your fans seek to find out the name of a character, in this case a demon, whose name wasn't specified in an episode. "His character was not given a name in this (Once More, With Feeling) episode. However, the credits stated "Sweet makeup by...", and from this fans adopted his name" (http://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/Sweet). I found that establishing a name sort of disappointing. Nameless "bad guys" is an interesting concept. The exchange of his name-asking with Buffy is in Whedon style witty:
BUFFY: You got a name?
SWEET: I've got a hundred.
Why didn't Whedon name him in the episode, it would be hard to say. It could be interpreted as the creative demon that possesses writers' minds to write musicals. This could be Whedon's reflection on writing "Once More, With Feeling" given he does give Sweet a dark foreshadowing for the characters that only someone as omnipotent as a writer could know for the future of Buffy's characters as he exits he sings:
SWEET: (same tune as his first number)
What a lot of fun
You guys have been real swell
[chuckles, begins dancing]
And there's not a one
Who can say this ended well
[Buffy and Spike watching]
All those secrets you've been concealing
[Willow, Tara, Giles, and Xander watching]
Say you're happy now,
Once more with feeling.
Now I gotta run
See you all...
Between fan-fiction and maudlin youtube Buffy tribute compilations with teeny bopper music in the background, it is clear that Whedon has established a somewhat creepily obsessed fan-base. Watching Buffy hasn't turned me into one of Whedon's loyal fans though. I found Buffy's script to be witty and the episodes we watched were entertaining, it just didn't draw me into to finish all the seasons in a couple of days in true Netflix style. If I watched Buffy when it came out, maybe I would have found Buffy more groundbreaking then I do in 2011. We'll see what Firefly will do to my perception of Whedon. I tried watching one of the Firefly episodes on Netflix but couldn't get past the cheesy country song opening.
5 comments:
Good observation regarding the singing/dancing Sammy Davis Jr. wannabe demon who had no name! I didn't pick up on that! I kept focusing on his wooden headed rat-pack! I agree that the cultish fan base this program has gathered over the years has me baffled. I don't understand the blind loyalty either. Let's see how things go with Firefly. I'm trying to remain optimistic but you've got me a little worried!
I like Holly's thoughts about "Sweet"/the nameless bad guy. The script gives him the name, but the actual dialogue doesn't. So is "Sweet" his actual name? And if it wasn't intended (by the writers) for that to be his name, what difference does it make that so many fans just give him that name anyway? Who gets to decide?
The other comments (about a cultish fan base that "scares" or turns some of you off) are interesting, but also strike me as unnecessarily dismissive. The fact that some fans post admittedly cheesy videos on Youtube or write bad fan fiction should not reflect on the show any more than any number of reasonable, intelligent, and, as we've seen in class, academic fans of the show.
I keep meaning to bring up a related point in class. I wonder what difference genre makes in our discussion of TV shows. That is, if we were reading novels as a class to write about, I have a feeling (based only on hunches and some vague theorizing) that people would be much less vocal about their criticisms. But we can talk about that.
I think you're right Dr. H. If these were fiction novels we were reading I don't think people would dislike them so much. I think criticism about a almost current telvision show seems less "off limits" then saying you dislike The Famished Road (which needs to be underlined, but I have no idea how). Television series seem newer and less formal than great works of literature.
Also, I thought that the demon guy in the end of the episode was the Devil. They made him look and act like many "devil" characters have in different forms of media. It's interesting to me that fans would name him Sweet because he is not my idea of a sweet person.
Let me add to my comment about novels vs. TV criticism: I am not saying that we *shouldn't* be readily critical of TV, but simply that the differences are noteworthy. I think Michelle is right that novels seem more "off limits," at least in an academic sense. With TV, it seems easier to slip into talking about whether you liked it or not. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with that.
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