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Currently I've got two writing projects going simultaneously. It's an interesting endeavor to keep things progressing on both because sometimes I can't decide which one to work on because I have thoughts on both pieces. Oddly, What Not to Wear was cranked out on a slow day at work when I was bored. It is a one-off, unbeta'd, 500+ word flash fic about the maturation of Cordelia Chase.
It isn’t accidental that I wrote What Not to Wear because I've been thinking about physical bodies and spaces on BtVS and Angel for a while now. I’ve also been watching WAY too many episodes of What Not to Wear. I don't have a complete handle on my thoughts, so bear with me, please.
What I noticed was this:
1. Simplistically, Angel equals the adult world and, surprise, surprise, BtVS equals the adolescent world. The Scoobies spend seasons 1 through half of season 5 on campuses. Season 7 sees a return to the campus first through Dawn and later Buffy’s job as counselor. They move from high school to college and although college can be considered a primer for the "real world" (read adulthood), it is a relatively safe and contained nexus. If we equate adulthood with tragedy and gainful employment, Season 5 should mark the beginning of Buffy’s transition. However, it isn’t until season 7 shoves a very resistant Buffy into the leadership role (as a leader of the SIT’s), I would argue, that Buffy actually becomes, and is considered, an adult. The obvious moment of transition would be Lies My Parents Told Me, but I would say that as early as Bring on the Night, Buffy begins that movement.
2. Even S4 Xander, who has opted not to attend college, is drawn back to the school. Yes, he's one of the Scoobies and all of the other Scoobies are in school so where else would he be, but he, too, at least initially, fails to make the transition to adult. Perhaps his position is the most realistic, he lives in his parents basement and takes random jobs as he struggles to find a place for himself in the world. A search mimicked by Giles.
3. Locations in Angel, otoh, are always adult locations. They begin that way and the trajectory of the show insists that they remain that way. The world of Angel is a nighttime world; it's a vampire world, an adult world. The people populate bars, police stations, casinos, and evil law firms. Angel has an office and saving the world is a business.
4. Angel is where I began to think of the bodies on these two shows; specifically it was Cordelia’s body because it became apparent to me that the bodies in each series were appropriate and exclusive to the spaces on the show. Seeing Willow beside Cordelia in Orpheus punctuates how differently the shows perceive the physical form and what the condition of that form means to the tenor of the show. And I think that it’s much more than just Charisma Carpenter is pregnant and Alyson Hannigan isn’t. Even if Charisma Carpenter had shown up on BtVS in S7, newly slimmed and toned, I still think that she would have looked out of place among the bodies on the show. Cordelia looks like an adult, her demeanor reflects her maturation and it shows in the way the character walks, talks and handles herself. It’s more than Queen C bitchiness. By the end of S7 Buffy is the only character on BtVS who really gains that sort of self-confidence. I’m thinking of episodes like Get It Done and Empty Places, as well as that satisfied smile that closes Chosen. When she is forced into taking on responsibility for the SIT’s and actually being a leader to them, Buffy grows up. So, Angel’s adult bodies are physically larger and look older than BTVS’s androgynous, adolescent bodies. Of course because the adolescent world can't exist without an adult body present, BtVS has parents: Joyce, Giles and Professor Walsh.
5. To get back to Cordelia's body, it changes in a way that the bodies on BtVS never do. Charisma Carpenter was always much more endowed and as the actress aged, her body changed. It softens, rounds, and Cordelia looks like a grown woman, especially in constrast to Sarah Michelle Gellar who, as she loses her “baby fat” begins to look more and more emaciated. Perhaps it is BtVS’s insistence on the one ‘girl’ in the world and that girl never lives long enough to become a woman. I don’t know. But, if, to some extent, maturation is the mark of the end of innocence, then Cordelia’s sudden awareness at the end of To Shanshu in L.A. forces her into a space that takes Buffy seven seasons.
6. If maturation is marked by the end of innocence, then Wesley, too, "grows up" by the end of Sleep Tight. Those moments of intense betrayal or emotional upheaval don’t seem to work in quite the same way as they do on BtVS. Episodes like Seeing Red, Becoming II, Weight of the World, The Gift, do change the characters, but the character development doesn’t seem as readily apparent. For example, after Selfless I was expecting much more out of Anya’s character arc. I was expecting a range of recrimination and conflict on par with Angel and Spike re-gaining their souls, not that she had to go crazy, but that her recent humanity and the events in Selfless would have created moral tension that wouldn’t have been waved off after an ep or two.
7. Angel’s darker, more adult themes are the reflections of a “reality” that are not offered on BtVS, and that may not be accessible by the adolescent bodies. Whether it’s meant to be a moral lesson, teenagers shouldn’t get pregnant, or just something Whedon didn’t have the “space” to deal with, meditations on ‘the future’ are much more prevalent on Angel: Expecting, The Judgment, I’ve Got You Under My Skin, Untouched, Connor, and Jasmine. As much as Buffy is about family, Angel seems to be much more concerned with ideas of lineage and heritage: Darla-Angel-Drusilla-Darla, Darla/Angel – Connor, Connor/Cordy – Jasmine, Illyria, the power struggle within Wolfram & Hart, AI, and I’m pushing it here, inheriting W&H. Slayers don’t have a future/family because they die young; vampires only achieve futures through a perversion of procreation (life in death), however, Angel manages to create a very real future family history.
To give a brief rundown of what I'm seeing when I look at BtVS and Angel, picture the characters (read bodies) on each show.
BtVS
Buffy - adolescent body
Willow - adolescent body
Xander - adolescent body (Until S5/6. Xander is an anomaly. He matures along with his body; by S7 he is obviously successful. Despite the hiccup in S4, he makes the transition into adulthood. He almost gets married, has his own apartment, etc.)
Cordelia - adolescent, albeit curvy, body
Giles - adult body (necessary figure to supervise the adolescent bodies)
Joyce - adult body (read female Giles)
Wesley - ? (Considering his later character arc on Angel, I think you could read Wesley as a transitional body. He is in the process of moving from an adolescent body into an adult body.)
Dawn - child/adolescent body
Spike - adult body (with the exception of Vampire!Willow, the vampire bodies are always adult bodies.)
Angel - adult body
Faith - adolescent body
Anya - adolescent body
Tara - adult body (Tara’s fuller figure and "mother" role, I think, marks her as an adult body. However, it is perhaps an unnecessary body. She is killed off in Seeing Red as all mother figures in the Jossverse are, re: Joyce, Tara, Darla, Cordelia, and Professor Walsh.)
Riley - adult body (vanished and when he does return to Sunnydale in As You Were, he returns married to another adult body)
Oz - adolescent body
Angel:
Angel - adult body
Doyle - adult body
Cordelia - adult body (initially an adolescent body, Cordelia transitions to an adult body by Guise Will Be Guise. Although her moral maturation occurs as of To Shanshu in L.A., the shorter, darker hair effectively age Cordelia’s appearance to match the rest of the “older” cast.)
Wesley - adult body
Lilah - adult body
Lindsey - adult body
Kate - adult body
Gunn - adult body
Fred - adolescent body (however, Fred is also a transitional character. I would like to suggest that she remains an adolescent body until she becomes Illyria. The shift in character and authority, similar to Buffy's acceptance of authority in S7, I believe, indicate her transition to an adult body. Illyria, as a character, reads very differently from Fred to the credit of Amy Acker.)
Spike - adult body
Connor - adolescent body (the only true adolescent body on the show.)
Lorne - adult body
The adult bodies on Angel engage in adult activities. BtVS instructs us that beer is bad and the characters pretty much stay away from it, however Angel shows us regularly that indulging isn’t always of the bad, it’s just something that adults do as part of a coping strategy. Wesley drinks copiously post-Sleep Tight, all the W&H lawyers drink (I think they all have mini bars or something) and there are the aforementioned bars: Caritas, where everyone is shown imbibing and Lorne always has a Seabreeze, Cordelia and Doyle spent time together in bars, Angel met Kate in a bar. Bars in Sunnydale, too, are the region for adults. Willie’s bar early in the series is usually checked out by Angel. The Bronze, for all that it is a bar, never seemed to include underage drinkers. You would think that someone, somewhere would be able to sneak a drink, but our gang is good and moral and right and besides, as we later learn, Beer Bad. Alcohol is then mostly restricted to college frat parties, Spike and Giles.
Okay, so that may or may not make any real sense. I think it’s such an interesting, visual reading of the show and I’d like to shape it and focus it more.
It isn’t accidental that I wrote What Not to Wear because I've been thinking about physical bodies and spaces on BtVS and Angel for a while now. I’ve also been watching WAY too many episodes of What Not to Wear. I don't have a complete handle on my thoughts, so bear with me, please.
What I noticed was this:
1. Simplistically, Angel equals the adult world and, surprise, surprise, BtVS equals the adolescent world. The Scoobies spend seasons 1 through half of season 5 on campuses. Season 7 sees a return to the campus first through Dawn and later Buffy’s job as counselor. They move from high school to college and although college can be considered a primer for the "real world" (read adulthood), it is a relatively safe and contained nexus. If we equate adulthood with tragedy and gainful employment, Season 5 should mark the beginning of Buffy’s transition. However, it isn’t until season 7 shoves a very resistant Buffy into the leadership role (as a leader of the SIT’s), I would argue, that Buffy actually becomes, and is considered, an adult. The obvious moment of transition would be Lies My Parents Told Me, but I would say that as early as Bring on the Night, Buffy begins that movement.
2. Even S4 Xander, who has opted not to attend college, is drawn back to the school. Yes, he's one of the Scoobies and all of the other Scoobies are in school so where else would he be, but he, too, at least initially, fails to make the transition to adult. Perhaps his position is the most realistic, he lives in his parents basement and takes random jobs as he struggles to find a place for himself in the world. A search mimicked by Giles.
3. Locations in Angel, otoh, are always adult locations. They begin that way and the trajectory of the show insists that they remain that way. The world of Angel is a nighttime world; it's a vampire world, an adult world. The people populate bars, police stations, casinos, and evil law firms. Angel has an office and saving the world is a business.
4. Angel is where I began to think of the bodies on these two shows; specifically it was Cordelia’s body because it became apparent to me that the bodies in each series were appropriate and exclusive to the spaces on the show. Seeing Willow beside Cordelia in Orpheus punctuates how differently the shows perceive the physical form and what the condition of that form means to the tenor of the show. And I think that it’s much more than just Charisma Carpenter is pregnant and Alyson Hannigan isn’t. Even if Charisma Carpenter had shown up on BtVS in S7, newly slimmed and toned, I still think that she would have looked out of place among the bodies on the show. Cordelia looks like an adult, her demeanor reflects her maturation and it shows in the way the character walks, talks and handles herself. It’s more than Queen C bitchiness. By the end of S7 Buffy is the only character on BtVS who really gains that sort of self-confidence. I’m thinking of episodes like Get It Done and Empty Places, as well as that satisfied smile that closes Chosen. When she is forced into taking on responsibility for the SIT’s and actually being a leader to them, Buffy grows up. So, Angel’s adult bodies are physically larger and look older than BTVS’s androgynous, adolescent bodies. Of course because the adolescent world can't exist without an adult body present, BtVS has parents: Joyce, Giles and Professor Walsh.
5. To get back to Cordelia's body, it changes in a way that the bodies on BtVS never do. Charisma Carpenter was always much more endowed and as the actress aged, her body changed. It softens, rounds, and Cordelia looks like a grown woman, especially in constrast to Sarah Michelle Gellar who, as she loses her “baby fat” begins to look more and more emaciated. Perhaps it is BtVS’s insistence on the one ‘girl’ in the world and that girl never lives long enough to become a woman. I don’t know. But, if, to some extent, maturation is the mark of the end of innocence, then Cordelia’s sudden awareness at the end of To Shanshu in L.A. forces her into a space that takes Buffy seven seasons.
6. If maturation is marked by the end of innocence, then Wesley, too, "grows up" by the end of Sleep Tight. Those moments of intense betrayal or emotional upheaval don’t seem to work in quite the same way as they do on BtVS. Episodes like Seeing Red, Becoming II, Weight of the World, The Gift, do change the characters, but the character development doesn’t seem as readily apparent. For example, after Selfless I was expecting much more out of Anya’s character arc. I was expecting a range of recrimination and conflict on par with Angel and Spike re-gaining their souls, not that she had to go crazy, but that her recent humanity and the events in Selfless would have created moral tension that wouldn’t have been waved off after an ep or two.
7. Angel’s darker, more adult themes are the reflections of a “reality” that are not offered on BtVS, and that may not be accessible by the adolescent bodies. Whether it’s meant to be a moral lesson, teenagers shouldn’t get pregnant, or just something Whedon didn’t have the “space” to deal with, meditations on ‘the future’ are much more prevalent on Angel: Expecting, The Judgment, I’ve Got You Under My Skin, Untouched, Connor, and Jasmine. As much as Buffy is about family, Angel seems to be much more concerned with ideas of lineage and heritage: Darla-Angel-Drusilla-Darla, Darla/Angel – Connor, Connor/Cordy – Jasmine, Illyria, the power struggle within Wolfram & Hart, AI, and I’m pushing it here, inheriting W&H. Slayers don’t have a future/family because they die young; vampires only achieve futures through a perversion of procreation (life in death), however, Angel manages to create a very real future family history.
To give a brief rundown of what I'm seeing when I look at BtVS and Angel, picture the characters (read bodies) on each show.
BtVS
Buffy - adolescent body
Willow - adolescent body
Xander - adolescent body (Until S5/6. Xander is an anomaly. He matures along with his body; by S7 he is obviously successful. Despite the hiccup in S4, he makes the transition into adulthood. He almost gets married, has his own apartment, etc.)
Cordelia - adolescent, albeit curvy, body
Giles - adult body (necessary figure to supervise the adolescent bodies)
Joyce - adult body (read female Giles)
Wesley - ? (Considering his later character arc on Angel, I think you could read Wesley as a transitional body. He is in the process of moving from an adolescent body into an adult body.)
Dawn - child/adolescent body
Spike - adult body (with the exception of Vampire!Willow, the vampire bodies are always adult bodies.)
Angel - adult body
Faith - adolescent body
Anya - adolescent body
Tara - adult body (Tara’s fuller figure and "mother" role, I think, marks her as an adult body. However, it is perhaps an unnecessary body. She is killed off in Seeing Red as all mother figures in the Jossverse are, re: Joyce, Tara, Darla, Cordelia, and Professor Walsh.)
Riley - adult body (vanished and when he does return to Sunnydale in As You Were, he returns married to another adult body)
Oz - adolescent body
Angel:
Angel - adult body
Doyle - adult body
Cordelia - adult body (initially an adolescent body, Cordelia transitions to an adult body by Guise Will Be Guise. Although her moral maturation occurs as of To Shanshu in L.A., the shorter, darker hair effectively age Cordelia’s appearance to match the rest of the “older” cast.)
Wesley - adult body
Lilah - adult body
Lindsey - adult body
Kate - adult body
Gunn - adult body
Fred - adolescent body (however, Fred is also a transitional character. I would like to suggest that she remains an adolescent body until she becomes Illyria. The shift in character and authority, similar to Buffy's acceptance of authority in S7, I believe, indicate her transition to an adult body. Illyria, as a character, reads very differently from Fred to the credit of Amy Acker.)
Spike - adult body
Connor - adolescent body (the only true adolescent body on the show.)
Lorne - adult body
The adult bodies on Angel engage in adult activities. BtVS instructs us that beer is bad and the characters pretty much stay away from it, however Angel shows us regularly that indulging isn’t always of the bad, it’s just something that adults do as part of a coping strategy. Wesley drinks copiously post-Sleep Tight, all the W&H lawyers drink (I think they all have mini bars or something) and there are the aforementioned bars: Caritas, where everyone is shown imbibing and Lorne always has a Seabreeze, Cordelia and Doyle spent time together in bars, Angel met Kate in a bar. Bars in Sunnydale, too, are the region for adults. Willie’s bar early in the series is usually checked out by Angel. The Bronze, for all that it is a bar, never seemed to include underage drinkers. You would think that someone, somewhere would be able to sneak a drink, but our gang is good and moral and right and besides, as we later learn, Beer Bad. Alcohol is then mostly restricted to college frat parties, Spike and Giles.
Okay, so that may or may not make any real sense. I think it’s such an interesting, visual reading of the show and I’d like to shape it and focus it more.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-11 09:57 pm (UTC)From:I think Sunnydale!Wesley's body is adolescent - he's gangly and uncertain, you know? That clumsiness returns on AtS when he's stressed, particularly when he's dealing with his father *or* (let's be honest) s1's crush on Angel.
At the same time, Spike's body always struck me as adolescent rather than adult - it's JM's size, I think, and leanness (up until AtS s5), but also the swagger and the stupid leather jacket.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 06:35 pm (UTC)From:Totally agree, Wesley was a problem in my theory and admittedly I only thought about his role as an authority figure, albeit an impotent one. His awkward, “gangly” body, the abrupt, stuttered movements are perfectly descriptive of the adolescent body. He’s like a phase 2 Xander.
At the same time, Spike's body always struck me as adolescent rather than adult - it's JM's size, I think, and leanness (up until AtS s5), but also the swagger and the stupid leather jacket.
The vamps were another issue and I actually didn’t really want to include them, but Spike was a regular character so I felt that I had to. In the vampire world I construed Spike as adolescent but in Sunnydale, overall, I thought of him as an adult. I’m thinking of his decisiveness, he was Drusilla’s caretaker, and the way that he very carefully played Angel in S2. There are many ways that he is adolescent, but it’s the same problematic that I had with Faith and with, in part, Connor. Faith because she is rebelling against the authority in her life, perfect adolescent behavior, same as Connor. But at the same time, the level of tragedy in their lives, the way that they were raised and the things they’ve seen, has forced them to do a lot of growing up very quickly, so I also wanted to include them on the adult list.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-11 11:36 pm (UTC)From:AtS starts with the BtVS S4 dynamic in that it's about the characters coming into their own, past the point when they've already broken away from the adults/parental figures. There's some remnants of the theme with Kate and her father, Wesley and the council, and Faith, I think. But I think by S3 we've seen them grow up, which I've often thought is why they bring Connor in. Connor vs. the cast mirrors the dynamic in BtVS S1-3, imo, but we get it from the adults' POV this time. I actually think the writers intended us to see both POVs, to truly see both sides as we couldn't in BtVS, but if they did they failed phenomenally, because I truly think unless you sit down and really think about how little Connor knows and understands, how young he really is, you can't have any sympathy for him. S5 reverts back to a world of complete adulthood. It's like a midlife crisis, imo.
I'm having trouble with some of your points, though. The main one is that Cordelia, imo, never looked like an adolescent, and always had the confident, adultish demeanor. Even when she had to say the most childish lines imaginable, CC still seemed more mature, mainly because I think she fell into the trap of being someone too old to play a child and over-compensating, which in turn ends up emphasizing her age. I don't mean she's a bad actor, as such, though I don't think she's the awesomest (she rocks at comedy and sitcom stuff and has trouble with melodrama, imo), I just think CC's natural state is one of more poise. So yeah, she's more mature--which is possibly why they moved her over to AtS in the first place!--but I don't really see a transition.
6.
I have a little trouble seeing this point, also. Willow's arc is huge, imo, with plenty of definition points on the way, as is Buffy's. I completely agree with you about "Selfless" and Anya, though--the biggest reason I hated S7 is what they did with Anya. Their failure to develop her was more what I originally expected out of something called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", not what I was actually given.
As much as Buffy is about family, Angel seems to be much more concerned with ideas of lineage and heritage: [...] Slayers don’t have a future/family because they die young; vampires only achieve futures through a perversion of procreation (life in death), however, Angel manages to create a very real future family history.
This is a fascinating point and one I haven't thought of in quite this way. I think it might connect to what I was saying: BtVS is about learning to break away from parental figures and to define yourself, thus it's about the friends you make rather than people you "inherit". But AtS, being so much more about fate, has a focus on the people you get stuck with, and the situations you get stuck in--how you end up being just like your father, for instance. AtS is a big spiral, imo, whereas BtVS is more of a line, kinda jagged, but nevertheless moving straight forward.
I also would say that Spike's body struck me as adolescent. Sure, he's kinda toned and stuff, but the slenderness and girly eyelashes would have me put him as closer to adolescent. Possibly same with Doyle.
Totally agree about Fred-->Illyria.
Thanks for this meta. It's really interesting to think about!
no subject
Date: 2007-04-11 11:49 pm (UTC)From:Angel's "son" figures always seem to have an adolescentness. Wesley doesn't start looking manly until he "breaks away" from Angel. Disobey your daddy = look scruffy. Even though Wesley starts shaving again later he still retains his adult demeanor, and he no longer ever acts like he's Angel's man again. Oh, that's so sad.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 06:44 pm (UTC)From:Too True!! Love it!
no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 06:44 pm (UTC)From:I can see that, but does it actually work? The only place where I can see that dynamic truly reflected is in the Dawn/Tara relationship. I know we get bits of Buffy “mothering” Dawn, but she’s so resistant that I can’t make out how Dawn is supposed to make Buffy any more adult, or show any real progression towards adulthood. If anything, Dawn’s presence always made me think of Buffy’s burdens. Not unlike what you were getting at in Bodiless Within the Bodies, I think of one more layer of self slapped on top of everything else: Buffy/daughter/slayer/friend/sister/mother/sacrifice.
AtS starts with the BtVS S4 dynamic in that it's about the characters coming into their own, past the point when they've already broken away from the adults/parental figures. There's some remnants of the theme with Kate and her father, Wesley and the council, and Faith, I think.
With Kate and her father, I think you’re right. But Wesley and the council and Faith have already made the break, I think, post S3 BtVS. Their arcs are more about pulling themselves back together after the implosion. Although, Welsey, at least initially, substitutes Angel for the council. After The Mayor’s death, I think Faith is careening wildly, completely detached from anything and everything. I don’t think I’m really getting my point across with that, but I’ve lost my words. I have wank and I have to email you about it. You will laugh your ass off.
But I think by S3 we've seen them grow up, which I've often thought is why they bring Connor in. Connor vs. the cast mirrors the dynamic in BtVS S1-3, imo, but we get it from the adults' POV this time.
That totally makes me think of a line from [Bad username or site: ”glossing” @ livejournal.com]'s Bath and a Story:
“It's the pissy-girl sigh perfected by Sunnydale women, BuffyWillowCordy. He hasn't heard it in years. Doubts even they can do it any longer. From Connor's mouth, it is at once bizarre and comforting; sulky teenagers, Angel can deal with.”
S5 reverts back to a world of complete adulthood. It's like a midlife crisis, imo.
I love the idea of S5 as a midlife crisis!
I'm having trouble with some of your points, though. The main one is that Cordelia, imo, never looked like an adolescent, and always had the confident, adultish demeanor.
Cordelia’s extreme selfishness read to me as childishness. That’s not necessarily an accurate reading, however, because selfishness isn’t exclusive to the young. However, Cordelia is dependent on her rich parents and she’s such the Queen Bee in the high school. Although I always assumed she was slightly older than the others because of her level of self-confidence, that came from her social position. The difference between BtVS!Cordelia and Angel!Cordelia is the difference between self-confidence and self-awareness. The self-awareness that she gains post-To Shanshu in L.A. reads, to me, as adult versus the cocky, self-centeredness of adolescent Cordelia.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 06:44 pm (UTC)From:That point gave me lots of trouble, but the reason that I leave off Willow and Buffy (until S7) is that the changes aren’t as dramatically presented or apparent. Buffy in S6 is more in line with what we see in Wesley, but I really don’t think before S6 there was as much noticable, on the surface of it. Willow still uses that annoying baby talk through S7 (and I love Willow and her very distinct speaking pattern). Maybe it’s because we do get glimpses of the changes in her, but that she’s trying so hard to present herself as non-threatening, and pretend to be who she was and not really embracing who she is.
Buffy still isn’t as dramatic, per se. But then maybe it’s the way the changes in Wesley, Cordelia (and Fred) happen sort of all at once, practically over night. Buffy growing up was like stone eroded by water, I didn’t notice it all at once.
AtS, being so much more about fate, has a focus on the people you get stuck with, and the situations you get stuck in--how you end up being just like your father, for instance.
Okay, that’s exactly what I was trying so very hard to say! Thank you! *whew*
no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 08:39 pm (UTC)From:Okay, I know what you mean! Yeah, Spin The Bottle really had a ball with all that.
*loves*
no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 09:23 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 08:37 pm (UTC)From:I know we get bits of Buffy “mothering” Dawn, but she’s so resistant that I can’t make out how Dawn is supposed to make Buffy any more adult
I'm not quite sure what you mean. Dawn accepting Buffy's mothering would make Dawn seem more mature. Dawn resisting highlights the differences between them--that Buffy has to be mature for Dawn, who is immature. I agree that this is not necessarily a *real* progression toward adulthood, but Dawn's issues (you won't let me go out, you won't trust me) mirror Buffy's in S1-3 (though Buffy had better excuses for going out and being trusted than Dawn does, imo).
But Wesley and the council and Faith have already made the break, I think, post S3 BtVS.
Wesley broke with the Council in S3 BtVS, but imo his *true* break doesn't come until Sanctuary. That is when he is given a choice--before, he was just kicked out. Now, the WC is offering to let him back in, but he chooses his own way. Though he does pretty much replace is Daddy and the WC with Angel, it's of his own choosing, rather than what he grew up with--self definition instead of Fate.
Imo, Faith doesn't grow up until Sanctuary, either. Yeah, she's careening wildly, I perfectly agree, but the complete detachment comes because she feels the need to flaunt authority, precisely because she's of the age and level of maturity that still *needs* authority. It's rebellious teenager syndrome, imo. Her accepting authority means she's finally grown past the point when she actually needs it.
The difference between BtVS!Cordelia and Angel!Cordelia is the difference between self-confidence and self-awareness. The self-awareness that she gains post-To Shanshu in L.A. reads, to me, as adult versus the cocky, self-centeredness of adolescent Cordelia.
I agree with this a whole lot, actually. And I agree that Cordy's selfishness is childish, too--there's such a HUGE difference between Sunnydale Cordy, AtS S1 Cordy, AtS S2 Cordy, and AtS S3 Cordy. I know I wasn't clear about it, but what I was talking about was CC's actual appearance, the way these changes are actually reflected in her physical body. To me there's not much of a difference, and CC was imo never quite suited to playing the "adolescent" Cordy, though the character was adolescent and she tried damn hard to deliver adolescent. Just, imo, CC's body, carriage, and presence are much more adult.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 09:24 pm (UTC)From:Part of me thinks that I am very out of line for those emails and part of me is just damnit, seriously!! You’ve got to be kidding. At this point I am really just laughing over the whole thing.
I'm not quite sure what you mean. Dawn accepting Buffy's mothering would make Dawn seem more mature. Dawn resisting highlights the differences between them--that Buffy has to be mature for Dawn, who is immature.
Sorry, my fault, I didn’t say that right. I meant that Buffy is so resistant to mothering Dawn that it doesn’t show Buffy’s maturity. (And can I say how much difficulty I’m having with fem/fem pronouns in Someday. The opening section is Buffy and Dawn and it’s driving me crazy writing it so that it makes sense without me using their names back and forth CONSTANTLY.)
Although Buffy plays sister well enough, reminds me of me and my sister at times, Giles is the default parent once Joyce dies and Buffy is totally happy to let him take on that responsibility. Of course, I should probably cut her some slack seeing how she’d just returned from the dead and all. ;) But the tenor of their relationship is never what Tara and Dawn have or even Giles and Dawn. That ephemeral parent/child thing is just missing and I don’t think it’s absence can be explained by Dawn’s resistance to Buffy’s mothering because we get an exaggerated dynamic with Connor and Angel (although that is probably NOT the best example) and it still feels more parent/child than Buffy and Dawn.
Wesley broke with the Council in S3 BtVS, but imo his *true* break doesn't come until Sanctuary. That is when he is given a choice--before, he was just kicked out […] self definition instead of Fate.
Imo, Faith doesn't grow up until Sanctuary, either. […] It's rebellious teenager syndrome, imo. Her accepting authority means she's finally grown past the point when she actually needs it.
Aha! I see your point and it’s an excellent one.
To me there's not much of a difference, and CC was imo never quite suited to playing the "adolescent" Cordy, though the character was adolescent and she tried damn hard to deliver adolescent. Just, imo, CC's body, carriage, and presence are much more adult.
When I wrote What Not to Wear, it was hard for me to pinpoint exactly where and how Cordelia’s body was different. You’re right, her body, carriage, presence were always more adult, but I guess in terms of her physical body, there is a … heaviness … isn’t really the right word, but there’s a heaviness in the curvature of her body that I didn’t recognize until somewhere around S3. The wardrobe also changes, the color and the hair cuts, all markers of her internal change. I guess the sum of that is what I’m reading and not Just the body, and I’m beginning to realize that it is probably a misleading statement. For example, I can trace Willow’s sexual maturation through her clothing, but not on her physical body. The wardrobe changes, but not the adolescent body beneath it.
This is going to be fun to re-work. Thanks for playing in my sandbox and helping me to keep my brain well oiled.
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Date: 2007-04-12 10:25 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 06:45 pm (UTC)From:*mwah*
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Date: 2007-04-14 02:44 am (UTC)From:Also, really wishing I hadn't deleted my Darla icon.
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Date: 2007-04-13 11:15 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 11:22 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 11:42 pm (UTC)From:One is Cordelia. Yes, she always had a more typically adult body, but in large part I think that was because Charisma Carpenter was a full ten years older than the character she played, which I think was the largest character/actor age gap on either series. There were points in BtVS where she could have passed for being one of the teachers instead of a student, which was rather odd as I considered her one of the least emotionally mature characters on the show.
Over on AtS, her appearance as adult had some problems as well, mainly because her character was technically supposed to be an 18 yo kid at the beginning of season 1. By the time she dropped the line to Connor in season 4 that things are so much easier once you turn 22, she was 32, and frankly the hair and tanning they had her do made her look possibly 5 years older than that. In a way, that fit the series' eventual outcome because she seemed to be living too fast, that her work was taking a toll on her, and that her youth was being syphoned off by what she had seen.
The other weird situation where I'd need to disagree is about the vampires. Angel's body is definitely adult, and I'd say Spike's is too in most respects, and I'd even go so far as to suggest Vamp!Willow's costume literally tried to mold her body into a more adult framework ("Gosh, look at those!" springs to mind). But Drusilla always struck me as extremely childlike in proportions, even after she became well and in her appearances on AtS. Darla goes through a massive change in demeanor between BtVS (with her schoolgirl uniform and barrettes, no less) then over to AtS where, although she hasn't really changed much physically, she certainly seems to carry herself in a more adult way, so that one sort of agrees with your theory of BtVS-adolescent and AtS-adult.
I'll stop rambling now. :)
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Date: 2007-04-14 03:51 am (UTC)From:I don't disagree with you until you say that all the vampires are adult figures and adult bodies; I think this is untrue, especially if you are looking at it from a physical point of view. Spike is slender and downright little; Drusilla is so thin she looks like a seven or eight year old child at times, and has the childlike air; Darla (when we see her in Buffy) is dressed as a school girl, hitting on school boys. Angel is unique insofar as he is a big dude, but I'll get to him an in a moment.
The vampires in BTVS are largely adolescents trying to be adults, filling a space that they are not suited for for. You see this in a variety of ways, imo. Spike swaggers and is unable to deal with authority or long drawn out plans. Drusilla copes with a world that doesn't make sense to her by leaning on Spike and (sometimes) Angel, trying to force them to be adults. She even childishly interacts with dolls. Even Darla in BTVS S1 attempts to please the master.
Even most of the minor vampire characters associate primarily with adolescents. They hang out as the Bronze, which, as you say, seems to be a decidedly tame and high-school oriented bar. They wear leather jackets and have bad hair, sometimes. Sure, there are occasional very adult vampires (guys in suits, the Master's Luke), but they rarely stick around long.
Physically, by and large, the vampires we are told to care about are small, slender bodies. They are children in adult roles, forced to be adults and unable to cope. This is very clearly illustrated with the Jesse thing; he's still a teenager. He's gawky and looks like a teenager, even when he becomes a vampire. The terror comes when he behaves older, able to charm the very-mature-for-her-age Cordelia Chase into a dance. If we look at the show that way, the fear of vampires could be seen as the fear of growing up. Or, maybe, the danger of having grown up powers, but adolescent bodies.
Buffy seems to react to this as well. When she's forced to grow up (by Joyce's death and Dawn, not to mention her own death and rebirth), she seeks out Spike in a very physical way. She uses him to inhibit the same adult space he fits in so uncomfortably.
Angel is unique insofar as he is an adult. He behaves in a responsible manner, dresses sensibly, never even really raises his voice. He functions far more like Giles (so much so that early in S1, Buffy assumes that he is a friend of Giles.) In this sense, the soul is what allows him to be an adult. And, because Buffy seems to think that the soul is a choke collar, this means that adulthood means the ability to control yourself. This is totally corroborated by the fact that when Angel loses his soul, he talks louder and younger, wears more youthful clothes, and seems fresher than he ever did when he was souled. He shifts into the same space that Spike and the others occupy; adulthood with adolescent bodies.
... but it is entirely possible that made no sense and besides, I'm babbling. *g*