FREE-FOR-ALL META COMMENT-A-THON

[upupa_epops]

Old news: lj is dead. Everyone is crazy busy, or they have other reasons not to be here. No one has time to read those huge meta posts we used to write once upon a time. But maybe we can all find ten minutes to do this:

FREE-FOR-ALL META COMMENT-A-THON!

Comments

[upupa_epops]

Jossverse, Why the fuck not?

As Poco correctly stated, TVD plot solutions can be summed up as "Why the fuck not?". Rewatching BtVS, I realized that Joss Whedon has a very similar attitude to language solutions. I'm talking about things like "I think this line's mostly filler", or:

“It has to be paranormal in origin.”
“How can you tell?”
“Well it’s so shiny!”

I feel like some things got put in scripts just because someone looked at the lines at 4am and said: Hey, why the fuck not? The question is: what effect does it have on the series? How does it shape the mood? What kind of humor does it create? Does it just create humor?

[angearia]

The beauty of this approach to language is how it opens up characters to demonstrate both humor and humility. It's playful self-deprecation which offsets the darker aspects of these characters who can be so incredibly arrogant and self-possessed. It softens them, humanizes them. Not only do these characters laugh in the face of death, but they laugh at themselves, at their ignorance and foibles and invite their loved ones to laugh at them, too. Hell, they even invite strangers to laugh at them

[upupa_epops]

I'd say "why the fuck not" is a good expression, in a sense that they could literally be ANYTHING. It doesn't matter if Giles says "Well it's so shiny", or one of twenty other possible silly sentences. I didn't mean it as anything bad :).

See, I find it difficult to actually find meaning behind the Whedon language, because I love the sound of it so much that every time I try to think thinky thoughts, I get distracted by ALL THE SHINY (also, in case you ever wondered, one SHOULDN'T translate trailers to Disney movies while in the middle of a Buffy rewatch). So thank you so much for the insight <3333.

[angearia]

Oh sure! Just that for me, "why the fuck not" carries this heavy connotation of doing it simply because it can be done, that it lacks purpose, or that it's simply to push and test boundaries. Like, there are some developments in the Buffy comics where it seems like the writers just went with the most outrageous thing they could imagine simply because they could now that they didn't have a budget

[red_satin_doll]

This is like one of my FAVORITE SUBJECTS and I could go on. Most of the fic I've written for the Buffyverse very deliberately works to capture this balance of humor/drama, the balance between serious straightforward speech and self-deprecating humor. And how these moods shift and bleed together to create the genre melange that is any BtVS. Which is quite perfect as a process when you think about it, as it's not simply the camera and the lighting and the framing of the shots that makes it seem like HORROR or SCI-FI but it's the very language itself that shares this trait of complex identity.Oh please, Do go on! I love your thinky-thoughts! And thank you for rec'ing this "thon" on your LJ, I'd have missed it otherwise

[fray_adjacent12]

I love what you say about Buffy using humor to humanize herself. A great example is when Maggie Walsh says, "I thought you were a myth," to which Buffy responds, "Well, you were myth-taken." And then immediately looks embarrassed that she made a bad pun to The Lady In Charge. It's a great example of the depth of character that SMG brings to what could easily be read as throwaway lines.

[angearia]

Oh that's a perfect example! And I love SMG's delivery in that scene.