Keynote Address
Dr Catherine
Driscoll -
‘I’m like a superhero’: Buffy and Power
"Buffy’s
cultural attachments, romantic tensions, social obligations, and desire to be
herself, are all as much a part of the narratives about Buffy’s power as
superpowers, magic and evil villains. But how should we think about power in Buffy?
Drawing on diverse genres and with a critical self-reflexive view of its social
and historical place, the series offers up different understandings of what
power is. Buffy seems to be a kind of existential hero, but she is subject to
power and mediated by images of power just as clearly as she owns and uses it. Buffy
explores what power is, how it works, and how one should live in relation to
it. Buffy herself is a form of power, an object of power, a question about
power and its consequences or effects, and what allows and constrains different
practices and relations of power."
Dr
Driscoll examined the portrayal and representation of power in Buffy
through considering the extent to which Buffy as a character is, or is not,
‘divided’ between the two roles/identities of ‘Girl’ and ‘Slayer’. This tension
was examined through a number of episodes — "Anne" (episode 3.1);
"What’s My Line?" (2.9, 2.10); "Helpless" (3.12);
"Enemies" (3.17); "Who Are You?" (4.16);
and "Checkpoint" (5.12). Each of these contain
comments on both the girl/slayer dichotomy, and commentary on Buffy’s power. Dr
Driscoll’s conclusion was that Buffy exemplifies a Foucauldian
view of power, by which the flow of power is never only one way. As ‘Slayer’,
Buffy is almost all-powerful. However, the Slayer can die (although she is
replaced when dead), and the Slayer’s body can be affected by certain drugs
("Helpless") and spells ("Witch" (1.3)). In fact, Buffy
cannot actually be reduced to either ‘Slayer’ or ‘Girl’. In terms of the
television show, the Slayer must be a girl for the paradox of the show to work.
Yet at the same time, girl-as-slayer shows up the social expectations that make
a blonde Valley Girl beating up demons and staking Vampires a paradox. Particularly when the Freudian overtones of penetration/staking are
so obvious that even I can’t avoid them.
In
the course of the keynote address, Dr Driscoll made a few extra,
and highly interesting points. The first was a brief mention, during her
discussion of "Anne", of a standard interpretation of that episode as
an anti-Marxist critique. Dr Driscoll’s own opinion, particularly given Buffy’s
choice of weapons (a very hammer-and-sickle looking object) is that the
episode is more Marxist than the standard critique would allow. However, she
skated over the entire question, given that the Marxist/non-Marxist debate has
apparently been somewhat over-analysed in academic
circles. Secondly, during the discussion of "What’s My Line", she
referred briefly to an article by Boyd Tonkin on race in Buffy that I’m
going to have to chase up at some stage. The question of the homogeneity of Buffy
came up at a number of points during the day, and in the final session there
was a paper directly on the topic.
Finally,
there was an interesting interpretation of Buffy’s continually unsuccessful
relationships. As Dr Driscoll said, Buffy has shown a distinct preference for
‘demonically enhanced’ boyfriends (a fairly good definition that includes Riley
along with her two Vampire paramours). However, the ‘happy ending’ is endlessly
deferred, as winning the boy will destroy either him,
her, the world or all three. (I just love that phrase.) Dr Driscoll classified
each of the three key boyfriends as follows: Angel as Knowledge, Riley as
Enlightenment and Spike as Culture. She didn’t elaborate (which is the problem
with conferences, there are significant time constraints), and I’d like to
think it all over for a bit — so don’t complain to me that it makes no sense.
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