"Who died and made you..." by Victor Infante

Normally I post my own writing on this blog. However, after the announcement of a possible Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot movie, I found that I couldn't really think of anything to say that my friend Victor Infante didn't say in a recent entry in his own personal blog. So, with permission from the original author, I bring you the following from the editor-in-chief of the online literary magazine The November 3rd Club, copy editor for the Worcester Telegram, author of City of Insomnia, which is available from Write Bloody Press, and a man of many other accolades, Victor Infante:


I'm pretty sure I've never seen word of a movie get such a sudden and sharp denunciation from its potential audience as the proposed reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer¹. Really. It's been staggering². The news was originally broken by The Hollywood Reporter, who also reported that:

The new "Buffy" film, however, would have no connection to the TV series, nor would it use popular supporting characters like Angel, Willow, Xander or Spike. Vertigo and Kuzui are looking to restart the story line without trampling on the beloved existing universe created by [Joss] Whedon, putting the parties in a similar situation faced by Paramount, J.J. Abrams and his crew when relaunching "Star Trek."³

Which, really, it's not the same situation at all. Buffy has been off the air for less than a decade, and still does a brisk business in DVDs and has an ostensibly canonical continuation in comics. Star Trek was a dying franchise of which the principle image in most young viewers minds was either an aging, overweight William Shatner at his hammiest, or worse, the barely interesting TV show Enterprise. It was time to start again. And that time will come for Buffy, too, but this probably isn't it. Or at least, this is probably not the way to do it.

There's two hard realities butting heads here -- one legal and financial, and the other cultural. On the legal side, the movie rights to Buffy are owned by original director Fran Rabel Kuzui along with her husband Ka. According to Newsarama, "Kuzui and Kuzui Enterprises has held on to the rights since Kuzui, 'discovered the "Buffy” script from then-unknown Whedon. She developed the script while her husband put together the financing to make the 1992 movie, which was released by Fox.'"⁴

Characters such as as Willow, Giles, Angel and Spike are all owned by Fox, and it's unlikely Fox would release them. And while Whedon still retains some ownership over the franchise, it likely only extends to royalties, not to actual control. Once the movie rights were sold, that's all she wrote. So if they want to make the movie in the face of an outraged and noisy fandom, that's their prerogative.

However, one thing's become clear to me in this process, though: Buffy's an iconic character, and as such, eventually will pass out of Joss' hands. Probably even while he's still alive, although doubtfully while he's still interested. The character has embedded itself in the cultural matrix, and her story will get retold umpteen million different ways. That's how it goes for the icons. But the key to the success of Buffy's next iteration will be the identification of the fundamental elements of the story.

So what are the fundamental elements of the Buffy story? Well, Buffy Summers, obviously. "One girl in all the world with the strength and skill to fight the vampires, blah, blah, blah." But while the movie was first, it's clear that the TV show is the ruling canon, and the characters introduced there have become part of the meta story. At this point, a Buffy without Willow and Giles is a bit like Superman without Lois Lane or Jimmy Olson, and even Smallville made use of Lex Luthor when it started up, along with Superman characters Lana Lang and Pete Ross. The fan reaction is one thing, but stories -- big stories, anyway, and Buffy's earned its place as a big story -- they work a certain way. And oddly, that way has little to do with faithful retelling, and secondary characters ... they have their place in a mythos.

It's like this: there's a certain power in stories that get retold and reinterpreted. Take Batman for example. The Batman in the comics now (err ... before he died) is not the Batman Bob Kane created, nor the one Frank Miller reinvigorated, nor is he the one in the cartoons or the one Christian Bale plays in the movies. But they're all faithful renditions of the story, even if the details are different: You have the boy who watches his wealthy parents get murdered in Gotham City who returns to fight criminals. You have the Batmobile, you have Jim Gordon and his faithful butler Alfred. In most, you have Robin. Some of these details were added along the way, but once they're locked into the mythos, they're there to stay. I'd argue that Giles, Willow & Xander, Angel and Sunnydale itself have locked themselves into that mythos.

So what happens if the new movie goes a completely different direction, and jettisons the existing mythos? Well, then you have a situation like, say, the Halle Barre Catwoman movie, which had nothing to do with the spirit of the mythos save its name. The reaction to the misstep becomes visceral, because some stories have a weight of their own, and not honoring that shows. For what it's worth, I think J.J. Abrams outdid himself with the new Star Trek, and that you could completely see how Christopher Pine and Zachary Quinto could grow into the more familiar older Kirk and Spock. The spirit was there. Is it too much to suspect already that Buffy's spirit is lacking in the proposed movie? It's way too soon to say that, but there's a bad feeling in my gut about it.




¹ "BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER remake without Whedon or anything developed from the TV show... seriously..." Ain't It Cool News. 25 May 2009. 26 May 2009 http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41180.
² "Buffy minus Joss?" Newsarama. 25 May 2009. Imaginova Corp. 26 May 2009 http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/05/25/buffy-minus-joss/.
³ Kit, Boyrs. "'Buffy' in for feature relaunch." Hollywood Reporter. 25 May 2009. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 26 May 2009 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i666afabc28491e6a5d5861d83ae30855.
⁴ Newsarama.

Video of the Week - Jon Stewart vs. Poetry

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Old Man Stewart Shakes His Fist at White House Poetry Jams
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

This week’s video of the week comes a little late, but with a longer commentary than usual.

The point of this blog is to talk about my thoughts about the media, not to talk about my life as a slam poet. I have many other forums to discuss that aspect of my life. However, when these two interests intersect, I find it necessary to discuss it here.

This video from The Daily Show with John Stewart created quite a stir within the slam community. While ours is not the first community to be lampooned by Stewart, nor will it be the last, I thought this would be a good chance to discuss the role of a comedian and what can and cannot be deemed an attack from someone like Jon Stewart.

The reactions from poets to this segment ranged from moral outrage to George Watsky’s limerick entitled “Jon Stewart could light my cat on fire, and he would still be My Hero”:

A New York comedian’s mercy
goes only as far as his slurs– he
takes poetry down
but that’s easy to clown
(like the fact that he grew up in Jersey)¹

Part of the outrage, undoubtedly, came from the fact that the slam community tends to fall into The Daily Show’s target demographic. Slam poets generally run the gambit from moderate democrats to die-hard socialists with almost no conservative voices in the community. Many poets are, therefore, fans of The Daily Show’s left-leaning political satire. Thus, when Jon Stewart decided to spoof the slam community, many saw it as a sort of betrayal.

Yet, where in the video is Stewart actually attacking the slam community? One moment could be where he claims that “not every first is something to necessarily celebrate,” referring to this being the first White House Poetry “Jam.” Another would be immediately after his montage of the poets’ actual performances where he mocks an admittedly silly sounding line from a poem regarding Alexander Hamilton.

Poetry Slam Incorporated’s president, Scott Woods, argued in a recent column of his that Jon Stewart’s supposed attack on our community would be justified if these poets were representative of the community as a whole:

Jon Stewart makes a comment suggesting that, now that we have black president, poets can stop doing that “jam” thing we do. It is a statement borne out of ignorance of what modern poetry has to offer, but it is a common ignorance…an ignorance poetry does not counter often enough in the public eye, even when given every opportunity to do so.²

Woods is arguing that, if our community is being mocked, we only have ourselves to blame by not putting our best foot forward when given public exposure.

What this comes down to is simply this: the line in the poem was unintentionally funny. Had I been sitting in the back of a poetry reading with one of my friends, I probably would have made some of the same comments that Jon Stewart did.

So, putting those moments aside, what is Stewart really making fun of in this segment? He mocks the media’s discussions about the difference between a “Poetry Slam” and a “Poetry Jam” (the latter being a phrase that is virtually unused in the slam community). He makes jokes about Obama trying too hard to be hip with the cultural events he puts on in the White House. None of these things are really direct attacks on the slam community as a whole.

Furthermore, he mocks himself by naming the segment “Old Man Stewart Shakes His Fist at White House Poetry Jams.” This suggests that this is less than a serious attack, and more of a gentle mockery. Some poets, however, disagree with this. In an online discussion on the Facebook profile of Chicago poet Robbie Q. Telfer, Telfer responded to my argument about Stewart’s own self-deprecation in the piece by saying:

well, i say it's racist and elitist knowing the history of what slam has brought to disenfranchised voices, but also knowing that the daily show writers either don't have access to that history or they don't care. mocking the voice of hip-hop poetry replicates and can encourage the same gate-keeping of language slam poets have been fighting since the beginning of the movement.

i think comedians can get away with racism and elitism for the reasons you give, trevor, but it's still there. and when i talk about "jon stewart" i mean the character, not the actual dude.³

I find this especially interesting that this is coming from a poet who is known for his comedic work. I hope that Robbie Q. will forgive me for saying this, I don’t mean to pigeon-hole him and ignore any of his non-comedic work, but some of his most well known works are comedic. Yet, he brushes off the self-deprecating element of this segment, which is the part that undercuts everything else Stewart is saying. Poetry, in this context, is being presented as something that is “hip,” while Stewart is mocking himself for being “unhip” in doing so. Stewart is, in a way, complimenting the community. As for the “gate-keeping of language that slam poets have been fighting,” I think Scott Woods’s previous comment speaks to that very well.

Stewart’s job as a comedian is to find humor in the news and point it out. Often times, in doing so, he points out the faults of our government and our society. However, as Jon Stewart has made very clear on several occasions, for all his political commentary, his first role on the show is as a comedian. Sometimes, the best comedy comes from finding small, niche groups doing unusual things and poking fun at them. While the “Poetry Jam” that was held at the White House was a big step forward for our community, there were also elements that were particularly funny, such as the clips that Stewart played. Must the slam community take itself so seriously that it can’t take a joke when one is thrown at it? Do you think that, when Conan O’Brien filmed the famous segment for his show where he mocked an old-timey baseball league in Long Island that the league boycotted his show afterwards, or did they understand that what they do probably looks funny to outsiders?

Remember, funny is funny, and a comedian has to find material somewhere. If he doesn’t find it in one community, he’ll find it in another, and we can’t all take it personally when it’s leveled at our community and then laugh when its aimed at someone else’s. The lesson here is simply to not take yourself too seriously, a lesson that Jon Stewart tries to remember with his own career, as evidenced by his famous quote on Crossfire: “The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls."<sup>4


1</sup> Watsky, George. "Jon Stewart could light my cat on fire, and he would still be My Hero." Weblog post. GeorgeWatsky.com. 14 May 2009. 19 May 2009 http://www.georgewatsky.com.
² Woods, Scott. "Poetry is Doomed #23: The White House Poetry Jam." Weblog post. GotPoetry.com. 17 May 2009. 19 May 2009 http://www.gotpoetry.com/News/article/sid=35243.html.
³ I have no freakin’ clue how I would even begin to cite this. I don’t think anybody’s ever thought up an MLA citation format for Facebook conversations that aren’t even readable by the general public. I will say, however, that it was used with permission.
⁴ "Episode dated 15 October 2004." Crossfire. CNN. 15 Oct. 2004.

Video of the Week - Scrubs Finale

SPOILER ALERT: These are the final moments of the Scrubs Finale. Watch at your own risk.



Since I dedicated an entire article to the Scrubs finale, I thought I'd dedicate the Video of the Week to it as well. Rather than my usual Video of the Week selections which offer commentary on the media, I thought I'd go for sentimentality this week and show you a real tear jerker. If you've been a fan of the show like I have, this is sure to break your heart. Enjoy.

Bill Lawrence, ABC, and The Fans: Who Really "Owns" Scrubs?

This week, we saw the possible series finale for one of my favorite sitcoms, Scrubs. Scrubs has always been one of the more unique shows in the television landscape, both in terms of content and production. Scrubs was one of the only shows on television that, for the majority of its run, aired on a different network than the one that produced it, being produced by ABC’s Touchstone Television but airing on NBC.1 This, of course, changed in the last season, when the show was dropped by NBC and was picked up by ABC. After the WGA Strike foiled their plans to wrap up the narrative in Season 7, ABC gave them a chance to end the series on their own terms in an 8th season. The show was also unique in that it was in constant danger of being cancelled for much of its run2, yet still managed to pull off 168 episodes over the course of 8 years on the air.

The show was narratively unique as well. It played with the traditional formula of the will-they/won’t-they love story between two lead characters, J.D. and Elliot, in a way that bucked television convention. Instead of making it the central focus of the show to the point where it grates on the audience, the two were brought together for a few episodes at a time in the early seasons, and the romantic plot was then ignored for entire seasons until they were finally brought back together, not in the final episode, but early in the final season. The two male lead characters had a strong relationship that, in a running joke on the show, bordered on the romantic in a way that few series before it had the courage to attempt. It lacked the typical “television amnesia” that is especially prevalent in sitcoms, where characters ignore the events of past episodes. Instead, Scrubs built off past events, often turning one-liner jokes into running gags or even recurring characters like Hooch or Leonard, the hook-handed security guard. Small plot points came back around seasons later, such as the conspiracy between Carla and the Janitor to secretly replace J.D. and Turk’s dead stuffed dog that Carla had accidentally misplaced. Frequent viewership was rewarded with in-jokes from past episodes, especially in the Season 5 episode “My Déjà Vu, My Déjà Vu,” which consisted almost entirely of jokes from past episodes, and even recycled a b-story from a past episode almost verbatim. Yet, the true strength of the show was in its ability to mix the off-the-wall comedy with serious, dramatic moments. At times this formula faltered, particularly when the comedy stretched the show beyond the limits of reality and then attempted to come back down to earth for a serious emotional moment. Still, there were several moments in the show where the elements of comedy and drama came together in a powerful way.

The show’s biggest flaw, however, was the tendency for the voice-over narration to wrap up the episodes’ disparate plotlines in loose metaphors or themes that awkwardly tied them together, leading to a forced and overly sentimental ending of each episode. This formula was parodied several times, particularly in a moment of post-modern reflexivity in the 7th season episode, “My Waste of Time”:

J.D.: Oh I’m just doing this thing where I use a slice of wisdom from someone else’s life to solve a problem in my own life.
Jordan: It seems coincidental.
J.D. And yet I do it almost every week.3

Despite this flaw, the little-show-that-could developed a cult following that is coming out in full force as ABC decides the fate of the show for the 2009-2010 television season, despite the fact that the show’s creator Bill Lawrence, and stars Zach Braff and Judy Reyes have announced they will not return for a 9th season if there is one.4 Without Lawrence, the creative force behind the show, Reyes, whose character on the show is married to another prominent character on the show, or Braff, the star and narrator of the show, many fans feel that a 9th season of the show would, inevitably, “jump the shark,” and are arguing, often vehemently, that the show should not return for a 9th season without its full cast. Both ABC and Bill Lawrence remain indifferent to fan complaints and still talk about a “50/50” chance of the show returning with new characters for next season.5 Since ABC owns the rights to the show, and Lawrence created the show, it would seem that they have the full authority to make such decisions about the show’s continuation. Yet, do the fans have the right to voice complaints? Do they, in a sense, have a certain sense of ownership of the show and the characters that allow them to have a say in the decision?

A certain logic in television states that since the shows, especially those aired on broadcast networks, are provided free of charge, the creators owe nothing to the audience. They have provided a free service and it is ungrateful to criticize the quality or content of that free service. In a recent interview, Bill Lawrence laughed off a suggestion made by a fan that, if the show were to continue without the original characters, it should no longer be called Scrubs:

I think one of the weirdest comments I got, Will, was somebody on the message board who, when I said, “It’s gonna be like anew [sic] show,” said, “Well, then don’t call it ‘Scrubs’!” I’m, like, “What does it matter to you?” (Laughs) “So, like, you’re okay with it if it’s not called ‘Scrubs’ but, like, ‘Doctors’?” “Yeah!” Well, that’s just idiotic.6

His comment that such a suggestion is “idiotic” seems odd considering that he made the same suggestion at a speech at his alma mater, William and Mary, suggesting that, if the show were to go on without Zach Braff, it would be a completely different show, and possibly need a different title.7 However, the comment I find most interesting in this quote from Lawrence is the part where he says: “What does it matter to you?” In his condescending tone he seems to forget the power that the viewer has over the fate of a television show, a power that the creators and even the networks lack: if the audience doesn’t watch the show, then the show will die.

Television audiences have always taken fierce possession over the characters in the shows they watch. Many scholars have discussed (almost to death) the phenomenon of housewives in the late-60’s writing homoerotic fan-fiction stories about Star Trek’s Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock in an attempt to feminize two otherwise staunchly masculine characters. The phenomenon of fan-fiction has been examined in-depth by many media theorists, mainly because it is one of the primary ways in which fans of a show become active rather than passive recipients of media. One of the best resources on this subject, which I highly recommend, is Henry Jenkins’s book Convergence Culture, which deals not only with fan fiction, but also with other ways in which fans take control over the media they consume, such as the Survivor spoilers who go to great lengths to uncover the secrets of the show before it airs, or the amateur film makers who make Star Wars tribute films on shoe-string budgets.8 Media companies have gone to great lengths to try to shut down these active consumers, yet, ironically, it is the dedication to these movies and television shows that the media makers have intentionally tried to cultivate which has led to these legally ambiguous acts of fan tribute. The creators of these shows and movies have created their own monsters.

It is much the same in the case with Scrubs. While Scrubs is not the source of a great deal of fan-fiction (although, virtually every TV show or movie generates some fan-fiction these days), it has developed a strong and dedicated cult following. The fact that they make references back to past episodes that offer a pay-off for long-time viewers is a sign that the creators and producers not only expect but encourage fans to become an active audience, seeking out all the episodes of the show to understand how all 8 seasons fit together as a cohesive narrative. They expect and want the audience to become attached to the characters, otherwise the tear-jerker ending of the show’s 8th season finale (which, I admit, got me a little teared up myself) would have had no purpose.

Viewers have an investment in these characters that the creators have intentionally tried to create. Viewers also have a certain ownership over the characters because, as we have already seen, it is only through the audience’s continued viewership that the characters are allowed to survive. All the combined dedication of Bill Lawrence, ABC and NBC would have had no effect in keeping the show on the air if the viewers did not continue to tune in. Thus, it could be said that the fans are not being “idiotic” when they claim their right to weigh in on the future of the show and its characters; they helped to create both in the first place.

Thus, Lawrence’s question of “What does it matter to you?” seems rather silly. It matters to the dedicated fan base because Lawrence and the rest of the creative team behind Scrubs wanted it to matter to them. Therefore, if the audience declares that they don’t want to see the show continue on without its main characters for fear that it will tarnish the legacy of their show, moving it into the territory of AfterM*A*S*H or the post-Ron Howard seasons of Happy Days, then they certainly deserve to be heard. After all, if the show does return for a 9th season, the fans’ opinions will be heard loud and clear once the ratings come back on a revamped, J.D.-less version of Scrubs. This is not to suggest that the fans have more of an ownership over the show and its characters than either ABC or Bill Lawrence. It is just to suggest that the fans have more of an ownership over the show than either of its legal owners have given them credit for.



1 Grossman, Ben. "Scrubs a Near Lock for Next Fall." Broadcasting and Cable. 14 Jan. 2007. Reed Business Information. 09 May 2009 http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/107267-Scrubs_a_Near_Lock_for_Next_Fall.php.
2 "A Chat with Bill Lawrence: The Scrubs Exit Interview." Interview with Will Harris. Premium Hollywood. 6 May 2009. 9 May 2009 http://www.premiumhollywood.com/2009/05/06/a-chat-with-bill-lawrence-the-scrubs-exit-interview/.
3 Schwartz, Andy. "My Waste of Time." Scrubs. NBC. 1 May 2008.
4 Reynolds, Simon. "Judy Reyes quits 'Scrubs'" Digital Spy. 30 Aug. 2008. 09 May 2009 http://www.digitalspy.com/ustv/a127747/judy-reyes-quits-scrubs.html.
5 “A Chat with Bill Lawrence…”
6 I.B.I.D.
7 Lawrence, Bill. "My Scrubs Ramblings." ABC.com. 22 Jan. 2009. ABC. 09 May 2009 http://forums.abc.go.com/n/blogs/blog.aspx?nav=main&webtag=scrubsramblings&entry=10.
8 Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture. New York: New York UP, 2006.

Video of the Week - When Pigs Fly

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Snoutbreak '09 - The Last 100 Days
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

So, I've been a little behind with the posts here lately at Church of the Sonic Death Monkey due to finals. Oh, the lovely life of a graduate student. I will be updating here again soon, but for now, I'll leave you with my favorite video of the past week: The Daily Show's report from April 27th (my birthday) on the media coverage of the newest hyped up pandemic: Swine Flu. It was, of course, only a matter of time before I had a video on this site from The Daily Show, and it probably won't be the last time you see here. Few people out there do as fine of a job of skewering the media as Jon Stewart. In times of ridiculous panic, someone has to play the role of Socrates in society.