Buffy Goes Dark

[Mark]

There is a grey area between the visionary and the end result that includes a lot of creative touches and busy work. In more modern creations, much can be done with electronics that might have once been handled by human beings. One wonders where artist ends and final creation begins.

 

[el-remmen]

RougeRogue,

So I read the article about "The Wish" and "Dopplegangland" - great stuff! I need to look at it again, b/c in the intervening time my home computer died and I was dealing with stuff like finishing my thesis and entering grades for my class, etc. . . But there were things I wanted to directly address that now escape me (though perhaps there might be a better forum for this discussion). However, two things I do recall is, 1) you have the academic voice down, which is simultaneously impressive and off-putting. Personally, I do my best to avoid writing that way - though it might just be that I am incapable of it. And 2) I would have spent more time "with the text" so to speak - examining specific scenes and/or pieces of dialogue in detailed ways to explore some of the ideas in your essay.

I shall take a look again and this time make some notes. Of course, the things that stick out to me now are things that I am critical of, when while I was reading it there was plenty I liked - I am such a negative nelly!


On a slightly related note, over the weekend I caught most of Dragonslayer (remember the old Disney film?) and realized that I must write a paper about the queer aspects of the film, what with the romance between the androgynous Peter MacNicol and the boyish girl pretending to be a girlish boy to avoid the lottery to be sacrificed to the dragon. I love anything with confused and slipping gender roles.

 

[Mark]

On a slightly related note, over the weekend I caught most of Dragonslayer (remember the old Disney film?) and realized that I must write a paper about the queer aspects of the film, what with the romance between the androgynous Peter MacNicol and the boyish girl pretending to be a girlish boy to avoid the lottery to be sacrificed to the dragon. I love anything with confused and slipping gender roles.

There are probably a number of points to be made regarding class and how the two fathers protect their daughters that then lead to the disparate ways in which the daughters have to deal with their own gender.

 

[roguerouge]

I'd love to hear it!

As far as spending more time with the text, I think you're right that I tend to refer and interpret a touch more than dwelling in the moment. Were there particular sections where you were looking for more?

In some ways that was a transitional piece. The one in the issue prior to that (on opening title sequences) was mostly written after the Wish one was written. You can get that approach in spades there! I think that's my favorite piece of writing thus far.

 

[roguerouge]

Also, Buffy Goes Dark is seemingly going to be one of the McFarland's first e-books. I'm not entirely sure what that means or where you get them, but the editors seem excited by this development. Can anyone enlighten me?

 

[Amellia]

It was about Jane Espenson approach as a writer. It looked at continuities in her writing for Whedon and for other shows (Gilmore Girls, BSG, Tru Calling, and others). In short, it tries to define what an "Espensode" is based on a close reading of her scripts in various shows.

More broadly, the implication was that if we can think of a staff writer (who doesn't direct) as an auteur, then we need to rethink the primacy of the "Created By" credit in assigning authorship to a TV series and start to think of what it means to the medium's art history if television is truly communally authored.

Eeee! Jane Espenson is one of my favorite TV writers. She was the first person where I actually started noticing her name in the credits as being attached to some of my favorite episodes of Buffy (I was a real youngun at the time) and I went quite fangirl about her!

Congratulations on the publication!

 

[roguerouge]

If you still like her, check out her blog on writing, Jane In Progress.