Buffy and Bride

I've been thinking about what I said about preferring Spike as a love match for Buffy ever since I wrote it. So, now I feel the need to address it more fully.

Of all the men that came and went over the course of the show, only two really mattered very much. Riley briefly climbed the charts, because his heart was good and his military training gave him enough sexual stamina to keep up with our superhero in the sack, but ultimately, he was all about muscle and order. Buffy had muscle of her own--in spades--and while Riley's militaristic black-and-whiteness might have calmed her for a while, her own chaotic life of demon-conquering and keening grief was simply incompatible.

So, while it reeks of the imposed, artificial balance of television, it's really only apt that the Vampire Slayer's real match was bound to be one vampire or the other. Now, one would have to surgically excise that last shreds of romanticism from one's soul in order to not feel a pang at the demise of the Buffy/Angel association. Buffy really loved Angel. And Angel loved Buffy. But that story line was always problematic for me. Here's its essence: Girl falls in love. Girl loses her virginity to love object. Love object suddenly, postcoitally, turns into a giant fucktard once he "gets what he wants" from her. For any of us milk-for-free girls, this scenario is bound to make us bristle. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a recurring anxiety of mine-- that any boy I actually like will walk as soon as I "give in." Largely, I know it's irrational-- I generally pick relationships in which sex is not something I trade for affection. But the worry remains ingrained and indelible. So, I understand this story-- but don't really find it particularly compelling. In fact, it concerns me that it's a little retrogressive and seems as though it's a page taken from The Rules or that vomitous mass known as He's Just Not That Into You: the message being "Hold out, ladies! Not only will he vanish once you open your legs, he'll turn into a big bumpy-faced baddie while he's backing out the door." So much for the empowerment of Grrrrl Power poster girl Buffy.

So, if the Buffy/Angel story line was simplistic and moralistic, the Buffy/Spike story line was anything but. Buffy and Spike hooked up late into the show's trajectory-- Season 6-ish, 7-ish. By this point, Buffy's lost her mother, become surrogate to her teenage sister, died and come back to life herself and suffered numerous other heartbreaks. Her sexual attraction to Spike, the one smaller-scale adversary she hadn't managed to kill, was really a manifestation of her own self-loathing. Spike has been "neutered" via an anti-human-killing microchip in his head and, as such, has begun to hold court in the thrall of Buffy. He draws her in and she is susceptible because she believes she deserves punishment. Or perhaps she thinks that misery and torture are all that the world has to offer her.

Their sex is so explosive, so combative that they destroy houses in their frenzies. They barrel into each other and leave marks. It's as though they are each seeking redemption through the fire of each others' flesh. But Spike really loves Buffy. Mind you, he is not terribly pleased that he should find himself smitten with the one girl who poses the greatest threat to his life, (or, for that matter, the person who killed his previous love object, loony-toons Drusilla) but nonetheless, his love is, indeed, a testament to the purifying power of altruism that stands as the core of the show's value system. If a vampire, the very embodiment of self-interest, can compartmentalize the metaphoric bloodsucker inside him well enough to plunge himself into hell so as to retrieve his soul for the purposes of winning the heart of his nemesis, anything is possible -- because of love.

Though Buffy finds new kinship in this conflicted, love-addled version of Spike, she does not love him. And really, that's only right. In her core, she is still the hero and, despite her inner conflicts and moral missteps, she is inherently morally superior to Spike. She simply is not capable of respecting him, monster within and all, as an equal. And let's be clear: the sum-total reason all her other romances never worked out was because she has no equal. What? You mean Buffy has a notably Passion-play-esque undercurrent? Revelation of revelations.

It is this imbalance between them that makes them so compelling-- and tragic-- as lovers. Inevitably, Buffy comes to forgive herself and therefore no longer needs the physical lashings and the psychic whipstings that are a necessary component of her (totally hot and kinky) S&M romance with Spike. But Spike has already made the ultimate sacrifice, forsaking his very vampiric selfhood, for Buffy and that can't be undone-- nor does he want it to be, as he loves her so completely. In the end, Spike makes his spiritual self-immolation a literal one, all in service to his blond beloved. And she looks upon his glorious, beaming wretchedness with the beatific grace and pity of a superior being as he does so.

In this way, it's not Buffy's and Angel's love for each other that was transformative-- it's Spike's and Buffy's. Buffy and Angel had a very sweet, adolescent, first-love-y go of it-- that ended messily. But the Spike-and-Buffy couplehood was so much more multi-layered and interesting. Not only were they forced to deal with what it means to be both a grown-up and a passionate limerent lover-- and withall the external interferences that adulthood brings-- but they also lived out a rather archetypal God/apostle-style scenario. Or maybe it was more closely akin to a God/Bride relationship, as described in The Song of Songs.

Either way, I can't say I ever expected a romance to bloom between Buffy and Spike. Actually, I always figured she'd stake him sooner or later. But once it happened, it just felt both so *right* and so rightly doomed. And it's certainly the kind of myth-making that makes Whedon's work worth watching. Again, high hopes for Dollhouse...

Whedon-heads on alert!

When Buffy was first beamed into our houses -- er-- college dorm rooms, I'm not sure we really had any idea what it was. Some of us had seen the movie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer-- and recognized the title bore the summative weight of its solitary punchline: a tough superhero cheerleader? Named... "Buffy?" Sure, the committed nerds were already in for the long haul. And word soon leaked out that Joss Whedon's vision for the film Buffy had been so egregiously mishandled that he actually walked off the set, never to return. But I'm not too embarrassed to admit that I was among the folk who didn't take the show seriously. At first. Actually, it wasn't until years later, when I really watched episode after episode in sequential reruns, that I really understood that Buffy wasn't the sort of show that often graces the idiot box. In the intervening years, college courses have been taught about the cultural resonance and narrative arc of the show. Fancy critics and scholars have written paeans to its glory. Many of us will still tack a "y" onto a noun to macgyver up some new adjective-- little secret elbow jabs among the initiates. I think it's safe to say the show has secured its place in the very small pantheon of respectable television accomplishments.

So, when Joss Whedon cooks up some new venture, we all twitter anticipatorily and pray for the old magic. And this is where we are with Dollhouse-- not real sure if it's gonna be good, or if it's gonna be a disappointment. Now, Whedon's given himself something of a handicap with the general premise of the show. His main strengths as a television writer were never his action sequences or even his episodic drama. Buffy was a monster-of-the-week show and Dollhouse is dangerously close to encroaching on the territory of something like Alias. First of all, he really had a great way of inventing linguistically quirky, idiosyncratic dictions for his characters. Clearly, the man enjoys language. Secondly, Whedon famously plots out his shows, down to the letter, years in advance-- which gives them a remarkable sense of continuity. Some nasty monster appears in Season 2 and you can rest assured he becomes an offhand reference in Season 5. Since when have television characters had long-term memories?

But what was really amazing about Buffy was intrinsic to its essential soapiness. His characters actually grew, changed, developed, evolved in a manner nearly unprecedented in a television serial format. His eponymous character began as a narcissistic, peevish Valley girl who was smarter than she gave herself credit for being. But the end of Season 7, Buffy's persona was seamed over like Frankenstein's monster. Still narcissistic and snarky, perhaps, but she was also a wounded, twisty, fairly masochistic woman who'd learned to rise above her circumstances to meet her responsibilities-- to embrace them even (and her masochism too, actually).

The basic idea behind Dollhouse involves a bunch of "actives" who wind up part of this organization that rents them out for assorted purposes-- everything from run-of-the-mill call-girl duties to super-intense espionage and other action-y sorts of missions-- and then wipes their brains free of personality at the end of each "engagement." So, if what Whedon does best is anticipate the actions and psychological development of his characters 7 years on down the road, he's certainly given himself a unique challenge in devising a main character-- a placid, dimpled Echo, played by Eliza Dushku, of course-- who has no personality at all (save whatever inklings leak over from her previous real life and the slug-trails from her assorted engagements).

There's really no way of knowing yet whether he'll pull it off. The first three episodes have all been about establishment, and that's necessary, I suppose. They've been way action-packed, though and I'm surely hoping Whedon will back away from that a little so as to give us more of what he's good at-- the humor stuff and soul stuff. Of course, Fox has the thing programmed on Fridays at 9PM, which is as lousy a time slot as there ever was. But who knows? Maybe it'll get enough legs from Hulu views and die-hard Whedon-heads to chug along into a second season.

In the meantime, I'm crossing my fingers for it. I think it's after something pretty interesting. I mean, there are no other shows in which the main character is essentially a whore on major network television. Showtime's Secret Life of a Call Girl certainly doesn't count-- even if it weren't silly, moralizing, sentimental dreck-- because you have to pay extra money to your cable company to see it. But Whedon seems to have a real soft spot for girls who earn their keep selling pussy. There was the lovely Inara character from Firefly, and subsequently, the film Serenity. In that show, her profession of "Companion" granted her a certain elevated and prestigious status that extended well beyond her improbable gorgeousness. (Brazilian actress Morena Baccarin looks like a gene splice between Salma Hayek and Natalie Portman-- one luscious nugget.)

And who could forget the Buffy-bot? A made-to-order robot, designed to indulge the sexual whims of the besotted sadist-vampire, Spike? (For the record, I maintain Spike was really the only love interest Buffy ever had who was actually complicated enough to be worthy of her.) The Buffy-bot really did provide the ultimate "girlfriend experience," complete with hilarous, slightly off-target Buffy-isms and everything. And really, the greatest thing about her addition to the show was that, before long, she became part of the Sunnydale Gang. Sure, she was Spike's glorified blow-up doll, but she was so Buffy-esque that she quickly not only gained the respect of the group, but also became a necessary component of it. And not just because she was the Buffy who put out.

So, I'm plenty interested to see what Whedon does with his new Faith-bot. Er. I mean... what he does with Echo. As he seems so captivated by the idea of the sacred whore, I'm really hoping the Whedon Dolls will grow into their skins and become something more than programmable playthings. Crossing fingers.