Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Myth, Metaphor & Morality Page 5
Teacher’s Pet presents us with another form of false maturity, one that all teenagers struggle with: sexuality. The fake Natalie French was aggressively sexual, to the point that she was about to destroy Xander, Buffy’s friend and metaphorical heart. We see here in metaphor that Buffy has doubts about what becoming an adult might mean for her sexual behavior. Why is Buffy so concerned about sexuality in this episode? I think we can figure that one out:
“Cut to the Bronze. Buffy is at the bar wearing Angel's jacket. Angel comes up behind her. Buffy senses him and looks up at him.
Angel: (smiles) I heard a rumor there was, uh, one less vampire walking around making a nuisance of himself.
Buffy: There is. Guess I should thank you for the tip.
Angel: Pleasure's mine.
Buffy: Course, it would make things easier if I knew how to get in touch with you.
Angel: I'll be around.
Buffy: Or who you were?
Angel just smiles and moves around to the other side of her.
Buffy: Well... Anyway, you can have your jacket back.
Angel: It looks better on you.
He turns and leaves. Buffy stares after him. Angel gives another look back and disappears into the crowd.
Buffy: (to herself) Oh boy!”
If Buffy’s going to reach her destination, she has to head in the right direction. By defeating the challenges posed in Witch and Teacher’s Pet, she knows that she can reject those distorted versions of adulthood.
Trivia notes: (1) This is the only episode which mentions Xander’s middle name. (2) It’s possible that Dr. Gregory got his name from Gregor Samsa, the protagonist of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, which I mentioned in my comments on WTTH/The Harvest. (3) The real Miss French was played by Jean Howard, Ron Howard’s mother.
Never Kill A Boy On The First Date
The show is still very early, but it’s establishing themes which will last throughout its entire run and which you need to keep in mind as we go along. NKABOTFD demonstrates again that Buffy hasn’t really accepted her slayer role – she wants a normal life and she’d rather be dating or going to the Bronze than “going into battle” with Giles. Her desire to be a “normal teenager” means that various diversions from her destiny tempt her to leave the Chosen path. This is the first episode to offer such a diversion, but it won’t be the last.
Twice already, first in Witch and now here, we see that Cordelia and Buffy have parallel tastes/desires. Both wanted to be cheerleaders, both want to date Owen, both find Angel full of salty goodness. This therefore seems like good place to make explicit something that the show will continue to hint at and will eventually tell us directly: Cordelia is Buffy’s “shadow self”, i.e., roughly speaking, her weaknesses or shortcomings. Cordelia is what Buffy would be were it not for her destiny as the Slayer and her willingness to accept responsibility for her powers. I’ll talk about this in more detail when we get to Out of Mind, Out of Sight, so for now just take it that this is one way I see Cordy’s role.
For this reason, as was true in Witch, the fact that Cordelia wants to date Owen is itself a message that Buffy shouldn’t.
Buffy recognizes at the end that “normality” is unattainable in this case. Owen himself told her “there's a lot more important things in life than dating”. I think the lesson is even more specific than that – she must not allow Angel to interfere with her destiny. I say this because Owen is a “type” of Angel: he’s tall, dark, and broody. It would be hard to find a closer analogy to Angel, and we, like Willow, can already see the chemistry there. Owen himself won’t do – he was judged and found wanting.
We learn something else about Buffy in this episode that will be a consistent theme throughout the series. Her desire for normality alienates her from her destiny as the Slayer, creating an almost split personality: “Owen: It's weird. Buffy: What is? Owen: You! One minute you're right there. I've got you figured. The next, it's like you're two people.” Buffy will always, to some extent, see herself as having a Slayer side and a human side.
A question for you to consider: why is the Anointed One, the Master’s “great warrior”, a child? I’ll explain my own interpretation when we get to the season finale.
Trivia notes: (1) The phrase “here endeth the lesson”, used by the Master, is used to end a Bible reading in the Anglican service. It was famously used in the movie The Untouchables. The phrase will be used twice more in the series. (2) Contrary to the implicit advice in the episode title, Buffy does kiss Owen. (3) “Shall We Gather At The River?” – something Andrew says in his raving – is a Christian hymn written by Robert Lowry. It was played in a number of Westerns, prominently those of the famous director John Ford. Joss is a big fan of Westerns and of Ford in particular. (4) Emily Dickinson lived a notoriously introverted and secluded life, and as Owen says, was obsessed by death. Again, the parallel to the story line is deliberate. (5) Buffy says that Owen wants to be Danger Man, a play on the cartoon series Danger Mouse.
The Pack
Someone told me it’s all happening at the zoo.
I watched BtVS because my then-nine year old daughter wanted to watch and was worried that it would be too scary. I thought the first few episodes were cute and funny, oblivious to metaphors or growing up or anything else. The Pack was the episode which made me sit up and think there might be something more to this show. It’s really a dark episode – the male lead, someone we like, actually attempts to rape the heroine. Now, it’s done in metaphor, there’s an excuse given, and Buffy euphemizes Xander’s attack by calling it “felony sexual assault”, but I saw it as a daring and dark episode for a show which seemed so light in the beginning. I mean really – they ate the nice Principal Flutie?
Buffy will get darker and darker as the series continues; this was the first real hint of something deeper.
Let’s consider Xander’s actions in the context of the show. We learned from Giles in The Harvest that a vampire “isn’t a person at all”. Rather, a demon sets up shop in the human; the person is “infected by the demon’s soul”. That sounds a lot like Xander’s situation. He was infected by a hyena, but the net result was pretty much the same. Jesse became infected by a demon, but his basic view of the world remained very similar to what it had been before: he went to the Bronze, he wanted Cordelia, he resented not getting what he wanted. It seems that the demon may be in control, but that elements of Jesse’s memory and personality remained. Only the moral restraints were lifted.
Similarly, Xander became cruel to others, but like the human Xander he remained obsessed with Buffy. Let’s face it – hyenas don’t sexually assault human women. That came from Xander, not the demon possessing him.
This raises all kinds of interesting moral issues. It is, for one thing, a comment in metaphor about the evil potential inside all of us. Xander isn’t a bad person. He just has dark sides to him which he keeps in restraint and which we’d never have seen if the demon hadn’t released them. Given Xander’s “Everyman” role on the show, this seems like a commentary on all of us. And it probably is more true than we’d like to admit about ourselves.
So does this mean Xander was at fault, that he was morally culpable for the attack on Buffy? I have my own view of this, though I won’t give it now. But you should be thinking about it because this same issue is going to arise at critical moments throughout the show in some of the very best episodes.
Since I’m of the view that every episode is all about Buffy in some way, I need to explain how I think that factors in to an episode which seems to be very much about Xander (like Teacher’s Pet). There’s an interesting fact about hyenas: they are female dominant. The reason why they’re female dominant is even more interesting: the females produce an unusually high concentration of androgens (male hormones), including testosterone.
The way I see the episode is that Buffy is the dominant character. She’s stronger than everyone else and she’s in control in some ways even when she’s taking Giles’ advice. Th
us, the message for Buffy seems to me a simple one of “this (Xander) could be you”. It’s not about bashing males for “testosterone poisoning” or anything superficial like that, it’s about not abusing a position of dominance, about caring for the weak (as Buffy does in the dodge ball game) rather than preying on them.
I should add that I thought this episode used a number of dramatic devices to add to the effect. The silence of the Pack, interrupted by laconic phrases and cruel laughter; the power walk; the image of Willow watching the documentary so that we don’t actually see them eat the pig. And Nick Brendan was terrific as the possessed and dangerous Xander.
Angel
Angel is the first of many “payoff” episodes. By “payoff” I mean that themes and plot points have been introduced in previous episodes and we now can understand that these were building up to what happens here. There’s a lot to discuss.
I’ll start with the first major twist we’ll see in the series, namely the reveal that Angel is a vampire. The opening scene of the show involved a minor plot twist, letting us know that the show would feature them, but this is the first (though hardly the last) major one. Here, Angel’s past as a vampire ties the story back to Darla, the very first voice we heard in WTTH and the key to that first minor twist. It can’t be much of a surprise that Angel and Darla had a relationship as vampires – Angel clearly has a “type” and Buffy and Darla both fit. Darla’s choice of a schoolgirl outfit is even more disturbing when you think about the implications.
What does it mean to be a vampire, not as metaphor but within the story line? Angel tells us the distinction: it’s the difference between having a soul and not. Joss explained later that he saw the soul as a conscience, that is, something which would enable the possessor to choose right from wrong. It’s not that souled individuals necessarily choose well – very often in this show they won’t – but that they are able to make a choice. An unsouled creature simply can’t distinguish between right and wrong, so will be much more likely to make a selfish or wrong choice.
Buffy fans call this the “soul canon”, and it’s one of the most contentious issues in all of fandom. I’m not going to try to explain it in any more detail here because it’s going to come up multiple times in the future. What I can do here is talk about the way the issue has been treated so far.
As I mentioned in discussing The Pack, it makes sense to see the “demonic possession” as building on the “dark side” of the “infected” (Giles’ term) person. As Giles phrases it here, a vampire “may have the movements, the, the memories, even the personality of the person that it took over…”. That’s why Xander could predict that Jesse would go to the Bronze in The Harvest and why HyenaXander was obsessed with Buffy.
I should add that Xander’s “infection” was “treated” quickly, but a vampire’s is permanent except, we learn here, in the unique case of Angel. For this reason, it makes sense for Buffy to slay vampires but to have tried the “reverse trans-possession” for Xander and the others. Xander’s possession in The Pack thus sets up the idea that Angel’s situation might be seen in a somewhat similar way – the gypsy curse can be seen as a “reverse trans-possession”. Angel’s soul was restored, just as Xander’s self-control was restored.
Then again, in Xander’s case the demon is gone, while in Angel’s case the demon remains but is controlled by his soul. Does that mean Xander’s “better” in some way? Well, maybe. If what the demon did in The Pack was release Xander’s subconscious dark side, then those dark aspects are always part of him. In that sense, Angel’s demon, now under the control of his restored soul, seems very similar. The Pack prepared us to think about this issue and how we should react to Angel.
In comments, anonymous pointed out another important factor: “There is another difference between removing the possession of Xander and killing vampires. When the hyena is removed from Xander, he returns to his old normal self, no super enhanced animal like powers. However, even when a vampire has his/her soul returned they retain all of their vampire-fueled abilities, super speed and strength (and those martial arts move they all seem to know), so even with a soul you have someone with enhanced super human abilities and no way of knowing if they will use those abilities for good or evil. Thus there is an inherent difference and a danger to allowing vampires to live (with some exceptions) while the same cannot be said for a de-possessed human.”
Teacher’s Pet also now has direct relevance to the Buffy/Angel (“Bangel” for those new to the show) relationship. Buffy was concerned about her sexuality precisely because she felt an attraction for Angel which she makes express here: “that whole fantasy part has nothing to even do with you at all...” And then she kisses him, only to have Angel lose control of his emotions and vamp out. This is not to say that Buffy’s sexuality is the only one on parade here. Angel clearly has been seducing her – his flirtation at the end of Teacher’s Pet, especially the look on his face, makes that clear. But like all relationships, both parties have to deal with their subconscious issues, and Teacher’s Pet showed us Buffy’s. More on Angel’s below.
In short, the episodes Teacher’s Pet and The Pack were building a storyline in which we saw key elements prefigured, only to have a structurally similar issue arise in a very unexpected way here. This is very characteristic of the show. In fact, in every season the early episodes will introduce key elements of the season plot, but they’ll do it so subtly that you don’t even realize it, not even now that I’ve told you they’re doing it.
Angel hiding in the closet seems a pretty clear metaphor for his as-yet undisclosed vampirism. In the scene where Darla offers an unconscious Joyce to Angel, there is an addiction metaphor, which we see from Angel’s obvious temptation to “drink” and resistance; Darla pushing Angel to drink both literally and figuratively; and the “Just Say Yes” comment by Darla which references the Nancy Reagan anti-drug slogan.
These metaphors, I think, help explain why Angel vamps out when they kiss and when Darla offers Joyce to him in the kitchen. Angel is barely able to control his inner demon even with a soul; the demon side is constantly struggling with him for mastery and temptation makes his control much shakier.
Buffy’s sarcastic question to Angel about the curse – “what, they were all out of boils and blinding torment?” – raises the question whether the curse serves any real purpose. In my view, it does. Angel gives us the answer: he cares about what he did, i.e., he suffers remorse. Is that enough to justify calling it a curse? Let’s ask someone who wrote the book. Adam Smith, better known for writing The Wealth of Nations, wrote an earlier book called The Theory of Moral Sentiments in which he discussed remorse:
“The violator of the more sacred laws of justice can never reflect on the sentiments which mankind must entertain with regard to him, without seeing all the agonies of shame and horror, and consternation. When his passion is gratified, and he begins coolly to reflect on his past conduct, he can enter into none of the motives which influenced it. They appear now as detestable to him as they did always to other people.
By sympathizing with the hatred and abhorrence which other men must entertain for him, he becomes in some measure the object of his own hatred and abhorrence. The situation of the person who suffered by his injustice, now calls upon his pity. He is grieved at the thought of it; regrets the unhappy effects of his own conduct, and feels at the same time that they have rendered him the proper object of the resentment and indignation of mankind, and of what is the natural consequence of resentment, vengeance and punishment. The thought of this perpetually haunts him, and fills him with terror and amazement. He dares no longer look society in the face, but imagines himself as it were rejected, and thrown out from the affections of all mankind. He cannot hope for the consolation of sympathy in this his greatest and most dreadful distress. The remembrance of his crimes has shut out all fellow-feeling with him from the hearts of his fellow-creatures. The sentiments which they entertain with regard to him are the very thing which he
is most afraid of.
Everything seems hostile, and he would be glad to fly to some inhospitable desert where he might never more behold the face of a human creature, nor read in the countenance of mankind the condemnation of his crimes. But solitude is still more dreadful than society. His own thoughts can present him with nothing but what is black, unfortunate, and disastrous, the melancholy forebodings of incomprehensible misery and ruin. The horror of solitude drives him back into society, and he comes again into the presence of mankind, astonished to appear before them, loaded with shame and distracted with fear, in order to supplicate some little protection from the countenance of those very judges, who he knows have already all unanimously condemned him.
Such is the nature of that sentiment, which is properly called remorse, of all the sentiments which can enter the human breast the most dreadful. It is made up of shame from the sense of the impropriety of past conduct; of grief for the effects of it; of pity for those who suffer by it; and of the dread and terror of punishment from the consciousness of the justly provoked resentment of all rational creatures.” [Slightly edited for readability.]
Yeah, true remorse is a real curse. It explains why Angel is so socially awkward, why he was stumped when Buffy asked him if he knew what friends were (The Harvest) and why, as Darla says, “for a hundred years [he’s] not had a moment's peace…”. I think it also explains why Angel was willing to let Buffy kill him. He knew he had nearly given in to temptation when Darla offered him Joyce (and think about the implications of that in the context of vampires and sex!), so he felt that he still deserved punishment.
I confess that I’m a complete sap for the ending of this episode. I think they just nailed the scene, and I can watch it over and over; I have Sophie Zelmani’s song on my mp3 player. That said, it’s worth asking if Buffy was right to walk away from Angel. She loves him, at least in a high school sophomore kind of way. But should she?