Spiritual Television? Oh, Really?
Really.
In the family of arts based on the written word, television occupies a uniquely
low reputation as "the vast wasteland." The truth is that quality in all of the
arts is rare, and quality is especially difficult to achieve when there are
commercial pressures, or when large, collaborative efforts are required to
produce the finished work. In television, as in movies and theater, success
comes when there is a combination of talent, a unifying vision, great teamwork,
driving ambition, resources to get the job done, and the freedom to create
without undue interference. Obviously, it is rare for all these things to come
together, but when they do, the results can have the power to shape our lives
and our culture.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of those events.
As a last word on cultural snobbery, we would do well to remember that many of
our most revered icons in English literature had direct roots in popular media.
Shakespeare played to the streets; in Elizabethan times, theater was barely
tolerated by the prevailing Puritan mindset. Charles Dickens published many of
his great novels a chapter at a time, serialized in popular journals of his
era. Publication and access to the people are issues that all artists must
contend with.
Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has his own history
with these issues. He began as a scriptwriter for movies, but found that his
work was always badly compromised. He discovered, as many others have, that
writers are at the bottom of the food chain in movies.
In contrast, he found that television is a writer's medium, because of its
insatiable demand for new material. When he was invited to make a second
attempt to produce Buffy (his first attempt, the movie Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, was nearly ruined by producers and actors who had no
understanding or interest in his work), Whedon formed his own production
company called Mutant Enemy to produce Buffy. Fox studios provided the
funding, and the show was sold as a mid-season replacement to the Warner
Brothers network, a new network that was willing to take a chance on an edgy,
intelligent, off-beat series.
Whedon began the series as writer, director, and producer, giving him the kind
of artistic control that allowed him to maintain and develop his vision for the
series. He quickly developed a team of talented and like-minded writers,
directors, and actors who believed in his vision, and who worked as a team to
turn the vision into reality.
Whedon's company weaves enormous complexity into the structure of the
Buffyverse. Besides its moral, theological, and mythological complexities, the
writing blends several genres, including horror, action, drama, comedy, and
film noir. Just as the theological and moral issues often collide, so do the
genres; horror, for instance, is based on loss of control, while action is
assertion of control. In many episodes, it's easy to see the plot shift on this
axis, and yet the underlying horror remains because the true terrors that Buffy
must face are emotional, not physical. That emotional labyrinth is the domain
of noir, even as Buffy pulls film noir out of the dark city and into
feminism and the suburbs.
It is in this complexity of sources and genres, plus the long-running stories
that span whole seasons and more, plus the combined creative talent of many
writers, directors, and actors, that the Buffyverse finds its resonance. There
is much to see, feel, and learn.
Next: The Mythology and Theology of Buffy