This amateurism and near valorisation of amateurism has a long history both in general and in the United States in particular. The US, for example, has a long tradition of anti-intellectual intellectualism stretching back to the anti-intellectual intellectualisms of old Europe and particularly England and to the rise of anti-intellectual Christianity in the US in the 18th century. Many right wing Christians, for instance, seem to have no problem with the fact that much if not most of their biblical interpretations are grounded in an almost total lack of historical knowledge and a lack of knowledge of the original languages of the Bible, the book they consider holy, though not holy enough to actually do more than amateur surface research on a book they consider to be the word of god. What is, of course, humorous and absurd about such interpretations is that even right wing Christians cannot agree on the message of the book they consider holy writ. Welcome to a world with multiple domains of blissdom.
Recently, while watching Buffy reaction videos on YouTube, I happened upon EvilQK's Buffy reactions. It wasn't EvilQK's amateurish "readings" of Buffy that drew my attention, however. It was some of the comments reacting to EvilQK's reaction videos on Buffy season one episodes. Many if not all of these, seemed at least to me, to be prime examples of what one might call fundamentalist or amateur approaches to Buffy, approaches that revel in a kind of anti-intellectual intellectual amateurism. Shadowman4710 and Roderick Hale, for instance, posted, in third person god like declarative sentences that are the common currency of amateur fanboy and fangirl reactors, that "Angel" (1:7) was the first really great episode of Buffy. Did they, however, cite any data that supported their "hypothesis"? Of course not. This is amateur hour after all and empirical data related to hypotheses seems totally unimportant to those locked into amateur fanboy and fangirl mode. And many wonder why so many fall for loopy conspiracy theory bullshite these days.
The poster I found most interesting on EvilQK's "Angel" reaction was Paul Knight. Knight, like posters on social media in general, plays in god like declarative sentences implying that only his perspective is the right one, an approach, of course, typically characteristic of fundamentalisms of all types whether Christian, Islamic, Jewish, and more recently, Hindu. Knight goes on to argue that season one of Buffy "sucks" (note the level of "critical" discourse here) and that it was, generally speaking, "lame" and "corny" (note the lack of scholarly definitional precision here). He tried to "prove" this hypothesis by citing audience viewing data. For Knight, season one of Buffy, because it drew smaller viewer audiences than season two, was of lesser artistic value to later seasons that drew greater numbers of viewers, relatively speaking.
Needless to say, anyone familiar with empirical and analytical approaches can find a lot to scratch one's head about when engaging Knight's discourse. First off, Knight, like others of his amateur ilk, fails to recognise the empirical fact that beauty is in the socialised eyes of the beholder. It is an empirical fact that some of those who watched Buffy actually "liked" season one of Buffy and that not every reactor was a fan of the episode "Angel". Many novice reactors, in fact, considered "The Witch" (1:2) to be one of their favourite if not their favoourite first season episodes of Buffy. To get personal, for a moment, I am a fan of "The Pack" (1:6) and "Nightmares" (1:10) and regard both as two of my favourite episodes of Buffy because of their emotional terror, Xander's monologue about not having to look at Willow's pasty face any more in the former and Buffy's father's horrific speech to Buffy in the latter. So, claiming that "Angel" is the first great episode of Buffy is rather problematic given that no evidence is provided to support such a claim and no evidence is given to indicate that the majority of Buffy viewers like "Angel" the best. Furthermore, the claim that Buffy is "lame" and "corny" fails to address the fact that Buffy was intentionally parodic and satiric (I assume this is some of what amateur reactors mean by "lame" and "corny", terms that are as anemically defined as that other favourite of the post baby boomers, "cheesy"), among other tonal things.
Second, Knight's attempt to argue that Buffy season one is "lame" and "corny" because fewer people watched it than in season two and season three ignores several facts, paramount among them the fact that quantity does not and never has been a synonym for quality. A show like Seventh Heaven, for instance, also, like Buffy, on the WB and, in fact, the show that the WB chose to go ahead with over Buffy. drew, by season two and particularly in seasons three and four, substantially more viewers than Buffy (for a variety of different reasons, of course) ever did. Does that mean that Seventh Heaven is superior to Buffy? It drew more viewers after all. I certainly wouldn't make that argument but then I am not a devotee of the commodity aestheticism that dominates so much American culture these days. Furthermore, Knight ignores the fact that Buffy was a mid-season replacement on the WB, hence the twelve episode season one order and no promise of renewal from the netlet. Given that mid-season replacements usually take time to build momentum and increase viewership in the American television landscape at the time (this is now almost passe even at HBO, the network that sold itself by being different), the lower viewing numbers for season one compared to later seasons, though Buffy viewing numbers were akin to the capitalist economy with booms and busts over seven seasons, are understandable.
Finally, there is the issue of whether Knight understands classical narrative styles, of which Buffy is an example. The fact of the matter is that Buffy season one sets the template for the rest of the seasons of Buffy. In this it is like Lev Tolstoy's classic for a reason Anna Karenina where the early chapters of the book set the template for the narrative, plot, and character developments to come and are, as a consequence, essential to the reader if he or she is to fully grasp the essence of that book. Like Anna, Buffy season one gives us characters who develop over the course of the season and of the show. It gives us the colour scheme that will dominate the show. It gives us the first big bad of the show. It gives us the mise-en-scene that will dominate the show at least through season three. It gives us the tonal complexity that will characterise the show including comedy, drama, tragedy, satire, parody, melodrama, and emotional and other horrors. It is, by the way, this tonal complexity that, I would argue, makes Buffy one of the most interesting television shows ever made. And it gives us the attention to detail and continuity that makes Buffy one of, in my mind, aesthetically successful television shows ever made, something that differentiates Buffy from earlier shows that ultimately (particularly for commercial reasons; both of these cult shows became mainstream and this negatively impacted narrative continuity) were characterised more by discontinuity than continuity, shows like Twin Peaks and The X-files.
I am sure none of these criticisms will be relevant to the amateurs with their uncritical and unreflective fetishisations and universalisations who populate and dominate the landscape of social media these days. it is, however, relevant, to those of us who seek to understand and fully grasp the human comedy, farce, tragedy, and drama in all of its absurdity.
No comments:
Post a Comment