"It's Buffy's Fault That Vampires Are Weak Now"

[Wishing Oceans]

So, I was just stumbling around the internet, looking for some Buffy fun, when I came across this article: It's Buffy's Fault That Vampires Are Weak Now - Buffy The Vampire Slayer - io9

The author, though a fan of both Ats and Btvs, has a neutral eye for both Spuffy and Bangel, and her essay is rather interesting:

This past weekend, the "Buffy vs. Edward" meme hit fever pitch, with a video mash-up joining the popular T-shirt showing the vampire slayer killing the Twilight idol. But Buffy-ites are being hypocrites: it's Joss Whedon's fault that vampires are wimpy.

So in case you missed it (like if you weren't on Twitter, or you were abstaining from the internet all weekend) here's the Buffy Vs. Edward mash-up:

It's pretty fantastic stuff, showing just how creepy Edward really is, and how overbearing his smarmy brand of "lurve" is.

But really, the Buffy fans shouldn't throw stones at the Twilight-heads. Joss Whedon was a major pioneer of the broody, stalky, "dangerous" yet kittenish vamps. It's not what Buffy was about, but it's pretty much what Buffy turned into.

Okay, you can point a finger at Anne Rice, too, and a whole bunch of other creators and franchises that tried to give us sympathetic and/or wimpy vampires. But to me, the first really popular franchise that gave us annoyingly loveable vampires was Buffy and its spin-off series Angel.

I say this as a huge Buffy/Angel fan, one who has a desktop pattern showing Buffy staking Vampirella on my laptop, and a piece of the Buffy set in my home. But my least favorite part of both shows was always the vampires as love interests. I never really bought Angel as a heart throb, and you can chart the rise of Spike as an allegedly "lovable" character as the downfall of BTVS.

Here's what's cool about vampires: They're evil. Here's what's not cool about vampires: They're emo. Got it?

Buffy The Vampire Slayer started out "” as its name suggests "” being a show about a deceptively slender blonde girl who's secretly the Slayer, and who goes around killing vampires and other nasties. But from early on, the show introduced a love interest for Buffy "” Angel, the tormented vampire who was one of the worst sadists in the game until he was cursed with a soul, and now he's filled with remorse.

I actually really like Angel as a character, and I like his spin-off show a lot more than it probably deserves. He's a fun tragic hero. But the Buffy/Angel love was never my favorite aspect of either character. It's no accident that the Buffy/Edward mashup above uses tons and tons of scenes of Buffy and Willow obsessing over Angel "” because Angel stalked Buffy just the way Edward does in that video. And then we learn that Angel was homeless and eating rats in alley for 100 years until he saw Buffy and decided to follow her around. Oh, that's not ooky at all.

(Yes, the "100 years in an alley" thing was eventually retconned, so we could have lots of episodes where we discovered that Angel took part in World War II, got caught up in the McCarthy era, hung out with the Rat Pack, was the dolly grip on Barbarella, did the catering for Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra and turned both JFK and Marilyn Monroe into vamps. But it was still established before it was retconned.)

Angel is an engaging enough character that it hardly matters that his romantic chemistry with Buffy was always negligible. When he got his own show, he managed to go five seasons without having a really compelling love story "” first he moped over Buffy some more, then he had a fairly low-key flirtation with Cordelia, which got nipped in the bud when she was whisked off to Heaven. And finally, he had a sweet, fairly easy-going romance with Nina the werewolf, which was nice precisely because it wasn't made into a huge saga. Angel is good at being a tormented hero, but as soon as you cast him as the lover, he starts to seem just petulant and all wet.

The one redeeming feature about the Buffy/Angel love is also the creepiest part: the fact that when Angel and Buffy finally consummate their doomed love, he reverts to being a psychopathic soulless monster. It's such a great metaphor for the loss of innocence and the way in which love can go south that it almost makes everything else worth it.

But really, the Buffy/Angel love isn't where Buffy got into real trouble, and helped to inspire Edward Cullen. The real crux of the problem is the vampire who pretty much took over as the new Angel after Angel left: William the Bloody, aka Spike.

Salon.com summed up the show's troubles with a May 13, 2003 essay entitled "Why Spike Ruined Buffy The Vampire Slayer":

A once-good show becomes a bad one through the unexpected popularity of a posturing, vaguely thuggish minor character in a black leather jacket. In television, as in life, events tend to repeat themselves. First there was "Happy Days," where a charming show about growing up in the '50s was revamped to focus on the Fonz. And now there's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," which has been all but destroyed by the Fonzie of our time: Spike.

Let's review. Spike was introduced in season two as a new antagonist, and he wound up sticking a lot longer than the writers seemed to intend originally, because his punk-rock devil-may-care sensibility brought a breath of fresh air to the show after the portentousness of the Master in season one. And his twisted, sadistic love affair with fellow vampire Drusilla was one of the show's high points. Spike risks everything to heal Drusillia, only to find the newly evilled-up Angel moving in on his territory.

So Spike always had his pouty, tragic side, and the Spike/Drusilla romance culminates in an episode where Spike tells Buffy and Angel that he's love's bitch, but he at least he's man enough to admit it. And that's great stuff. Yay. That probably would have been a great time for Spike to disappear forever.

Instead, we get the incredibly ill-conceived Buffy/Spike romance, which I still can't wrap my head around years later. It starts in season five, with Spike having a chip in his head that prevents him killing humans. This isn't the same as Spike being good, and he only joins forces with our heroes because he's defenseless on his own. As late as the start of season six, we see him smiling with sadistic glee as his fellow vampires loot Sunnydale, now that Buffy's dead.

But when Spike isn't wishing he could start murdering every human in sight again, he's pining after Buffy, following her around and moping like a schoolboy. It's like the darker, less noble "” and less interesting "” version of Angel's season-one stalkerhood. Buffy comes to trust Spike, even though he's clearly never trustworthy, and eventually makes him her sister's protector. But at least we get one cool song out of it, "Rest In Peace," which affected James Marsters so deeply he can no longer remember the lyrics:

If you want absolute wrongness and eww-hood, there's always season six, where Spike discovers that he can bite Buffy because she's no longer technically human after coming back from the dead. And Buffy is so empty and numb after returning from Heaven that she wants to have loads and loads and loads of self-hating, sadistic, house-demolishing, nightclub-ruining sex with Spike in every single episode. And then, of course, Spike tries to rape Buffy in her bathroom. And yet, she still doesn't stake him.

But Spike really becomes the spiritual and emotional forebear of Edward Cullen in season seven, when he gets a soul and the "tormented Spike" meme reaches new lows. First the soul drives him insane for a number of episodes, leading to a lot of pitiful babbling. Then he goes on a mass-murdering spree in spite of his chip, but only because the season's big bad made him. Finally "” for no reason that I can discern "” he winds up in bondage for about twenty episodes, being physically tortured over and over again, because only by seeing Spike in chains can we understand fully how deeply he feels the pain of being Spike. Can you feel Spike's pain? Can you?

Just in case you're not feeling Spike's pain, here are some Youtube videos that fans have made:



There's plenty more where that came from.

Honestly, I can't get into Twilight for the same reason I can't get into True Blood: I don't want to empathize with vampires, or follow their love affairs, or worry about whether people are going to be mean to them. I want to watch people killing vampires. That's what Buffy was originally about. But the moment Buffy failed to stake Spike when she had a chance, the show veered away from that idea and started asking us to sympathize with vampires even if they didn't have souls like Angel's. So really, it's all Joss Whedon's fault that we're drowning in emo vamps now.

Hm. I still can't decide if it interests me or pisses me off. 😀

Thoughts?

 

[anyatara]

I don't really agree, but I do find the writers point of view interesting. I suppose (s)he has a point, though. Oh, good find, BTW.

 

[PrincessBuffy16]

Am I a bad person if I laughed while I was reading this article?
I hate when people show something special and complicated in just one sentence, and they show it like trash. Friends, one of the most popular shows ever in one sentence can be represented like trash: 6 friends who talk in their favourite bar or in their apartment about their love problems and get involved. After that would you like to watch that? If you are writing something, write about it, but really write. Buffy is so much more then blonde girl who is going around with stake and getting followed by souled vampires. With Angel part I don't agree, I think he's a great character, has a evil part inside, but he's trying to keep it in. In the end he's like a human, he can't get all the things that makes him happy. I could never compare Buffy/Angel to Edward/Bella. Bangel is so much more. Kind of love that could really happen. Edward and Bella are all "I want you but I can't be with you" and always like that, trough the whole movie, and when that starts, you know they are going to be together. Buffy and Angel are different, they accept their faith, it doesn't matter is it good or bad, they know they have to accept it, and can't change it. But with the Spike part, well I have to agree. He's funny, all the way. But season 2, that's my Spike, Spike I love, bad ass Spike. When he got chipped it just got boring.
But is it Buffy's fault that Edward is "emo"? I don't think so. Joss decided that Angel is going to have a soul. He decided that he is going to be a first vampire with his human part still in it. Then he gave that to Spike too. Stephanie Mayer decided what kind of vampire Edward is going to be. And I bet she even didn't liked Buffy, because if she did, her vampired would be so much more.

 

[Skytteflickan88]

I read it a while ago (too lazy to re-read now). I first thought "He's full of bullshi---- wait, he has a point. He's right. Thank you Joss, for giving us more threedimensional vampires. Instead of just creepy supernatural scarier-than-thou vampires, we now have vampires that cane be sensetive, even human, while still remaining fascinating. But there still are some true badasses out there, not out to make love, but to tear throats, for those that prefer that. Thanks Joss, for giving us diversity".

 

[TheGrandmaster]

Didn't read all of it, the few paragraphs were enough to put me off the rest. Basically though I would echo Skytteflickan88. Spike.for example is a much more interesting character than any one dimensional portrayal of Dracula, and a recent poll of 'The Greatest Vampires' showed this, with Spike finishing at the number 1 spot. If the author wants to see someone killing vampires and nothing else they should go and watch another show.

 

[white avenger]

I can agree to a certain extent that Joss' creation of the Buffy tv show contributed to the less-than-rampaging-monster version of the vampire, Joss was hardly the first one to use that plot device. The movie "My Best Friend Is A Vampire" presented vampires as "just normal people," who happened to drink blood, have the ability to morph into bats and wolves, and were immortal. George Hamilton and Leslie Neilson played Dracula as not only lovable, but also something of a bumbling oaf. "Forever Night" was a TV show about a vampire police officer who drank animal blood and was even taking treatments in an attempt to regain his humanity. The TV soap opera "Dark Shadows," made an overnight sex symbol of vampire Barnabas Collins, and women all over the country raved about how sensual it was to see him bite some sweet young thing. Fred Saberhagen, in his "Old Friend Of The Family" series, presented a Count Dracula who was loyal and protective of his friends, if still totally ruthless with his enemies. And unconventional vampire movies pre-Buffy could not be mentioned without including "Innocent Blood," featuring undoubtedly the sexiest female vampire in history.

So we can't blame it all on Joss. In fact, he only followed in the tracks, though I'm sure inadvertently, of quite a few writers before him. If we are going to blame Angel and Spike for "de-monster-izing" vampires, we have to also include quite a few earlier characters and writers before him.

 

[Kelsey]

Interesting. I didn't read all of it, but I got the gist. The thing is, when vampires are characters, regardless of whether or not they're love interests, they have to have personalities and develop. It's rare that an evil character can become rounded and fleshed-out without becoming a better person--a la Spike. If you keep a character a villian, they'll stay very one-dimensional and the audience won't care much beyond the evil that they do. They're necessary, don't get me wrong, but those characters don't have a long shelf-life. Again, Spike is a perfect example of how a character transformed into someone lovable despite his beginnings. I dislike the author's extreme bias towards Spike, but I've heard her opinion enough not to really let it bother me. Still, there's a reason many fans loved Spike, and I'm thrilled with what he character became.

And yeah, you can't really blame Joss. Just saying that Joss was the first popular writer of the "emo-vampire" doesn't make it so. Stories have ALWAYS humanized vampires because a lot of people like it. It's really that simple.

 

[thevikingsgirl]

Eh. Some of it was kind of funny but I don't agree. PrincessBuffy, I like your Friends analogy. One of my favorite shows; we have the whole series on DVD. But to sum it up in one sentence it would sound pretty lame.

Obviously, I like seeing more multi-dimensional vampires. It was when we started seeing more of that side of Spike that Buffy (as a show) really sucked me in. And how the demons aren't all-evil-all-the-time. It's one thing I liked about Angel from the first season, with Doyle, then in season 2 with Lorne, how it's more complicated than that. I am a Twilight fan too, and I like how those vampires are portrayed. I love the True Blood vamps (but the books, not the show). I love vampires in general; the stories are usually fun to read and if they were all just blood drinking, evil fiends, the stories would be very boring and repetitive.

 

[Taake]

I agree to a certain extent that Buffy as it went along may have gone off its first course BUT isn't both Buffy and Angel also about blurring the lines between "good" and "evil". They all grow with the seasons, learning to accept new things. Like Riley painfully gets to learn in season 4 - bumpy face doesn't always equal evil and cute girl doesn't always equal good.
Season 2 Buffy would for example never had gone for Spike. Both characters had to go through huge emotional arcs to get to that point.

and if one doesn't want to see the 'other' side of vampires then perhaps it is just best to avoid all things Buffy, Twilight, Vamp diaries and oh yes, Anne Rice as well. There aren't any vampires more emo on the planet than Anne Rice's. Now I love her first couple of books but darn, those are some weepy a** living dead creatures

 

[MergedLoki]

yea I read that lil essay too. Dont agree with it though.

namely: in Buffy. vampires are EVIL, they ARE demonic (with a very small handful of exceptions), they actually ATTACK people, and kill people, and cause harm.

oh... and they don't sparkle in god damn sunlight they burn into lil piles of vampire ash.

I mean vampires are OLLLLD tales folks. basically every single culture in the world has some form of 'vampire' folklore. but 99% of em are mindless beasts out for blood. None of this sauve cool charming, good looking stuff. (that all started with dracula basically so maybe we should blame Bram Stoker for sparkly vamps? I mean as long as were making totally non-existant connections?).

sorry a mormon who writes with the skill of a 14 yr old girl about sparkly vampires doesn't quite get it's root ideas from 'evil demonic killers' just because BTVS wasn't exclusively about killing vampires and actually had some touching/human moments.

 

[TheVoid68]

I wouldn't blame Bram Stoker, his vampire was still pretty darn evil. It was later interpretations of Dracula, particularly the films, that turned him into an aristocratic sex god.

 

[The Ferg]

Meh, maybe this is the Buffy fanboy coming out in me, but this guy's full of s**t. I friggin hate all these random websites that make blog posts about how much they hate something, or how bad the last episode was on the up and coming TV show. It's crap, and really self-obsessed. But anyway, it seems as if this guy just doesn't like any vampires that aren't killing people constantly. Sure, that's an acceptable opinion, but if this opinion is getting in the way of you truly understanding and giving a show (or maybe just an arc) a chance, just get over it. I tell my friends the same thing when they say things like, "Well, I don't really like the actor for Lily, so I can't really get into the show." It's ridiculous. Try to watch a show (or arc) with a blank slate and no pre-biases toward random crap.

I'm done. 🙂