Will We Be Watching Buffy in 100 Years?

Recently someone said to me that she thinks that Buffy will still be watched and talked about in a hundred years.

Now, my first response to this statement was to be put off by her fannish certitude. I mean, I accept that Buffy is art and a text that can be read and reread and mined for theses, but I'm not sure that means it has longevity. It is ground-breaking and orginal, but now that the ground has been broken, won't others step in to improve upon the template? It is a show very much grounded in the time it was written. Then there is the issue of technology. Will it survive the inevitable march from video technology to new video technology. Unlike a book from the 19th century, if you find a DVD in the attic, you have to still own a DVD player to see it. Will there be enough interest in Buffy to get it tranferred to the thing that replaces DVDs when that day comes? Assuming that it does, will the series still be worthwhile viewing with its already laughable special-effects-on-a-shoestring battle scenes?

But, then again, I can see her argument and the merit in it. Special effects and battle scenes are nearly always beside the point in an episode of Buffy. The point is the story, the metaphor and the language. And as for the show being timely, I've yet to be in a literature course where each text wasn't framed in the context of its time and studied as a product of it. So, assuming (and it may be a big assumption) that we begin to cannonize TV shows as we have already begun to cannonize movies, will Buffy make the cut?

Well, it's off to a good start. The fact that Buffy has a critical reception at all is in its favor. Will it endure, or will the critics exhaust the possibilities? I've been reading this exchange on Slate about Shakespeare's critical reception which cites Shakespeare as, in a sense, "bottomless" - that is not exactly ultimately inexhaustible, but inexhaustible so far. I think this may be due in part to genre. As plays, Shakespeare's works escape the possibility of diminishing in the sight of a public that reads less and less. There will always be some drama troupe looking to try their hand at Hamlet or some director eager to lend a new visual flare to Othello. And by doing that, they are reinterpreting the work, making it new. In that sense, Shakespeare's longevity is tied up in the flexibility of his work and its genre. So, I wonder if anything on film, with visuals inseparable from text and actors' inflections constantly coloring dialogue, can experience the kind of renewal necessary to keep critics talking about it for years on end. And it follows that if people aren't talking about something, they won't be watching it either.

This is not to say that I don't think that Buffy is great. I think it is an incredible achievement and striking in its similarity to what Shakespeare's works started out as: popular mass entertainment covering genre stories with clever language that can be delved for deeper meaning. But greatness is not longevity. We all have this idea that if we can just write something good enough, it will be appreciated after our deaths, but there are too many sadly ignored writers being "discovered" 200 years later to make a believable case for the meritocracy of the canon.

But, I may be underestimating the influence of cult fandom. It's been almost exactly 40 years since the original Star Trek series debuted on TV and it is still watched, discussed and serving as the basis for all too many embarassing costumes at conventions in its honor. The Buffy musical episode, "Once More, With Feeling" is already receiving the same treatment as The Rocky Horror Picture Show - midnight showings where people dress up as characters to act and sing along in front of the screen. Buffy may well survive in this form. But I think it would be a pity for it to be passed on to new viewers with that kind of uncritical and fetishized perspective. For me, Buffy is best when you can appreciate all its layers - superficial as well as metaphorical. It's best when you can debate with a friend whether an unsouled Spike is capable of love or only obsession or even agree that certain plots were misguided.

So, my answer to this question is, of course, not an answer but a series of questions. And I think that's as it should be because I am not in the business of predicting the future. I'm not certain that Buffy can or should survive to the next century. I'm just enjoying disseminating it now and for as long as interest in it lasts.