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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: imagery by season

This is a masterlist of posts about Buffy’s imagery by season. Most written by me, but not all. I started the series as an attempt to explore the visual side of Buffy, which is often not given very much credit outside of showpiece episodes. Perhaps because of the show’s lower-budget aesthetic, or perhaps because the show has always been more well-known for its wit. But imagery can be meaningful even if it isn’t “pretty.” I found that each season was rich with visual motifs that echoed the ideas the season was exploring. Sometimes those motifs had to do with the content of the shot, and sometimes they had to do with the way the shot was composed. Season six, for example, has many images of fire, and season three has many instances of characters wielding crosses. Whereas season two has a gothic atmosphere that affects the “mood” of shots as much what the shot is looking at. Or season seven uses heavy foregrounding and backgrounding effects to frame the action in a way that emphasizes the subjectivity of perspective.

The intention of the series is not to identify every single motif in every season of Buffy, or to describe every theme. I tried to limit myself only to motifs that had an undeniable visual component. When picking images for season four’s “identity” motif, for example, I didn’t consider it good enough just to show a random image of Faith in Buffy’s body, and let the reader remember that Faith had stolen Buffy’s identity in that shot. Because in that case, the visuals weren’t necessarily doing obvious thematic work. The story was. But that shot in which Faith-as-Buffy stares at herself in the mirror, and at the audience by proxy? That sort of image suggests self-contemplation, and highlights the bizarreness of the fact that it’s not Buffy staring at you. Which absolutely connects to ideas around identity. In other words, I tried to limit myself to images where it really is the image that matters, and not just the context. Even if the context is relevant to what makes the image work.

Adding commentary to all of the posts is an ongoing project. For now I’ve marked all entries that have some sort of explanation attached–whether in essay format or in the tags–with an asterisk (*). 

Season One:

iconography * | horror * | the unexpected  *

high school is hell * | youth; age; the horror of adulthood * (by @visitingthefuneralhome)

Season Two:

voyeurism ( 1 * / 2 / 3 ) | duality * | romance | loss | desire | the gothic *

revivification * | transformation * (by @visitingthefuneralhome)

Season Three:

alter egos * | names | high school | decay * | imprisonment * | precipices * | community * | propriety * | rebellion * | authority vs leadership * | crosses * | crime and punishment * | law and order *

Season Four:

the panopticon ( 1 / 2 / 3 ) | identity * | magic | guns and the military | science and technology | authority * | magic vs science *

Season Five:

mortality * | blood | myth * | strength * | family | love * | boundaries * (more on this motif in no place like home specifically) | grief * | crazy *

Season Six:

the fourth wall | voyeurism and surveillance | fire ( 1 / 2 * ) | disorientation | sex | death * | collapse * | depression | guilt | puppetry * | alcohol * | food ( 1 / 2 * ) | control * | light * | black and white * | the mundane *

Season Seven:

gaze * | frames | isolation | captivity * | touch | the unsafe house * | windows and doors | reflections | communication | perspective | beneathness | overlays * | blindness (and sight) * | foreground/background *

Chiara Fumai and the Dead Feminist Society | Affidavit | Alison Gingeras

Extrapolating from Rome’s dogmas, it dawned on me how Fumai’s suicide could be recuperated as a form of martyrdom—her posthumous legacy undergoing a similar beatification process.

"Extrapolating from Rome’s dogmas, it dawned on me how Fumai’s suicide could be recuperated as a form of martyrdom—her posthumous legacy undergoing a similar beatification process,” Allison Gingeras.

Until Black Women Are Free, None of Us Will Be Free

Barbara Smith and the Black feminist visionaries of the Combahee River Collective.

“Barbara Smith and the Black feminist visionaries of the Combahee River Collective,” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.

assistance for Afghan refugees and internally displaced people

As many of you know, the reason I was basically absent from Tumblr for more than two weeks was because I was working as part of several volunteer groups to try to coordinate evacuation for the many friends I have in Kabul. Because of the extent to which the international community fucked up the evacuation— with the tiniest fraction of people eligible for US and international resettlement actually being rescued, while the rest were left to suffer reprisals— this proved impossible for most. Now a lot of people have been left to flee legally or illegally to neighboring countries and rely on humanitarian aid while they wait for their visa or resettlement applications to be processed. This likely means that they will be unable to support themselves and their families for more than a year, as the visa/resettlement process is an unbelievable nightmare. Some of these are families who were already displaced, having fled their homes for Kabul as the Taliban advanced, and who are therefore starting out with no home and no income. 

Problematically, the crisis in Kabul has unfolded so quickly and the political situation in Afghanistan is such that international aid organizations are simply not [yet] in a position to provide direct support to these families right now. Volunteers on the internet have mobilized to provide donation-funded top-ups for phones, which is essential to help people plan evacuations, handle visa applications, and contact scattered loved ones, but there is no way to get cold hard cash to people so they can feed and house themselves.

I am currently working with a few people to raise money for families I know in order to help them get across the border and support themselves for the foreseeable future. Because GoFundMe is flagging all Afghanistan-related fundraisers, we’re doing this informally— we’re just collecting money and passing it on to people I personally know, as a friend. Also, the best way to get money to people in Kabul at the moment is through hawaala rather than banks, and that is easier through this method.

If you would like to contribute, you can CashApp us at £kmferebee. I’m happy to add you to an email list through which I can share receipts and details about the families in question. If you have doubts or questions, I’m also happy to address those.

And if someone you know is currently trapped in Kabul or the surrounding area, I’m also happy to provide information, referrals, and connections for them if you send them to me, or direct them to verified volunteers who can help.

We realize that the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy. We are socialists because we believe that work must be organized for the collective benefit of those who do the work and create the products, and not for the profit of the bosses. Material resources must be equally distributed among those who create these resources. We are not convinced, however, that a socialist revolution that is not also a feminist and anti-racist revolution will guarantee our liberation.

The Combahee River Collective, “Section 2: What We Believe,” The Combahee Statement, 1977, (included in How We Get Free: Black Feminism and The Combahee River Collective, ed. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Haymarket Press, 2017, pp. 19-20).