"I'm a Slayer - Ask Me How!"

Week 2 of the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011! And it's a doozy. Remember, every week three more episodes will be critiqued. Now, Nikki Stafford is lovely and talented (still perkily Canadian, though), but she can't do it all. Besides, half the fun of watching is yakking about what you've seen with friends. So she roped in a couple dozen folks to pitch in. This week, critic extraordinaire David Lavery (seriously, the man has forgotten more about TV than I know) takes us by the hand to walk us through "Teacher's Pet," "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date," and "The Pack." (The title of this post comes from "Never Kill," by the way. And yes, I've seen lapel buttons with the slogan printed on them at conferences. Gotta get one of those!)

At this point in Season 1, Whedon has his major players (the "Scooby Gang") in place, and he starts to flesh out (a term with often gross overtones in a show like Buffy) some secondary characters, like Xander. We also start to see Buffy's conflict between her Slayer duties and her deep-seated desire to be "normal," which will run throughout the show.

Great stuff here!

"Into every generation a Slayer is born . . ."

. . . you know the rest. "One girl in all the world, a Chosen One. One born with the strength and skill to fight the vampires, to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers.” Thus began the saga of Buffy Summers, who pretty much began my own journey into the in-depth investigation of the ways in which popular culture matters in the wider world. (A lot of that fire was really lit by Firefly, but Buffy can be said to have built the bonfire.)

It's an amazing show. Really. You must, of course, get past the deliberately silly-sounding title but once you do - ohhhh, your rewards will be vast and your interest will be compounded!

It's a show worthy of a rewatch, and the lovely and talented (albeit perkily Canadian) Nikki Stafford has begun the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011. Gather around, children. It promises to be an epic tale, full of true love and high adventure. (OK, so I'm ripping off The Princess Bride with that line. Whatever advances the story.) She lined up a most impressive cast of rogues and sharp dealers to chime in with their thoughts and the plan is to post a new installment on Tuesday, which was always "Buffy night" when the show was airing. Each installment will usually cover three episodes (the writer might choose to focus on one of the three more than others - dealer's choice rules), although a couple will be "stand-alones."

I'll keep you posted.

Also, I'll be using this blog to comment on my soon-to-begin film course this semester. Yes, Gentle Readers, several years of hard work and much conferencing has borne fruit. (Hopefully not figs. I don't like those much. Especially the leaves.) I'm teaching an introductory film course this semester which focuses on science fiction films and I intend to use this blog to comment and (hopefully) get some comments in return. Please feel free to leave comments, but be warned that this is a moderated board. I don't censor, but I do refuse to post obvious links to selling sites or scams. It's my blog; I get to set the rules.

So come for the Slayer, stay for the rayguns!

Coming Soon!

Nikki Stafford, she of many a TV guide (but not, you understand, TV Guide), has both risen to the challenge and thrown down a gauntlet. Hard to do both, but she's Canadian. And tricksy.

Nikki is probably best known as the writer of the immensely detailed and popular Lost guides, but she's also a Whedonian at heart, having written one of the first guides to give Buffy the Vampire Slayer more than a passing glance. Starting in 2011, she's devoting her blog - you can see it by clicking the link here - to a Buffy re-watch every Tuesday. (Makes sense - throughout the seven-year run of the show, Tuesday was always "Buffy night.") The show is a whopping 144 episodes in length, so Nikki's drafted help. A number of pop culture scholars, enthusiasts, Whedon scholars, podcasters and various other strays are going to be chiming in throughout the year-long run of the re-watch.

Should be interesting and I've staked out (yuk, yuk) my week.

You'll have to tune in to see what I have to say and decide if it's worth the electronic ink it takes to make it appear on the page!

By the way, the picture is from the Season Four Thanksgiving episode "Pangs." Gobble, gobble to you all and may you enjoy your ritual sacrifice. With pie.

Browncoat Ball

Yesterday, I attended Day 1 of the 2010 Browncoat Ball. (The picture shows a Firefly soaring over the Charlotte skyline.) I'm a member of the Charlotte Browncoats (although not exactly in good standing in terms of attendance lately) and one of the organizers had approached me to ask if I could put together an author panel for the opening day of the shindig.

Turns out I could!

I have several "conference friends" within driving distance who write and publish on Whedon who agreed in a flash. We assembled like the Avengers and made plans to hawk our wares at the "space bazaar," then lead an hour-long panel on what we do, why we do it, and how we do it. When asked by a passerby what these books were about, I quipped that we write "fan non-fic." I think I like the term.

I'll admit that I didn't really know how this would turn out. The Browncoat Ball is definitely a fan event rather than a pointy-headed academic event (while popcult academic events are pretty much devoid of the snooty professor types, the stereotype lingers) and I'm there with a book that retails for $35. (The publisher's main audience is libraries, not individuals.) I offered the book for the discount I receive - actually, I had two prices; one for Browncoats and a jacked-up one for any of the Alliance faithful. So I went, lugging my box o' books, fully expecting to lug it home again.

Surprise!

I only have two copies left from my box, which I'll just hold on to rather than return. Just as gratifying to me, I have more than $40 in donations to Equality Now - a charity close to the heart of many a Browncoat. I offered to autograph any books I sold in return for a donation of any amount. ("Any amount?" one person asked, possibly working their way over to slyness. "Sure," I said, "Just think of how much it's worth to not have women stoned to death and put that in the jar." Plenty of singles, but at least there wasn't jingling change in the jar.)

The best part? The people. I hadn't done a fan event in quite a while and I think I forgot how much sheer joy is involved. Whedon once said that "the future is the past in a blender" and he used that approach in Firefly. In the bazaar, I sat behind my table and yakked to everyone passing by. I saw amazing henna tattoos, gorgeous Asian-inspired fabrics, very funny Hawaiian shirt fabric (my favorite was either the fortune cookie one or the dinosaur/spacefield one), and one terrifyin' space monkey in a Kaylee dress (complete with hair ribbon!).

While the crowd at our talk was small (let's face it, we were scheduled opposite the burlesque class!), they were dedicated, asking insightful questions and showing more than polite interest. Then it was back to my house on the Rim while the luau got rolling. I can only imagine the actual Ball tonight!

Fans in groups. They can move the world.

Fan-Scholars and Scholar-Fans

I'm just back from the annual Popular & American Culture Associations in the South conference. This is a major regional academic conference devoted to the developments in the field, where I presented on Whedon's Dollhouse and cinematic theory. In two weeks, I'm presenting at the annual Browncoat Ball, which is a very "fan" event. Since I'm whipsawing from "scholar" to "fan" gathering, this seems like a perfect time to bring up this point.

There are scholars who devote their academic careers to the careful, thoughtful study of popular culture - the study of the works of Joss Whedon, let's say. There are also fans who throw themselves into these created fictional worlds in other ways, creating elaborate backstories, writing fan fiction and so on. See here for an example. When studying popular culture, is there a difference between a "fan-scholar" and a "scholar-fan"? If so, exactly what is the difference?

When recently asked this question, I mouthed off that yes, there is a difference and it's likely to be rooted in the degree of critical rigor one brings to the analysis and examination of the works being considered. However, I'm not sure I like my own definition - I know some hard-core fans whose attention to detail is worthy of immense respect and my flippant response seems to dismiss the fan who sews her own Kaylee hoopskirted dress.

So maybe it's not the "critical rigor" but the overall passion that is brought to bear on the project. Knowing how much time, effort, sweat, stress, and occasionally tears and (just once, I think) hissy fits go into every (well, every decent) paper, presentation, essay, chapter, or book - well, I can't imagine expending that much energy on something that I disliked. (Can't you imagine that? Working for two years on [let's say] a Marxist reading of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park through permanently gritted teeth while you mutter over and over, "I freaking hate this woman!" It's enough to drive one to gambling.)

And there's another problem with my definition - there are people who do expend tremendous amounts of energy on "anti-fan" Websites - consider the full-out hatred of Wesley Crusher in this site, for example. Or this blog posting (not a full site, I'll grant you, but I'm on my first cup of coffee) devoted to anti-Martha Stewart love.

So there goes another perfectly good, bunny-less theory. (It's a "Once More, With Feeling" reference - if you didn't get it, just let it go.) People are willing to devote huge amounts of time to things/people/shows that they in actuality dislike.

Weird.