I like this quite a bit. Rec'd it to someone else tonight in regards to a discussion regarding BTVS meta or analysis. And as an example of how non-emotionally charged analysis sees the story and the writer's intent far clearer than emotionally charged, also provides fodder for discussion. The problem with many emotionally charged meta is too often the reviewer falls into the trap of righteous indignation...and the only people who can discuss it are those that agree with the reviewer or you end up with a free-for-all. Also, you miss 90% of the tale - and what you just related above. I certainly missed some of it in Cabin in the Woods - too busy reacting emotionally to the tale's content, to see the framework behind it.
I think you are correct, Cabin in the Woods and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are working as post-modernist critiques of the horror genre, subverting and redefining its narrative tropes. By the same token they are playing with the film and television formulas that they reside within. Cabin subverts the film narrative formula - the reveal is made in the first ten minutes of the film, there's no wait. The wait is for the story. It's a reverse narrative format.
With Buffy...ah, where to start? Whedon plays with television rules. He introduces the bratty kid sister who literally pops in from nowhere. He does the very special Blossum episode about Drug Addiction (except it's a deliberate mislead). He uses songs to propel plot and not just as background music. (See Conversations with Dead People, Sleeper, Lies My Parents Told Me, amongst others.) In Buffy - music was more than just music videos, it was crucial to story. Something TV didn't do. (This was before Glee.)
He deliberately went for campy comic book - then had the characters admit to it and comment on it.
And...on TV, most TV series only last 5 seasons. When Buffy got extended and jumped networks...Whedon wrote that into the story, chaos reigned. The narrative splintered. And the rules were broken yet adhered to.
It does remind me a great deal of Cabin. He's critiquing the genre, but in a playful way. It's not satire - wickedly mean like Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story, nor is it Parody like Community...it's more like a homage or metafiction. And in that way unique.
And you're right the title is a play on words, but also reflects the central thematic core of the series...in the slasher films/gothic horror genre (which has reverted back to this actually) - the hero is male (see Grimm), and the heroine is usually his wife, girlfriend or sidekick and often killed in the alley or lying in a coma at the end of season one due to a monster bite. Whedon flipped it. And yet, states the narrative and narrator are male. Buffy is living in a male narrative, with male storyteller behind her - a storyteller who has a great deal in common with Andrew. And she's fighting his narrative, subverting it, trying to change it and make into her own. Which in a way is the writer's own commentary on the art of storytelling. Stories, Whedon stated recently, aren't pets, they are like children, they grow up, move away and talk back to you.
Regarding Spike? You need go no further than the song in Sleeper - "trading coats and ringing pavlov's bell" - a character who is constantly redefining himself, constantly trying to fight the hold the writer or storyteller had over him, yet is held by the confines of the story. Note his relationship with Andrew - who annoys him - it's a good metaphor for his relationship with the writer. He want's to please (Pavlov's Dog) but resists at the same time. Buffy's in the same boat - she resists being the slayer, fights Giles the whole way, but caves as well - unable to be anything but what she is. The fight against one's destiny - one's story.
It's that old question? Are we doomed to follow the destiny pre-written in our DNA, what we were born to do? Or can we rewrite our story? Subvert it? Rewrite the myth? Or do we continue to blindly follow the one set before us?
Anyhow...thanks for this, most innovative post I've seen on BTVS in a while. And here I was thinking nothing new could be said about the series.
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I think you are correct, Cabin in the Woods and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are working as post-modernist critiques of the horror genre, subverting and redefining its narrative tropes. By the same token they are playing with the film and television formulas that they reside within. Cabin subverts the film narrative formula - the reveal is made in the first ten minutes of the film, there's no wait. The wait is for the story. It's a reverse narrative format.
With Buffy...ah, where to start? Whedon plays with television rules. He introduces the bratty kid sister who literally pops in from nowhere. He does the very special Blossum episode about Drug Addiction (except it's a deliberate mislead). He uses songs to propel plot and not just as background music. (See Conversations with Dead People, Sleeper, Lies My Parents Told Me, amongst others.) In Buffy - music was more than just music videos, it was crucial to story. Something TV didn't do. (This was before Glee.)
He deliberately went for campy comic book - then had the characters admit to it and comment on it.
And...on TV, most TV series only last 5 seasons. When Buffy got extended and jumped networks...Whedon wrote that into the story, chaos reigned. The narrative splintered. And the rules were broken yet adhered to.
It does remind me a great deal of Cabin. He's critiquing the genre, but in a playful way. It's not satire - wickedly mean like Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story, nor is it Parody like Community...it's more like a homage or metafiction. And in that way unique.
And you're right the title is a play on words, but also reflects the central thematic core of the series...in the slasher films/gothic horror genre (which has reverted back to this actually) - the hero is male (see Grimm), and the heroine is usually his wife, girlfriend or sidekick and often killed in the alley or lying in a coma at the end of season one due to a monster bite.
Whedon flipped it. And yet, states the narrative and narrator are male. Buffy is living in a male narrative, with male storyteller behind her - a storyteller who has a great deal in common with Andrew. And she's fighting his narrative, subverting it, trying to change it and make into her own. Which in a way is the writer's own commentary on the art of storytelling. Stories, Whedon stated recently, aren't pets, they are like children, they grow up, move away and talk back to you.
Regarding Spike? You need go no further than the song in Sleeper - "trading coats and ringing pavlov's bell" - a character who is constantly redefining himself, constantly trying to fight the hold the writer or storyteller had over him, yet is held by the confines of the story. Note his relationship with Andrew - who annoys him - it's a good metaphor for his relationship with the writer. He want's to please (Pavlov's Dog) but resists at the same time.
Buffy's in the same boat - she resists being the slayer, fights Giles the whole way, but caves as well - unable to be anything but what she is. The fight against one's destiny - one's story.
It's that old question? Are we doomed to follow the destiny pre-written in our DNA, what we were born to do? Or can we rewrite our story? Subvert it? Rewrite the myth? Or do we continue to blindly follow the one set before us?
Anyhow...thanks for this, most innovative post I've seen on BTVS in a while. And here I was thinking nothing new could be said about the series.