Buffy The Vampire Slayer

COLLEGE. Joss Whedon’s praised for his depiction of high school, but continues to be ignored for the way he depicted college. There are reasons people overlook the college years of Buffy. The college setting lasts less than a season. After "Hush," the focus is directed on The Initiative, thus the fun college stories disappear. The few episodes dedicated to depicting a college setting were quite good and entertaining and very true to the college experience.

Buffy’s "The Freshman" seems like a timely episode for the middle of August. College campuses will be full of stupid 18 year olds in less than two weeks. Perhaps the young guys and girls think their college experience will be exactly like the wild college party movies Hollywood loves to churn out. Everyone has their own idea of college. Universities mail out pamphlets to incoming students. The pamphlets are full of tips for adapting to college life, finding time to study, being healthy, alcohol awareness, etc. Buffy didn’t receive any of these pamphlets evidently. Buffy hasn’t even scheduled her classes when the episode opens, a night before first classes. Buffy’s not prepared for college.

Whedon succeeds in portraying three different emotions about one’s entry into college. Buffy is overwhelmed by the size of the campus, the people, and the classes. Willow is excited about the size of the campus, the people, and the classes. Oz feels normal about the size of the campus, the people, and the classes. My university sent out a pamphlet advising parents to encourage their son or daughter to stay in a dorm for a month so as to adapt. Buffy goes home within three days of starting school, having already been kicked out of a class and publicly insulted by a professor of pop culture. Buffy’s feelings are the most relatable. Some people are like Willow and Oz, but many feel the way Buffy feels. I attended community college for two years after high school and moved into a university dorm my third year and it took time for me to adjust and adapt to the university lifestyle. Of course, I moved into a chaotic floor in a run-down dormitory. The building didn’t last a year after I arrived. Now, my old college is populated with state-of-the-art apartment complexes and dormitories. I would’ve adjusted more quickly if my entire floor didn’t sound like the Philadelphia Zoo.

The first act revolves around Buffy’s difficult transition from high school to college. She misses the library and the old gang. Sunnydale High and the neighboring streets were familiar, the cemetery was familiar, the vampires and demons were familiar. Buffy fit in well, had her friends and Giles by her side always, but now Willow and Oz are doing their own thing on campus, Xander is on a cross country journey, and Giles is a gentleman-of-leisure with a lady friend sharing his flat. Buffy can’t even find the hall where she’s supposed to get her ID card, let alone feel comfortable in her new home. Buffy’s so out of place she becomes ’Willow’s friend.’ Riley forgets her name and existence almost immediately. As Buffy walks the campus, she’s handed flyer after flyer for churches, frat parties, and activism. Buffy watches angry liberals protest something because angry liberals always protest something on college campuses. I couldn’t walk from building to building without being handed a flyer about a feminist bake sale in which men were charged more for baked goods than women because of inequality in the workplace.

All of the images and flyers, and the sense of confusion of the first act, is pitch-perfect. Joss Whedon plants the audience back into those days and makes the experience seem as scary as high school. College isn’t always scary, though, not like high school. Buffy’s campus walk shows a wide variety of interests and causes. College is a new world. College is a better world. Buffy doesn’t learn this until the end of the episode, but Willow knows these truths. Willow was the outcast in high school; in college, she’s confident and comfortable. College feels like home in a way Sunnydale never did. Girls picked on her for dressing different, wearing her hair long, and looking like a loser. A common narrative of college is that the experience allows people to be who they truly are or want to be. Joss embraces the idea. Buffy’s struggle can be overcome, but she does struggle.

Buffy’s always most vulnerable when she lacks confidence or feels as if she’s lost her core. Sunday, the vampire villain of the week, is an uninspired character who’s Spike-lite and not much more than a mean girl. Sunday and her vampire friends kidnap and kill freshmen, take every item from the victim’s room and leave a note that makes it seem like the student couldn’t handle school and fled. Sunday’s a threat to Buffy because Buffy’s vulnerable and overwhelmed by her first week in college. Sunday throws the slayer off with an insult about her wardrobe. Buffy learns about Sunday after a new friend disappears. Buffy’s plea to Giles to assemble the old gang falls on deaf ears. Buffy’s left alone to beat Sunday and her friends. Her low point occurs when she flees from Sunday.

Alone and sad, Buffy returns to The Bronze where she runs into Xander, the heart of the Scoobies. Xander’s tale of cross country adventure is sad and anti-climatic; he neither went cross-country nor left the state of California and now finds himself living in his parents’ basement paying rent. Xander stayed away from his friends because he thought they were having the time of their lives in college. Buffy quickly opens up to her friend about her feelings. Xander stops her and reminds her that she’s Buffy, a hero, the coolest girl he knows, the slayer, the person he thinks of when he’s scared and unsure of what to do. Buff’s going to let a little college and a little vampire get her down and make her think she’s less than others? Not if Xander can prevent it. He and Buffy mobilize research, find the lair, and kick ass. By this point, Willow’s so guilt-ridden she’s blamed herself for Buffy’s room being empty and absent on campus.

Buffy defeats Sunday and her crew with the help of the Scoobies. Buffy gets her swagger back, as well as all of her possessions. Giles runs in late with weapons to assist the Scoobies. He helps by taking a box to Buffy’s dorm. The lesson Buffy learns, besides believing in herself, is the general familiarity of life. Buffy remarks she’ll handle college better because it’s not too different from high school. Vampires continue to prey on innocent students, so she’ll continue preying on evil vampires who prey on innocent students. Of course, the final scene features men in military gear kidnapping one of the vampires fleeing the lair. So, no, Buffy doesn’t really know what to expect.

"The Freshman" isn’t a popular Joss Whedon episode. I wonder if people remember Joss wrote and directed it. His other season four credits are "Hush" and "Restless." The season premiere is mere child’s play, but it also highlights his skill as a storyteller. The scope is small, but he nails the tiny details like Buffy’s disbelief that her mom would use her room as storage, or Buffy’s reactions to the flyer people and the size of the library, and how Buffy connects with Eddie over the way they feel about college and the security blankets they have to keep them from running off campus in fear of the unknown. Buffy’s an iconic character because she’s a super-heroine who took back the night. But she’s full of human insecurities and fears; she feels like a friend.

I’ve tried to highlight an aspect of the episode that separates Buffy and ANGEL from many other shows. Joss Whedon’s magic in "The Freshman" is his ability to transform college into a scary and imposing prospect for Buffy. Buffy fought a giant snake at high school graduation, sent her boyfriend to hell, and defeated a centuries old vampire, but college scares her more than any of the others. That’s why Buffy worked. The Big things, like saving the world, were just as important as the little personal things like fitting in in high school and college or wanting to impress a girl or boy or just wanting to be kind to people who were in pain. Whedonverse Classic concludes today. Next summer, I plan on revisiting a Joss Whedon series on a weekly basis. Until then, I hope you enjoyed the twelve posts.

(...)

Click on the link for more :

http://tvwiththefoot.blogspot.fr/search/label/Whedonverse%20Classic