Cult TV, as cited by Hills (2004), “is not
ordinary, run of the mill TV, it is not bland and low-risk TV, since it
challenges gender representations, say; it is excessive in its aesthetic mode
of representation, being again differentiated from ‘mainstream or realist TV
drama”. Despite seeming outdated and old
fashioned, probably because it is after all about 15 years old, the storyline of
Buffy itself was and probably still is innovative as it challenged the
archetypal female character role. At
the time Buffy must have provided a refreshing change from the typical alpha
male lead role, (as portrayed in programmes such as The A Team, The Incredible
Hulk, The Six Million Dollar Man. A
chirpy blond schoolgirl who stands on her own two feet, is the saviour, or
slayer of all things bad and evil, in this case. The series seemed to spark a
new trend for tough battle-hardy central female roles in TV, Xena the Warrior
Princess, True Blood, Vampire Diaries.
Hills (2004) cites that Cult TV “typically
runs in seasons of 24 episodes and often features end-of-season cliff
hangers. This type of seriality seems to
support fan practices such as intense speculation over plot (especially across
the summer break)”. Is that how the
cult, or following, begins, people get hooked because they can’t wait to see
the next episode, can’t stop talking about the last episode all week in
anticipation of the next? As Hill (2004)
cites “fans also produce commentaries, fan fiction, episode guides and
production histories that all work to sustain the distinctiveness of fandome as
a community that read the intertextual network of cult TV shows in a
characteristic way” This perpetuates
the following or cult, and then as Hill (2004) cites “fans of cult TV gather
for conventions where they can share their interests. Again, this creates a sense of communal fan
distinctiveness.” They have in effect been living the life of the tv series
through fandom, which I am sure the TV stations love, as this can perpetuate
the series.
However in a literary sense can Cult TV be
quantified as quality TV? Wilcox and Lavery (2002) cite that “bad
television – predictable, commercial, exploitative – simply yields to the
forces. Good television, like the
character the Vampire Slayer, Buffy, fights those forces. For TV to be good, it needs to be
unexpected, original, and pushing the boundaries of what is perceived as within
the realms of normal tv.” Joss Whedon seems to push the boundaries between good
and evil, and shapeshifts his characters (eg: Adam or Spike) in order to hook
his audience into an unpredictable viewing at each episode.
Hills (2004) cites “Cult TV is best thought
of as a group of texts, often hailing from the genres of science fiction,
fantasy and horror.” The storyline of
the episodes “Goodbye Iowa” and “The I in Team” seemed to be a mix of several
genres: romance, fantasy, teen, science-fiction (of its time); perhaps Whedon was
punting for a wider viewership by incorporating several genres rather than one.
There is a sense of normality wrapped in
the fantasy and sci-fi of Buffy: the group of good friends, living in a normal house
in a normal town, doing normal every day things like watching tv, chatting and drinking
soda, except for the fact that the place they live in is exceptionally removed
from our reality in that it deals with demons, vampires and monsters every
week. Something extraordinarily unusual,
in a normal setting with a central heroine who saves the day, because everyone
loves the day to be saved. Maybe that is
the key to cult tv.
References:
Hills, M. (2004). Defining Cult TV; Texts,
Inter-texts and Fan Audiences, The
Television Studies Reader, in R. C. Allen & A. Hill. London and New
York: Routledge
Wilcox, R. & Lavery, D. (2002).
Introduction, in R. Wilcox & D. Lavery (eds) Fighting the forces: what’s at stake in Buffy the vampire slayer: Lanham:
Rowman and Littlefield.
Excellent post, Sam. Great the way you weave in the secondary sources to create a coherent account. One feature of cult fiction in general is that it mostly deals with the outsider, the 'Other, social misfits and rejects, rather than straightforward middle-class mainstream characters. This enables us to link the works of PKD, Miyazake, and the Buffy series.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mike. The viewing shown at AUT was my first viewing of Buffy, although I knew what she was about, probably from the media attention it received at the time. To me some of the acting seemed a bit ham and overstaged for example the fighting scenes and Buffy's karate chopping antics, the dialogue seemed over-zealous and over-stated on occasions almost as if the actors were reading from an autocue, and then of course the props such as the pager, the landline phone, and the switched off tv set that was "still warm", date the series in my opinion. However, for me I think in the two episodes that we viewed, at the time they were written, Buffy would have stood for a kind of girl power. She seems to have an undefiable inner strength and definitely has a circle of friends where she appears to fit in. I think I could have seen her as someone to aspire to rather than unusual or rejectable, not for what she does, but for what she is. Maybe I need to see more episodes to pick up on the themes of the outsider, the social misfit or reject.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you! Whedon definitely pushed boundaries with his series. It may seem a bit campy when you watch it these days, but at the time it was just so interesting to see what Whedon could conjure up, especially at a time when television hadn't seen half the things that Buffy covered. Interesting post!
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