Aug. 30 - Day 30: Why do you think the Buffy/Angel relationship became iconic in pop culture?
Because it follows a trope. It is a cliche. It is easily digestible by the larger population. To become iconic, you play upon the archetypes that already exists within culture. You have a beautiful young girl and a beastly boy, whose beastliness represents both the terror and mystical appeal of a young person's burgeoning sexuality. It is a story that has been told a million times before. It is a story that everyone knows. You can show any dofus a five minute clip of BtVS, and they will immediately get Bangel.
As always though, the devil is in the details, and that is also where you find true beauty. Sometimes, even when we see a story portrayed for the nth time, we find that it suddenly clicks in a way that it hasn't done before, or that it hasn't done since we were younger and heard the story for the first time. Then we need to ask ourselves: What is different, why does this resonate more strongly, and why does this feel oddly fresh?
Was it the sonic inventions of Strawberry Fields Forever or the existentialist angst of Nowhere Man that made the Beatles iconic in the US? No, it was a two and a half minute song about hand holding on a cheap variety show.
So, rather than ask what made Bangel or BtVS iconic, I think it is more interesting to know what created the cult of continued interest. What was it about the brazen young girl and her broody vampire that grabbed some people's interest between its fangs and held on to it for so many years?