As many of you know, I spent a large chunk of my summer watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the TV series, not the movie-vehicle for Luke Perry). Originally, according to Joss Whedon, wunderwriter and creator, the show was imagined to end after the fifth season. Everything in the series was pointing toward that ending and when it happened, when I watched those last few minutes of the fifth season, my heart dropped and I even shed tears, but my heart and brain and need for closure was more than adequately fulfilled. It was a beautiful ending, full of both mythological and deeply emotional importance. It was the only way to end Buffy's story.
But, as many of you also know, Buffy was picked up by UPN for two more seasons and so, Buffy 5 = not the end. When I came to the end of season 5, I wondered where they could go, what they could possibly do. And so it was that I slipped in the Season Six DVD with a a bit of nonchalance. I had gotten word - from a good authority - that season six wasn't exactly bad; it just wasn't seasons 1-5, part of that stellar (and originally conceived) story arc.
There were some good episodes; some episodes that clearly set the tone for the season, one of diving into darkness, uncertainty, and numbness. And then, there was "Once More, With Feeling."
I could detail all the ways that "Once More, With Feeling" is amazing and beautiful and funny and bitingly aware, but I'll skip all that and just tell you that O.M.W.F. is a musical episode of Buffy, where a demon named Sweet takes over the town and as a result, everyone starts singing, dancing, and unfortunately, combusting. The singing is due to the fact that all the characters have a mega-warehouse of secrets and bottled-up emotions that they've been carrying around for the first six episodes of the sixth season (or in some cases, much longer), and the combustion, a by-product of all that emotion. And even better? Sarah Michelle Gellar can really belt it out, as can most of the cast, which is a relief when you're watching an almost hour of singing and dancing.
As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to own the soundtrack immediately, if not sooner (thank you iTunes, for the gift of instant gratification). And I've been listening to it a lot the last few months, while washing dishes, while typing out lesson plans, and often in the car on my way to and from that one university at which I'm teaching that's more than a few miles down the freeway.
Incidentally, I started the sixth season right around the time that I began working, right around the time that my life began to be a parade of lesson plans, essays to grade, and handouts to photocopy. My life went from being that of a grad student and writer, someone thinking about her own writing all the time, to being that of a worker, someone thinking about how to teach a bunch of freshman how to think and write. My own writing, as you probably know by now, has not been on my thinker much lately. And I know that's a problem, a Kevin-Britney size nightmare. Unlike Kevin and Britney, though, my writing is not something I can divorce, no matter how much I neglect it. It doesn't go away. It's my second, inner skin. The more I don't think about my writing, the more that skin gets squirmy -- and just like in O.M.W.F., secrets can't stay secrets forever. Sooner or later, a (metaphorical) musical demon is going to show up on the scene and all that secrety stuff comes out. Which is what happened in my last week.
The sixth season of Buffy is unique, too, in that the characters become their own worst enemies, their own worst nightmare versions of themselves. They're are all far away from high school at this point, but with no parental figures to help ease the blows of reality. They're older, but not exactly wise yet. Even though they were in college for seasons 4 and 5, it's season six when their lives begin to crumble from within, not because of some "big bad" trying to start an apocolypse. This crumbling is all about bad choices, miserable communication skills, and most of all, the failure to take responsibility. (Again without spoiling too much,) Buffy is slaying demons by night and flipping burgers by day; she's making out with one particular vamp just to feel anything, even if it's revulsion and pain. It's poignant, then, that the opening of O.M.W.F. is Buffy's song called "Going Through The Motions," as she's slaying in the graveyard. Even the demons notice (musically, of course) that there's something lacking in her staking.
On Thursday nights, when I drive home, I like to sing "Going Through The Motions," because that's exactly how I've felt lately as an all-worker-non-writer. I think that's how most people feel when their lives get away from them. Although I love and value my students, most of the time, without my writing, it all just feels like sub-par staking.
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