Why Buffy?  It is the stuff of pure pop culture that is rebuffed by film students, Emmy voters, and high-brow institutions.  Then again how can we ignore the consistent narrative invention by its creator, Joss Whedon? I will explore how Buffy the Vampire Slayer works as postmodern television and storytelling, crossing over from pop culture phenomenon to sophisticated entertainment, culminating in the tour de force musical episode, Once More, With Feeling.  We will also look at why there is a musical episode at all, how it becomes a meta-musical and how this one works in relation to other, more traditional musicals in both episodic television and feature films.  By taking the story and making it about where the music is coming from, Whedon engages in a bricolage process, re-creating the musical through the setting and history of BtVS.  I also contend that there is a historiographic layering of musical styles from Disney and RKO to Rent and Moulin Rouge while maintaining the meta-fictional storyline in the gothic horror theme of the series.  We will see how a creation of language, intertextual scripting, layering of genres, and reinvention of formula all work together to create postmodern television, which manifests itself fully in a palimpsest of styles and music in Once More, With Feeling. 

Works Cited:

1 http://www.upn.com/shows/buffy/backstory/index.shtml

2  South, James B.  Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy:  Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale.  Peru, IL:  Open Court Publishing, 2003

3  Bianco, Robert.  USA Today,  April 29, 2003.  http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2003-04-28-buffy-main_x.htm

4  “Joss Whedon”  The Onion AV Club.  http:/www.theonionavclub.com/avclub3731/avfeature_3731.html

as quoted in Lavery, David.  “A Religion in Narrative”: Joss Whedon and Television Creativity. http://www.slayage.tv/essays/slayage7/Lavery.htm

5  http://www.btvspassion.com/btvsspeak.htm)

6  The Pack, 4/7/97, http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~msmith/553/Buffy/entry_Scully.htm

7  Joss Whedon interview with Paul Ruditis.  Buffy the Vapire Slayer:  The Script Book:  “Once More, With Feeling”.  New York:  Simon Pulse (division of Simon and Schuster), 2003.

8  See http://www.slayage.tv/essays/slayage3/callander.html.  Callander, Michelle.  “Bram Stoker’s Buffy: Traditional Gothic and Contemporary Culture”

9  Whedon, Joss.  “Once More, With Feeling” script.  Episode #6ABB07. 

Story #EO1429

as published in  Buffy the Vapire Slayer:  The Script Book:  “Once More, With Feeling”.  New York:  Simon Pulse (division of Simon and Schuster), 2003.

10  Longworth, James L., Jr. TV Creators: Conversations with America’s Top Producers of Television Drama, Volume 2. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2002

as quoted in Lavery, David.  “A Religion in Narrative”: Joss Whedon and Television Creativity. http://www.slayage.tv/essays/slayage7/Lavery.htm

11  Entertainment Weekly Magazine.  “I Think Therefore I Slay.”  Missy Schwartz.  Issue #709.  May 9, 2003

12  Bon Appetit. “In Praise of the Gin Martini.”  Al Martinez.  April, 2003

13  Jencks, Charles.  The Language of Post-Modern Architecture.  New York: Rizzoli, 1987

14  Interview with Marti Noxon.  Buffy the Vapire Slayer:  The Script Book:  “Once More, With Feeling”.  New York:  Simon Pulse (division of Simon and Schuster), 2003.