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July 26, 2006

Smallville v Sunnydale

In the video shop* the other day, I picked up the first disc in the first season of Smallville.

I have to admit, I was inspired by my recent (and pleasant) experience with Superman Returns [insert insanely effusive gushing over the Alien Beauty that is the noo soops], and I'm not sure I'll stick with it (though I'm up to disc 2), and we do have plenty of Buffy and Angel to watch)...

Yeah, so anyway.

Smallville. I've been struck by the similarities between Buffy and Smallville. This is, no doubt, an illustration of the influence of Buffy on the genre I'm sure my supes would call 'teen supernatural' or something similar. I know there's been lots written about self-reflexivity and polyvocal texts 'n all - all lain to varying degrees at the door of Joss Whedon - but I think that Buffy had a more interesting influence on Smallville (or perhaps, that we can see similar tropes across this genre?).

Ok, now before I go any further, please do remember that this is a three-seconds-worth-of-thinking theory, in a post I'll probably publish as soon as I finish it, without re-reading (eek)...

Ok, so here's the thing I'd not realised about Smallville (what with never having watched it before):
In Buffy, particularly in the first 4 seasons, while Buffy was in High School (or was it 3 seasons?), the program was very much a story about teenagers, doing teen things, mostly in high school. Everyone knew there was something 'kind of weird' about Sunnydale, but nobody really took issue with it. Certainly, no one ever moved away. The city's proximity to the/a hellmouth justified all manner of strange and supernatural dealings, from girls who turned invisible to substitute teachers who were actually giant praying mantuses(i?).

Similarly, in Smallville all manner of strange things in the town are 'explained' by the presence of bits of meteorite which fell to Earth with Kal-El's space ship, way back there (in 1989 - god, it scares me that 1989 constitutes ye olde days in teenland today. I was 15 in 1989 and had already read every decent SF book known to familykind and secondhandshopdom). This is an interesting twist - it gives a little 'consistency' to the paranormalness of the town, with this paranormalness being something only Chloe seems to consciously recognise, despite the fact that there are at least a wall's worth of weirdness for her to seek out in local (and national) magazines, newspapers and other media. The whole meteorite thing also gives Clark something to feel guilty about. And guilt seems to be the S-Boy's stock in trade... maybe it's something for him to sublimate later on? Heck, I wish I was hip to psychoanalisis. I just know there's something I'm missing, what with all the father-son relationship action going down in Smallville.

All this interests me. While I don't buy that either Sunnydale or Smallville is actually in the 'country' (we all know Sunnydale is actually an outer suburb of LA - the Geelong or Ipswich of the city of Angelus, and sure as shit no one in Smallsville sports a Kansas accent...I think ?), I'm kind of caught by the idea that not only do terrible things happen more frequently in rural communities, but that rural communities also produce fiesty female characters**.

One other thing about the supernatural in Smallville that reminds me of Sunnydale is the way that 'super villians' are usually teenagers, or people in the teenage world - female students with envy issues, football coaches who need some anger management advice. Again, much has been written (and spoken) about the ways in which the monsters in Buffy represent the monstrous... or mundane in teenagerdom, but it seems Smallville is attempting the same sort of work. Far less effectively, of course, and with terribly inferior dialogue.

In a similar vein, please do read this discussion of race and class in Joss Whedon's work (from Feminist SF and discovered by Kate - strength to her for the moving thing). It's mighty interesting.
Now, I'd been thinking to myself, 'yeah, sure Whedon is neat, but, Self, should I be all yay! go! about another white guy writing for me, rather than a sister doing it for herself, television-writing-wise?'. In other words, I'd had reservations about the wholehearted and uncompromised passion for Joss Whedon which others seem to evince. I had had issues with the race thing. And that's been kind of exaggerated by Smallville, where Clark's buddy Peter is black, he has other not-white friends, and Lana Lang has this Eurasian*** thing going on.

And in a third 'why Smallville is a bit like Sunnydale' point, I've been thinking about something prompted by these comments from Wikipedia:

Technology in Buffyverse has been shown to be advanced enough to produce such an advanced robot as April

(in the I Was Made to Love You April the robot girlfriend episode from season 3)

In the Buffyverse there seems to be some extraordinarily advanced technology available to some. For example, robots are living among the ordinary citizens of the Buffyverse: in the Internet ("I, Robot... You, Jane"), produced by people decades ago ("Ted"), produced by youngsters today ("I Was Made to Love You"), and even used by dark powers ("Lineage").

(Buffyverse article in wikipedia).

That wikipedia article on the Buffyverse discusses the ways in which the world of Buffy is not like the 'real world' (and we could make all sorts of interesting segues into more talk about teenagers and the Teen World, but we won't), and technology seems one of those points. I've waxed lyrical (and slightly manically) on the issue of technology in Buffy before, so I won't go into it again, but it's worth mentioning that this matter was called to mind while watching Smallville for two real reasons:

1) Chloe (Clark's fiesty sidekick) is the technology person, what with all her digital cameras and computers (macs, no less) and things (despite Lex's best efforts) and

2) the ease with which the Sunnydale people accept robots (particularly the scoobies - and I do like the way the gang unanimously agree that April is a robot - why can they accept robots when they are usually so cynical and wise to the ridiculousness of life on the hellmouth?...look, I know it's a joke. But.) reminds me of the way the Smallville people seem cool with the whole 'meteorites destroyed my town' thing. That, and the 12 years of strange, meteorite-related events. In this 'verse, not only are Smallville and Metropolis real places, African American kids mixing happily with white kids with no hint of racial tension at the high school and teachers set on fire with no police investigations, but no one really seems to mind that kids turn into giant insects and girls shape change to rob banks.

Oh my, it's late (all of 11:08! My, how the world changes!), so I'm not sure I can write more. But if you have watched both these programs, do chime in.

Oh, and: everyone's had a doppleganger in Buffy - Buffy, Willow, Xander - who's anyone. What does that mean?

And, and: was I the only one who wondered what class Clark was reading Neitzche for in high school? And Lana with a great Russian work of lit? Hmmmm.

*soon to be the only-DVDs shop
** I'm talking Chloe, not the ever-irritating Lana Lang here.
***Well, maybe. But probably not.

[promise I'll fix the typos and add links later when I'm less tired and have more battery power on the lappy]

"Smallville v Sunnydale" was posted by dogpossum on July 26, 2006 11:18 PM in the category buffy & angel and smallville | Comments (1)

July 17, 2006

it's ok - don't panic

To all those who've checked up on me after the sicky bubs post:

thanks

and

I'm ok.

Status report: as per usual, the second wave of serious head cold (which, incidentally, also struck down my father this week - in two rounds - no doubt an indication of the vulnerability of small-nostrilled people to this sort of thing) has settled in comfortably, and almost a week later, while I have now been out of the house all of 3 times, I now have the horrible ear thing again.

While it mightn't sound so terrible to have blocked ears, it's kind of awful for someone who relies on their ears as much as I do. It's difficult to dance when your balance is screwed and your awareness of your surroundings stuffed by unreliable hearing. It's bloody difficult to judge sound levels when you're DJing through an ear's worth of goob. And riding your bike is terrifying when you can't hear approaching cars or balance properly.
But I have a doctor's appointment booked for tomorrow, so either she'll look inside and be frightened enough by what she sees to syringe me to blessed unimpededness, or she'll see nothing and I'll have another day on the kick-you-on-your-arse decongestants. The latter is always a joy for someone as responsive to these sorts of drugs as I am. I am sure The Squeeze is looking forward to mildly-psychotic and scarily insomniac speed freak girl as much as I am.

On (un)related fronts, Angel and everyone else are dealing with the Darla/Drusilla fallout (don't you just LOVE those episodes?) and Buffy is freaking out under a pile of narratively excessive dramas: Glory's nabbed Dawn/the key, Spike is hot for Bot-love (and yes, he is kinda small, but pretty compact and well-muscled, Xander), Tara has been brain-drained by Glory and of course, Joyce has just passed away.

"it's ok - don't panic" was posted by dogpossum on July 17, 2006 1:48 PM in the category buffy & angel and domesticity and television

July 11, 2006

I am John Travolta

In our house The Squeeze is convinced that BB is not only foul, but also immoral. He leaves the room if it's on. I don't care much either way, in fact I'm watching it now. I'd prefer it if it was unedited, and just a bunch of people in a room with no 'tasks' - just like watching a bunch of sharehousers who're on the dole. No money, so they can't afford to go out. No imagination, so they don't go do free stuff. Eeeexcellent.

But I do have a problem with the new program 'Honey I'm killing the kids'. Ostensibly a program committed to 'helping' parents with overweight kids, rather than focussing on positive reinforcement for the parents and children, I suspect the tools are guilt, guilt and more guilt. Nice. I won't be watching that.

I've watched very little telly lately - beyond the eternal Buffy and Angel (seasons 4 and 2 respectively) - but I have my eye on tonight's OC. Nice.*

In other, more important news, I have a John Travolta obsession. I am convinced, when I'm dancing, that I am the man. It doesn't help that I think I'm funny when I strut it, Saturday Night Fever style. It's particularly unhelpful that lindy is built for strutting. Or, more importantly, blues dancing is built for strutting. A keen balboa fan was asking "you're into this blues stuff - what's the deal? I just don't get it," and of course, the only response is: "strut. You need to strut. Either take it incredibly seriously, or incredibly unseriously. But strut." It's true. Blues dancing is all about strutting.

*NB Willow now has an ibook. An oooold one.

"I am John Travolta" was posted by dogpossum on July 11, 2006 8:37 PM in the category buffy & angel and lindy hop & other dances i have known and television | Comments (2)

June 30, 2006

i can't tame wild women...

In response to scott's comment here, on the Whedon EqualityNow speech.

I was quite struck by Whedon's comment about not only writing strong women characters but also writing male characters who thought they were the fushizzle. One the one hand - yay! - but on the other, I was reminded of some thoughts I'd had previously about the way some men/male characters are attracted to strong women/characters. They may love and adore them, but some are also attracted to the idea of controlling or weakening them (which reminds me of a Hot Club of Cowtown lyric: "I can't tame wild women, but I can make tame women wild"). This seems to apply to people like Spike.
In the most recent Angel I've watched (Guise will be Guise) the fake swami makes a comment about how Angel needed to find a small blonde woman and trash her as a way of dealing with his anger/distress about being trashed by Darla when she found out he had a soul. Angel's response was non-verbal, but he was obviously thinking 'hm, he might be right'. That could just have been Angel piling on a little more guilt (he is guilt-meister), but it mightn't...
Of course, the blonde in question was Buffy - and Angel made an effort to trash her in the last Angel episode where we saw her in L.A. (I Will Remember you). He might remember that visit fondly, as the one chance he had to be human with her, but she left only remembering his totally trashing her. He knows this, he's packing guilt for it (as per usual), but... don't mean he didn't get some passive-aggressive payback pleasure re Darla/Buffy moving on with Reilly-ace-of-spies.

But of course - Angel has issues. That's his job.

"i can't tame wild women..." was posted by dogpossum on June 30, 2006 12:12 PM in the category buffy & angel | Comments (2)

June 29, 2006

so why do you write these strong women characters...?

If there was any reason why you wouldn't marry Joss Whedon, his Equalitynow speech will do away with it.

"so why do you write these strong women characters...?" was posted by dogpossum on June 29, 2006 2:08 PM in the category buffy & angel | Comments (2)

June 27, 2006

so like, you know

So I've watched the OC about 4 or maybe even 5 weeks in a row now.
I think I'm hooked.
It's so completely ridiculous - the 'teenagers' speak like world-weary script writers, everyone's either really rich or 'living in a caravan' and really rich. Even the 'poorest' characters wear clothes that are about 10 million times more expensive than mine. They all live by the sea, drive expensive cars and are ridiculously skinny.

I was a bit of a Dawson's Creek fan, in that I wouldn't turn it off it was on, but I wouldn't tape it or seek it out. I was delighted in the last episode of Buffy that I watched (Out of my Mind to see Spike declare that Pacey was being an idiot because 'she' didn't love him.

Poor old Pacey. I was sure he was a special needs character from the ads. But he ...wasn't?

Yeah, so I'm watching the OC. I forget about it as soon as the program finishes, though the ads kind of catch my interest.
It is so ridiculous. I have no idea what's going on. But I have Opinions about the characters:
Marissa (the teeny sex queen one who's on all the ads for shampoo and stuff):
Is a skinny dog who really annoys me. She needs to pin her hair back.
I'm not convinced that she's actually an alcaholic.

Seth (the dark haired young fullah):
is obviously the one I'm supposed to dig because he likes manga and arty stuff and reading.
His minor lispy thing is meant to be hot.
I like him but he kind of annoys me. I can't bring myself to be really impressed or to actually care.

Look, I've lost interest in this silly list.

Why are all the characters so young? Even the mums and dads are young, or trying desperately to look young. Yucky.

The only thing I really care about is that these kids seem to go to Buffy's high school in Beverly Hills/Sunnydale. The same school that the film Loser was set in.

"so like, you know" was posted by dogpossum on June 27, 2006 9:56 PM in the category buffy & angel