly scary, but it's unnerving anyway. It's all overtly fake, stylized, irrational.

Does this relate to the Trickster archetype in mythology perhaps?
 
Here's something from some New Agey sorta site:

"The trickster is a very important archetype in the history of man. He is a god, yet he is not. He is the wise-fool. It is he, through his creations that destroy, points out the flaws in carefully constructed societies of man. He rebels against authority, pokes fun at the overly serious, creates convoluted schemes - that may or may not work - plays with the Laws of the Universe and is sometimes his own worst enemy. He exists to question, to cause us to question & not accept things blindly. He appears when a way of thinking becomes outmoded needs to be torn down built anew. He is the Destroyer of Worlds at the same time the savior of us all."

http://www.crystalinks.com/trickster.html


Now, someone tell me if I've got it all wrong, but...

...this idea seems to fit many Buffyverse characters: The First and the First Slayer, Glory, and even Angelus to a degree. They seem to perform this function almost in spite of themselves. Someone to challenge heros' assumptions, make the heros doubt, question themselves, their values, society...Remember Glory's naive, semi-truthful critiques of humanity"”the pathetic nature of being a feeling, flawed human being. They have elaborate, devious schemes, yet seem incredibly foolish at times, make stupid mistakes. And they're irreverent, they constantly mock and try to tear down. Think even of Lilah for example. She's very wise in some ways, makes elaborate schemes, constantly mocks TeamAngel. She tries to get the heros to question themselves, their motives. Yet she makes foolish mistakes too.


"He appears when a way of thinking becomes outmoded needs to be torn down built anew. He is the Destroyer of Worlds at the same time the savior of us all."


"”Can this all be tied together somehow? Might gothic themes and this contemporary phenomenon of "postmodernism" in pop culture go hand in hand with this Trickster archetype? Calling things"”like rationalism, modernism, society's institutions, technology"”into question when times get confused, decadent, cynical, chaotic? Even though these Buffyverse baddies are "evil", they are essentially challenges for Angel, Buffy. They cause Angel and Buffy to take extreme measures, think outside of conventional norms, "re-make" their environment.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickster
 
I definitely think that evil and the trickster go hand-in-hand. The question is whether or not to seperate the two at all. The classic definition of evil is as a trickster, think Satan and the apple.

Evil, by definition, is all about lies and deceit. Having a seperate archetype for a trickster is redundant. The archetype that you have provided could fit as a definition of evil and in doing so allows the link to the Buffyverse as the "challenges" you mention.

Given that much of Buffy and Angel was written to be a kind of social commentary it is appropriate to use this model for describing evil in the Buffyverse. While many gothic themes tend to question society's issues when you make the link between it and the trickster you are essentially linking it to evil (in my method of convoluted logic... lol), which I don't think it is in most cases. Truthfully, I'm having trouble deciding whether or not I feel that the gothic themes are the trickster. I definitely feel that there is much more to it though.
 
Yeah Beer_Nut, I don't know...just speculating...I guess I look at all this stuff and see the Trickster type (which may apply to some of the Buffyverse baddies) as a net positive:

"In the study of mythology, folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit or human hero who breaks the rules of the gods or nature, sometimes maliciously (for example, Loki) but usually with ultimately positive effects."

"”from that Wikipedia piece.


I don't know if this or any specific archetype is needed to create a gothic story. I don't think "gothic" is inherently good or bad. It seems, to me, like a reaction to perceived problems (spiritual, technological, ethical) in a society. You could look at it as the first step towards the renewal of a society...a warning, flagging a potential problem up ahead.

The Trickster is apparently a sort of a transitional, transforming figure. And (I suspect) there may be a connection between the rise of gothic literature, art and times of doubt or fear about a civilization's progress.

I wonder, can you see signs of this "type" in Buffy herself? You could argue she was " a hero who breaks the rules of the gods or nature" when she rebelled against the Watchers, went out on her own. Eventually, she destroyed the mystical Chosen-One-Slayer-System"”completely transformed the rules of the game. It's almost like she and The First unintentionally cooperated, performed the task of The Trickster, to transform the Buffyverse. I dunno...

Seems like the Trickster can be someone who gets the ball rolling, gets the plot moving. Satan persuaded Eve to tempt Adam, and the whole human drama began...
 
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