The show tends to be at its most deeply political and allegorical when the adults lose it. Like last week when a demon is sent to make it appear that two children have been murdered in a Wiccan ritual, getting Sunnydale in a paranoid uproar-- Buffy's mother starts a hateful book-burning, literally witch-hunting organization called MOO (Mothers Oppose the Occult). Buffy and Willow nearly get burned at the stake by their own mothers. Who want to protect future innocent children from harm.
Liza
Paul Henry Rosenberg wrote:
>
> Last night, there was a special Monday presentation of a Buffy, The
> Vampire Slayer episode from earlier this year. I couldn't help thinking
> that it was a commentary on the impeachment process. It's not JUST
> about the impeachment process, of course. In fact, it's a more general
> political allegory that just happens to have particular resonance with
> the impeachment process that's accentuated by re-airing it at this time.
>
> In this episode, the mayor, who is just being introduced as a minor
> character, has to pay off a debt to a demon who helped get him elected.
> To do so, he employs a newly arrived vampire (they met in an earlier
> episode) who subcontracts the job. Candy is produced and distributed,
> ostensibly to pay for the high school band uniforms. There's a
> delicious little scene in which Principal Skinner personally hands boxes
> to Buffy and her friends.
>
> Thus the candy is quickly dumped into the community -- and chaos
> ensues. It seems there's something in the candy that turns the adults
> into teenagers--not physically, but attitudinally, hormonally and
> behaviorally--rather extreme versions of teenagers. In a word, they run
> amok. This allows a crew of vampires to accomlish their
> mission--stealing babies to feed to the demon as his payoff.
>
> Naturally, Buffy arrives in time to save the day (not to mention the
> babies), but when one looks at the story in its bare outlines as I've
> presented it, well, the political allegory is pretty darn in-your-face,
> don'tcha think? The melding of the routine workings of power with a
> corrupt purpose, the use of innocence (candy, a second adolescence) for
> the destruction of innocence (the babies), the adult authority figures
> reverting to heedless bundles of id (Principal Skinner in particular was
> really a hoot, I could just imagine Henry Hyde), it was really so
> remarkably apt, I just couldn't believe it.
>
> Nightline, by way of contrast, is totally Clueless.
>
> --
> Paul Rosenberg
> Reason and Democracy
> rad at gte.net
>
> "Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"