"Because it's Superman's Book, You Moron!": Geeks, Metafiction and Feminism in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Transcription

1 Dickinson College Dickinson Scholar Student Honors Theses By Year Student Honors Theses "Because it's Superman's Book, You Moron!": Geeks, Metafiction and Feminism in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Rebecca Ann Downey Dickinson College Follow this and additional works at: Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Downey, Rebecca Ann, ""Because it's Superman's Book, You Moron!": Geeks, Metafiction and Feminism in Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (2003). Dickinson College Honors Theses. Paper 182. This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Dickinson Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact

2 "Because it's Superman's Book, You Moron!": Geeks, Metafiction and Feminism in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Rebecca Ann Downey April 21, 2003 English 404 Professor Ness

3 1 "Who painted the leon, tel me who? By God, if women hadden written stories, As clerkes han within hir oratories, They wolde han written of men more wikkednesse Than al the merk of Adam may redresse." --Chaucer, "The Wife of Bath's Prologue" "Life's a show and we all play our parts... " --Buffy in "Once More with Feeling" (6007)

4 2 Joss Whedon, creator of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has often stated that the series (like his 1992 film of the same name) is based upon a feminist premise. Through the character of Buffy, Whedon hoped to subvert the usual role allotted to women in horror genre films by inserting a capable hero where such films usually present a victim (Whedon, "Commentary"). Much of the pleasure in viewing the show comes from watching as Buffy consistently usurps the male role in traditional hero stories, saving her boyfriend from danger and sacrificing her own life to save the world. However, the show's feminist project is further strengthened by including within itself a more explicit critique of the way in which male power is constructed and reinforced through representations of masculinity and femininity both in film and television, and in everyday life. Buffy's interactions with the members of the Geek Trio, the selfproclaimed super-villains of the show's sixth season, provide such a critique. The members of the Geek Trio function as metafictional characters. Aware of their status as television characters, they attempt to become the central characters in the series and, in so doing, to change the show's narrative conventions in ways that subordinate Buffy and others of the show's female characters. The narrative presentation of the trio's attempts to take over the series remind the viewers of the sort of feminist show Buffy the Vampire Slayer (hereafter BTVS) is, precisely (and ironically) by presenting the trio's vision of the sort of phallocentric show that it is not. In "Ceci n'est ce pas une lesbianne,'" "Pop Matters" television critic Todd R. Ramlow mentions Rene Magritte's painting "The Betrayal oflmages." This painting is a realistic picture of a pipe, beneath which is written, "Ceci n'est ce pas une pipe," or "This 1 This article was part oframlow's critical response to the killing off of Tara, one of the lesbian characters onbtvs.

5 3 is not a pipe." Ramlow explains that the purpose of the painting was to point out that art, no matter how realistic it may appear to be, is not and can never be reality; it is merely a representation of the creator's interpretation ofreality ("Lesbianne" 1 ). This awareness, according to Patricia Waugh, is the driving force behind metafiction (3).2 Waugh suggests that the convention of fictional realism masks the constructed nature of fictional worlds and so tends to naturalize the worldview that is expressed through the fiction ( 6-7). Metafiction employs the conventions of realism, but disrupts and exposes them in order to reveal how fictional worlds are created (Waugh 18). In addition to exposing the inability of art to represent reality, Waugh argues, metafiction exposes reality itself for a fiction (2). Waugh states that it is impossible to describe a real world because "the observer always changes the observed" (3). She notes that language, the tool through which we understand our world (in everyday speech and thought--not just in print media), is one means through which our perceptions of reality are shaped and distorted (3). Waugh writes, "metafictional writers... focus on the notion that 'everyday' language endorses and sustains [dominant] power structures through a continuous process of naturalization whereby forms of oppression are constructed in apparently 'innocent' representations"' (10-11). Waugh sees the conventions of literature (one can extend this to include the conventions of other forms of representation, such as film) as another type of 'language' which reinforces these power structures (11). Although Waugh does not mention this specifically, the reality which we experience is also constructed through the social institutions, such as marriage, that 2 While it may be more fully accurate to describe self-consciousness in Buffy the Vampire Slayer as metadrama, or metatelevision, drama and television can be considered more specific kinds of fictional representation. Therefore, my foundation for this paper will be Patricia Waugh's work on metafiction, and I will employ Richard Homby's theories ofmetadrama in order to strengthen my analysis of the relationship between the viewer and a performed piece of fiction.

6 4 define and limit our expectations of the world. Through revealing the artificiality of these conventions in fictional representations, metafiction can expose the ways in which our own lives are constructed by these and similar conventions. One might argue that metafictional techniques which expose the conventions of narrative realism do not apply to a fantasy series such as BTVS. However, although BTVS does have fantastic premises, the series is also quite realistic in many ways. Although the world of the show is clearly a fictitious one, the lives of the characters seem, apart from the encounters with demons and vampires, to be fairly realistic. The Scoobies appear to live much the way white, middle-class young adults do in the 'real world.' They argue with their parents, attend school and do homework, and have seemingly realistic romantic entanglements with one another. Wilcox notes that Joss Whedon aspires to create "emotional realism," which allows the series to be "grounded in the audience's identification with what [the characters] are going through" (xxiv). The characters' emotional responses to everyday situations, as well as to the more fantastic ones, make them easy to identify with. Although the show's premise is fantastic, the characters do seem to act in accord with the values and mores of contemporary American society. The realism of the series is further enhanced by the technique of the arc television narrative. According to Porter, Larson and Harthcock, The use of the story arc in a television series helps to create a sense ofrealism, a 'sense of the future, of the existence of as-yet-unwritten events,' and a sense of the character's relationships and 'life events.' Story arcs help create an illusion

7 5 that the characters have existed before and continue living between and after episodes (2). This sense of continuity is encouraged by the series, according to Wilcox, by having the characters change and develop because of their experiences on the show (xxiii). A sense of continuity is also reinforced when the characters make reference to their off-screen lives, as in "The Wish" (3009), when Willow mentions that Amy (who has not appeared on the show since the end of season two) saw Cordelia at the mall the day before. As I will demonstrate, the creators of BTVS call this sense of continuity and realism into question by disrupting the sense that the characters have lives that continue between and beyond episodes and by violating the series' values and premises. One might expect that metafiction in BTVS would actually destroy the series' feminist project. Calling attention to the show's fictional status would immediately expose the fictionality of the young female hero, the construction on which the show's feminist identity rests. However, metafiction as it occurs in the series actually functions to reinforce the show's feminism. While the series acknowledges the fictionality of the fantastic premise of a young girl chosen to save the world from evil, it simultaneously forces the viewer to acknowledge the fictionality of series' with male heroes and reveals the way in which masculinity and male power are constructed in those series'. By showing the viewer the specific ways in which the Geek Trio must alter their characters and other elements of the BTVS narrative in order to make it resemble, for example, a James Bond film, the creators of BTVS reveal to the viewer the ways in which gender and power in BTVS must be constructed differently from such films in order to support its

8 6 feminist premise. In doing this, the narrative ultimately reveals dominant perceptions of masculinity and femininity as artificial social constructions that enforce male power. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: An Introduction In order to understand how the Geek Trio attacks the narrative of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, an introduction to the mythology of the show and its standard narrative structure is in order. Currently in its seventh and final season, BTVS chronicles the life (and deaths) of Buffy Summers, a young California girl who is told during her sophomore year of high school that she is the chosen one, the latest in a line of vampire slayers which dates back to ancient times. According to slayer lore, demons inhabited the earth before men. Men, unable to fight the demons themselves, chained a girl to the earth and turned her into the slayer by imbuing her with the true spirit of the demon=-the source of her power ("Get it Done" 7015). As soon as one slayer dies, another is called, inheriting the preternatural strength and mental skill needed to kill these creatures. Having been kicked out of her school in Los Angeles, after burning down the school gymnasium while fight a group of vampires, Buffy moves to Sunnydale, a fictional southern California town which was built on the mouth of hell ("Welcome to the Hellmouth" 1001 ). With the assistance of her Scooby Gang, 3 Buffy battles the vampires and demons that gather at the Hellmouth and, on many occasions, saves the world from ending. 3 A reference to the animated series, Scooby Doo, in which four teenagers and a talking dog investigate supposedly supernatural phenomena in places such as spooky old mansions and amusement parks. Significantly, while the ghosts in Scooby Doo always tum out to be live people, the ghosts and demons that Buffy fights serve, as BTVS scholar Rhonda Wilcox argues, as metaphors for human drives and emotions (I).

9 7 The core members of the Scooby Gang, through all seven seasons, are Rupert Giles, Buffy's Watcher (a member of the British Council of Watchers, an organization dedicated to training Slayers in battle techniques and assisting them in researching the demons they must fight), and her friends Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg, students whom Buffy saves from vampire attacks in the series premiere ("Welcome to the Hellmouth" 1001 and "The Harvest" 1002). Willow is a computer nerd who later becomes a powerful witch, while Xander is a geek who eventually becomes a skilled carpenter. The Scoobies are soon joined by Cordelia Chase, a popular student who at first torments Buffy and her friends, but later becomes involved with the fight and dates Xander; Angel, Buffy's boyfriend and also a 240-year old vampire who was cursed with a soul after killing a young gypsy girl;" and Oz, Willow's boyfriend who becomes a werewolf for three nights each month. In later seasons, the gang includes Tara McClay, a talented witch and Willow's girlfriend after Oz's departure; Anya, a former vengeance demon and Xander's girlfriend; and Riley Finn, Buffy's boyfriend (after Angel moves to Los Angeles) and a member of the Initiative, a military branch which uses behavior modification devices to keep demons from harming humans. Spike, a vampire descendant of Angel who was once an enemy to Buffy, also becomes a quasi-member of the Scooby Gang after discovering that, although the chip which the Initiative implanted in his brain prevents him from hurting humans, he can still hurt other demons. Spike later falls in love with Buffy and, after Buffy ends their brief sexual affair by telling him she could never trust an evil creature, travels to Africa and endures several painful tests before a mystic agrees to restore his soul. Buffy's little sister Dawn is also one of the 4 According to the vampire mythology of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, vampires do not have souls. When Liam (Angel's human name) was turned into a vampire, his soul went into the ether and a demon took control of his body, committing atrocities for which an ensouled Angel must now atone.

10 8 gang. Dawn, who used to be a mystical key, was sent to Buffy in human form at the beginning of the series' fifth season. Buffy was to protect the key because a hell-god named Glory planned to use it to open the walls between dimensions, thus unleashing hell on earth. BTVS is an arc-television narrative. This means that story lines develop across several episodes or an entire season, in contrast to television series' such as Law and Order in which every episode tells a single, self-contained story (Porter, Larson and Harthcock 2). In BTVS, a major villain, known as the Big Bad, is introduced during the first few episodes of a given season and the season story arc revolves around the Scoobies' growing awareness of the threat posed by this villain and their attempts to fight it. Throughout the season, less significant villains are fought in stand-alone episodes, but at least the last two or three episodes deal solely with the Scoobies' attempts to prevent the Big Bad from carrying out a plan that will destroy the world as we know it. The season finale then includes an apocalyptic battle in which Buffy saves the world and usually kills the Big Bad. Buffy the Patriarchy Slayer? In order to understand the implications of the Trio's attempts to alter BTVS, one must first understand the traditional portrayal of women in horror films and the effects of Joss Whedon's attempts to change them. In one interview, Whedon explains his motivations, saying: I've always been a huge fan of horror movies, and I saw so many horror movies where there was that blonde girl who would always get herself killed. I started

11 9 feeling bad for her. I thought, 'you know, it's time for her to take back the night.' So, the idea of Buffy came from just the very simple thought of, a beautiful blonde girl walks into an alley, a monster attacks her, and she's not only ready for him, she trounces him ("Interview"). In his commentary on the series premiere, Whedon further explains that "the idea of Buffy was to subvert that... image and to create someone who was a hero where there had always been a victim" ("Commentary"). Much of the pleasure in watching BTVS comes from watching Buffy usurp the male role in traditional hero stories, rescuing her beefcake vampire boyfriend from danger ("What's My Line, Part II" 2010) and sacrificing her life to save the world ("The Gift" 5022). BTVS's construction of images of females who are heroes rather than victims is in itself a positive contribution to television. This show promotes the notion that young women possess the power, strength and intelligence to participate in stereotypically male realms, whereas many filmic texts construct women as passive sex objects, lacking in common sense. A perfect example of this construction is the stereotypical blonde victim in the horror film, who is only seen having sex and then running upstairs to her death when any sensible person would be running out the door. However, the series' subversion of the horror genre goes beyond the change in the blonde girl's image. Buffy's abilities as a slayer also allow her to escape the punishing male gaze that is usually turned on the female victims of horror films. Film critic Robin Wood, in his work on horror films of the eighties argues that "the contemporary horror film invites an identification (either sadistic or masochistic or both simultaneously) with punishment" of the female victims (195). Wood builds off of

12 IO the theories of film critic Laura Mulvey, who explains that one of the pleasures in viewing films is what Freud called scopophilia, the pleasure which emerges from regarding others as objects and "subjecting them to a controlling... gaze" (2184). According to Mulvey, in a phallocentric social system (one in which the phallus is associated with power and control), the sight of women's bodies creates in men anxiety about the possibility of being castrated, both of the literal penis and of the power that it signifies (2188). Thus, man feels the need either to deny the woman's lack of phallus or to punish her for it in order to maintain his own sense of control (2188). The sadistic pleasure with which the viewer of horror films identifies, is the pleasure of "ascertaining guilt (immediately associated with castration), asserting control and subjugating the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness" (Mulvey 2188). Wood notes that horror films often facilitate this identification with punishment by using "first-person camera to signify the approach of the killer" (198). While this device may simply serve to add suspense to the film by hiding the killer's identity, Wood explains, it also allows the spectator to identify with the killer's sadistic fantasy ( 198). The male spectator, then, bolsters his own sense of control and masculinity by vicariously identifying with violent acts against women. BTVS does not allow for this sadistic pleasure. The narrative frequently sets up this sort of punishing scenario, with a demon stalking Buffy or another female character, but frustrates it, by having her tum around and fight, either defeating the demon or at least staving it off. Even when the vampire known as the Master kills Buffy, the narrative negates his violence towards her when Xander revives Buffy, allowing her to track down and kill the Master. Identifying with violence towards this show's female characters would only lead to an increased sense of

13 11 emasculation. The fact that the punishment of the female is prevented in BTVS by an act of the female heroine's power destabilizes the association of power with masculinity and the phallus. One might argue that BTVS in fact fails to destabilize the association of power with the phallus because the stake, the primary weapon the slayer uses to kill vampires, is a phallic weapon. Completing the female body with a fetish object which replaces the phallus is, according to Mulvey, another means of overcoming castration anxiety through viewing (2188). However, this argument does not hold for this show. Although Buffy does use the stake, an artifact from more traditional phallocentric vampire legends, she often finds other more resourceful ways of defeating the demons she fights. In "The Harvest" (1002), for example, she decapitates a vampire with a cymbal. This round percussion instrument can be interpreted as a more feminine symbol. In addition, Buffy engages in hand-to-hand combat with the vampires, defeating them before she kills them. The narrative thus divests the stake of its symbolic power by suggesting that Buffy's power lies not in her stake, but in her (female) body. The fact that Buffy is the hero of the series means that, as a narrative requirement of the show, she cannot be killed. Her permanent death would end the show. Thus, the narrative structure of the show itself proves its feminism by making sadistic punishment of Buffy impossible. However, one must then ask whether the sadistic fantasy is enacted upon other female characters in the show. Although other minor female characters do get killed on the series, an equal number of male victims are stalked by the camera and killed, suggesting that these minor characters are not being punished for evoking threats

14 12 of castration. 5 In addition, the identity of the villain is generally revealed before it kills, which makes it more difficult for the spectator to fully enjoy the sadistic identification with the monster (Wood 198). Taking over Sunnydale: The Geek Trio Hijack the Series By the series' sixth year, one can safely assume that Buffy's status as female hero had become a fact which many viewers took for granted. Buffy's central position in the series, and thus the series' feminism, is returned to the fore of the show when it is subjected to a backlash in the show's sixth season by the Geek Trio. The Trio is composed of three of Buffy's former Sunnydale High classmates=jonathan, a minor recurring character from the first four seasons of the show; Warren, a minor character from the fifth season episode "I Was Made to Love You" (5015); and Andrew, a new character who identifies himself as the brother of Tucker, a minor character from the third season episode "The Prom" (3020). Having each become proficient in crafts ranging from robotics to witchcraft, these sci-fi nerds decide, over a game of Dungeons and Dragons, to "team up and take over Sunnydale" ("Flooded" 6004). They are motivated in part by greed, hoping to obtain money and access to women through crime. As Jonathan puts it, their mission includes "shrink rays, trained gorillas, workable prototype jet-packs and chicks, chicks, chicks" ("Flooded" 6004). However, the constant references they make to other sci-fi and fantasy texts suggest that the trio is concerned as much with control of the series as with wealth. By positioning themselves as the major 5 In horror series' such as the Halloween films, male characters are commonly killed immediately after having sex. Their bodies are left to be found by their female partners, who are then hunted down by the killer. This suggests that the male characters' deaths function to intensify the punishment of the guilty females. In addition, the removal of the protective male functions to increase the female victim's (and the spectator's) awareness of her helplessness.

15 13 villains of the season, these new and minor characters attempt to usurp Buffy's position as the central character in the series and thus reassert in the show the phallocentric conventions of the series' of which they are fans. Richard Homby, in his book Drama, Metadrama and Perception, names literary reference and self-reference as two of the most obvious and conscious forms of metadrama (31 ). These types of metadrama are particularly relevant when discussing the Trio. These characters constantly make references to other science fiction and fantasy genre shows and to previous episodes of BTVS. Jonathan, Warren and Andrew are introduced as the trio in "Flooded" (6004). In this episode, they have hired the demon M'Fashnick to create chaos at a bank so that they can rob it. Having been spotted at the bank by Buffy, and thus afraid for his safety, M'Fashnick goes to the trio's lair to demand payment for his services. The geeks' offersof payment refer to the specific episodes of BTVS from which the viewer will remember them and thus mark the characters themselves as textual references. Warren offers to make M'Fashnick "a robot girlfriend-- for those long, lonely nights after a hard day's slaughter," a reference to his only two appearances on BTVS to this point. In "I Was Made to Love You" (5015), Buffy meets Warren when April, the robot girlfriend which he created for himself but no longer wants, attempts to be a good girlfriend by killing his new girlfriend, Katrina, whom April sees merely as an obstacle to their love. Warren returns briefly in "Intervention" (5018), to deliver the Buffy-bot which a lovelorn Spike paid him to make. In this introductory scene, Andrew claims to be the brother of Tucker, the "incompetent maladjust" who, after being rejected by the girl he wanted to take to the prom, trained a pack ofhellhounds to attack people in

16 14 formal wear and set them loose at the high school on the night of the dance ("The Prom" 3020). Jonathan has had more of a presence in the series than the other members of the trio prior to season six. He first appeared in the episode "Inca Mummy Girl" (2004), and was used in several subsequent episodes, whenever a nerdy or vulnerable student was called for, such as when Cordelia's friends taunt her by suggesting that, having been dumped by Xander (whom they brand a loser) she should date Jonathan ("The Wish" 3009). His first major role in the show came in the episode "Earshot," where he attempts to commit suicide in the school clock tower because he feels ignored and misunderstood. However, Jonathan refers to his only starring role in the show, when he offers to help M'Fashnick with "a spell, to make [him] look super-cool to the other demons" ("Flooded" 6004 ). In "Superstar" ( 4017), an episode which I will discuss in detail later in the paper, Jonathan performs an augmentation spell which temporarily convinces everyone that he is the best of everything-a demon-fighter who starred in The Matrix, graduated from medical school at age eighteen, and recently released an album with his swing band. Homby notes that self-reference, like literary reference, has greater metadramatic effect when the reference is to something so recent and specific in the drama that, although the audience can be expected to recognize the reference, it has not become a cliche in the overall culture (103). The trio's offers of payment each refer to stand-alone episodes of BTVS that were not part of the larger plot arcs of their respective seasons, and thus function strongly as forms of self-reference. The dedicated viewer will recognize these lines as references to specific episodes of the series, thus calling the viewer's

17 15 attention to the fact that he or she is watching a television show. This awareness that one is watching a fictional performance has the effect of breaking the viewer's identification with the characters and the fictional world of the production, effecting "a sudden collapse of the ego boundary back to one's everyday self' (Homby 115). This collapse of the ego boundary, which was the purpose of Bertolt Brecht's "alienation effect" has, according to Homby, the effect of suddenly foregrounding reality, forcing the viewer to examine the cultural "assumptions that lie behind and control [his] response to the world of the [production]" ( ). The fact that the trio is introduced in this way ensures that the viewer will continue to be aware of the fictionality of the members. This constant awareness will lead the viewer to question the trio's relationship to and effect on the series as a fictional show. The members of the trio also seem to be quite aware of their own ontological status as fictional characters. They understand their world and almost always predict the consequences of their actions through the lens of the science fiction and fantasy texts and other television series' of which they are fans--and of which they are of course a part. In "Villains" (6020), Andrew even looks to other television series' to understand the experience of being in jail. As Jonathan worries about being raped in jail, Andrew calmly dismisses these fears, explaining, "This isn't Oz. It's, like, Mayberry." He is confident that their world is closer to the sitcom world of the Andy Griffith Show than the gritty prison drama Oz. Thus, the rules of the former type of series will be followed and Jonathan is in no danger of being attacked. Another typical example of the nerds' awareness of their own fictitiousness can be found in "Life Serial" (6005). In this episode, the trio puts Buffy through a battery of

18 16 tests, hoping to find her weaknesses. In Jonathan's test Buffy, who is working at the Magic Box, Giles' and Anya's magic shop, must "satisfy a customer, with a task that resists solving," as Jonathan explains it. As Buffy struggles to capture a recalcitrant enchanted mummy hand for her customer, the trio discuss her progress and reveal that the form of the test is inspired by the science fiction series' they watch. Andrew: I just hope she solves it faster than Data did in that episode of TNG [Star Trek The Next Generation] where the enterprise kept blowing up. Warren: Or Mulder, in that X-Files where the bank kept exploding. Rather than devising their plot based on the advice or experiences of others in the supposedly real world of their show, the geeks steal from and compare the results of their plans with other shows, calling the viewer's attention to the fact that the members of the trio are part of a show and, in fact; have no real world to draw upon. The nerds' awareness of themselves as fictional characters and tendency to explain their world in terms of fiction suggests that when they propose to take over Sunnydale, they are actually talking about usurping Buffy's position as central character in the series. The following exchange between the geeks makes this agenda especially clear. In "Gone" (6011 ), Warren tries to convince Andrew and Jonathan that they must kill Buffy. Jonathan: We're not killers! We're crime lords. Andrew: Yeah. Like Lex Luthor. He's always trying to take over Metropolis, but he doesn't kill Superman. Warren: Because it's Superman's book, you moron! Andrew: Well, Lex doesn't kill him, does he?

19 17 On one level, this exchange, with its reference to Superman comic books, functions as a humorous acknowledgement of the fact that, while the show's characters are portrayed as real people, who live in a real world of infinite possibilities, they are characters in a television show, and as such their behavior is limited by the rules and conventions of the genre. The viewer knows that, like the Master, the trio will not permanently kill Buffy, precisely because it is her show. This exchange also suggests that, while Andrew and Jonathan are content simply to be Buffy's antagonists for the season, Warren really does plan to attack Buffy's position in the series. He is aware of the rules that govern the actions of superheroes' nemeses. However, ifhe were to become the central character in the series, then Buffy's death would not violate these rules. In his revised series, the trio would be the central characters and the slayer would occupy the status of expendable adversary. While Warren aspires to alter the series, Andrew seems already to have mastered the ability to do so. Unlike Warren and Jonathan, who were minor characters before becoming members of the trio, Andrew almost seems to have written himself into the show by taking advantage of one of the gaps in the narrative. As previously noted, the arc television narrative creates a sense that characters' lives continue off-screen, encouraging viewers to imagine events and facts that are not explicitly part of the narrative. However, when such unknown events are written into the narrative after the fact, they may contradict the viewer's imagined version of events. Andrew identifies himself as the brother of Tucker, the character who trained the hellhounds to attack the Sunnydale High School prom. Tucker was not a recurring character. All the viewer knows about Tucker is that he couldn't get a date to the prom and that he somehow

20 18 knows how to summon and train hellhounds. The narrative never explains who Tucker's social group is, or what his family is like. These gaps are left to be filled in by the individual viewer, or to be ignored since they are not really of any importance to the story. Andrew seems to write himself into the show by creating a family history for Tucker, which calls attention to the many gaps of this sort in the show. Since Andrew's completion of Tucker's history may contradict what individual viewers had imagined about the character, his fictionality is emphasized. In addition, this contradiction raises the viewer's awareness of his or her role in constructing the series' meaning, a subject to which I will return later in this paper. Andrew also uses Tucker's history to write a related history for himself; he claims to have summoned flying monkeys to attack the school production of Romeo and Juliet. However, the other characters in the series are protective of the integrity of the narrative and slow to accept Andrew as part of the series. In the final scenes of "Gone" ( 6011 ), Willow reverses the effects of the nerds' invisibility ray on themselves and Buffy. Buffy identifies Warren and Jonathan as they become visible, but does not recognize Andrew. Buffy: Who are you? Andrew: I'm Andrew. I summoned the flying monkeys that attacked the high school. (Buffy and Willow look at him, confused.) Andrew: (meekly) You know, during the school play. (Buffy and Willow still look confused.) Jonathan and Warren: He's Tucker's brother. Buffy and Willow: Oh.

21 19 Even after Andrew explains who he is, Buffy and her friends do not remember him or the incident with the flying monkeys, which was never the subject of an episode of BTVS, although it is the sort of incident that the Scoobies would have known about and been responsible for stopping. The fact that the Scoobies, like the audience, have never heard of Andrew before this season is joked about throughout the season. In "Doublemeat Palace" (6012), Xander remarks, "I get Warren being a super-villain, but I thought Jonathan already learned that lesson. I haven't even heard of this other guy." Even as late as the season six finale, Willow refers to Jonathan and Andrew as "Jonathan and that other one" ("Grave" 6022). These statements demonstrate a resistance against accepting Andrew's story, and by extension the Trio's revisions of the series, as part of the narrative. "If this is the world he created, what's the real world like?": Jonathan as Superstar Whereas Andrew's attempt to infiltrate the narrative series merely involves filling in existing gaps in the narrative, in the episode "Superstar" ( 4017), Jonathan completely revises the narrative, reversing previous emasculating portrayals of his character and making himself the central character in the series. In this episode, Jonathan performs an augmentation spell which turns this lonely, young nerd into a paragon. "Superstar" is Jonathan's fantasy show. In this episode, everyone in Sunnydale adores him. He has starred in The Matrix, coached the U.S. women's soccer team, written a book, recorded an album and graduated from medical school-all by the age of eighteen. He is also, among other things, an expert demon hunter, thus taking over Buffy's position in the series. Justine Larbalestier, writing before the show's sixth season aired, notes that one

22 20 theme of "Superstar" is "the [fan's] desire to interpolate into a text-jonathan literally inserts himself in Buffy's place; she becomes his sidekick, and he becomes everyone's hero" (233). Jonathan's spell, by affecting the so-called reality of Sunnydale, turns "Superstar" into an adaptation of a typical episode of BTVS. According to Homby, an adaptation has a metadramatic effect when and if the viewer is able to simultaneously experience both the adaptation and the source production as separate entities during the performance of the adaptation (93-4). The awareness of the existence of this source produces an alienation effect in the viewer which allows him or her to more analytically examine and interpret the choices made in adapting the source text (94). In the case of "Superstar," the shock of seeing the Chosen One suddenly dependent upon Jonathan, the token nerd, provides a catalyst for the viewer to step back and examine the constructions of gender and power in this episode, as compared with a typical episode of BTVS. This episode thus provides a powerful critique of the way male power is manifested through the subordination of women. Jonathan's awareness that his spell alters the narrative structure of a television show rather than life in a real town is hinted at by the fact that Jonathan usurps Buffy's place in the show's title credits. Quick cuts of Jonathan aiming a crossbow and waving at his fans replace many of the usual images of Buffy fighting. Another clue that Jonathan is a fictional character manipulating a television series occurs when Buffy looks through Xander's Jonathan memorabilia and finds "Jonathan" comic books. Comic books are usually about fictional heroes and not real people. (For instance, one can buy Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic books, but not, to the best of my knowledge, Sarah Michelle

23 21 Gellar comic books). The fact that the comic books feature Jonathan and not his character from The Matrix serve as a reminder that Jonathan himself is a character. In addition, Jonathan's spell alters such specifically filmic elements of the show as the score, replacing the usual lush string arrangements with guitar riffs that are reminiscent of the score of male spy films such as those of the James Bond series. Clearly, Jonathan's ideal series would feature his character as a James Bond-like hero. In "Life Serial" (6005), Jonathan expresses his preference for the older 007 films, when Roger Moore was Bond. The 007 films construct a masculine hero who is irresistible to all women and a master of intelligence, technology, and physical fighting. Women's roles in these films tend to be limited to sex objects who adore Bond, or femmes fatales who are attracted to Bond, but use their sexuality to work for the side of evil. This portrayal suggests that women who do exercise power and agency are somehow bad or unnatural. Those women who do fight alongside Bond are generally subordinate to him, merely helping to execute his plans and commands. These films reinforce male power by focusing on the power struggle between Bond and the male villain. The notion that only Bond, the male hero, can stop the villain and thus save society from corruption serves to justify the need for male power. In order to justify Jonathan's male power in his show, he must construct female characters who are utterly dependent on him. Therefore, Buffy cannot be a hero. Although she remains the Slayer, he robs her of all the qualities that once made her a hero. He even usurps her past. Two of Buffy's biggest high school accomplishments were preventing the Master from getting free of the mystical forces which bound him underground ("Prophecy Girl" 1012), and receiving the class protector award-a token of

24 22 gratitude from the many students whose lives she saved at one time or another-which Jonathan presented to her at their senior prom ("The Prom" 3020). In "Superstar" the Scoobies believe that Jonathan was the one who stopped the Master from rising, and that Buffy presented the class protector award to him. In BTVS, Buffy is a hero because of her strength, skill and intelligence-much like James Bond. In order to bar women from occupying positions of power in such series', narratives must portray women as lacking these qualities. Buffy's sudden lack of all of these traits is apparent in this episode's teaser. The episode opens, like many others, with Buffy, Willow and Xander on patrol (scoping the cemeteries for vampire activity). However, in this episode something is amiss. Buffy, normally a skilled fighter and head-strong leader, seems unsure of her fighting abilities and so submits to her friends' direction. She even allows Anya to veto her plan to kill a nest of vampires, on the grounds that the four Scoobies cannot possibly defeat five vampires. (In other episodes, such as "Into the Woods" (5010), Buffy has killed groups of five vampires on her own.) The severity of Buffy's weakness in "Superstar" is revealed when the Scoobies go to seek help. The viewer assumes that they will consult Giles, or Riley and the rest of the Initiative. Instead, they consult Jonathan. The fact that the series' token nerd is able to step in and immediately create and execute a plan to kill the nest of vampires only serves to emphasize Buffy's disempowennent. Buffy's wit is also dulled in this episode. Overbey and Preston-Matto, in their article "Staking in Tongues: Speech Act as Weapon in Buffy the Vampire Slayer," have noted that Buffy's power and heroism are tied to her verbal agility (75). As Willow notes in "Anne" (3001 ), "the Slayer always says a pun or a witty play on words and I think it

25 23 throws the vampires off and makes them frightened... " Overbey and Preston-Matto argue that Buffy's wit allows her to throw her opponents off mentally and emotionally, which makes them physically vulnerable so that she can kill them (76). Buffy's use of wit in this way demonstrates that she is not just an air-head who happens to be strong. She is the Slayer because she has the intelligence necessary to wage the war against evil. However, in this episode, Buffy seems to be just a reasonably strong air-head. When Spike (who thinks her name is Betty-a sign that her character is a minor one in Jonathan's show) taunts her, she has no clever come-back. "It's Buffy," she stutters, "You big, bleached... stupid guy." Jonathan, however, is witty and intimidating, telling Spike, "you're the worst type of scum. The minute you're back to your old tricks, well, let's just say before you've sniffed out your first victim, you'll be pretty indistinguishable from=well what should we say?--instant soup mix." Although Buffy is somewhat lacking in wit and skill, ultimately the real reason she is unable to be a hero in this episode is that no one has faith in her ability to be one. When Karen, a girl who was attacked by a monster, seeks Jonathan's help, Buffy offers to help her, but Karen ignores her. Even Spike seems entirely unthreatened by the vampire slayer. In Jonathan's phallocentric text, a blonde girl does not seem a likely hero. Buffy's friends even question her authority to call a meeting, wondering when Jonathan will arrive so the "real meeting" can start. The fact that no one has any confidence in Buffy prevents her from realizing the potential which she believes she has. This becomes clear when Riley remarks to Buffy, "If they just put a little trust in me, I could get the job done." Buffy replies, "I've felt that way my whole life." Rich notes that one way in which male power is manifested and maintained in patriarchal society is

26 24 through "sex-role tracking which deflects women from science, technology and other masculine pursuits" (1767). The way in which femininity is constructed in Jonathan's version of the show harms Buffy by stifling her potential, just as limiting constructions of femininity in patriarchal society lead to women's access to leadership roles in certain occupations and activities being blocked. When Buffy's friends do begin to trust and work with her, she is able to discover the origin of Jonathan's spell and defeat the monster that helps him to maintain his power. Clearly, women cannot be heroes in Jonathan's show. However, they do have roles that they can fulfill. As in the James Bond films, with which Jonathan's altered score associates this episode, women can play the role of sex objects and pieces of property. Jonathan's success is measured by his conspicuous accomplishments and by his possession of status symbols such as his mansion. The pair of Scandinavian twin sisters, dressed in lingerie and open bathrobes, who call Jonathan to bed from the balcony are also status symbols. The twins are blonde like Buffy, suggesting that their status as sex objects is a direct subversion of Buffy's position as hero of BTVS. Another role which women can play in Jonathan's show is that of victim. The monster which was created as a side effect of his augmentation spell (good must always be balanced by evil, as Giles explains) only attacks women, until the final scene when it turns on Jonathan himself. Because there are no female heroes in Jonathan's text, the punishing male gaze, which Buffy the hero is able to frustrate in a typical episode of the series, remains unchallenged. A first-person camera tracking shot leads up to the monster's attack of Karen, allowing the spectator to identify with the monster who is attacking her. The act break occurs as soon as the monster begins to attack. When we

27 25 next see Karen, she is running into the Bronze to seek Jonathan's help. The narrative never shows the woman resisting the monster's punishment and thus the link between power and control and the phallus is never broken. If the mere female form evokes feelings of powerlessness in males in a patriarchal society, lesbians present an even graver threat. In "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," Adrienne Rich suggests that male domination over women results from the fear "that women could be indifferent to them altogether, that men could be allowed sexual and emotional access to women only on women's terms" (1770). One way in which male power is enacted, according to Rich, is by denying women's sexuality "by means of... punishment, including death, for lesbian sexuality... " ( ). Rich agrees with Susan Cavin, who argues that heterosexuality "must ever be held by force (or through control of consciousness)" (1773). Rich and Cavin are talking here, not about magical mind control, but about the way in which stories and social institutions, such as family structure, shape our view of the world and expectations for how we will live our lives. Constructing himself as an object of desire is one means Jonathan uses to exert control over the other characters. 6 They are reluctant to question his achievements and power because they desire him. Therefore, Jonathan's mind-control spell must attack the lesbian relationship between Willow and Tara. In "Superstar" ( 4017), the mass mind-control of Jonathan's spell serves as a metaphor for the way in which film and television representations often erase and punish lesbian desire and naturalize heterosexual desire in women. Willow and Tara's lesbian relationship had not been explicitly named as such on the show when Jonathan performs 6 The idea that desire is a tool through which Jonathan controls others is supported by the fact that even Xander and Giles appear to feel desire for Jonathan. Jonathan's trumpet playing makes Xander want to have sex and Giles owns a copy of Jonathan's swimsuit calendar.

28 26 his augmentation spell. However, the sexual nature of their relationship has already been made abundantly clear, through the use of wiccan spell-casting as a metaphor for lesbian intimacy. In the previous episode, "Who Are You?" (4016), as critic Todd R. Ramlow writes, "we... see the two practicing their craft, all dewy-eyed and sweaty-faced, moaning and panting. Overcome by the intensity and power of their bond, Willow falls backward, in slow motion, onto a bed of pillows in orgasmic joy" ("Tara" 2). The couple's romantic involvement has also been more directly indicated by hand-holding and flirting. However, in the first half of "Superstar," their lesbian relationship seems to have been erased. The two do not hold hands or gaze at each other with desire. They behave like platonic friends and their lust seems to be directed towards Jonathan. Tara is overcome with excitement at.the Bronze (Sunnydale's coffee shop and night club) when Jonathan plays a song from his new album. However, the lesbian relationship creeps back into the narrative during the second half of the episode, when Willow drops Tara off at her dorm and the two exchange a loving glance and caress each other's hands. Jonathan's narrative immediately punishes Tara for this display of lesbian affection; the monster attacks her as she walks to her room. The fact that the sustainment of Jonathan's power hinges on the life of a demon that attacks women and lesbians is telling. The beast represents the threat of violence against women, in both film representations and everyday society, which is used to maintain male power and access to women (Rich 1766). Women are caught in a kind of double-bind, because they are simultaneously threatened by violence from some men and told that they must rely on other men for protection. "Superstar" dramatizes the fact that this threat exists to justify male power over women by having the threat (the monster)

29 27 and the protection (Jonathan as hero) result from the same spell. When Buffy discovers this link and begins to fight the demon, destroying its ability to hurt and marginalize women, Jonathan gradually weakens and Sunnydale returns to the way it was before. Jonathan is ultimately unable to maintain control of the narrative and the women. Although he takes over the title credits, the focus of the narrative remains on Buffy and the effect that Jonathan's spell has on her. Jonathan does successfully put on masculine power in this episode. His clothing and hair are uncharacteristically fashionable and his behavior is smooth and confident. However, because the viewer is familiar with Jonathan's character, he or she knows from the beginning that this change in Jonathan must be the result of a spell. In addition, visual gags mock the notion of his power. In one scene, an officer in the Initiative is addressing his troops and explains that they have brought in their "tactical advisor... Mr. Levinson [Jonathan]." Riley's friend Graham says "It's time they brought in the big guns." Although Graham is utterly serious, the line functions as a comment on the visual joke of Jonathan, who is half the height of the military men, advising them. Because Jonathan lacks a body that unproblematically expresses masculine power, the viewer is more easily led to question the reality of this power. Whereas the viewer knows from the outset that Jonathan's position in this episode must eventually be explained away by some sort of magic spell or alternate reality, Buffy and the other scoobies are completely fooled. However, Buffy's dissatisfaction with the role which she has been allotted in Jonathan's reality and her ability to see the artifice behind his masculinity allow her to break the spell. Fed up with being inferior to Jonathan, Buffy begins to wonder if Jonathan is really as wonderful as he seems to be.

30 28 She wonders how he could have starred in The Matrix without leaving town, or graduated from medical school less than a year after graduating from high school. Thus, ultimately, Jonathan's spell destroys itself by creating a vision of his masculinity that is so perfect as not to be believable. Jonathan's spell is also untenable because its oppression of women is too complete. Buffy's desire to realize her potential causes her to question the fact that everyone trusts Jonathan's demon-hunting skills more than those of the Slayer. She also wonders why the beast continues to attack women when Jonathan-supposedly an expert demon-hunter-claims that it is not violent. Jonathan is ultimately unable both to punish and marginalize women and convince them that he is a hero who can protect them. Buffy's task in exposing Jonathan's magic mirrors that of the viewer in recognizing the constructed nature of gender i~ other series' as well as everyday life. Unaware that Jonathan's power is artificial, Buffy must rely on her own sense of her own and others' potential to contradict what she has been led her whole life to believe. The fact that "Superstar" is a critique of gender constructions in everyday life and not just in other artist's representations is suggested by Riley's question, "If this is the world he created, then what's the real world like?" "Superstar" sets two fictional worlds, the usual world of BTVS and the world created by Jonathan's spell, against each other. Both are created worlds; neither is real. According to Todorov, if certain events in a narrative are dismissed as being imaginary, the rest of the narrative seems more real to the reader (Waugh 112). Although normally the fact that Jonathan's spell-world is explained away would privilege the world of BTVS as "more real," the fact that BTVS is also a fantasy world suggests that neither can be privileged as more realistic. The fact that the same

31 29 characters can be constructed so differently in two fantasy worlds, depending on who has the creative power suggests that every day life might also be constructed very differently if men were not in power. This episode calls attention to that fact, thus giving the viewer the tools to recognize these constructions in everyday life. "What's the matter, baby? You never fight a real man before?" While "Superstar" presents Jonathan's polished construction of masculinity and depicts Buffy's gradual realization of its artifice, the sixth season Geek Trio story arc shows the specific actions that the nerds must take in order to construct the masculinity and masculine power that will allow them to usurp Buffy's position in the series. During season six, the nerds seem at first to be motivated simply by a desire to be central characters in the series. However, as they execute their plans, it becomes clear that masculine dominance over women is also at stake in this battle over the series. In their attempts to become super-villains, the trio reassert the association between power and the phallus, hypnotize the women whom they want to desire them, and alter Buffy's reality in order to question the reality of the Slayer. One way in which the nerds attempt to alter the series in order to deprive Buffy of her position as heroine is to reinstate the symbolic association between power and control and the phallus. In "Superstar" (4017), Jonathan's augmentation spell is linked with the idea of augmenting the phallus when Riley uncomfortably asks, "What did he have, um, you know...?" Riley seems to be wondering if Jonathan's superior social status is the result of an augmentation of his penis. In "Life Serial" ( 6005), Jonathan performs spells with a "magic bone" which becomes the subject of many penis jokes. The clearest

32 30 association between the phallus and the nerds' power comes in the episode "Seeing Red" (6019). In this episode, Warren, Andrew and Jonathan steal the Orbs ofneslicahn from a cave-dwelling demon. The orbs, a pair of balls, clearly function as a metaphor for masculine endowment. When Warren holds them, he suddenly becomes strong and powerful and his face contorts in what appears to be orgasmic delight. Andrew, who has been coded as bisexual and a sissy, looks at them and sighs, "they're everything I ever dreamed of," suggesting that the orbs are a source of heterosexual masculine virility and power. This masculine virility and power clearly put Warren in a position to claim the central position in the series. His first act after obtaining them is to slay a demon, usurping the skill that allows Buffy to be the show's hero. He then further attacks the show's feminism by going to a bar and hitting on a woman there. She turns out to be the girlfriend of a young man who used to bully Warren in gym class. Warren's narrative clearly devalues this woman. She looks uncomfortable, but does not speak. We learn nothing about her, whereas in Buffy's series most characters who are in any way essential to part of the plot are given a voice and some hint of character development. Warren sees this woman merely as a means by which he can prove his superior masculinity to the bully. She is a piece of sexual property which he can take, just as he plans to steal money from an armored truck later that evening. During the confrontation between Warren and Buffy, beside the armored truck, it becomes clear that, for Warren, being central to the series is a matter of masculine superiority. He attempts to negate Buffy's power by sexualizing and infantilizing her, calling her "kitten." He also calls Buffy "super-bitch," a word that, like femi-nazi,

33 31 implies that women who are powerful are somehow deviant or evil. Emerging from the rubble after an archway collapses on him, Warren sees Buffy's surprise and taunts her, saying, "What's the matter, baby? You never fight a real man before?" He thus attempts to naturalize the idea of masculinity, suggesting that the man who beats Buffy will be a true man and that her series is a fictional world which merely pretends that men and demons can be defeated by a petite blonde woman. However, the phallic power which Warren derives from the orbs is artificial, not an inherent masculinity. Having been told by Jonathan (who still admires Buffy and does not want her to be killed) where Warren's power source is, Buffy smashes the orbs. Warren, still believing that his power is secure and intending to kill Buffy, tells her "say goodnight, bitch." As Buffy smashes the orbs she says, "goodnight, bitch." Buffy thus becomes literally a ball-busting feminist hero, symbolically castrating Warren and further signifying his emasculation by applying the derogatory feminine term "bitch" to him. She then executes a roundhouse kick which sends him flying across the street. She executes this kick slowly and does not seem to put the usual power behind it, suggesting that, stripped of his phallic power, Warren is easily defeated. During season six, as in "Superstar," humor is a tool that emphasizes the notion that the trio's male power is artificial. In contrast to other Big Bads Buffy has faced, the trio is laughable. The members of the trio are presented as a joke from the moment of their initial introduction. In "Flooded" ( 6004 ), the trio remains out of the frame as the viewer sees the large, frightening demon M'Fashnick addressing the "powerful men" for whom he has been working. The viewer builds up an image of a monstrous, frightening new group of Big Bads-possibly with tentacles for eyes, or skewers for hands-which is

34 32 hilariously undercut when the camera cuts to a shot of the trio, dressed in T-Shirts and jeans and seated in bean bag chairs in front of a large-screen television. Their claim of being "super-villains" is absurd, particularly given Warren and Jonathan's previous history of needing to be rescued by Buffy. The nerds are also clumsy in their villainy. In "Gone" (6011), Andrew and Jonathan get distracted by a video game when they're supposed to be holding Willow hostage. In the same episode, Warren proves unable even to pronounce the term 'arch-nemeses,' announcing to Buffy "we're your arch-nemesis-issees." As mentioned before, his lack of wit signals a lack of power. Only after obtaining the orbs does Warren become a real threat to Buffy as a villain. Up to that point, Buffy and the viewer had regarded the trio as a minor irritation and a joke. Even before discovering the identity of the Big Bads, Buffy, Xander and Anya belittle their villainy. Buffy: I'm just saying, all the things that have happened lately[... ]the bank robbery, the jewelry heist... Xander: Exploding lint. Buffy: Is it me or do these things seem really... Anya: Lame? ("Smashed" 6009). The trio is further emasculated in "Villains" (6020), when Warren discovers that no one in the demon underworld has even heard about the trio's activities. This joking about the trio and constant awareness of their lack of inherent masculine power serves to reinforce the notion that masculinity is a myth. The fact that the nerds are able to construct masculine power despite having none to begin with suggests that masculinity is always a construction and performance that can be put on but isn't real.

35 33 As the hero of the series, Buffy has the power to expose Warren's display of power for an act. In an attempt to reassert his masculinity, and punish Buffy for having robbed him of it, Warren takes another phallic weapon, a gun, and goes to Buffy's house, intending to kill her. In this scene, Buffy has just been poking around her backyard, looking for more of the trio's cameras. This suggestion of being on film, in addition to Warren's accusations, "You think you could just do that to me?" suggest that Warren is acting out the sadistic fantasy of the horror film which, as previously discussed, BTVS has been so successful at subverting. By using a gun and shooting at Buffy from across the yard, Warren does not allow the female victim a chance to contradict his power by even attempting to fight back. Because Buffy's identity is constructed around her status as fighter, the only way to make masculine power an absolute in the series is to erase her from the narrative, by killing her. The trio has tried to do this once before in "Gone" (6011). In this episode, the trio has created an invisibility ray which they plan to use to become temporarily invisible so they can rob a beauty supply shop. Jonathan and Andrew struggle over the ray and as Buffy walks past, the ray goes off, making her invisible. Anya and Xander at first believe that an invisible slayer would be even more powerful, since she would be able to sneak up on her foes. However, they soon discover that a side-effect of the invisibility ray is that it speeds molecular deterioration. If Buffy is not made visible again, she will literally cease to exist. As a television series and thus a visual form of representation, BTVS's attempt to subvert limiting and punishing representations of women in other series' depends upon the literal visibility of the female heroine.

36 34 In his attempt to kill Buffy in "Seeing Red" (6019), Warren also succeeds in erasing Willow and Tara's lesbian relationship from the series. Tara and Willow, who had been estranged for several months after Tara discovered that Willow had used a mind-control spell to make her forget about an argument they had had, have just become a couple again. They are in the bedroom when a wild bullet from Warren's gun comes through the window and instantly kills Tara. The fact that Willow and Tara are in the bedroom, where they were last seen making love, suggests that Tara is being punished for her lesbian sexuality. The critical response to Tara's death is further evidence that Warren's erasure of Tara from the series constituted a serious attack on the show's feminism. After Tara's death, Willow turns to black magic and, after flaying Warren alive, attempts to bring an end to the world. Ramlow argues that Tara's death and Willow's subsequent attempt to end the world through magic, which had consistently been used as a code for Willow and Tara's lesbian sexuality, completes traditional film representations oflesbians as unstable and evil ("Tara" 2). In order for films to properly reinforce male power, women who do not desire men, and hence falls outside of the realm of their power, must be coded as evil and punished with death. Just as Jonathan had tried to manipulate the desire of everyone in Sunnydale in order to ensure his power in "Superstar" ( 4017), the trio want to hypnotize Buffy in order to make her their "willing sex bunny" ("Life Serial" 6005). They never execute this plan, but they do create a "cerebral dampener" which Warren uses to hypnotize his ex girlfriend Katrina and make her his slave. Warren has a history of attempting to exert control over women in the series. Unable to find a human girlfriend, he created April, a

37 35 robot whose sole desire was to love Warren and be exactly what he wanted in a girlfriend ("I Was Made to Love You" 5015). However, Warren soon becomes dissatisfied with the predictable April and falls in love with his fellow student Katrina. Warren explains to Buffy that he is in love with Katrina's personality and ability to surprise him, suggesting that he now understands that it is wrong to construct women entirely to fit his own needs. However, whereas the totally devoted and identity-lacking April would never abandon Warren, Katrina leaves him because she is disgusted that he would create a woman simply for the purpose of sexually satisfying him. "In Dead Things," Warren uses the cerebral dampener to erase Katrina's memories and personality, effectively making her another robot, whose sole purpose is to satisfy his needs. Although Katrina is still disgusted with Warren and refuses to speak to him when he approaches her at the bar, the cerebral dampener, once applied, causes her to don a French maid's outfit and address Warren as "Master." The cerebral dampener seems to function as a metaphor for the ways in which male-centered narratives, such as the Bond films, often construct female characters whose sole function seems to be to provide a means for the male hero's desirability to be communicated in the narrative. The hypnotized Katrina makes Warren feel desirable and powerful, but he is ultimately unable to feel anything for her. Because Katrina's willfulness and personality are gone, Warren begins to think of her as another object. He tells Jonathan and Andrew, "You can play with her all you want, after I'm done with her," suggesting that she is now expendable. However, the hypnosis does not last. Katrina's desire for Warren was a construct of his science fiction fantasy. The non-phallocentric narrative of BTVS reasserts itself

38 36 when Katrina regains her senses. Katrina accuses Warren ofraping her, although he had not yet had a chance to have sex with her, making it clear that constructing such limited images of female desire is itself a form of violence. When Willow discovers what Warren did to Katrina, she articulates the link between power and desire, "You never felt you had the power with her. Not until you killed her. You get off on it." Warren attempts to reassert his own narrative by applying the dampener again to silence Katrina. In the struggle, he accidentally kills her, suggesting once again that female resistance must be erased in order to maintain the myth of male power. In a further effort to undermine Buffy's power, as well as the viewer's identification with the series' feminist premise, the trio makes several attempts to destabilize Buffy's sense ofreality. These disturbances do trouble the audience's identification with Buffy's perceptions of the so-called reality of the series. However, they ultimately strengthen the series' feminist project. By causing the viewer to question the possibility of dividing experiences and phenomena into categories of real or unreal, these disturbances point to the need to question other ways in which one's perceptions of life are organized. One such disturbance of reality occurs in "Dead Things" (6013). In order to convince Buffy that she killed Katrina, Andrew summons a Rusundhi demon. The Rusundhi's presence in this dimension causes a temporal disfurbance. As she fights the demon, quick camera cuts indicate a sudden loss of time. The demon disappears and she is suddenly attacking Spike. Another time shift brings the demon back. After another time shift she finds herself attacking Katrina. (In fact, Jonathan has performed a glamour spell that makes him look like Katrina.) When the Rusundhi is gone and Buffy's

39 37 perceptions become coherent again, she finds Katrina's body, which the members of the trio have dumped at the bottom of the hill, and assumes that she has killed her. Although the narrative this time makes it clear that Buffy did not kill Katrina, the temporal disturbance is nonetheless nearly as disorienting for the viewer, used to experiencing events chronologically, as for Buffy. For a few moments, the viewer has no idea what is happening or how to break down and organize the events onscreen. In "Life Serial" (6005), the geeks put Buffy through a battery of tests designed to identify her weaknesses. Each of these tests alters Buffy's sense ofreality, in relation to that held by the other characters. Andrew's test also has the effect of unsettling the audience's identification with Buffy's perceptions ofreality. The test involves making Buffy look like a hysterical woman when she destroys a construction site by attacking demons that none of the other characters can see. Unsure of what to do with her life after having been raised from the dead, Buffy has Xander get her a job at his construction site. Xander's coworkers first laugh at Buffy, assuming that she is too weak and feminine for their sort of physical labor. However, in typical BTVS fashion, Buffy immediately subverts this assumption and proves herself capable of single-handedly lifting beams that are usually a burden for two men. However, when the foreman comes to congratulate Buffy and ask her to stay on the job, a pack of demons attack the site and Buffy must kill them. The demons melt when Buffy slays them and, when she has completely destroyed the site, the men claim that Buffy went berserk and destroyed the sight with no provocation. One of the men comments that it must be "that time of the month," suggesting that although Buffy may be physically strong, her feminine nature makes her mentally weak.

40 38 The camera shots during the scene where Buffy fights the demons are not clearly marked as being subjective, from Buffy's point of view. Therefore, the viewer cannot absolutely determine whether the demons were entirely Buffy's hallucination, or if the men were simply unable to see them. Additionally, although the viewer sees Buffy's fellow workers cowering in a comer, a logical reaction when someone appears to be having a violent episode, the men claim that this too was part of Buffy's hallucination. These uncertainties, which remain unresolved, undermine the viewer's ability to make sense of these events. This might have the effect of undermining his or her confidence in the coherence of a narrative which, as a fantasy show, already asks the viewer to put aside his or her usual sense of reality in order to identify with the fantastic plots. However, the viewer knows that Andrew's spell is responsible for the discrepancy between Buffy's perceptions and those of the men. Thus, it seems impossible to privilege either Buffy or the men's perceptions of what happened. Waugh explains that both reality and fiction are comprehended through frames that help to organize our experiences of these phenomena (30). According to Waugh, when a text blurs "ontological levels through the incorporation of visions, dreams, hallucinatory states and pictorial representations which are finally indistinct from the apparently 'real,"' this has the effect of calling into question the very possibility of arranging experience into categories of real and unreal (31 ). The viewer's inability to determine how much of what the camera has shown him or her of Andrew's test is a hallucination and how much is objective has such an effect. In trying to make sense of these events, one might come to the realization that the construction workers view Buffy as crazy not because they cannot see the demons that she is fighting, but because they are

41 39 predisposed to believing the gender-biased stereotype that women are frail. The viewer, who believes in Buffy's sanity (and accepts the fantastic premises of the series), is willing to entertain the possibility that Buffy did see demons that the men were unable to see. This blurring of the viewer's perceptions of reality clearly suggests that such perceptions are always shaped by social power structures. In the episode "Normal Again," the trio sets into motion events that not only disturb Buffy's sense ofreality, but also challenge the very feminist premise of the series and force the viewer to confront his or her role in creating meaning in BTVS. When Buffy is about to discover the nerds' lair and hold them accountable for their crimes, Andrew summons a demon to attack her. The demon pokes her with his skewer, injecting her with a poison which causes her to have an extended hallucination in which she is a schizophrenic in a mental hospital in Los Angeles. As the doctor explains to Buffy's parents, Doctor: She believes she's some type of hero. Joyce: The Slayer. Doctor: The Slayer, right. But that's only one level. She's also created an intricate latticework to support her primary delusion. In her mind, she's the central figure in a fantastic world beyond imagination. The convincing medical-sounding jargon used by the doctor to explain Buffy's condition challenges the audience's suspension of disbelief in the show itself. As a fantasy genre show, BTVS requires that the viewer suspend his belief in demons and vampires and imagine, along with the creators, a female superhero. The doctor challenges that suspension of disbelief by offering an explanation for the events of the

42 40 series that is consistent with the viewer's concept ofreality. In everyday life, a person who seriously claimed to fight vampires and demons probably would be diagnosed as schizophrenic. This episode further challenges the viewer's suspension of disbelief in the show by having the regular characters explicitly question the believability of their world. When Buffy explains to Xander that she is experiencing a hallucination in which Sunnydale is a construction of her imagination, Xander replies, "What? You think this isn't real because of all the vampires and demons and ex-vengeance demons and the sister that used to be a big ball of universe-destroying energy?" As he nears the end of this ramble, his face begins to register the knowledge that the world he has just described is fantastic and unbelievable. By mentioning Dawn's existence, Xander calls attention to one of the fantasy elements that most calls attention to the series' fictionality. Although the explanation of Dawn's creation is consistent with the rules of the fantasy, her presence still continues to call attention to that fantasy. For example, in "Dirty Girls" (7018) the character Faith, who has not appeared on the show since season three, returns to Sunnydale. She and Dawn recognize each other and refer to their shared experiences. The viewer understands that Faith and Dawn remember each other because the monks created false memories for Dawn and everyone who would have known her. However, the viewer still experiences a moment of alienation as he or she must essentially rewrite the show to accommodate Dawn's presence. When this show, which regularly presents supernatural phenomena as a normal occurrence, explicitly calls the existence of those phenomena into question, it also calls into question the notion that a blonde girl could be a hero. Buffy herself, convinced that

43 41 she really is schizophrenic, voices this concern: "What's more real? A sick girl in an institution, or some kind of super-girl chosen to fight demons and save the world? That's ridiculous!" This statement supports the patriarchal system of gender which naturalizes the construction of women as fragile and defective. In order to justify male power, it must seem more natural for a woman to be a victim than a hero. Joyce, upon being presented with the possibility that Buffy could recover from her schizophrenia asks, "You mean Buffy could be like she was before any of this happened?" If Buffy chooses the delusion rather than Sunnydale, she chooses to allow the little blonde girl from the horror movie to be reclaimed as a victim. "Normal Again" ultimately places with the viewer the responsibility for deciding whether or not to continue imagining Sunnydale and Buffy as the female hero as the reality of the show. Most episodes that present an alternate version of Sunnydale, such as "The Wish" (3009)7 and "Superstar" (4017), end back in the Sunnydale of the series, usually with Buffy and her friends enjoying a light-hearted conversation, reasserting the narrative order of the series. "Normal Again," however, ends in the delusion. Buffy does choose to reject the notion that Sunnydale does not exist and drinks the cure for her mystical hallucination, despite the fact that returning to Sunnydale means once again enduring the loss of her mother, who died one year earlier ("I Was Made to Love You" 5015). However, the camera then immediately cuts to a shot of Buffy slumped, catatonic, in a comer of the hospital ward. Her parents stand nearby, crying, as the doctor says, "I'm sorry, we lost her," reasserting the doubt in the series' premises which this hallucination has raised. 7 In this episode, Anya grants Cordelia's wish that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale. Cordelia finds, however, that a Buffy-less Sunnydale is overrun with demons, who kill everyone Buffy has managed to protect, including all of her friends.

44 42 By refusing to completely deny this delusion, the episode refuses to impose on the viewer a definitive answer as to whether the Buffy of Sunnydale or the schizophrenic is the "real" Buffy. The viewer, like Buffy, is forced to choose for him or herself. The series has openly acknowledged its own fictionality, but it has also demonstrated that the nerds' versions of the story, which emerge from their need to justify male power in the narrative, are equally untrue. The viewer will be embracing a fantasy no matter which choice he or she makes. Therefore, the viewer's choice rests ultimately less on whether Sunnydale or the hospital seems more realistic than on whether or not the viewer wants to believe in Buffy's power. The creators of the series cannot force this belief on the viewer. In fact, in order to enjoy and identify with the series, the viewer had to accept that fantasy before the narrative ever explicitly called it into question. Similarly, in everyday life, ending the oppression of disempowered groups may require believing in a world that seems to be beyond imagination. "I'm making it all up": Buffy as Storyteller The seventh season episode "Storyteller" revisits the related themes of reality, perception and power that the trio's narrative arc had raised. By the time of this episode, Andrew's character has become a regular guest on the show, thereby accomplishing his goal of occupying a central place in the series. After murdering Jonathan at the bidding of The First (an evil entity that can take the guise of any dead person it chooses-in this case, Warren), Andrew is taken hostage by the Scoobies, who want to prevent him from working for the First ("Conversations with Dead People" 7007, "Never Leave Me" 7009). No longer tied to a chair, Andrew has decided to make a documentary about the

45 43 upcoming battle that Buffy, the Scoobies and the potential Slayers will be fighting against the First and its operatives. The incongruity between the story presented by Andrew, as filmmaker, and that presented by the creators of the series again remind the viewer that there exists no such thing as objective reality. In the teaser sequence, the viewer sees Andrew, dressed in a smoking jacket, sitting in a chair on what appears to be the Masterpiece Theater set. He invites the viewer to join him in enjoying a story he calls "Buffy, Slayer of the Vampyres." Andrew's vision of his film is immediately undercut when the camera cuts to an image of him, still continuing the same narration, as he sits on the toilet seat in Buffy's bathroom and watches what he has filmed on his camcorder. Anya, annoyed that he has been hogging the bathroom in order to play with his video camera, asks, "Why can't you just masturbate like the rest of us?" This shift in scenery suggests two differing interpretations of what Andrew is doing. Andrew believes that he is making an important film, "a document for the ages," while the other characters see his film-making as masturbatory. They believe Andrew is wasting time, twisting reality into stories for his own amusement. Buffy quickly grows frustrated with Andrew's storytelling, claiming that he uses it as a means of escaping from reality. She accuses him of turning his past into a story, in which he cannot be held responsible for their actions because he was just playing his role in the drama. This accusation functions both as a playful acknowledgement that the viewer is watching a scripted drama, and as a serious reminder of the lessons of the previous season--that representations that naturalize certain power structures can justify and mask oppression. However, this episode reveals that each of the characters is a storyteller, shaping reality in his or her own way.

46 44 In one scene, Spike's vampire persona is revealed to be a performance. Spike is a bleached blonde punk who earned his nickname by torturing his victims with railroad spikes and wears a leather coat that he stole from a Slayer he killed in the seventies ("School Hard" 2003, "Fool For Love" 5008). One scene begins with Spike characteristically telling Andrew, who is filming him with his camcorder, to point the camera elsewhere unless he wants to have his throat ripped out. Andrew's voice is then heard telling Spike that because the light was behind him, they'll have to re-film the scene. Spike adjusts his position and launches into the same speech, which is now obviously rehearsed. Since Spike clearly enjoys posturing and playing the role of the vampire, the viewer is reminded that even personalities cannot be assumed to be natural. While Spike performs his role as vampire in order to fit into his expected place in the world, Buffy is revealed to be a storyteller, who uses language to shape the responses of her troops. Early in the episode, Andrew walks out of a room where Buffy is beginning to lecture the potential slayers, commenting to the audience that "her motivational speeches tend to get a bit dull." The subject of these speeches is returned to later in the episode when Buffy, in an effort to get Andrew to cry because his tears are needed to close the door to the Hellmouth, contradicts her earlier reassurances that everything will be okay. "I'm making it all up," she tells him, "Good people are going to die. And I don't like having to give a bunch of speeches about how everything is going to be okay when it isn't." As a leader, Buffy uses her power to shape her follower's interpretations of their experiences in order to motivate them and elicit the needed responses. This suggests that storytelling is a powerful form. Buffy can use speeches to motivate her troops; supposedly innocent films can justify and reinforce male power; and

47 45 the creators of BTVS can use stories to reshape the viewer's understanding of reality and to train him or her to recognize constructions that mask and justify oppression. The members of the Geek Trio of Buffy the Vampire Slayer function as metafictional characters who attempt to usurp Buffy's central position in the series. In so doing, these characters expose the ways in which the world of the narrative is constructed to support a vision of female autonomy and power. By presenting the trio's revisions of the narrative, the creators of BTVS reveal that reality, rather than being made up of objective facts, is constructed through representations that mask and justify the location of power with certain members of a society. Patricia Waugh writes that the hope of metafiction is that it will prepare readers to confront their world "with a new awareness of how the meanings and values of that world have been constructed and how, therefore, they can be challenged or changed" (34). By openly acknowledging the fictionality of BTVS 's fantastic premises and by challenging the viewer to continue to identify with the series' fantastic premises and with the vision of female power that the series presents, this narrative arc suggests, finally, that social oppression can be changed by those who are willing to imagine a radically different world than the one which they take for reality.

48 46 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode Guide Season One-Present Mutant Enemy Inc. with Kuzui Enterprises Inc./Sandollar Television Inc. 20th Century Fox PERFORMERS Buffy... Sarah Michelle Gellar Willow Alyson Hannigan Xander Nicholas Brendon Giles... Anthony Stewart Head Angel David Boreanaz Cordelia Charisma Carpenter Oz Seth Green Anya Emma Caulfield Spike James Marsters Riley Marc Blucas Dawn... Michelle Trachtenberg Tara... Amber Benson SEASON ONE (WB) Number I Air Date I Title I Writer I Director 1001 I 03/10/97 I Welcome to the Hellmouth I Joss Whedon I Charles Martin Smith 1002 I I The Harvest I Joss Whedon I John T. Kretchmer 1003 I 03/17197 I The Witch I Dana Reston I Stephen Cragg 1004 / 03/25/971 Teacher's Pet I David Greenwalt I Bruce Seth Green 1005 I 03/31197 I Never Kill a Boy on the First Date I Rob Des Hotel and Dean Batali I David Semel 1006 I 04/07197 I The Pack I Matt Kiener and Joe Reinkemeyer I Bruce Seth Green 1007 I 04/ 14/97 I Angel I David Greenwalt I Scott Brazil 1008 I 04/28/97 I I Robot, You Jane I Ashley Gable and Thomas A. Swyden I Stephen Posey 1009 / /The Puppet Show I Rob Des Hotel and Dean Batali I Ellen S. Pressman 1010 I [Nightmares I Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt I Bruce Seth Green 1011 / I Out of Mind, Out of Sight I Joss Whedon, Ashley Gable and Thomas A. Swyden I Reza Badiyi 1012 I I Prophecy Girl I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon SEASON TWO (WB) Number I Air Date I Title I Writer I Director 2001 I 09/15/97 I When She Was Bad I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon /22/97 /Some Assembly Required/ Ty King/ Bruce Seth Green 2003 / 09/29/97 I School Hard I David Greenwalt and Joss Whedon/ John T. Kretchmer

49 I 10/06/97 I Inca Mummy Girl I Matt Kiene and Joe Reinkemeyer I Ellen S. Pressman /13/97 I Reptile Boy I David Greenwalt I David Greenwalt /27/971 Halloween I Carl Ellsworth I Bruce Seth Green 2007 I 11/03/97 I Lie to Me I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon /10/971 The Dark Age I Rob des Hotel and Dean Batali I Bruce Seth Green /971 What's My Line? (1) I Howard Gordon and Marti Noxon I David Solomon /971 What's My Line? (2) I Marti Noxon I David Semel 2011 / 12/08/971 Ted I David Greenwalt and Joss Whedon I Bruce Seth Green 2012 I 01/12/98 I Bad Eggs I Marti Noxon I David Greenwalt 2013 I 01/19/981 Surprise I Marti Noxon I Michael Lange 2014 I 01/20/98 I Innocence I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon 2015 I 01/27/98 I Phases I Rob des Hotel and Dean Batali I Bruce Seth Green 2016 I 02/10/98 I Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered I Marti Noxon I James A. Contner 2017 I 02/24/98 I Passion I Ty King I Michael Gershman 2018 I 03/03/98 I Killed By Death I Rob des Hotel and Dean Batali I Deran Serafian 2019 I 04/28/98 I I Only Have Eyes for You I Marti Noxon I James Whitmore Jr I 05/05/98 I Go Fish I David Fury and Ellie Hampton I David Semel 2021 I 05/12/98 I Becoming (1) I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon 2022 I 05/19/98 I Becoming (2) I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon SEASON THREE (WB) Number I Air Date I Title I Writer I Director 3001 I 09/29/98 I Anne I Joss Whedon I Joss \\ibedon 3002 I 10/06/98 I Dead Man's Party I Marti Noxon I James Whitmore Jr /13/98 I Faith, Hope and Trick I David Greenwalt I James A Contner /20/98 I Beauty and the Beasts I Marti Noxon I James Whitmore Jr I 11/03/98 Homecoming I David Greenwalt I David Greenwalt /10/98 Band Candy I Jane Espenson I Michael Lange /17/98 Revelations I Douglas Petrie I James A Contner 3008 / 11/24/98 Lovers Walk I Dan Vebber I David Semel /08/98 The Wish I Marti Noxon/ David Greenwalt 3010 / 12115/98 Amends/ Joss Whedon/ Joss Whedon 3011 I 01/12/99 Gingerbread/ Jane Espenson I James Whitmore Jr / 01/19/99 Helpless/ David Fury/ James A. Contner 3013 I 01126/99 The Zeppo I Dan Vebber I James Whitmore Jr / 02/09/99 Bad Girls / Douglas Petrie I Michael Lange 3015 I 02116/99 Consequences/ Marti Noxon/ Michael Gershman 3016 I 02/23/99 Doppelgangland /Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon 3017 I 03/16/99 /Enemies I Douglas Petrie I David Grossman 3018 I 04/21/99 I Earshot I Jane Espenson I Regis Kimble /04/99 I Choices I David Fury I James A. Contner 3020 I 05111/99 I The Prom I Marti Noxon I David Solomon 3021 I 05/18/99 I Graduation Day (1) I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon

50 I 07/13/99 I Graduation Day (2) I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon SEASON FOUR (WB) Number I Air Date I Title I Writer I Director 4001 I 10/05/99 I The Freshman I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon /99 I Living Conditions I Marti Noxon I David Grossman 4003 I 10/19/99 I The Harsh Light of Day I Jane Espenson I James A. Contner 4004 J 10/26/99 I Fear, Itself I David Fury I Tucker Gates 4005 J 11102/99 I Beer Bad I Tracey Forbes I David Solomon /99 I Wild at Heart I Marti Noxon I David Grossman 4007 J 11/16/991 The Initiative I Douglas Petrie I James A. Contner 4008 I 11/23/99 I Pangs I Jane Espenson I Michael Lange 4009 J 11130/99 J Something Blue I Tracey Forbes I Nick Marek /14/99 I Hush I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon 4011 I 01118/00 I Doomed I Marti Noxon, David Fury and Jane Espenson I James A. Contner 4012 I 01125/00 I A New Man I Jane Espenson I Michael Gershman 4013 I 02/08/00 I The I in T earn f David Fury I James A. Contner 4014 I 02/15/00 I Goodbye Iowa I Marti Noxon I David Solomon 4015 I I This Year's Girl I Douglas Petrie I Michael Gershman 4016 I 02/29/00 I Who Are You? I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon 4017 I 04/04/00 I Superstar I Jane Espenson I David Grossman 4018 I 04/25/00 I Where the Wild Things Are I Tracey Forbes I David Solomon 4019 I I New Moon Rising I Marti Noxon I James A. Contner 4020 I I The Yoko Factor I Douglas Petrie I David Grossman 4021 I I Primeval I David Fury I James A. Contner 4022 I 05/23/00 I Restless I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon SEASON FIVE (WB) Number I Air Date I Title J Writer I Director 5001 I I Buffy vs. Dracula I Marti Noxon I David Solomon 5002 I 10/03/00 I Real Me I David Fury I David Grossman 5003 I 10/10/00 I The Replacement I Jane Espenson I James A. Contner /00 I Out of My Mind I Rebecca Rand Kirshner I David Grossman 5005 I 10/24/00 I No Place Like Home I Douglas Petrie I Nick Marek /00 I Family I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon /00 I Fool For Love I Douglas Petrie I Nick Marek /21/00 I Shadow I David Fury I Daniel Attias /00 I Listening to Fear I Rebecca Rand Kirshner I David Solomon /00 I Into the Woods I Marti Noxon I Marti Noxon 5011 I 01/09/01 I Triangle I Jane Espenson I Christopher Hibler /23/01 I Checkpoint I Jane Espenson and Douglas Petrie I Nick Marek 5013 I 02/06/01 I Blood Ties I Steven DeKnight I Michael Gershman 5014 I 02/13/01 I Crush I David Fury I Daniel Attias

51 I 02/20/01 I I Was Made to Love You I Jane Espenson I James A. Contner 5016 I 02/27/01!The Body I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon /17/01 I Forever I Marti Noxon I Marti Noxon /24/01 I Intervention I Jane Espenson I Michael Gershman /01/01 I Tough Love I Rebecca Rand Kirshner I David Grossman 5020 I 05/08/01 I Spiral I Steven DeKnight I James A. Contner 5021 I 05114/01 I The Weight of the World I Douglas Petrie I David Solomon /21101 I The Gift I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon SEASON SIX (UPN) Number I Air Date I Title I Writer I Director /02/01 I Bargaining (1) I Marti Noxon I David Grossman 6002 / 10/02/0l I Bargaining (2) I David Fury I David Grossman 6003 I 10/09/01 I After Life I Jane Espenson I David Solomon /16/01 /Flooded/ Douglas Petrie and Jane Espenson I Douglas Petrie /22/01 I Life Serial I David Fury and Jane Espenson I Nick Marek /30/01 I All the Way/ Steven S. DeKnight I David Solomon 6007 / 1 l/06/0l /Once More with Feeling I Joss Whedon I Joss Whedon 6008 / 1 l/13/01 I Tabula Rasa I Rebecca Rand Kirshner I David Grossman /20/01 I Smashed I Drew Z. Greenberg/ Turi Meyer 6010 / 11127/01 I Wrecked I Marti Noxon I David Solomon 6011 / 01 /08/02 / Gone / David Fury I David Fury 6012 / 01/29/02 I Doublemeat Palace/ Jane Espenson /Nick Marek 6013 / 02/05/02 I Dead Things/ Steven S. DeKnight I James A. Contner /02 /Older and Far Away I Drew Z. Greenberg I Michael E. Gershman 6015 I 02/26/02 I As You Were I Douglas Petrie I Douglas Petrie /05/02 I Hell's Bells I Rebecca Rand Kirshner I David Solomon 6017 I 03/12/02 I Normal Again I Diego Guttierez I Rick Rosenthal /30/02 I Entropy I Drew Z. Greenberg I James A. Contner /07/02 I Seeing Red I Steven S. DeKnight I Michael Gershman 6020 I 05/14/02 I Villains I Marti Noxon I David Solomon 6021 I 05/21102 I Two to Go I Douglas Petrie I Bill Norton 6022 I 05/21102 I Grave I David Fury I James A. Contner SEASON SEVEN (UPN) Number I Air Date I Title I Writer I Director 7001 I 09/24/02 I Lessons I Joss Whedon I David Solomon 7002 / 10/0l/02 I Beneath You I Douglas Petrie I Nick Marek 7003 I 10/08/02 I Same Time, Same Place I Jane Espenson I James A. Contner /02 I Help I Rebecca Rand Kirshner I Rick Rosenthal /22/02 I Selfless I Drew Goddard I David Solomon /02 I Him I Drew Z. Greenberg I Michael Gershman /12/021 Conversations with Dead People I Jane Espenson and Drew Goddard! Nick Marek