Personal Note: Over the weekend I officially became a Nerdfighter! Here is a summary of my conversation with Sarah.
Me: So when do I officially become a Nerdfighter? I’ve watched about 20 videos so far, read all about them, and accepted John Green as my Lord and Savior.
Sarah: Lol. Then you are already a Nerdfighter. Welcome to Nerdfighteria!
Me: Yay! Does someone need to dunk me underwater now or do I need to sacrifice a goat or something?
Sarah: You’re going to need to sacrifice your social life.
Me: Done and done!
Now for The Witch:
Normally I’d give a breakdown of each show, but I really want to focus on the theme of this show because I think Joss does an excellent job of getting his point across without beating me over the head with metaphors and innuendos (See the next episode). This episode is all about parents (specifically mothers) trying to live vicariously through their children. This of course is taken to the extreme in Joss Whedon’s world, where a mother actually switches bodies with her daughter. Even though this episode was made 15 years ago, it is still a common occurrence for mothers to try to live through their daughters.
Women have more pressure on them to remain looking young and thin, especially in our world of modern-medicine, fad-diets, and reality TV shows. No matter how hard you try, you will age. You will get old (if you’re lucky). Some people go to the absolute extremes to avoid getting or looking old. I won’t focus on how in our society more pressure is put on women to look young. Turn on the TV for a half hour if you want proof. This however leads into part of the reason that mothers try to live through their daughters. I may not be a mother myself, but I do coach teenage girls so I have seen and heard stories of mothers trying to hang out with her daughter and her friends, buying them alcohol to look cool, etc.
Let’s talk about biology here for a second. The teenage girl (around 16) is just about the most fruitful, young, attractive thing that you can get. Mothers don’t envy their daughters as much when they are younger than that because they are children (especially that awful, awkward pre-teen phase). But when children turn into young women, this is also the time that mothers usually hit the age when they can no longer bear children. No, most women don’t hit menopause at 40, but their bodies are not the land-of-plenty anymore. Things dry out, sag, don’t work quite as well; it’s a whole big mess. This leads to the 40-something mother looking at her teenage daughter with a slight bit of envy. Some women do the healthy thing and join a book club. Some do the less healthy plastic surgery, diets consisting solely of tree bark, and dressing like she was 20 years younger. Then you get those that actually try to BE 20 years younger.
Here, Joss Whedon shows Amy’s mother as that women that feels like she could still be that young teenager that she used to be. She looks at her daughter and feels like she is wasting her youth, so she does the sane and rational thing and takes that youth away from her. Yet, while in Amy’s body, she isn’t able to make cheerleader, no matter how hard she practices and tries. I think Joss is trying to tell us that no matter how hard women (and men for that matter) try to recapture their youth, it ain’t gonna happen. Sure, you can look young again, be thin again, but you can’t actually be young again. It’s part of life and we should learn to accept it. I know that even only being 24 I would love to have my 16 year old body, but no way in hell would I actually want to be an idiot in high school again!
This is getting long, but I’m not done SO YOU WILL READ.
I love that we are presented with a contrast in this episode also. Joyce may not be perfect, but she is still one helluva mom! She’s a single parent so she can’t spend every free second practicing with Buffy at cheerleading. Ever seen Toddlers in Tiaras? Yeah, mom’s that spend every waking hour trying to train their daughters creep the hell out of me. Joyce still tries to relate to Buffy later in the episode, telling her about the fun she had on yearbook in high school. Buffy, of course, hasn’t learned this week’s lesson yet and is a brat to her. Later in the episode we have a great moment where Joyce flat out tells her “I don’t get it”. It’s a fact of life that parents aren’t going to understand their children. Thank you Joyce for having the guts to admit to it. All of us (and Buffy) love you for that.
One last thing that was prevalent through this episode. Cordelia is dumb. She is really dumb. She is dumb and annoying and needs to have acid splashed on her face. I even feel like the show was implying that (even though it's a curse) Buffy becoming a cheerleader has turned her into a braindead, peppy idiot. Like Cordelia. Who is dumb.
Derrrr... I scream at cars cuz that makes them stop!
Favorite line (completely unrelated to anything I talked about, but it’s a funny line that I love) Xander: "I laugh in the face of danger, then I hide till it goes away."
-Kali!
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