In our inaugural episode, we Babes work through our issues with modern vampirism. Fangs will penetrate, bosoms will heave, heads will roll.
Here’s a brief and incomplete list of media discussed in this episode. Enjoy the relevent YouTube clip.
2. Nosferatu
4, Twilight
8. Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland
– The Babes
Babes in the Woods 
I’m listening to this now and typing my random thoughts.
I’m new to Buffy (because I hate it) and have a question. You talked about good vampire v. bad vampire. Who is the good vampire and who is the bad vampire?
But Edward does taste her blood in the first book when he sucks James’s venom from her and gives her the vampire c-section in the last book.
As for Bella//Ewoks, that sort of happened in book 3 with the whole “third wife” business. Meyer cannot write an action scene.
Am I seriously the only one on the planet who hates Buffy?
OMG the Burbs!
Teeth penis…Teenis?
I’m also not a fan of FFC’s Dracula. But I loved Dracula 2000 because I love cheesy vampire crap. Also, I love “the Dark Prince” which is supposedly the story of Vlad Tepes.
I must see 2010:Moby Dick! I just went to go netflix it. You can stream it online, and apparently my husband has already watched half of it but for some sick reason did not told me about it.
Why no Night Watch, Nissa? </3
I did not love the book Let the Right One In, but I read the best review ever of it: "You know that bit at the beginning of Amadeus, where Salieri has composed this very uninspired little march, which he and the Emperor play for Mozart? Then Mozart sits down at the keyboard and says, hm, that's not quite right, is it? And he messes around with it for a couple of minutes, until he's suddenly transformed it into "Here's farewell to the games with the girls" from The Marriage of Figaro.
Well, it's like that Låt den rätte komma in and Twilight. John Ajvide Lindqvist has looked at Stephenie Meyer's book and said hm, that's not quite right, is it? And he's somehow rearranged its elements into a bloody masterpiece. I wouldn't have thought it could be done.
I can hear Mozart's irritating high-pitched giggle. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
(It's from this guy on goodreads:http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1834894.Manny_Rayner)
I feel the same way about Spider Man. Just why?
I hate Buffy so much! I don't understand has anyone showed that movie to television execs having the take away be "yeah, let's make this into a series!"
I did drop the ball on the Night Watch books/movies, didn’t I? I totally forgot while we were talking about it. Also I really like that comparison with Amadeus and Let the Right One In! It’s pretty great. You have me wondering what your specific issues with Buffy are, and whether they are film- or series-related. I personally have only seen the first two season and a tiny bit of the third, as well as the musical episode from season 5 (I think?), so I’m no expert, but I enjoyed what I saw when I saw it (which was, to be fair, while I was in high school). Thanks for listening, though! We’re still working on this whole thing, and I know I appreciate the feedback!
-Nissa
Ok, Buffy issues:
I hate “chosen ones.” I just really, really do. I hate the idea that someone is supposed to be better than everyone else because special. It seems like really lazy writing to me. So that made it really hard for me to appreciate the series.
Aside from that, I thought some of the allegories or whatever were sporadic or heavy-handed. My husband (huge Buffy fan) would try to tell me that the show was a metaphor for whatever teenage angst. So I’d watch with him, and it wouldn’t be. And he’d say, well, not all the episodes are. And we’d watch another, and I’d feel like Whedon was hitting me on the head with something.
I didn’t really like or relate to the characters. I thought Anya was hysterical and Oz was ok (because apparently now I’m all into werewolves). But other than that, not so much.
The acting was ok, except for one big bad…the red haired woman. She was terrible.
I liked evil Angel. And the musical episode. The episode Hush was pretty neat. (Though a friend of mine who hates Buffy much more than I do wondered what can be said about a show that improves greatly once you take away all dialogue?) I also like Spike a lot (but I hated the story line of chip in head from the government or whatever. I didn’t really like Riley either, but I can’t remember why.)
I asked earlier about who was considered the good vampire and who was the bad. I’m wondering about this because it seems to me that people think Angel was the good and Spike was the bad. I think this is completely backwards. Angel was only good because of the “curse” put on him. When Angel was given back his soul, he could make a choice and he chose to be evil. But when Spike had the chip or whatever removed, he made the choice to be good and the choice to try to get his soul back. Maybe I’ve just been talking to the wrong people about that.
Onto Night Watch briefly, what I loved about that was the idea of a balance. Like there was no good or evil necessarily, or that both were needed.
One more thing: while I really enjoyed listening to the podcast, it was a bit long. If you guys are open to it, maybe make them shorter (that might help you stay focused too, if you want to stay focused)? Or break them into segments to make it easier for listeners to take breaks and come back to later.
Hatzi! Thank you for listening.
While I totally respect your argument regarding Chosen Ones in general (have you read this wonderful parody piece regarding Joanne Rowling’s Hermione Granger series? http://globalcomment.com/2011/in-praise-of-hermione-granger-series/) in Buffy’s case I’ll make an exception.
First, while I agree Joss’s writing isn’t for everyone, I was drawn to the scripts, personally, for their humor, sarcasm, and snark. It was empowering for me as a young woman, because Buffy is very much about adults overlooking teen struggles. Buffy came along at the perfect time in my adolescence. And so much of taste is about that gut reaction, though, right? It was so comforting to hear words with more than two syllables coming out of the mouths of
teentwenty-something-actors-playing-teens. They were so much wittier than characters on other shows of the period. I was sold. Fun fact! Upon first watching the show I identified most strongly with Willow. Upon rewatching, I realized I was totally a Buffy.I also appreciated it, and still appreciate it, because it is essentially a show that was about how friendship trumps evil. Over and over again, we see that while Buffy is the Slayer, she succeeds because she has a community of friends, capable, smart, and loyal friends, who work with her against the powers of darkness. It is empowering and since it is also so much about community, I think that much of the more annoying Chosen One aspects are mitgated. Additionally, with all of Buffy’s deaths and the emergence of two spare slayers in the course of the series and a whole army of potentials by show’s end, I think that part of the point of the series is exploring the notion of the Chosen One as a cultural trope. I agree it can appear to be taking the easy way out, writing wise, but since Buffy is such an unexpected heroine, it annoys me less. After being a horror fan for so long, it was wonderful to see a small, blonde girl kick some monster butt.
Totally taking your advice on slimming down the show too, ps. We’ll try anyway. Thanks again for your feedback!
– Linds
Hmmm…..I don’t want to believe that I was too old for Buffy. I’m 4 years (?) older than Nissa and was in high school/college when Buffy was on the air. A lot of my peers watched it, but I was watching Seinfeld, Frazier, Just Shoot Me…I can’t remember what else. Maybe I was snobby and thought I was better than all the people watching it… As for chosen ones, I don’t know if I have exceptions or if I’m just good at justifying them to myself. Harry Potter as a chosen one doesn’t bother me so much because it was pretty much all a farce. Chosen just meant that Voldemort put stock in what Trelawney said. In Star Wars, Luke being chosen or special didn’t bother me because it made sense as he was Vader’s kid (but Anakin being special did bother me). In Kushiel’s Legacy, it doesn’t bother me too much because Phedre’s being chosen by Kushiel wasn’t the reason why she became who she was (but Phedre pisses me off generally). But with Buffy, whenever she left Sunnydale, things fell apart. Even the military wasn’t able to kill as well as she did. The hairy mole alone was what made her truly better than everyone else.
Well, in an intellectual contest with Fraiser Crane, I’d still bet on Willow Rosenburg. We’re totally going to do an episode addressing chosen ones at some point in the future- it’s on our list. Maybe you can submit some choice annoying characters for us to discuss or come on a special guest!
– Linds
Really? I hope I don’t sound too much like an elitist here, but you’d pick Willow as the winner of a battle of wits against someone with two degrees from Harvard and who is an academic/intellectual/cultural snob (much more than I am at any rate….)? I mean, if you have them do anything else, sure. Part of the point of Frasier was that he was a snob but could barely function in day to day life. But in an intellectual contest?
nb, this is not to call Willow stupid by any stretch of the imagination.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for my last comment to come out so rude. I know there’s a lot about Willow that I don’t know. And I didn’t mean to suggest earlier that I was better than Buffy. Just that maybe high school me was too snobby to enjoy it. (Though high school me did try to watch it once with unsuccessful results. I think in part because I was expecting it to be like the movie, which I also didn’t like. But college me watched the musical episode when it originally aired and enjoyed it.)
Hatz- no harm done. To me, and I hope this doesn’t sound offensive, Fraiser was always more about faux-intellectualism. They even introduced not one but TWO more effete characters (Niles and that weird food/culture DJ) to make Fraiser appear like a more well-rounded character. Though I’m not sure if that differentiation would matter so much in an intellectual contest, which I imagine would just be a round of trivia, or as Nissa might say, pub quiz.
Willow, incidentally, was accepted to Harvard, Yale, and Oxford, but elected to stay in Sunnydale to help her friends/fight the forces of evil. She’s a great, strong, and intellectual lady nerd character, and yeah, I’d still take her v. Fraiser in any sort of contest on any day. Not to troll too hard. 😀
– Linds
Firstly, I’m loving the nickname “Hatz.”
I think I agree with you that it’s about faux-intellectualism (if I understand what you mean by that term…)
I think if we’re talking something like pub quiz, Willow would beat Frasier. But in a more serious academic competition, I’d give it to Frasier, even if only because he had more academic life experience/time to learn or hone skills that would prove useful in this limited context. I wonder what their respective SAT scores were…
BTW: I just asked my husband this question. He says Willow. Guess who’s not having sex tonight.
Your blog totally needs to have polls on these intellectual cage fights. What if we pit Sheldon Cooper against Tony Stark?