Customer Reviews

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is amazing and covers a wide range of topics. It's highly academic and well-respected in the academic community. It was a good lead in as far as asking my professors if I could incorporate Buffy into my papers. Hehe. I found that it also made some things much clearer, by putting it in the light of my favorite television show. I particularly liked the comparison of Faith to Nietzsche and the incorporation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and relating that to "Out of Mind, Out of Sight." It brought Kant's view into a new perspective, rather than trying to understand specifically with Kant's text and just accepting what he said as his view, it made his view make sense. I really do recommend it for any fan of Buffy in general(although it may seem tough at first, it was for me) or a philosophy fan. (I also found that it heavily related to my Conscience and Literature class)

I took Philosphy in my first semmester of college, and I didn't do to well. After I started reading this book, I began to understand Plato, Kant, and other philospohers better. If my teacher had recommended this book I may have gotten higher than a C.
This book takes themes from the show: Faith's downfall, feminisim, education, violence, etc. and explains the themes through philosphy. I love BTVS and this book gave me a different way to watch the show. I definately recommend this book to anyone who is currently taking philosphy or will take a class or has. It helps the reader get through a subject that may not be very clear on its own.

I thought this was a fun collection of essays. I majored in philosophy as an undergraduate, so it was fun to read about a lot of people I read in college in the context of Buffy.

I will say the title is a little misleding. I took an entire course on Existentialism, and was anxious to see what they said about Buffy and Kierkegaard, since the title refers to Kierkegaard's FEAR AND TREMBLING. I assumed someone might talk about Angel and Kierkegaard's ethical stage, since at one point he writes that the ethical can sorrow over sin, but cannot resolve it, which sounds to me a lot like Angel.

Still, a provocative collection.

I really enjoyed reading essays that brought the perspective of philosophy to bear on my favorite TV show. Not all the essays were good (one near the end with a lot of Freud was pretty awful), but many were, and when I rewatch episodes now I get completely different perspectives on things. I will add that I find other Buffy anthologies to be more helpful than this one.

One of the great strengths about this book is that the essays contained in it are fairly short. This way, you can read them slowly, and not feel overwhelmed by the high academia of some of the themes. Most essays are fairly accessable to non-philosphy folk.

There are some really great essays in this book, such as those in the sections about feminist theory. The Editor, James South, teaches a Buffy studies class at Marquette University, and his essay on Willow is also very strong. Mostly, this anthology works in comparing Buffy to classical mythology/philospohy and modern theories of redemption, feminism, and popular culture.

But there are also some real duds, such as the one by James Lawler who tries very hard to fit a square peg into a round hole by comparing Buffy to Kant. The final essay by Levine and Schnieder presents a view that Buffy is totally unoriginal in premise, writing, acting, and execution, and is really just a sucky show that people have venerated because they're dumb.

I'm not just saying that all the essays which critique the flaws of BTVS are bad, for example, one basically proposes that Buffy creates a facist state, and it is very well written even though I don't agree with the premise. But insulting your readers is never a good way to start any arguement. And certain essays suffer because this book was compiled before season 7 had aired, and their arguements no longer work.

I would reccomend this book to Buffy fans with some kind of humanities academia under their belt. I don't think one could get through this book unless they were used to reading academic papers. The language can be difficult, and sometimes the philosophy cumbersome. It is very rewarding and insightful, but certainly not light reading.

This latest volume in Open Court's Popular Culture and Philosophy Series is, like most anthologies, very uneven. Nearly every collection of essays contains some good, some average, and some disappointing essays. As a former Ph.D. student in philosophy and a huge fan of Buffy and all things pertaining to the Buffyverse, this seemed to be a book not merely down my alley, but on the street where I live. Unfortunately, overall, I found this to be a very disappointing collection.

There have been two major academic anthologies before this one: Roz Kaveny's READING THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and Rhonda V. Wilcox and David Lavery's FIGHTING THE FORCES. Both of these far surpass this newer volume, despite having the disadvantage of having been written at the end of Season Five of Buffy, while some of the essays in BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER AND PHILOSOPHY seem to have some knowledge of the first episode of Season Seven, and most reflect the revelation at the end of Season Six that Spike has gained a soul.

One of the reasons these other two anthologies are so much more successful is the fact that most of the writers in those two volumes were cultural critics rather than philosophers. As enormously witty, intelligent, and deep as the scripts for Buffy were, they were not deeply conversant with Western philosophy. In fact, philosophically, the Buffyverse essentially embraces a naive Cartesian dualism (a fact curiously unnoted by all the contributors to this volume), or at most a Christian tripartite conception of the person as Mind, Body, and Soul. Descartes attempted to resurrect Augustinian theology (based on Platonism) in opposition to the thought of Aquinas (based on Aristotelianism), and in doing so posited a radical gap between Mind and Body. 20th century English philosopher Gilbert Ryle would call this the myth of "the ghost in the machine" (a phrase later reappropriated by Arthur Koestler and the Police). Angel has a body, and a soul that keeps getting detached. Philosophically, this is both dubious and almost completely unthought out. In other words, the TV shows BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and ANGEL are enormously unconversant with philosophy, despite interacting vigorously with modern life and culture.

Another major problem here is that the writers fairly consistently seem to be attempting to graft two separate concerns upon one another. Someone profoundly interested in Kant tries to meld this with Buffy. Someone working on Aristotle brings his thought on friendship in line with relationships in Buffy (far more successfully than attempts with Kant). Some of the attempts are painfully strained. Some are just sad. Only a few are truly enlightening either of philosophy or Buffy. One of the more fascinating aspects of the anthology is the enormously varying ways that Buffy is conceived. One sees the show as liberal, another socialist, another fascist. In fact, the one great value of the book is that it shows that what Buffy is at heart is a vast mirror: look into Buffy and you will find your own beliefs and attitudes somehow reflected.

My recommendation for any Buffy fan is to read either of the other two anthologies first, then perhaps look at the array of essays available on the www.slayage.tv website, and then, if not yet sated, turn to this collection.

I have read half of this book, and I have to say that it takes buffy fandom to a whole new level. This book is based on Buffy, and it analisizes every chacter and event in the book. It is great if you would like to understand about that kind of thing. Alot of Pop Culture References, I guess that is what you could say. Good book, I would suggest you get it.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Philosophy is the latest of a number of anthologies which attempt to argue that the program was more than a well-written, even inspired creation of popular culture. It follows the excellent Reading the Vampire Slayer: An Unofficial Critical Companion To Buffy And Angel and the even better Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

There is part of me that likes the way books like these think about television because sometimes it's the way I think about television. In both direct and indirect ways, BtVS has made me think more profoundly about sexuality, "patriarchal standards" of same, and the nature of a feminist text, among other things.

To the non-philosophy student, the writers here are less successful than those of the earlier volumes. Readers may find their eyes glazing over as Carolyn Korsmeyer's "Passion and Action: In and Out of Control" talks of how philosophical theories "...necessarily aim at abstract levels of explanation in order that general parameters and explanatory norms may be formulated. To this end, philosophers analyze prototypical emotions rather than the particular emotion events that individuals experience in specific circumstances."

Which is a wordy way of explaining why, for example, James B. South (who also edited this volume) can spend 15 pages discussing Willow's actions at the end of Season Six as tragedy while barely touching on the pain which fueled it, the brutal murder of Tara. In things like this (and Buffy's tortured relationship with Angel, Faith's redemption, and other topics under discussion here), I'm first concerned with the characters I had come to love. I think it's safe to say most other Buffy viewers and potential readers are as well.

In "Feeling For Buffy," the last essay included in the book, Michael P. Levine and Jay Schneider make the case that "It is BtVS scholarship that warrants study at this point, not BtVS itself. Those in English, Film and Television, and Cultural Studies departments would be better off investigating the nature of the...narrow critical responses to BtVS." The response they speak of is reflected in this book by the refusal of South and others to consider Buffy as what it is first and foremost: A dramatic serial for television.

No consistent "philosophy of Buffy" emerges here; in fact, the Introduction warns almost proudly of the book's caprice. To talk about the philosophy and intellectualism of a program like Buffy is all very well, but to lose sight of the bare bones of the matter is in many ways to disappear up one's own never-you-mind.

In "Passion and Action" Korsmeyer asserts that because Spike's character gradually changed as a result of the violence-inhibiting chip in his head, this was "far more interesting than the restoration of Angel's soul [because that] transformation is so abrupt that we see merely a metamorphosis from evil to good. But Spike blunders through his emotional change..." This would all resonate a great deal louder had not series creator Joss Whedon decided to short-circuit any discussion of whether Spike really had undergone this posited change. Spike's ill-conceived attempted rape of Buffy and the subsequent quick-fix restoration of his soul divested his story of any originality or interest. Save for the teenybopper straight girl crowd, which saw him -- and were encouraged to do so -- as a vulnerable puppy rather than a vicious punk, in Madeline Muntersbjorn's words.

The status of Buffy as a hero or moral role model is much discussed in these pages. Jessica Prata Miller quotes Whedon on having created the show to be about "the joy of female power, having it, using it." Jason Kawal's "Should We Do What Buffy Would Do?" suggests that Buffy is "a fully-informed, unimpaired, virtuous observer." But that status should have taken something of a beating as Buffy was demeaned and marginalized.

Compiled and edited by James B. South, Buffy The Vampire Slayer And Philosophy: Fear And Trembling In Sunnydale is a thoroughly engaging philosophical discussion about themes explored in the popular television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Written for both academics in the discipline of American Popular Culture, Contemporary Philosophy, and those who are simply "Buffy" fans, Buffy The Vampire Slayer And Philosophy collects the writings of a variety of learned authors concerning Buffy's relation to feminist ethics, human irrationality, "high school portrayed as Hell", and much, much more. A work of surprising depth guaranteed to make one ponder, Buffy The Vampire Slayer And Philosophy is enthusiastically recommended for both academia and non-specialist general readers alike -- and readily available in a hardcover edition for library acquisitions.

I picked up this book with the assumption that it would use philosophy to explain Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Instead, it uses BtVS to explain philosophy, which is quite a different approach. Each essay, written in a highly academic style, takes a particular philosophical theory (Nietzsche, Feminism, Fascism, Plato, Freud, Kant, Post-modernism, utilitarianism, and many others, even Film Criticism and Film Noir analysis). Some essays contrast two theories, using BtVS as a reference point. And each academic is obviously writing about his or her pet theory and using Buffy as an example to point out the "rightness" of that theory. An informed reader, will most probably like and agree with those essays which discuss their own favorite philosophical or academic theories, while disagreeing with essays on theories that the reader does not like or academically believe in. However, this requires a certain amount of sophistication in the reader; it also means wading through a great deal of academic writing at it's worst (e.g., long-winded, theory-dependent, and with a tendency towards reductionism and detailed analysis which misses the big picture while concentrating on the details over-much); yet, by picking a cultural icon, all the essayists here make even the most academic theories accessible. For example, many people know that Nietzsche supposedly said "God is dead", yet How many people really know the core of Nietzsche's theory? [The theory that strength is good; the noble and the aristocratic is good; but the weak are many and can pull-down and destroy the good, noble and rich. "Nietzsche desires that there come those who can go beyond good and evil and create their own values through strength of will.... His ideal figure is not one who does evil for its own sake, but rather one who does not shrink from what is necessary for the satisfaction of his or her own desires." Schudt, Karl, "Also Sprach Faith: The problem of the Happy Rogue Vampire Slayer" p. 25 This is the theory that is in practice today, whenever one says or implies "might makes right" or "to the victor goes the spoils" or most often, "Those in power know what's right for the rest of you" ("What's good for General Motors is good for the world.")]. Leaving aside for a moment, if Nietzsche was wrong or right, Schudt's essay does make Nietzsche's theory understandable to the general reader.
Given that these essays cover a very large number of academic and philosophical theories this collection of essays reads like a textbook for Philosophy 101; by the end of it the attentive reader should know the basics of a number of different and contrasting theories. It is interesting to note that different story arcs and sometimes even the same bits of quoted dialogue appear in a number of different essays, often as "proofs" or "examples" of not only different theories but of contrasting ones. One can almost picture the "academic fistfights" that would erupt if these contributors were confined to the same room for a weekend.

However, that certain bits of dialogue, certain scenes, and certain story arcs are referenced again and again is not to be taken as academic laziness, or even bad writing. On the contrary, this is something so common in media fandom that is forms the basis of the fannish theory of the universe (if fandom had a single, unifying, academic theory or a single, philosophy, which it most probably does not). It is my informed opinion, with fifteen years of practical experience, a thesis, and two other academic papers to my own credit, that fans approach source products differently than the casual viewer. Fans a) insist on "wholeness"--it is virtually essential to see every episode of a television series, to watch all of, not just an excerpt from, a film or film series, and to read every book by an author or in a book series. This creates knowledge of the "complete" canon. Part and parcel of "Wholeness" is "context"--fans view parts of a television series within the context of the whole thing; therefore examples that contradict the rest are thrown out ("Spock's Brain" is a *bad* Star Trek episode for example); or non-consistent behavior is explained away (Rick hit AJ in ... episode because he was drunk and out of it). Taking a line or a scene or even an entire season out of context for any program is bound to cause errors in judgment; according to fans. The judgment of a program is again, based on wholeness. But the third part of fannish theory is "Core episodes" or "important episodes"--these are the basic episodes which are thought to be "essential viewing" for any true understanding of the program, from Classics like Star Trek and The Man from UNCLE to newer programs like Farscape and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Time prevents me from listing examples of core episodes for each of these series; but trust me, how ever a fan "names" the Core Episodes of a series (many fans do not use that term), if you have never seen a particular program before, those are the episodes a fan of that program will show you first and use as examples of character behavior and traits, character relationships, and as being important to the understanding of the whole. (The one exception to these rules is any type of "soap opera" or "continuing drama" such as Law & Order, The West Wing, or Babylon 5. The continuing drama formula requires consistent watching of all episodes, in order, from beginning to end, without skipping around to 'important' episodes). It doesn't surprise me, in the slightest, that specific episodes, lines and themes are mentioned over and over again in BtVS and Philosophy, the writers of these essays are merely following typical, fannish practice.
Overall, the book, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy, works better as a clever, 101-type textbook for philosophy-made-accessible-through-popular-culture, than as a good analysis of it's source material. One essay in particular, "Feeling for Buffy: The Girl Next Door" by Michael P. Levine and Steven Jay Schneider, even spends considerable time blasting academics for wasting their time on a popular culturally iconic television series, such as BtVS--yet, the author's then make the very same mistake that they criticize in other academics--they use Buffy as an example to put forth their own pet theory, re-reading BtVS as an example in Freudian analysis, in particular the Electra/Oedipus complex and desire of the forbidden. Even the most die-hard fan is likely to strongly disagree with these author's interpretations of everything Buffy. And it is particularly rich to hear an academic condemn other researchers for being obsessed with their own version of the truth, before turning around and presenting "The Truth" as they see it. It is the academic equivalent of a revival meeting or evangelicalism ("one must believe *my truth* because, because, because it's TRUE"). Essentially, Levine and Schneider are saying "all those other theories are cr*p, and WE are right, this is the truth, believe us"--I've never found that a particularly convincing argument; and I've seen it presented in a variety of academic settings and with a variety of academic theories. One cartoonist even described it as "The Quincy Syndrome", that is "Everyone in the whole world is wrong, and I'm right!". Well, even if that is rather a incomplete and stereotypical view of the TV program Quincy, ME --it is a dead-on description of various primarily academic, or mass/popular sociology non-fiction journal/textbook writing. My recommendation is to purchase this book only for a crash course in philosophy, and not as a hommage to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and certainly not as an explanation of what Buffy's creator, Joss Whedon was thinking.