sundries

[rm]

Yesterday's food: 1 vitamin water (defense flavour), several gluten-free vienna fingers, a lot of lemonade, coconut ice, romaine salad with cheddar, grilled chicken, bacon, carrots and egg with honey mustard dressing (from which I possibly got glutened), a steak with potatoes, carrots and green beans, 1 frozen creme brulee in a chocolate cup; more of those chocolate pomegranate candies; a gluten-free red velvet cupcake with cream cheese icing.

Come check out Mud-Brick.com, an archaeology and pop-culture blog Patty is participating in.

Last night we watched the brilliant multi-level marketing episode of Angel (I love Harmony, I love the ridiculous lesbian joke, I love Lorne, I love Wesley just about losing his mind over pretty much everyone and everything else else, etc etc etc.) And then it was on to Buffy, which included, of course, "The Body."

Waiting for that episode, has, of course been critical. A big part of my thesis for the Bristol paper relies on why the deaths of Whedon's deeply beloved characters don't result in people engaging in the same sort of non-fiction mourning rituals as we've seen in response to certain deaths in Torchwood and Harry Potter and that are believed (sometimes erroneously) to have transpired into certain historical literary demises as well (e.g. Sherlock Holmes). Basically, Whedon completes his deaths on screen. People don't just die; they are mourned and remembered as a narrative through-line, which means the audience doesn't need to act as hired mourner for their fictive friends/lovers/parents/children.

"The Body," thankfully, cements this part of my argument 120% (Joyce, however, would not be subject to this non-fictional mourning for other reasons, as she doesn't fit my character criteria (actually none of Whedon's characters quite do, but in this regard I'll mostly be talking about Wash and to a lesser degree Wesley and Tara as they each brush close to the model that seems to provoke this, but aren't it)).

One of the reasons it's a remarkable episode is because it actually works. The removal of soundtrack (and in some cases, sound), is a huge risk. While more naturalistic, the lack of music's suggestive effect actually runs the risk of reminding us we are watching a thing on a screen. Whedon avoids this becoming a distraction, however, by relying so heavily on rhythm and cadence throughout the episode.

Where it really gets knocked out of the park for me is in Willow's dorm room. Part of this may be because that's the role I'm most used to having in these things, but I do think it's also where we get the best writing and acting of the episode. Anya, in particular, taking on the role of a child who is just learning about death through this event, knocks that speech out of the park. You can see the series of connections being made in her brain and snapping into place so much so that it's eerie.

Tara also gets some amazing character development here, even before her later convo with Buffy, because we can see just how difficult it is for her to be in the room. The weight of the emotions of others is nearly suffocating her, and wow, do I get that.

The death narrative also, quite smartly, entwines sex into the narrative. It's not accident that Giles remembers Joyce via the song they listened to in "Band Candy;" Dawn may get her first view of a naked man in the form of a vampire in the morgue; Xander and Anya talk about babies. And, while it may be an accident that we get Willow and Tara's first on screen kiss (Patty wisely noted that there was no way for them not to kiss in the middle of this tragedy and this was probably where Fox had to relent and if Whedon had gotten his way they probably would have kised on screen sooner) here, it's incredibly effective. Death is about physical pleasures -- their absence, their memory, their lack of repetition -- whether it's fucking or fruit punch (to go back to Anya).

All of this leads us into the Dawn tries to bring Joyce back episode. Again, let me just say how much I love the Spike/Dawn friendship. This whole episode filled me with dread, because I'm creeped out by "Pet Cemetery" more than anything at all EVER, and not only did I not want Dawn's memories of her mother ruined by whatever she was going to do (nor did I want Buffy to have to go through killing her mom in a redux of when she had to kill Angel), I did not want our last memories, as the audience, of Joyce to be some cheesy zombie effect.

But, here Whedon demonstrates the brilliance I hear ascribed to him far more than I often feel. The dissolution of her physical ghost right before Buffy gets to the door is COMPLETELY, stunningly, overwhelmingly smart.

Frank Rich on how Arizona's legitimate frustration with the illegal immigration crisis doesn't make their recent laws any less racist, or disconnected from the larger wave of a particular type of American racism we're currently experiencing.

moonstone_fae lives in Tennessee and has just suffered major losses in the Southern floods. If you can help, please look at that previously linked list of lost items or see here for donation information.

Comments

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

More 'yes this' about "The Body."

I find myself quoting Anya sometimes because yes, her lines about death are so often how I feel about it all, as I've never attended a loved one's funeral and haven't had to deal with the death, really, of anyone in my family other than my paternal grandmother..which was surreal because she'd been dead and buried for 3 months before I knew anything about it, so it was a cerebral mourning.

The idea of mourning onscreen VS off is..really fascinating.