If you follow me on Twitter1 you’ve no doubt noticed that recently I undertook the watching on Netflix Instant of Buffy The Vampire Slayer right from the very beginning.
This tiny factoid demonstrates that at any given moment I lag at least five years behind in “technology” and upward of ten in “pop culture.” Hush. I read books.2
It’s not like I’ve lived in a monastery lo these many years3. Just about everyone I know has sung the praises of Buffy; they’ve told me times without number how much I’d enjoy the show. “I’ve got it all on DVD,” more than one friend has told me more than once. “Why don’t you borrow them?” But I resisted, in large part — and it shames me to admit it — because my exhusband was a Joss Whedon fan from way back.
“You have to watch this with me,” he all but begged after he and a friend spent weeks working their way through a backlog of Buffy and all of Firefly in 2003. I peered around the pages of my novel long enough to ask what it was about. He could have told me it was Jesus on toast and still I would have have rejected it out of hand.
“It’s a kind of Western,” he said. I went back to my book. “But it’s set in space.” I sighed. “In the future!” I rolled my eyes, I’m absolutely sure of it, and kept on reading. My mind was shut to him and by extension to anything he liked.
But the magical summer of 2008 saw my cold little heart cracked open; after hearing it touted by such luminaries as the inimitable Chelsea G. Summers4 I devoted an all-too-brief forty-three minutes to Whedon’s latest project and was instantly hooked. In due time I went to space and am now eagerly devouring tales of Sunnydale High, and all the while I have to wonder if a little more flexibility seven years ago might have saved us.
Would it have made a difference? Would we have helped if I’d laid my stubborn head in his lap and given his stupid shows a chance?
Could the Whedonverse have been the one thing that kept us from divorce?
- And bish plz, why would you not follow me on Twitter, because I am fucking hilarious on Twitter [↩]
- I am only maybe 100 years behind in reading books. Clearly I am going to have to be alive for a very, very long time. [↩]
- Though now that I think about it, how much fun would that be? [↩]
- Do you see what she did there? [↩]
Joss couldn’t even save his own shows. How could he save your marriage? I mean really, that’s asking a lot of the man ;)
No, it wouldn’t have. It didn’t save mine. I got an awesome Whedon obsession out of the deal, but the marriage still ended. It needed to, just like it sounds like yours did.
Enjoy the Buffster. It’s confidence boosting!
Buffy was/is my guilty pleasure. Excellent as the show is, marriage saving doesn’t seem to be one of it’s abilities. Didn’t save mine.
Angel was yummy. And I watched it alone. I wouldn’t want to have shared that experience with my ex.
The mere fact you asked this question tells me that you haven’t gotten very far in the Whedon ouevre yet. By the time you’re done catching up on Buffy, Angel, and even Firefly (thanks to Serenity), you will be in complete despair that there’s any such thing as a happy, lasting relationship. Not to give too many spoilers, but if a relationship is too happy, the Whedonverse itself conspires against it. If a couple weathers every trial that comes their way, it’s just to set it up so it’s more tragic when one of them dies. Guaranteed.
Yeah. Whedon is a brilliant writer, but I don’t let myself get involved in his projects anymore. He subscribes to the “True Art Is Angsty” school of writing, and I couldn’t take anymore.
this made me cackle, truly. i love it.
and i love joss, but holy balls, the man is stuck on a perpetual loop if telling the same story in different ways. how many small brunette crazy women hurt him? and how, exactly? because sheesh. it’s a bit of a recurring theme that spans just about everything.
You are not alone. I have yet to succumb to “Buffy.” I am, however, wavering as we recently got Netflix. I may give it a shot.
I’ll not comment on if your marriage could have been saved or not. Bygones. Onward…
Yeah, Joss isn’t going to keep you in a marriage. He may tie you to that person for the rest of your (potentially centuries long) life but he won’t keep you in a marriage.
Lucky you to have it all to look forward to. Enjoy!
Actually, yes. Yes, a mutual Whedonistic passion would indeed have saved your marriage, my marriage, and in fact any marriage in the entire world and throughout all of time.
I tried and tried and tried to get Fran to join with me in my Whendonism. I’d be all, “Yes, so I know you have a substance abuse problem, I know that you’re in the process of realizing that with my sex chromosomal pairing I’m probably not your bio-sex of choice, I know you’re chronically depressed and just waiting/wanting to die, BUT IF WE WATCH BUFFY TOGETHER WE CAN GET PAST ALL THOSE PESKY DETAILS AND SAVE OUR MARRIAGE!!!” Alas, he wouldn’t listen. Alas, alas.
I guess you know that there’s a Buffy film in the possible works?