Buffy: junk from a junk culture?

[goldenboy]

Like it or hate it, American culture has a huge impact on the rest of the world.

America has always had a bit of a split personality. Both proud of its free, open, rebellious culture and also deeply insecure, unsure about it. Is it just so much junk? And also, is the fantasy genre junk?

America spent the very early part of its history doing its very best to imitate Europe. The music, art, fashion. Slowly, over the decades, centuries it has built up its own culture. A strange mixture of virtually every other culture on earth, to varying degrees. Eventually, it came to dominate in many ways. New York came to dominate the world fine art scene by the late 60's, maybe sooner. Don't know if that's true anymore or not.

America might possibly have done more to advance the fantasy genre than any other nation in the during the 20th century. The comic book, fantasy movies, TV. Is Joss's Buffyverse just American pop junk? Or will it have some lasting impact: artistic, social, etc? He's drawing from a deep well of human mythologies and basic human themes and emotions.

I get a sense that there's a bit of a split in the world when it comes to fantasy. I believe "The Lord of the Rings" was voted the greatest work of British fiction in some poll. Some academics were horrified by this. "What is wrong with the teeming masses today? We need to educate them concerning what constitutes great literature." There's a strain of what you might call "secular humanism". If it's fantasy, it must be pure escapism. Meaningless trivialities for the weak-minded. I think fantasy allows for the exploration of very deep issues of philosophy, morality in ways that are unique. What are all the Greek classics after all except fantasies, to a degree. It's not junk.

My knowledge of literature is very limited. One writer who I would assert is similar to Joss is Charles Dickens. Very strong with characterization and unique, vibrant personalities. Large tapestries of character interactions. Explorations of morality with occasional fantastic elements. "A Christmas Carol' was first published as a running serial in a newspaper, isn't that right? It began its life in a pop junk format.

 

[Xander]

How I understand it, on a somewhat more limited level then you seem to, is this is the big postmodernist vs modernist debate. Basically postmodernism is seen as junk, just mindless entertainment (in terms of the media anyway) while modernism (again in terms of the media) is about progression, social or artistic. So looking at BtVS is interesting because it is a bit of both.

BtVS has the intertextuality, bricolage and other contributors that would, by defenition of theorists such as Sarup, state it is modernist. However Joss et al have managed to craft modernism in there. Looking at how feminism is represented (in eps such as "Chosen" whereby they basically say "We are women, we are as strong, if not stronger, than men and we're not taking this repression any longer"), would suggest that it belongs in the modernist column.

Similarly Buffy the Vampire Slayer engages in, what Baudrillard calls, the 'social', basically the real world. Baudrillard argued that texts have gone through so many representations that modern texts no longer link back to the 'real world' and are all just representations of prior representations. However BtVS braves to engage in the social, with one big example being Buffy's war against the terrorism of The First Evil in S7. Joss had the balls to stand up against the show's owners Fox (owned by Murdoch, who backs Bush) and say “War is about death. Needless, stupid death.”

Perhaps only time will tell whether BtVS will be seen as modernist or postmodernist (which in terms of academia basically means good or bad). Personally I think as long as people engage postmodernism, and use it in a way that does not harm the text (an example of postmodernism being used badly is "The Faculty") then we shouldn't complain about it. Personally I think audiences will gain pleasures out of understanding intertextual references, and practices such as bricolage expand the possibilities of a text much further.

So to sum up, Buffy may be partially junk, but its well crafted good and partially unjunky junk.

 

[goldenboy]

Very interesting, thanks. I've got zero education/background concerning Modernism/Postmodernism. Well, a little with art.

Isn't there also an academic dispute regarding something like "pre"modernism vs. modernism? Like modernist writers see fantasy works like "The Lord of the Rings" as a ridiculous step backwards to a fake, mythic past that never existed? Modernism seeks a clean break with the mythologies and superstitions of the past in favor of reason, secularism?