In praise of "Beer Bad"
Jul. 29th, 2010 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beer_good_foamyI'm currently rewatching s4 of Buffy and I just got to "Beer Bad". And since it's one of my favourite comedy episodes (to nobody's surprise) I thought I'd take this opportunity to jot down some possibly slightly serious thoughts (and a poll!). Let me just get a beer...
*pop*
...Now, trying to explain why I love this episode should be simple, but... see, when I started getting into fandom after seeing the whole series, there were a couple of huge surprises in store for me. "Season 6 is considered awful?" "What's a shipping war?" "People don't like 'Beer Bad'? Seriously?" I'm not going to argue that it's a great Buffy episode, and it's undeniably very very silly, and there's no accounting for taste; some people simply don't find it funny. But...
One common argument against it that I keep coming across is that people treat it like a morality play. As if the writers of Buffy try to warn impressionable youths about the dangers of alcohol, and fail miserably because the message is simply a prissy "Kids, don't do drugs." Which, IMO, is unfathomable for two reasons:
One, because it's so gloriously silly. It's got cave!Buffy, ferchrissakes. There's no way in hell anyone could write, direct and act this and think they were doing anything with any sort of serious message. If anything, it's a parody of the sort of after-school specials I'm told US students have to sit through. It's a bit like watching Reefer Madness (the original), except Buffy knows it's being ludicrous. ETA: And the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy agrees with me!
At least one show, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," was rejected after it showed itself to be immune to the drug office's worldview. "Drugs were an issue, but it wasn't on-strategy. It was otherworldly nonsense, very abstract and not like real-life kids taking drugs. Viewers wouldn't make the link to our message," says someone in the drug-policy office camp who read and helped reject it.
Two... because the message of it, if you desperately want to find one, isn't abstinence – whether from beer or anything else. Yes, it hammers home the "beer bad" message so hard it becomes ridiculous – but it does the same thing to almost everything in the story, including things that are absolutely necessary for us to survive.
Not convinced? Okay.
BUFFY: Just lots and lots of beer. It's nice. Foamy. Comforting. It's just beer.
It's easy to overlook how arcy "Beer Bad" is. Not so much plotwise – the Initiative is still just a background event – but in setting up the early character arcs here. Buffy's trying to get over Parker (and her own reaction to Parker), Willow and Oz are about to break up, and Xander and Giles are mostly feeling useless. All of that turns up in "Beer Bad", but it's a Buffy-centric episode...
BUFFY: You know maybe, maybe he's just having trouble dealing. I mean, don't guys sometimes put the girl they really, really like inside these deep little brain fantasy bubbles where everything's perfect? They do that right? Maybe I'm in his bubble and then pretty soon he's going to realize that he wants more than just bubble Buffy and he'll pop me out and we'll go to dinner and it could happen right?
So we start off right away with Buffy dreaming of rescuing Parker. And when she wakes up and sees him flirting with another girl...
WALSH: So, how does this conflict with the ego manifest itself in the psyche? What do we do when we can't have what we want?
...she does the same thing again, except she exaggerates the rescue to ridiculous proportions. Ice cream, flowers, bare chest.
Xander's working as a bartender. Note Xander's ID. Does anyone buy that? Of course not. It's not remotely realistic.
WILLOW: I don't believe this is entirely on the up and up.
XANDER: What gives it away?
WILLOW: Looking at it.
If that's not metacommentary on the episode itself and its supposed message, I don't know what is. And then we step into the bar, where we're going to stay for much of the episode. We meet the Beer Jerks: a gang of very pretentious students who want beer, women, and admiration for being smart – except when they try to sound smart, all they do is pile big words on top of each other. Which is pretty dumb. But hey, one of the best things about drinking beer is that everything you say to others drinking beer beside you becomes very deep and thoughtful. They've paid attention in class, but they haven't actually learned anything. Well, maybe one thing:
BEER JERK #1: The thing that the modern day pundits failed to realize is that all the socio-echonomical and psychological problems inherent in modern society can be solved by the judicious application of way too much beer.
Meanwhile, the plot is spiralling merrily into lunacy – as always in Buffy with some humorous exaggerations and misunderstandings, though here they seem even more on topic than usual. Willow claims to have killed a man to get a table (hyperbole), assumes Buffy had group sex (jumping to the extreme conclusion, which of course is wrong), and finally takes Parker apart into tiny little pieces (not for having sex with Buffy, but for betraying Buffy's trust), by applying her (rather outdated) Freud from psychology class.
WILLOW: I'm tired of you men and your... man-ness.
...says Willow and stops driving stick. Ahem. Thanks, Parker, we owe you. (Hyperbole!) And then the cavemen start running wild, beating each other with sticks, kidnapping girls and setting fire to stuff. Fire. Huh-huh-huh. Xander – who's just been tipped about half a month's wages by the Beer Jerks, clearly too much, and actually seems to be warming up to the bartender job – finds out what's going on and confronts the villain:
BARTENDER: Relax. It will wear off in a day or so.
XANDER: In "a day or so", someone could get killed. (Leaves, comes back) You're a bad, bad man.
Yup, Captain Obvious and Idboy are writing this episode. And they know what we want: we want to see cave!Buffy scare the pants off Xander and Giles, and then give Parker what he deserves to tie back to the start; Buffy the College Student dreams and mulls over, Buffy of the Clan of the Cave Bear cuts through all the shit and applies the simplest solution. And obviously it's presented as a good thing, because sometimes, the id needs to tell the other two blowhards to quit yakkin' and get the job done with what they've got. Cavemen win.
BARTENDER: That's the great thing about beer. It makes all men the same.
Now, I could sit here for a while and list the funniest moments in this episode – apart from the fact that I think the funniest thing about it all is the way it consistently sends up and subverts everything it touches simply by making it impossible to take completely seriously. But I was trying to meta, right? Well, here's a key line:
BUFFY: It's just... Parker's problem with intimacy turns out to be that he can't get enough of it. And I knew it.
And yet nobody says the message of the episode is "Don't try to connect with people." Well, OK, I guess a lot of people see it as yet another "Sex is bad" message, but... note the repeated use of the word "intimacy" rather than "sex." And note who ends up on the ground with a bump on his head. Silliness can be a wonderful way to deflate a serious subject, and "Beer Bad" is very silly. But in the end, I love it precisely because it doesn't have a simple message of "Don't do this" (except for Parker.) The point is that anything, if judiciously applied to extreme levels without fore- or afterthought, will fuck you up. What you learn isn't the morals, isn't the big words, isn't the exact rules on what to do or not to do; what you learn is that you learn something from everything that happens, and you somehow piece it together into a workable self after you sober up. It's called experience.
XANDER: And was there a lesson in all this huh? What did we learn about beer?
BUFFY: Foamy!
XANDER: Good, just as long as that's clear.
...And with that, Buffy's out of the bubble(s). The moral? Intimacy, education, bubbles and beer aren't bad things, and categorically saying they are makes you look silly. They're all just what they are, and they can be used, underused or overused. Now, learn how you handle them.
WALSH: We won't be able to cover it all in the class, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth knowing and it doesn't mean it won't be on the mid-term. Now, if I've been unclear in any way, speak now.
[Poll #1599026]
*pop*
...Now, trying to explain why I love this episode should be simple, but... see, when I started getting into fandom after seeing the whole series, there were a couple of huge surprises in store for me. "Season 6 is considered awful?" "What's a shipping war?" "People don't like 'Beer Bad'? Seriously?" I'm not going to argue that it's a great Buffy episode, and it's undeniably very very silly, and there's no accounting for taste; some people simply don't find it funny. But...
One common argument against it that I keep coming across is that people treat it like a morality play. As if the writers of Buffy try to warn impressionable youths about the dangers of alcohol, and fail miserably because the message is simply a prissy "Kids, don't do drugs." Which, IMO, is unfathomable for two reasons:
One, because it's so gloriously silly. It's got cave!Buffy, ferchrissakes. There's no way in hell anyone could write, direct and act this and think they were doing anything with any sort of serious message. If anything, it's a parody of the sort of after-school specials I'm told US students have to sit through. It's a bit like watching Reefer Madness (the original), except Buffy knows it's being ludicrous. ETA: And the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy agrees with me!
At least one show, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," was rejected after it showed itself to be immune to the drug office's worldview. "Drugs were an issue, but it wasn't on-strategy. It was otherworldly nonsense, very abstract and not like real-life kids taking drugs. Viewers wouldn't make the link to our message," says someone in the drug-policy office camp who read and helped reject it.
Two... because the message of it, if you desperately want to find one, isn't abstinence – whether from beer or anything else. Yes, it hammers home the "beer bad" message so hard it becomes ridiculous – but it does the same thing to almost everything in the story, including things that are absolutely necessary for us to survive.
Not convinced? Okay.
BUFFY: Just lots and lots of beer. It's nice. Foamy. Comforting. It's just beer.
It's easy to overlook how arcy "Beer Bad" is. Not so much plotwise – the Initiative is still just a background event – but in setting up the early character arcs here. Buffy's trying to get over Parker (and her own reaction to Parker), Willow and Oz are about to break up, and Xander and Giles are mostly feeling useless. All of that turns up in "Beer Bad", but it's a Buffy-centric episode...
BUFFY: You know maybe, maybe he's just having trouble dealing. I mean, don't guys sometimes put the girl they really, really like inside these deep little brain fantasy bubbles where everything's perfect? They do that right? Maybe I'm in his bubble and then pretty soon he's going to realize that he wants more than just bubble Buffy and he'll pop me out and we'll go to dinner and it could happen right?
So we start off right away with Buffy dreaming of rescuing Parker. And when she wakes up and sees him flirting with another girl...
WALSH: So, how does this conflict with the ego manifest itself in the psyche? What do we do when we can't have what we want?
...she does the same thing again, except she exaggerates the rescue to ridiculous proportions. Ice cream, flowers, bare chest.
Xander's working as a bartender. Note Xander's ID. Does anyone buy that? Of course not. It's not remotely realistic.
WILLOW: I don't believe this is entirely on the up and up.
XANDER: What gives it away?
WILLOW: Looking at it.
If that's not metacommentary on the episode itself and its supposed message, I don't know what is. And then we step into the bar, where we're going to stay for much of the episode. We meet the Beer Jerks: a gang of very pretentious students who want beer, women, and admiration for being smart – except when they try to sound smart, all they do is pile big words on top of each other. Which is pretty dumb. But hey, one of the best things about drinking beer is that everything you say to others drinking beer beside you becomes very deep and thoughtful. They've paid attention in class, but they haven't actually learned anything. Well, maybe one thing:
BEER JERK #1: The thing that the modern day pundits failed to realize is that all the socio-echonomical and psychological problems inherent in modern society can be solved by the judicious application of way too much beer.
Meanwhile, the plot is spiralling merrily into lunacy – as always in Buffy with some humorous exaggerations and misunderstandings, though here they seem even more on topic than usual. Willow claims to have killed a man to get a table (hyperbole), assumes Buffy had group sex (jumping to the extreme conclusion, which of course is wrong), and finally takes Parker apart into tiny little pieces (not for having sex with Buffy, but for betraying Buffy's trust), by applying her (rather outdated) Freud from psychology class.
WILLOW: I'm tired of you men and your... man-ness.
...says Willow and stops driving stick. Ahem. Thanks, Parker, we owe you. (Hyperbole!) And then the cavemen start running wild, beating each other with sticks, kidnapping girls and setting fire to stuff. Fire. Huh-huh-huh. Xander – who's just been tipped about half a month's wages by the Beer Jerks, clearly too much, and actually seems to be warming up to the bartender job – finds out what's going on and confronts the villain:
BARTENDER: Relax. It will wear off in a day or so.
XANDER: In "a day or so", someone could get killed. (Leaves, comes back) You're a bad, bad man.
Yup, Captain Obvious and Idboy are writing this episode. And they know what we want: we want to see cave!Buffy scare the pants off Xander and Giles, and then give Parker what he deserves to tie back to the start; Buffy the College Student dreams and mulls over, Buffy of the Clan of the Cave Bear cuts through all the shit and applies the simplest solution. And obviously it's presented as a good thing, because sometimes, the id needs to tell the other two blowhards to quit yakkin' and get the job done with what they've got. Cavemen win.
BARTENDER: That's the great thing about beer. It makes all men the same.
Now, I could sit here for a while and list the funniest moments in this episode – apart from the fact that I think the funniest thing about it all is the way it consistently sends up and subverts everything it touches simply by making it impossible to take completely seriously. But I was trying to meta, right? Well, here's a key line:
BUFFY: It's just... Parker's problem with intimacy turns out to be that he can't get enough of it. And I knew it.
And yet nobody says the message of the episode is "Don't try to connect with people." Well, OK, I guess a lot of people see it as yet another "Sex is bad" message, but... note the repeated use of the word "intimacy" rather than "sex." And note who ends up on the ground with a bump on his head. Silliness can be a wonderful way to deflate a serious subject, and "Beer Bad" is very silly. But in the end, I love it precisely because it doesn't have a simple message of "Don't do this" (except for Parker.) The point is that anything, if judiciously applied to extreme levels without fore- or afterthought, will fuck you up. What you learn isn't the morals, isn't the big words, isn't the exact rules on what to do or not to do; what you learn is that you learn something from everything that happens, and you somehow piece it together into a workable self after you sober up. It's called experience.
XANDER: And was there a lesson in all this huh? What did we learn about beer?
BUFFY: Foamy!
XANDER: Good, just as long as that's clear.
...And with that, Buffy's out of the bubble(s). The moral? Intimacy, education, bubbles and beer aren't bad things, and categorically saying they are makes you look silly. They're all just what they are, and they can be used, underused or overused. Now, learn how you handle them.
WALSH: We won't be able to cover it all in the class, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth knowing and it doesn't mean it won't be on the mid-term. Now, if I've been unclear in any way, speak now.
[Poll #1599026]
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-06 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-07 08:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-07 12:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-06 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-07 08:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-12 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 12:47 am (UTC)Also, it's one of Xander's few opportunities to be the crime-solver, so OF COURSE nobody notices his contribution.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:19 pm (UTC)And now I'm quoting myself, I hope that's not bad form...
It occured to me just this morning that one of the reasons the bar owner isn't punished is because he's not the "villain" here; Parker is, in relation to the effect he's had on Buffy. And he gets conked on the head by her - twice. (Did anyone NOT cheer? Both times?)
The other reason, I suspect, is that it's meant as a meta commentary on the show's structure, and how that's going to be upended and subverted, just as Buffy's life is constantly (from the time she was "chosen" until the final episode "Chosen") both within the universe she inhabits and from the perspective of the writers/viewers looking in. I'm not sure this is intentional? I like to think so. You've gotten me really thinking about S4, how it fits into the entire seven-season arc, and I find myself appreciating it a lot more; it's setting things up for everything that happens in the seasons to come.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 02:08 pm (UTC)I've always been intrigued by the idea that for all the selective blindness going on in Sunnydale, there must be hundreds of "ordinary" citizens who know a lot more than they let on and make sure to use that knowledge. (The Magic Box can't make a profit on scented candles alone.) So here's a bar owner whose brother just happens to be a warlock; he's not really a villain, he's just a slightly corrupt businessman. In our world, his brother might be a pharmacist and he'd lace the beer with laxatives.
And he gets conked on the head by her - twice. (Did anyone NOT cheer? Both times?)
I know I did. :)
The other reason, I suspect, is that it's meant as a meta commentary on the show's structure, and how that's going to be upended and subverted, just as Buffy's life is constantly (from the time she was "chosen" until the final episode "Chosen") both within the universe she inhabits and from the perspective of the writers/viewers looking in.
I don't know if they put that much thought into the bar owner, to be honest, but I like the idea. Also, of course, he's human; there's not a lot Buffy can do about him (which itself ties into the limitations placed upon her). Also also, he had to remodel his bathroom after the cavestudents ripped them apart, that's probably punishment enough. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-08-22 08:23 pm (UTC)Good point. I noticed that big opening sale for the magic box and there were a LOT of customers. But were they all locals, or does Sunnydale have a reputation beyond the city limits, ie a greater awareness of the situation than the residents themselves have? (There is that bank manager who refuses to give Buffy a loan in S6 who says something about Sunnydale property values just not "keeping up" for "some reason". He seems perplexed by this, but obviously the town has a reputation if people are moving out AND not choosing to move in.
(On the other hand, I'm overthinking this. The writers were just having fun with a situation they hadn't thought through in the beginning. I guess that's what fans are for?)
Also, of course, he's human; there's not a lot Buffy can do about him
True but in S1-2 there were other human villains who at least got their comeuppance in some way (the swim coach in Go Fish; the little league coach the boy in the hospital had nightmares about - hmmm, sensing a theme here. Was Joss getting revenge for never being picked for the team? I kid...sort of...)
Beer Bad stood out for me as the first time the instigator didn't come to justice (although I'm not counting Spike/Dru, and I could be missing someone else.) I still wonder if that was part of the point - S4 is very transitional, entering a more adult world outside of high school, and the boundaries between good/evil continue to become more fuzzy - Willow experimenting with darker magics, Riley with Maggie's chip in his heart, etc - so as much as you're probably right that it was tossed off for a laugh by the writers, it still somehow fits in the season.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-23 10:28 pm (UTC)The high mortality rate can't help either.
True but in S1-2 there were other human villains who at least got their comeuppance in some way
Yeah, but they were always throw-away comments at the end of the episode about how some court found them guilty in 5 minutes even though any case that looked like that would be tied up in appeals for years... Eh. I actually kind of prefer that they just don't mention it.
I still wonder if that was part of the point - S4 is very transitional, entering a more adult world outside of high school, and the boundaries between good/evil continue to become more fuzzy - Willow experimenting with darker magics, Riley with Maggie's chip in his heart, etc - so as much as you're probably right that it was tossed off for a laugh by the writers, it still somehow fits in the season.
Oh, absolutely!
no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 01:41 am (UTC)Rereading, wow, how similar is
WILLOW: I'm tired of you men and your... man-ness.
to
BUFFY: Men with your groping and spitting, all groin no brain, three billion of you passing around the same worn-out urge. Men...with your...SALES.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 09:28 am (UTC)It's definitely a similar quote, though in very different contexts - but one thought: Willow says it to Parker, thinking of Oz, who's about to cheat on her and leave town. Flapper!Buffy says it to Cowboy!Riley, who's about to cheat on her and leave town. (Of course, Flapper!Buffy and Cowboy!Riley only exist within Willow's dream, so... Hey, how would the Buffyverse be different if it turned out it was all Willow's hallucination rather than Buffy's?)
no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 10:33 am (UTC)ETA: In the series, Willow/Oz and Buffy/Riley are followed by the much more viscerally sexual Willow/Tara and Buffy/Spike, as well, though Willow/Oz and Buffy/Riley do have good sex lives. I think fandom can exaggerate the "queerness" of Spuffy but there it is, too -- W/O and B/R are both coded as "traditional", and both contrast to Buffy/Angel as the positive safe alternative.