Ozzily Yours

Thursday, July 07, 2011

Buffython... the prequel

I am an angry feminist. Anyone who's known me for at least 15 years is not surprised by this, given that I wore the "angry" on my sleeve in that way that gives feminists a bad (and humorless) name. Anyone who's only known me for, say, 5 years may be surprised to learn this, as I've gotten much better at keeping the peace and choosing my battles (though I still have the occasional battle). Anyone who knows me well, though, knows it to be true, and knows that I can actually make persuasive arguments about why feminism is still important.

You also know that I don't have issues reconciling my pop culture obsession with my feminism (there is a running joke in our house, dating back to the viewing of the holiday classic Jack Frost, about how "NORMALLY, rape is not very funny, but if Michaela's laughing, it must be okay"). Still, though, it's nice when the two successfully coincide.

The summer after my senior year in high school, I heard about a new movie about a girl. A kick-ass girl who discovers she is chosen, tough, buff, truly extraordinary. I was PSYCHED to see it and dragged my then-boyfriend on opening weekend. (I still feel a little bad about the fact that, after the movie, I broke up with him so I could go to college a single woman. One can be an angry feminist and still be terrible about interpersonal relationships. It's okay, though, he ended up marrying the girl he dated after me, so I guess I just set him up for that.)

To this day, Joss Whedon apparently blames Donald Sutherland for ruining Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. And while I feel his pain, I was still really taken with the story of the vapid 16-year-old girl who is called upon to fight evil (and super-excited when I met Kristy Swanson in a Wisconsin bar years later... but that's another story altogether).

Anyway, clearly I was thrilled five years later when I saw the news that television would now host Whedon's vision of a hot blonde girl in an alley who, instead of running away screaming like a, well, little girl, smokes the bad guy without a second thought. I watched the new and (vastly) improved Buffy from episode 1. I've rewatched the entire series once and single episodes countless times. We played the Buffy theme at our wedding, along with Willow and Tara's love song from the Buffical. I wrote a paper about the show's move from the WB to UPN for my Negotiations class. I defended my love of Buffy to family members (and still do).

So when Adam807 challenged me to join him in rewatching and blogging about the ENTIRE SERIES... who was I to say no? I'm hoping to watch "Welcome to the Hellmouth" tonight and post a blurb about my reaction, rewatching it all 14 years later.