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A Report on Woodstake, the Slayage Conference on Buffy - Day 1
I went to Nashville with some apprehension on attending an academic conference on my beloved Buffy. Would she be analyzed to death? Made dry and crumbly? But I was quickly won over by my fellow conferees, presentors and spectators like me .
David Bianculli was the first keynote speaker on Friday morning. His “paper” (he spoke from notes, saying that he wrote for a living and wasn’t going to write for this) was his confessions as a Buffyholic. David is a TV critic for the New York Daily News and also appears on the NPR show, Fresh Airs. David had some clips from the show, and it was obvious from the audience reaction that he could not show but a few frames before the audience would name the episode. Of course, the audience also got all of the jokes. An amazing thing when 300 Buffy fans watch Buffy clips together. It would be wonderful to have theatrical showings of episodes with such a gathering.
After the keynote address, the conference broke down into 7 panels, each in a different location, for each of the next four sessions for the day. 28 panels in just one day. Amazing. Of course, no one could really attend more than 4 of those panels unless imitating a butterfly and flitting from one to another.
I stayed in the main conference room for the discussion by Michael Adams, author of Slayer Slang, whose topic was Once More With Feeling/Give Me Something to Sing About: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the death of style. Michael’s thesis was that the episode Once More with Feeling marked the end of the use of style, by which he meant the verbal quipy and slangy speech so typical of Buffy. People without power must often use such style to stand up for themselves, but after OMWF, the scoobies had the power, so the sylish language was not important. Or the matters were too important to quip about. In a later panel, one of the participants noted that Buffy began to quip again after she realized that they could win the battle against the First. So another thought is that, for most of seasons 6 & 7, there wasn’t much to quip about. Perhaps the song should have been called Give Me Something to Quip About instead.
I then went to a panel on Family Relationships in Buffy. Needless to say, the family relationships in Buffy are mostly disfunctional. Perhaps the most telling paper was one on maternal relationships as negative space. by Colbey Emmerson of the U. of Washington, which had been originally titled Mummy Possessed: the Horror of Motherly Love in BtVS. Just think of Gingerbread. Much discussion of the contrast between Joyce and Willow’s mom, who couldn’t even notice that Willow had cut her hair.
As a lawyer, I had to go to the panel on the Law. The first paper had a great title, If a Vampire bites a Lawyer, is it Cannibalism: The demonization of lawyers in Angel, by Sharon Sutherland and Sarah Swan of the U of British Columbia. The second paper was on Images of Law in BtVS by Anthony Bradney of the U. of Leicaster, England, which provoked quite a lively discussion, proving that lawyers can go on and on and act if demonically possessed.
My final panel for the day was the panel on Power. The papers were You’re On My Campus Now, Buddy: Sovereign and Disciplinary Power at Sunnydale High by Michele Paula and Saura Davison of Oxford Brookes U., and Buffy and It’s Religious Consequences in Germany: Slayage, Teenageers and Supernatural Powerwomen by Oliver Kruger (Universitat Heidelberg)
The first paper discussed styles of discipline in schools as illustrated by the various principals at Sunnydale, including the nature and source of the power to discipline. A discussion very relevant to currant debates about learning and discipline in schools today. As we know, touchy-feely, but somewhat distant Principal Flutie got eaten up by the students. Dictatorial tyrant Principal Snyder got eaten up by the Mayor, and Principal Wood, the only one not to get eaten, perhaps illustrated the most effective method of dealing with student discipline. An interesting observation, student teachers in the UK are apparantly often told that, if they don’t keep control of the students, the students will eat them up alive, shades of Principal Flutie
The second paper dealt with the rise of Wicca and similar practices in Germany as a result of the showing of Buffy in that country, at least in the sense that young Germans were drawn to ideas more in accord with the Buffy version of Wicca as opposed to the more traditional ideas and practices of Wicca prior to Buffy.
The day concluded with the Slayage Banquet, which featured a very good banquet dinner, a presentation by Nancy Holder, who has helped write the Watcher’s Guides and has written many Buffy novels, about her experiences as a Buffy writer, complete with stories about her visits to the set when working on the Watcher’s Guide, and the presentation of the Mr. Pointy Award for book length work - the Long Mr. Pointy.
Then, the 200 + people in the banquet joined in a lively and quite good sing-along of the entire Once More With Feeling music, except for some reason the Mustard song. David Fury would have been very disappointed had he been there. People just kept singing songs from the show long after the banquet proper ended. It was an amazing experience.
All in all, a full and fun day with Buffy.
I went to Nashville with some apprehension on attending an academic conference on my beloved Buffy. Would she be analyzed to death? Made dry and crumbly? But I was quickly won over by my fellow conferees, presentors and spectators like me .
David Bianculli was the first keynote speaker on Friday morning. His “paper” (he spoke from notes, saying that he wrote for a living and wasn’t going to write for this) was his confessions as a Buffyholic. David is a TV critic for the New York Daily News and also appears on the NPR show, Fresh Airs. David had some clips from the show, and it was obvious from the audience reaction that he could not show but a few frames before the audience would name the episode. Of course, the audience also got all of the jokes. An amazing thing when 300 Buffy fans watch Buffy clips together. It would be wonderful to have theatrical showings of episodes with such a gathering.
After the keynote address, the conference broke down into 7 panels, each in a different location, for each of the next four sessions for the day. 28 panels in just one day. Amazing. Of course, no one could really attend more than 4 of those panels unless imitating a butterfly and flitting from one to another.
I stayed in the main conference room for the discussion by Michael Adams, author of Slayer Slang, whose topic was Once More With Feeling/Give Me Something to Sing About: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the death of style. Michael’s thesis was that the episode Once More with Feeling marked the end of the use of style, by which he meant the verbal quipy and slangy speech so typical of Buffy. People without power must often use such style to stand up for themselves, but after OMWF, the scoobies had the power, so the sylish language was not important. Or the matters were too important to quip about. In a later panel, one of the participants noted that Buffy began to quip again after she realized that they could win the battle against the First. So another thought is that, for most of seasons 6 & 7, there wasn’t much to quip about. Perhaps the song should have been called Give Me Something to Quip About instead.
I then went to a panel on Family Relationships in Buffy. Needless to say, the family relationships in Buffy are mostly disfunctional. Perhaps the most telling paper was one on maternal relationships as negative space. by Colbey Emmerson of the U. of Washington, which had been originally titled Mummy Possessed: the Horror of Motherly Love in BtVS. Just think of Gingerbread. Much discussion of the contrast between Joyce and Willow’s mom, who couldn’t even notice that Willow had cut her hair.
As a lawyer, I had to go to the panel on the Law. The first paper had a great title, If a Vampire bites a Lawyer, is it Cannibalism: The demonization of lawyers in Angel, by Sharon Sutherland and Sarah Swan of the U of British Columbia. The second paper was on Images of Law in BtVS by Anthony Bradney of the U. of Leicaster, England, which provoked quite a lively discussion, proving that lawyers can go on and on and act if demonically possessed.
My final panel for the day was the panel on Power. The papers were You’re On My Campus Now, Buddy: Sovereign and Disciplinary Power at Sunnydale High by Michele Paula and Saura Davison of Oxford Brookes U., and Buffy and It’s Religious Consequences in Germany: Slayage, Teenageers and Supernatural Powerwomen by Oliver Kruger (Universitat Heidelberg)
The first paper discussed styles of discipline in schools as illustrated by the various principals at Sunnydale, including the nature and source of the power to discipline. A discussion very relevant to currant debates about learning and discipline in schools today. As we know, touchy-feely, but somewhat distant Principal Flutie got eaten up by the students. Dictatorial tyrant Principal Snyder got eaten up by the Mayor, and Principal Wood, the only one not to get eaten, perhaps illustrated the most effective method of dealing with student discipline. An interesting observation, student teachers in the UK are apparantly often told that, if they don’t keep control of the students, the students will eat them up alive, shades of Principal Flutie
The second paper dealt with the rise of Wicca and similar practices in Germany as a result of the showing of Buffy in that country, at least in the sense that young Germans were drawn to ideas more in accord with the Buffy version of Wicca as opposed to the more traditional ideas and practices of Wicca prior to Buffy.
The day concluded with the Slayage Banquet, which featured a very good banquet dinner, a presentation by Nancy Holder, who has helped write the Watcher’s Guides and has written many Buffy novels, about her experiences as a Buffy writer, complete with stories about her visits to the set when working on the Watcher’s Guide, and the presentation of the Mr. Pointy Award for book length work - the Long Mr. Pointy.
Then, the 200 + people in the banquet joined in a lively and quite good sing-along of the entire Once More With Feeling music, except for some reason the Mustard song. David Fury would have been very disappointed had he been there. People just kept singing songs from the show long after the banquet proper ended. It was an amazing experience.
All in all, a full and fun day with Buffy.
