Undead, Gothic, and Queer: the Allure of Buffy
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Book Reviews UNDEAD, GOTHIC, AND QUEER: THE ALLURE OF BUFFY by Pamela O’Donnell Elena Levine & Lisa Parks, eds., UNDEAD TV: ESSAYS ON BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. 209p. bibl. index. notes. ISBN 978-0-8223-4043-0. Rebecca Beirne, ed., TELEVISING QUEER WOMEN: A READER, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 25p. bibl. index. notes. ISBN 0-230-60080-8. Benjamin A. Brabon & Stéphanie Genz, eds., POSTFEMINIST GOTHIC: CRITICAL INTERVENTIONS IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 89p. index. notes. ISBN 0-230-00542-X. Buffy the Vampire Slayer( BtVS) died twice in the course of the series. canceled, expired material for maxi- may well be the most analyzed televi- Perhaps more than any other televi- mum return” (p.5). Can anyone say sion show in the history of the me- sion show, BtVS deserves to be called Knight Rider? dium. Try to name another series that “undead TV,” the title chosen by Elana Because the introduction raises so has its own academic conference or its Levine and Lisa Parks for their anthol- many interesting points about BtVS’s own peer-reviewed journal. A quick ogy of eight essays exploring the cul- afterlife — including how the show’s search of Amazon.com turns up more tural impact of BtVS (p.3). move from the WB to UPN may have than a dozen scholarly volumes about doomed the two “netlets” — it’s frus- the show — from the ground-breaking In the acknowledgements section trating to discover that very few of the Why Buffy Matters to the soon-to-be- of Undead TV: Essays on Buffy the Vam- essays use this as a point of departure published Buffy Goes Dark: Essays on pire Slayer, Levine and Parks note that for their analysis.2 Indeed, more than the Final Two Seasons. The editors of the idea for the collection began after a half of the essays seem frozen in amber, Undead TV rightly refer to this televi- “Console-ing Passions” conference (see failing to acknowledge anything after sion series as “a cultural phenomenon http://www.cp.commarts.wisc.edu/ the show’s fifth season. Not only do the that epitomizes trends in the produc- home/index.htm) at Notre Dame in authors rely on out-dated references tion and reception of commercial tele- 2000, three years before the BtVS series (Ally McBeal — really?), but they also vision and offers provocative commen- ended. In the seven years between the neglect to engage recent scholarship taries on matters of gender, sexuality, book’s conception and publication, on the series or to talk about changes class, race, and age” (p.2). That people both the world and television changed in television dissemination and recep- are still talking and writing about the — a lot — and the editors use the in- tion. Despite these drawbacks, and the show five years after the last original troduction to convince the reader that unmet expectations raised by the intro- episode aired is a testament to its en- Buffy still matters. They discuss the duction, there is still much to praise in during appeal. Given the popularity “afterlife” of a television series, how it Undead TV. of BtVS, it’s hardly surprising that epi- lives on in syndication (often global) sodes or characters from the series are and is perpetuated in DVD box sets, The volume opens with an es- analyzed in each of the books reviewed reissues, and merchandizing. The case say by Mary Celeste Kearney, who here. And because each volume has its of BtVS may be unique in that the reports that the WB purposefully used own defined discourse, readers have the show’s narrative continues in graphic programming that “targeted a multi- opportunity to view Buffy as undead, novel form in a series entitled Buffy the aged market whose members shared gothic, and queer. Vampire Slayer Season 8 and in a new a ‘youthful’ sensibility,” thereby mak- Fans of BtVS are well aware that multi-player online video game. Alas, ing BtVS’s appeal more about attitude death in the Buffyverse is rarely final. Undead TV was published before the than about age (p.9). Susan Murray Characters are brought back to life, debut of either the comic or the game, describes how film roles and advertis- exist in other dimensions (where there but the authors do make a convincing ing endorsements are often seen as may or may not be shrimp), and re- argument that “the structure of com- extensions of the star image of young visit the living in dreams. Buffy herself mercial television lends itself to the actresses such as Sarah Michelle Gel- constant recovery of used, terminated, lar, and how contemporary audiences, being excessively media-literate, expect Page 6 Feminist Collections (v.29, nos.3–4, Summer–Fall 2008) Book Reviews to encounter and decode intertextual Levine believes that “in a post-femi- Lesbian and bisexual women references. Annette Hill and Ian Cal- nist culture, responsibility for change have a unique position in cutt tackle the foreign distribution of shifts from an organized social move- popular cultural representa- BtVS and Angel; the shows, perceived ment to individuals” while “third-wave tion. Simultaneously fe- by British broadcasters as genre suit- feminism remains invested in collec- tishized and ignored, desired able only for children, were edited for tive feminist activism and in the fight and disparaged, they have content, broadcast outside of prime- against a still powerful patriarchy” frequently been represented in time, and often pre-empted. Their (p.70). By analyzing the narrative, popular culture as either over- essay catalogs how difficult it was for sexed sirens or sexless creatures fans in the UK to watch the complete whose lesbian life warrants series and how these challenges col- nary a moment of screentime. ored their perception/reception. In a (p.4) critical study of television criticism, Amelie Hastie’s erudite essay explores Beirne offers a brief history high- “how popular texts such as Buffy lighting some of these problematic help to drive a ‘market demand’ in representations — from the lurid (Po- scholarly production” and asks how lice Woman) to the comic (Ellen and researchers might “avoid falling into Roseanne) to the daring (Sugar Rush). television’s own traps of ephemerality, She also traces moments of early obsolescence and market demands” political activism that demanded (pp.74–75). and won more balanced depictions Moving from production into of queer women on the small screen. content analysis, Cynthia Fuchs Beirne is the first to mention the investigates the identity categories website AfterEllen.com, a resource of youth and race in BtVS and the repeatedly referenced by authors in short-lived series Dark Angel, while the collection for its “news, reviews Allison McCracken’s essay explores and commentary on lesbian and “the construction of a new kind bisexual women in entertainment.” of masculinity” in the character of She concludes her introduction with Angel, Buffy’s vampire boyfriend a discussion of the scope of academic (p.7). In an essay both delightful publishing, noting that queer scholar- and insightful, she describes how ship has tended to focus on American the “highly penetrable” body of Angel and in particular the characters of and British shows and advocating that opens the possibilities of “alternative Buffy and Anya (both pre- and post- more attention be “paid to queer wom- sexual roles and practices” (p.25). Mc- vengeance demon), the author makes a en’s representation on television in the Cracken’s analysis carries through the compelling case for the show’s feminist rest of the world” (pp.3–4). While final episodes of both series and traces agenda, noting that “by turning her this may be a subtle apology for a col- how this new masculinity continues to power into our power, Buffy ends the lection completely focused on Ameri- be coded as queer in the spin-off Angel series as a truly New Woman” (p.85). can television shows, Beirne goes on to before the character regresses, assuming say that the purpose of this collection a more normative patriarchal role in Although the anthology Undead is to “acknowledge and gather together the show’s final seasons. Jason Middle- TV does unveil a subtext of queer discussion of existing work to provide ton, in his essay on depictions of Buffy desire surrounding the character of future scholars with a starting point for in the television show, in magazine Angel, there is an actual text of queer their research” (p.4). coverage, and as a comic book heroine, desire — the relationship between The first essay in this collection is analyzes the role of the male spectator. Willow and Tara — that is more fully unique in that it discusses the televised The concluding essay in Undead explored in Televising Queer Women: A personalities of Ellen DeGeneres, a TV is Levine’s own, and she does an Reader. In the introduction to this vol- — oh, let’s just say it — “seminal” excellent job of positioning the series ume the editor Rebecca Beirne lays the figure in the history of queer televi- within the discourses of postfeminism groundwork for further exploration of sion. Unlike the other authors in this and third-wave feminism. In brief, the subject. As she observes, collection, Candace Moore tackles Feminist Collections (v.29, nos.3–4, Summer–Fall 2008) Page 7 Book Reviews the subject of an actual lesbian on to compare the film versions of the “a collaborator in the visual dilution TV, something quite different from a characters to their real-world counter- of his own purportedly feminist visual lesbian character on TV (who, as Kelly parts, finding that the two have little in text.