Sunday, January 16, 2011

Teenage Dream

The last big fight I had with my mom over what I watched or listened to in high school was over an episode of Buffy. I was sitting on the couch in the living room watching an intense physical scene between Buffy and Spike, my deeply religious mother picked a classic fight and told me she didn’t want me to watch that “trash” on my TV.

Now that I am older, I look at relationships on television with the grown-up eyes I never thought I would have. I still love Buffy, but I really forgot what it was like to be a teenager in love, or at least a teenager watching hot twenty-somethings pretend to be teenagers in love. This was a very Buffy/Angel centric episode, and watching it brought back a flood of all those memories of the fantasy of high school romance and how teen TV shows handle it. I loved Buffy and Angel together, and later a loved Buffy Spike, it makes me laugh thinking about how easily swayed I was, lets just call it a testament to the excellent writing and acting. That statement is only half a joke. When you write a show like Buffy where the premise is basically ludicrous (a 110 lb. blonde girl slaying vampires), you have to write some reality into it. And for me the reality is that teenagers don’t know what they want, but I do know I like being reminded of that time in my life. It was fun and crazy and I am very glad it’s over, and fo me watching Buffy is a lovely reminder of the drama that life can be if you make it.

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