Help! Writing a speech on "Buffy"

[bobthemole]

Dear Friend's list,

I am a procrastinator - I admit this. I've known for 3 weeks that I have to deliver a persuasive speech for my Toastmasters club, and I've known since last week that I want to talk about Buffy - viz, "Why you, the audience, must watch this awesome fabulous show."

Except I'm a third of the way through the speech and I'm stuck. This

Comments

[snickfic]

Under the "entertaining" part I'd talk about a couple of its different humor techniques, like maybe the linguistic creativity (with examples - "lurk much," -age to form nouns, -ey to form adjectives ("extra flamey")) and the post-modern self-awareness of the show ("Did I miss any exposition?" "Dawn's in trouble? Must be Tuesday," "apocalypse season").

And then maybe talk about the long-term creative commitment? The way the seasons are built on each other and carry the characterization and the plotty tidbits through, sometimes completely unobtrusively (examples: everything from The Recurring Jonathan to "Brave Ulysses" being Giles and Joyce's song to Xander wearing a t-shirt and his girlfriend wearing the same shirt as a nightie four episodes later - so, attention to detail). The organic character growth. The foreshadowing (say, the stuff in the Faith/Buffy dream in "Graduation Day" that foreshadows Dawn in S5).

Uh, I could go on for a while. More?

Also, you could mention the series' first play on the blond-in-an-alley trope - Darla

[bobthemole]

Humor techniques is good! I should break out my copy of "Slayer Slang" to help.

"Long-term payoff", awesome! I was considering that idea but couldn't think of what to call it.

I'll start working with this, and yell if I need more :D

P.S: I considered the Darla scene in the premiere but I felt it needed too much context. People would ask, "Wait, is the blonde girl a vampire or a vampire slayer?"

[eilowyn]

For your third reason, I always go to the different ways the show lends itself to literary analysis, such as critiquing the role of women in superhero works (the idea of sharing power rather than keeping it between one or two girls in Chosen is a good explanation of the feminist reading of the show, flawed as the Chosen ending may be) and the psychological reading that leads it to being one of the rare shows to accurately portray mental illness (I'm not shy about my depression, in fact my mother accuses me of overshare, so I always use personal experience to back this one up. You may not be as comfortable as me, so ignore me completely if you wish

[bobthemole]

Those are great ideas! I don't know if I want to go into too much deep analysis for this speech - not everyone in the audience is familiar with the concepts and I have to get my point across in a very short time.

I'm going with the Dawn foreshadowing, though!

[duh_i_read]

I donno if this will help, but as far a long term payoff's go, there is also the numerous examples of minor characters returning later in the series to become major allies and antagonists (Anya, Spike, Harmony, Johnathan ect ect), which, is not necessary to understanding the story, enriches the viewing experience.

(Also Buffy as an influential artifact of popular culture that has inspired and is referenced by numerous books, movies, and tv shows. Perhaps this last point is a bit much for the scope of your speech.)

[bobthemole]

I'm taking the point about minor characters becoming major players! Thank you!

[duh_i_read]

You're welcome. Minor characters becoming major characters is one of my favorite things.