18.1.2011

Buffy studies

(Buffy: Zettelkasten)


Joss Whedon

Joss Whedon im Interview mit der New York Times vom 18.5.2003 (also kurz nach der Erstausstrahlung der letzten Folge von „Buffy the Vampire Slayer”):

Q. What are your thoughts on the academic community's use of the show, from the humanities to the sciences, to debate and analyze everything?

A. I think it’s great that the academic community has taken an interest in the show. I think it’s always important for academics to study popular culture, even if the thing they are studying is idiotic. If it’s successful or made a dent in culture, then it is worthy of study to find out why.

"Buffy," on the other hand is, I hope, not idiotic. We think very carefully about what we’re trying to say emotionally, politically, and even philosophically while we’re writing it. The process of breaking a story involves the writers and myself, so a lot of different influences, prejudices, and ideas get rolled up into it. So it really is, apart from being a big pop culture phenom, something that is deeply layered textually episode by episode. I do believe that there is plenty to study and there are plenty of things going on in it, as there are in me that I am completely unaware of. People used to laugh that academics would study Disney movies. There’s nothing more important for academics to study, because they shape the minds of our children possibly more than any single thing. So, like that, I think "Buffy" should be analyzed, broken down, and possibly banned.

Das gesamte Interview ist sehr lesenswert – u.a. finden sich dort einige aufschlußreiche Anmerkungen zu den womöglich großartigsten 42 Minuten in der Fernsehgeschichte überhaupt: Buffy, 6.17, „Normal Again”.

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