A Certain Tendency in Mr. Whedon's Work |
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| Written by Kevin Johns |
| Monday, 01 October 2007 00:00 |
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Jenny Calendar, Joyce Summers, Allen Doyle, Cordelia Chase, Winifred Burkle, Tara McClay, Jonathan Levinson, Wesley Wyndam-Price, Shepard Book, Kendra, Anya, Wash, Angel, Spike… the list goes on. Sometimes it seems as though the number of beloved characters that have been killed off by Joss Whedon nearly equals the number he has created! As I sat in the theatre watching Wash’s funeral at the end of Serenity, Whedon’s feature film directorial debut, a strange feeling came over me. Try as I might, I couldn’t escape the sense that something was wrong. I was flashing back to “The Message”, the brilliant Firefly episode where Tracey, an old war buddy of Mal and Zoe’s, smuggles himself onto the ship and ends up getting himself killed. Tracey is an intentionally unlike-able character, and yet his death, and his funeral at the end of the episode, touched me greatly. I watched that funeral with a feeling of deep sadness. It was a sadness that was completely absent from those closing moments in the theatre watching Wash’s funeral on the big screen. Surely Wash (not to mention Shepard Book!) was a closer character to my heart than the one-off guest star, Tracey. Wash was a hero that I had followed throughout the television series, and now to a major motion picture, yet his death seemed hollow to me, like some sort of empty gesture. I felt more angry than sad as I left the theatre, zipped up my brown coat, and headed towards the bus stop. It was a familiar anger that I was feeling, one that I had felt before. Then, as now, that anger was prompted by a certain approach to storytelling that time and time again severely hampers my enjoyment of certain aspects of Joss Whedon’s output.
Organic deaths, on the other hand, have everything to do with narrative. When these sorts of deaths take place, they flow naturally from the story that is being told and make logical sense within its narrative context. Both Anya and Wesley die fighting overwhelming forces in a last great battle to end each of their respective series. Their deaths make organic sense within the logic of the narrative because the forces they are battling are so great that a certain level of gravitas would be lost without the death of a major character. Jenny Calendar is perhaps our best example, within the Whedonverse, of an organic death. Her murder was surprising (shocking even) and heart-breaking for those who identified with Rupert Giles. It served as a turning point in the Angelus storyline during the second season of Buffy, and undeniably solidified Angel’s turn to the dark side. It, at the same time, served as the next logical step in his escalating campaign of fear and intimidation directed towards Buffy and her friends. The storyline culminated with another death, that of Angel himself at the hands of Buffy in “The Becoming, Part II”, the season finale. In, arguably, the greatest moment in all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the protagonist thrusts a sword into Angel’s chest, despite his soul having been returned to him, and thus kills her one true love in order to save the world. It is an astonishing moment, the perfect zenith to a season long story-line, and one of the greatest deaths in television history. The scene’s ability to organically draw upon a season worth of storyline imbued the moment with a depth and richness that combined with its archetypical elements to produce the perfect death. Spike’s death at the end of “Chosen” is, likewise, both organic and satisfying. As far back as season four, the character had been struggling to overcome his inner demons, rise above his base instincts, and prove himself a hero. His love for Buffy fueled a desire for redemption that ultimately led him down into the Hellmouth to fight alongside the slayer for the last great battle. His sacrificial death allowed Spike to finally become the hero he had so desperately been trying to become. Through his death, the character’s four season journey was completed. The death, then, was an integral part of the story. Story and death were intrinsically intertwined, as they should be. Spike’s storyline would have been perfect, were it not for a fatal misstep on the part of Whedon and his team: at the end of season six, Spike attempts to rape Buffy. The truly disturbing sequence in which he forces himself upon her should never have taken place. It was neither an organic element of Spike’s redemption story arc, nor was it a story in and of itself. There was no narrative or thematic exploration around the rape, and at no point did the series attempt to deal with the ramifications of what this horrifying act meant for Buffy or for the viewers of the show. Given the feminism for which BTVS is consistently accredited, and Whedon’s own pro-feminist ideological statements, the fact that the series failed to appropriately address the ramifications of sexual violence is truly astounding. The attempted While not a death, the decision to have Spike attempt to rape Buffy reveals the great flaw in much of Whedon’s storytelling: the predilection for deaths (or attempted rapes) that do not flow organically from the story being told. These deaths are, in fact, inserted in-organically specifically in order to justify subsequent narrative decisions. This brings us back to our dear departed friend Wash, whose funeral seemed so shallow and his death so meaningless. Why did Wash die? Not to prove the Alliance’s willingness to kill; that had already been accomplished with the death of Shepard Book. No, Wash died for one reason and one reason only: to heighten the suspense of the last fifteen minutes of Serenity. If Wash could die, any of the heroes could die. Indeed, at one point it appears as though all of them might. Wash’s death amped-up the stakes of the final battle, pushed viewers to the edge of their seats for Mal and his crew’s last stand, and made it impossible to predict whether the heroes would win or loose. The problem with this technique is fairly obvious: it only works once. Fans of Joss Whedon’s work are not casual viewers. They didn’t watch an episode of Angel now and then. They didn’t watch Buffy whenever it happened to be on when they were flicking through the channels. Whedon fans watched these shows each and every week. They watched them ritualistically and they watched them repeatedly. They spent so much time with these character that they became like friends, family, and members of a shared community. That is the difference between the cult and the mainstream. Mainstream narratives are about storytelling, pure and simple, but cult narratives instigate community building. By the time Serenity was green lit, there was already a community formed around Whedon’s work that was undeniably vibrant, healthy, and strong. There should never have been a question in anyone’s mind as to whether a Sci-Fi Western written and directed by the creator of BTVS would be a cult movie or not. Serenity was destined to be a cult film before the first frame was shot, and the whole idea of cult movies is that they are watched again and again. On subsequent viewings, Wash’s death does not amplify anything. The viewer already knows who will live and who will die. Whedon fans now finish watching Serenity for the third or fifth or twentieth time, and all they are left with is the sense that one of their fellow Browncoats has fallen, and for no good reason what-so-ever. This discussion would, of course, not be complete if we did not touch upon the narrative decision for which Whedon has already received the harshest criticism: the death of Tara McClay. Discourse surrounding Tara’s death (and there has been plenty of it!) has, understandably, focused primarily on the fact that Tara a gay character, and that with her death one of the few lesbian couples on television was torn apart. Criticism has, in fact, focused so narrowly on the queer component of the death that few have stopped to ask the simple question of just why the character was killed off in the first place. The answer to this question is deceptively straightforward: Tara was killed to justify Dark Willow. It is as simple as that. Once again, with Tara, Whedon killed off a character not because the death was a logical extension of the story being told, but to justify a subsequence story he wanted to tell. The question then becomes, what is worth it? Was the Dark Willow storyline worth the death of Tara McClay? The answer, clearly, is no. Though much of the criticism of season six is unwarranted, the three episode Dark Willow arc is undeniably the weakest closing of any of the show’s seven seasons. The flash of darkness revealed early in the season in “Flooded,” when Willow tells Giles, "You’re right. The magicks I used are very powerful. I’m very powerful, and maybe it’s not such a good idea for you to piss me off,” is infinity more interesting than watching the two characters throw CGI magic balls at each other for twenty minutes. Trying to recapture the emotional intensity of the season long Angelus storyline in a three episode arc simply didn’t work. Even the season one episode “The Pack” did a better job of utilizing the friend-turned-enemy trope that Whedon is so fond of. Unlike every other season, which built towards emotional and satisfying climaxes in the season finales, Buffy’s sixth season peaked early on, with the musical episode “Once More, With Feeling”. It is an episode that one can now only revisit with a sense of lost potential. As Tara spins through the park, serenading Willow (and the audience) with “Under Your Spell”, fans must push into the backs of their minds the knowledge that this rich, complex, physically unique, politically important, and emotionally beloved character would never be given a chance to blossom. I watch that wonderful transition, as the girls spin in each others arms, the park magically becomes the house, and Willow and Tara fall into bed together, and all I can think about is the fact that their love will not last. Tara, like Wash, will soon be dead, and for no good reason other than a certain tendency in Mr. Whedon’s work.
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Comments (3)
Perfectly said!
You have echoed my every thought. I was just discussing this with a friend and I was attempting to describe why Wash's death sucked. It is not because I always crave the happy ending, I love Whedon's ability to spin the tragic yarn in a poignant way (Dr. Horrible, Angel's death, etc..), but like you, I found Tara and Wash's deaths unnecessary and totally turn me off to watching the film or episodes again since I dwell on the fact that in another hour, Wash will be dead. I mean, it may have been realistic, but I'm not sure it's good storytelling. |
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