Fear of the future

[gwyn]

So, I've been thinking a lot about the ending of Buffy, and how I feel about it, and what it means to me as a fan, and as a fan writer and vidder, and it's giving me the blues in a big way. I totally understand SMG's feelings about leaving while they're doing good work; it always bothered me that the press focused so much on her movie career, when she'd said repeatedly that she didn't want the show to go out like Ally McBeal, which started at the same time they did, or drag out like the X-Files, and while I share those sentiments, I guess I'm just not ready to go there yet. Possibly because we at least got some serious romance with Angel for three years, not to mention one lovely episode of his own show; we Spuffy fans will probably never get anything like that now with the show ending. It will have been the harshness of last year, and then only the tiniest of crumbs this year. Which would be okay in some respects, but there's this underlying feeling of "could have been more" that I keep hearing scratching at the back of my brain.

Some of this is the depresso feeling that I won't really have anything fannish to focus on and that my connections here on LJ and on lists will be lost. The ending of a show doesn't necessarily mean the ending of a fandom; I'm involved still in writing and vidding for a show that's been dead for a few years now, and I'm the kind of person who never really leaves a fandom, even if I run out of story ideas or whatnot. But I think a lot of what a currently airing show does is to provide new ideas and new places to take things like fanfic and certainly to take vids; without that impetus, people often drift away to the next big thing, or, for folks where this is the only show they've ever been fannish about, they leave entirely after a time. People definitely stick around in smaller groups, but I can't help wondering if all my connections will be severed -- the main reason I started this page wasn't for personal reasons but to review episodes, write essays, do little movie reviews, but all of the shows I wanted to review will now be gone.

I was startled when people friended me here -- I'd never expected it, because of not cutting away spoilers and I knew I was stepping outside the traditional bounds of the LJ expectations, and also, I'm about as nobody as you can get, and yet people friended me anyway of their own accord (I'm not worthy!) or they friended me back when I friended them (so misguided!). And so suddenly I felt like I was in the Buffy community, and it had been a long time since I'd felt like part of a fan community. I had pretty much gafiated completely -- I still wrote sometimes, and vidded a lot, but I was on only one small list, participated in nothing, and just wanted to stay the hell away from fandom. It was really after the musical last year that I went, "you know, I like what's happening with Buffy and Spike, and I think I want to participate again." And then Crumbling Walls came along, I joined some lists, but mostly, I started doing these goofy reviews and kept posting stories, and suddenly I was a fan again, and having so much fun that I felt like a newbie all over. And the show ending makes me feel like that is going to go away -- no more analyzing or dissecting to do, no more new directions for the show that I can mine for fanfic, and possibly no more reason to keep this LJ.

Certainly all the shows except Angel are gone that I wanted to write about and that connected me to most of the friends I have here; Firefly was the one I hoped for as a replacement for Buffy (and suddenly, I hate UPN even more for turning down Firefly now they've lost Buffy and no continuation with Faith; don't they look stupid for not taking something they could have at least tried to make into a franchise). And I don't know how long Angel has to go, and I've never felt as qualified to talk much about it because it's always been a secondary interest for me. Buffy I could talk about for days, Angel I am often baffled by (hating two major characters makes loving a show harder). This year was one of the most fannishly happy I'd had in a long time, only now everything's gone except Without a Trace, and that's not the kind of show you can really analyze and dissect because it's plot-driven rather than character-driven.

I still love Alias and Gilmore Girls, and there's 24 and The Shield (for a short time), but none of them drive me to write and vid as Buffy has. Otherwise, there's the little forced death march of shows I loved this year and thought could be serious fannish interests -- MDs, Firefly, Birds of Prey, Robbery Homicide Division; Veritas is already gone, Miracles probably soon. I'm a fan, it's who I am, and I'll always be one, so I feel cast adrift when I don't have a fannish obsession. Maybe it's time for me to look at boy bands. ;-) Buffy hit a cord with me from the beginning; from the movie, actually, and it's never stopped being my main focus -- for a brief halcyon time, it was on the same night as La Femme Nikita, and it was the best tv time ever for me. I need that jolt of having a show to look forward to, of being excited to see something and analyzing it to death in between weeks; I also fear that the sense of community I have here and on lists will dissipate a lot and that adds to my sadness.

I wasn't excited about the prospect of Faith taking over, but I was willing to at least see how it went; mostly because I just wasn't ready to let the show go. I wonder how precarious Angel is right now, and whether it really will come back next year -- I haven't seen anything definite yet. But at the same time, I dreaded the concept of Buffy continuing like that, or Angel just floundering around moving from night to night. I was an XF fan through to the whole bitter, bitter end, and it was the most painful lingering death ever. The show ended back in 6th season, but stayed through two more years, and that was just wrong, wrong, wrong. There were a few good episodes when Doggett came along, but for the most part it was like watching a slow amputation; you just had to turn away and cover your ears from the screaming. The idea of that happening to Buffy is too horrid to think, so I guess I'm relieved in some ways that it can't happen now. (And a tangential aside: I was glad to see SMG finally discuss publicly with a reputable journalistic source about her dissatisfaction with last season. Fans have been gossiping about it so long, and I'm glad it's out in the open; it always bugged me that Marti and Joss insisted it's how all young adults come into adulthood, but I was like, no, it's not. I didn't act that despicably -- my friends didn't. It's about time that she's had the chance to discuss how much that disappointed her.) Only, I'm not ready to let it die, either, so the conflict is that it stay on life support until I'm ready to say pull the plug... which may be never, because I'm feeling like such a big baby. I want a good shooooowwwww. Gimme a good shooowwww....

And that's the stupid thing -- It's a show for crying out loud! And yet I have all this emotional investment in it, in this community I've joined here, and I see that going away at a time when my work is so depressing I can hardly bear to get up in the morning, when my future looks really dark... so I focus all my energy and affection on a show. I don't know how successful all the rest of the show's cast and crew will be -- I have to agree with herself_nyc that SMG will never have the big movie career that so few actresses have but that most dream of, she'll never really have an opportunity like this show again. I like her much more than most fans, but she's not the kind of powerhouse who can open movies past a teen audience, and that can't last long as she gets older. And I wonder about the others most of all -- especially JM, and what's in store for him. People talk about a Spike spinoff, but that would just be... weird, to me, because much as I worship JM, he's starting to show his age, as DB is on Angel, and these guys are supposed to be immortal vampires who are looking entirely too mortal. You'd have to change the characters so much to accommodate that, and then... where's the fun? If anyone could pull it off, Joss could, but I don't know how excited I am at that prospect, and I wonder, too, if Joss is now tainted by all of this.

Bleh. I know I have a couple more months to have fun in, so I should stop this. I'm in what I used to call a Sunday mood -- my friend, when I was in high school, would waste her entire Sunday moping and being miserable because she had to go to school the next day, so she only enjoyed half her weekend. I chided her that it was asinine to do that, but I'm in a May mood now -- anticipating the end before it happens, anticipating the end of this community and my reason for even being here or on lists, when it hasn't happened yet. How dumb is that? Well, pretty dumb. I feel like I should be doodling on a Pee-Chee "Buffy 4 ever" or something.

Comments

La Femme Nikita

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

hey let's add to the mix that San Jose has seem to have lost the Oxygen channel which showed LFN from our cable line-up. I just have to have faith that there will be more shows "someday". Either that or I am stuck with Dr. Phil reruns.

"Somedaaay, over the rainbow..."

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

Hey, would you mind sharing the link to her interview re S6?

I agree that most young adults don't come of age so horribly, but then again, most of us don't get sucked out of Heaven, either. I was one of the few who truly loved S6, so I'd really like to see a truthful insider's perspective.

Thanks!

Entertainment Weekly article

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nepthys_/]

Haven't seen any transcripts of the article yet, but you can download scans of it here (http://www.smgboard.com/iboard/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=4493). There are some very nice pictures of SMG in the article, along with one of Dave and Eliza. :)

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen, I expect that Eliza D. will have a better movie career than SMG. She seems to be in better films so far, if smaller roles. Which makes me a it sad for SMG, because she does good dramatic acting on Buffy. But she needs to find better films. She has enough money; she should start looking for quality again, not quantity.

Re: Entertainment Weekly article

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

God, she's beautiful.

Is it me, or does she come across as a serious B/A shipper??

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that someone else could post a link -- I have a subscription to the magazine, so had read the article in print. It sits there on my coffee table, big head screaming Buffy Quits! and makes me constantly depressed. Wah.

Anyways -- I totally agree that being pulled out of heaven's a good excuse to behave badly. I think what bothered me most last year was the constant repetition by Marti and Joss (especially Marti) that all young people behave as Buffy was behaving when they become adults, that it was part of becoming an adult. They kept forgetting that it was a resurrection against her will, being torn out of heaven, that was mostly to blame for her behavior. If they'd made the excuse about heaven, I could see it -- almost. But that they insisted it was part of becoming adult, I couldn't jump on the bandwagon. Obviously people's mileage varied from mine, but it was something that always bothered me.

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

I blame Marti for all of it.

I read an interview once with SMG about S4. She was talking about the whole sleeping with Parker thing, and said that when she read the script, she started to cry. She went to Joss and said, "look, Buffy wouldn't DO this." And they talked about it, and Joss explained to her why he did it. He wanted to make it clear that she thought she was grown up, moving on, over Angel, etc., but that she was *wrong*.

There had actually been a line in the shooting script when Buffy was telling Willow about it, after Parker had dumped her, where she says "the whole time I was with him, I kept thinking 'look how I'm over Angel! Look how this is so *not* about Angel!'. The line was cut, but the *vibe* remained. Buffy did a dumb thing, Buffy paid dues, Buffy moved on. By the time she met Riley she was way less wimpy and depressed. Joss explained where it was gonna go, and SMG agreed.

Marti is either totally unaware or totally doesn't give a *fuck* about character continuity. She writes to Prove something, and usually it is way too personal a something for my taste. I think TWOP put it best:

The dreaded Martiphor. Could someone please get this woman some rape-crisis counseling? I'm sick and tired of being subjected to week after week of her working out her screwed-up sexual assault issues. What kind of freak is she that she would think it's an okay message to send that Buffy is attracted to the man who tried to rape her? Why does the Slayer's power, arguably the greatest physical power that a female in the Buffyverse can aspire to, have to be rooted in the act of rape? Why?

It overshadowed the whole season, which *could* have been about a woman who died too young, but finally found peace, getting ripped out of the only peace she ever had by the selfishness of her freinds, but *learning to cope with it*. The yearning for Heaven was never going to go away. But why Marti had to replace the Heaven metaphor (where Heaven is being a child, having people take care of you, vs. being forced to be an adult and care for everyone else before one is really ready - and who among us can say we were ever really *ready* for adulthood!?) with her crack addict rape shit, I have no idea.

I liked S6. I love darkness. But it was a waste of potential. And I don't blame SMG for being pissed.

Wow. /End rant! lol

[caille.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Eliza does seem to have a firmer foothold outside of television. SMG has been limited by television commitments. Also, some unfortunate choices. "Simply Irresistable" was all but unwatchable. I remember reading somewhere that after that, she wondered if she'd ever work again. I don't care much about the Scooby Doo films. Every star has something like that, if he or she is working regularly. I mean, "Charlie's Angels"? Not so different. And Paltrow has "Shallow Hal"; Diaz has "The Sweetest Thing".

SMG was also in "The Harvard Man", an independent film by James Toback. I watched for it in theaters, but I think it went straight to video, because it popped up at my local video store. (Not a chain store; I think the chain stores probably wouldn't bother stocking it.) SMG was entertaining as "Cindy Bandolini", a spoiled, wanton Mafia princess. But the film itself sucked. It was so self-indulgent, like a vanity piece for Toback.

It's weird, really. I think Sandra Bullock is very appealing, but she hasn't made a quality film in forever. Emma Caulfield is a better actor, and now she has "Darkness Falls" on her bio. Lots of times I know that what ends up on the screen is a whole different film than (a) the actor signed up for, or (b) the actor recalls filming. I read an interview with Emma recently (and I cannot find a link) and she was very diplomatic, but I could read between the lines: it turned out way different. I think she felt that the original screenplay had some integrity. But on rottentomatoes.com, "Darkness Falls" only got something like a 7% approval rating.

What I'd love to see is SMG - amassing her fortune via BtVS and the Scooby movies - associating with Amber Benson, and the two of them producing some cool independent work. Amber and Joss collaborating on a screenplay, and a cast of our best beloveds...I'm so there.

Fear of the Future

[(Anonymous)]

I was particularly struck by your post here. Ever since it became clear that Buffy would be ending this year, I've had a strange sense of restlessness and anxiety that finally turned into hyper-mourning. It was your post here that made me realize how I felt. I had been in fuzzy denial. My hyper-mourning has taken the form of a sort of fugue state: I constantly wander the Web looking for Buffy things to stuff into my mind and to take my mind of the impending end. I read journals, boards, and fanfic. I've read over 500 fanfics since June.

And it was only since June that I became aware of the large on-line Buffy community. I feel like I have come to the party very late and the band is now playing the last number I never even got to dance.

At the same time this on-line community has been my life line. None of my face-to-face friends shares my obssession with the show. It has only been in venues like here and the forums that I have met kindred spirits.

Reading your LJ has particularly made me feel better about it all. I'm not alone in my mourning and my mixed feelings about the show.

Well, we still have Angel, at least for now. And maybe there will be a spin-off.

This has almost turned into a rant or a whinging. I should probably get my own LJ instead of mooching your space here.

I hope that our community stays together after Buffy. I hope my interest persists, but human nature being what it is, the interest will probably wane. My obsession with BtVS has far exceeded my previous obsessions - Star Trek, Forever Knight, La Femme Nikita, Babylon Five, etc. Regardless of how the series ends it will probably provide a lot of fodder for fanfics, AU or otherwise.

Re: Fear of the Future

[(Anonymous)]

Forgot to sign my above comment - Diane

Re: Fear of the Future

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

No, you're not mooching! I actually wish more non-LJ people posted on pages, because I think it would encourage more discussion. So I'm really glad you stopped by. I was also heavy into LFN, and I know the fandom is still alive and people still do post, especially over the reruns on Oxygen. So Buffy will still have a life, there's no doubt. But fans are restless types, they move around a lot. I think that's it for me in some ways -- I wanted to stay put for a while.

But I'm going to wait and see, and not try to end it before it ends.