fenderlove | Buffy: the Metaseries.

In which Fender talks about what canon is, what canon isn't, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gene Roddenberry, and Sailor Moon. I swear I tried to make this as coherent as possible, but it is 2AM and I am filled with sugar and have been watching My Little Ponies: Sea Ponies.

Buffy: the Metaseries.

My first fandoms growing up were comics and anime/manga. I got used to different continuities and incarnations very early on. Most comics I read outside of Japanese manga were not being continued by their original creators, though those creators might have been in the background working on other projects outside of the series I was reading. And then came Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which was the first live action show that I began to really enjoy in a fannish way. Over time I learned that live action TV is treated very differently when it comes to canon than with anime and comics.

For a little background about anime, a lot of animes start out as manga (comparable to graphic novels). A person creates a manga, it becomes popular, and it gets made into an anime series. This usually leads to a movie or two or an OVA (direct-to-video animation which might come before the anime series is produced). What makes most anime different from most American comic book adaptations is that people do not expect the adaptation to follow the original. For example, my favourite Japanese anime series is called Shoujo Kakumei Utena (Revolutionary Girl Utena), a DaDa-esque and symbolistic 36 episode series with ambiguously amoral characters with even more ambiguous sexualities and genders. It started out as a manga series by Chiho Saito, who was commissioned by a production company called Be-Papas. It skipped the OVA process and went straight to anime (Be-Papas always had the intention of creating it as an anime if the manga did well). The characters were generally the same, the setting was the same, a few of the plot elements were the same, but the end result was a very different story. Then came the big screen Utena movie (Adolescence Apocalypse), which also had a manga to go with it. In the end, you wind up with a manga, an anime series, a feature length movie, and a "movie" manga that all tell very, very different stories involving the same characters. You could also see how the stories' tones would change when Chiho Saito was in total control of the story in her manga than when the production company for the anime was involved. The quality of the story never changed, but you can see how her individual influence impacted the story in subtle ways, sometimes not for the best. Where is Fender going with this? Well, since it's always all about Buffy, that's where we're going.

To me, Buffy shares a grand tradition of shows that have crossed all lines of media. Buffy has its movie, its show, its spin-off, its cartoon pilot, books, comics, video games, tabletop RPGs, etc. Star Trek and Star Wars share in this bankability, and they all share a common problem- What is canon and what isn't?

Some people might say that anything being overseen by the original creator of a series is canon. Well, that poses quite a few problems. What about Star Trek: Voyager which was produced several years after ST creator Gene Roddenberry's death? Are Voyager and Enterprise not canon because Roddenberry wasn't alive to oversee them? Sure, he left notes and short stories that have influenced the ST shows posthumously, but how much detail could that have really been? Did these series turn out how he would have wanted them to?

Even when a series creator is still alive and "actively" working with his or her creation, we take it on the word of others how much that person is really doing. George Lucas is a good example. One single human being can only be in so many places at once, and when your franchise has video games, books, cartoons, comics, toys, etc. all in production at the same time, it'd be ridiculous to assume that he is sweating bullets over every little nuance (if he had, the prequels wouldn't have created so many bloody plotholes). It's the fans who want to believe that he does more than he probably really does. He pays people well to ensure the quality of his franchise is maintained, but it's the fans that want that grand mythos of the Great George Lucas plotting out every little detail (though be assured that what he does is still quite a lot, and I'm not trying to demean the honour of George Lucas).

Stan Lee is another example of a living creator, still working but maybe not actively working nor overseeing the comics he created. He's got other ventures he pursues- voice-acting, making cameo appearances in Marvel movies and commercials, superhero-themed reality shows, and executive producing well-animated but poorly-executed cartoon shows about strippers. He's left his creations in capable hands, though lets not speak of the Fantastic Four movie with Jessica Alba. *shudders* The X-Men, Spiderman, and Fantastic Four will carry on even after Lee's death just as Bob Kane and Bill Finger wouldn't have wanted their creations like Batman to die with them, nor would Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster have wanted Superman to just cease to be.

Getting back to the point, canon is a fickle thing. If the original fandom entity can be carried on without the creator, then how do we judge what canon is? Well, in the case of television shows and movies, it's very murky. What is presented on screen might be very different if you change the writers, the producers, the production company, the actors, and any other number of people who create a show or movie. There are so many other people besides the creator who play a major role in how lines are read and present an interpretation to the audience. If an actor is allowed to ad-lib a line, then is that line canon? We accept it if it's onscreen, but maybe the creator didn't really want that line in there. And with today's modern technology, we can now know instantly when a writer, actor, or show creator is displeased with something. We have access to so many different media that we trip over ourselves. The writers go to conventions and give audio commentary on the DVDs, and we can learn exactly what they meant to do or wished they could do. Sometimes, they try to tell us exactly how to interpret a scene, but what if that's not how we interpreted it? In the Chosen commentary, Joss stated that he told Sarah Michelle Gellar that Buffy meant it when she says "I love you," and he told James Marsters that Spike believed Buffy loved him even though he was saying that he didn't. Without listening to the episode commentary, there are several different interpretations of that scene that the audience can have, so does that mean that the audience members who haven't listened to the commentary and have a different opinion about that scene are "wrong?" Are the people who have listened to the commentary and still have a different opinion about that scene are "wrong?" No, no one is wrong. And that's not just because Joss's opinions of things change from week-to-week. It's because we were presented with what we were presented with, and we took what we got from it. There is no misinterpretation when the scene is not clear. We can't know what the characters were thinking anymore than we can really know what the actors or writers were thinking. Would anyone have really guessed that during her brilliant performance in The Body that Emma Caulfield was praying she got to a bathroom before she urinated on herself? Does that change the interpretation of the scene because she revealed that? No! It's a funny anecdote!

Canon is different for everyone. Comic book readers accept that there are different timelines within the Marvel/DC universes, that the events in one series don't necessary mesh with those of another. Marvel 1602 doesn't negate Marvel Zombies; they just take place on different continuities. Canon is also different because of the various media that each series is produced in. In Buffy fandom, we accept that everyone has watched the show, but not everyone is reading the pre- or peri-Joss comics, reads the novellas, has played the video games, reads interviews with actors/directors/writers, or has seen the cartoon pilot. However, to just say that the show is canon presents a problem since there's a spin-off Angel. Things can contradict, things can seemed ret-conned, and character behavior can vary (Angel in Chosen, for example- He doesn't appear to be the guy who just found out that the woman he's in love with is in a coma that she's never going to wake up from nor will he ever get to be in his son's life. No, in Chosen, he's downright smarmy, which makes little sense given the circumstances). Also, which characters you like or identify with influence how you view the show. You might be more or less sympathetic to certain characters depending on how you relate to them, which can temper your judgement of storylines and whether or not those storylines were successful. Events within the show can be left ambiguous or deliberately left up to the audience to decide what happens. The scene in Chosen where Buffy and Spike are in the basement that fades to black is an excellent example. That scene was written for the audience to choose what happened. If you wanted Spike and Buffy to have sex, they had sex. If you wanted Buffy to turn around and head back up the stairs, that's what she did. If you wanted Spike to say, "If you've come down here for a poke, you've learned nothing, you stupid, self-absorbed cow," then that's what happened. It's the same with whether or not you consider Cecily Addams and Halfrek the Vengeance Demon to the be the same person. Even though it was stated by a crew member that it was a joke for fans who realized it the was the same actress (which happens a lot in the Whedonverse- J. Woodward was on all three Whedon shows, Tom Lenk played a vampire prior to playing Andrew, etc), it's not clear given the characters seeming to know each other already and Halfrek calling Spike "William." And we're still left with the question of what canon is.

Buffy is really good at blurring the lines of what canon is and isn't. Most people who have read most of the Buffy novels wouldn't consider them canon, but why aren't they? An easy way to discount the novels is if they contradict something on the show. Pretty Maids All in a Row could be discounted because Spike kills a third Slayer, Sophie Carstensen, and as someone who loves to brag he would definitely mention killing three rather than two. Then again, you can interpret that as the fight wasn't finished, and maybe Spike didn't feel that he had really won (also, the body was buried underneath a lot of rubble in a cave-in, and he left Xin Rong and Nikki Wood relatively out in the open where they would be found and documented by their Watchers). However, the book interestingly foreshadows forces conspiring to destroy the Slayer line starting with the identified Potentials, which would indeed be great foreshadowing for Season 7. There have been books written by the show's writers as well- Tales of the Slayer featuring short stories by Jane Espenson and Rebecca Rand Kirshner. Are those stories canon because they were writers for the show? If we accept their episodes, why not accept their short stories?

And what of the comics? Dark Horse had the Buffy rights a long time before they were divided up between DH and IDW Publishing. In that time, we got to see Tales of the Slayers, which featured comic stories by Joss Whedon, Jane Espenson, David Fury, and Doug Petrie. Again, these are writers and the creator of the show. However, there is also a story by Amber Benson. Is her story canon? She is an actress, but she's not writing her character in this comic. Did she have any conversations with Joss about her story? Did he give his stamp of approval? James Marsters contributed a little the Spike and Dru comic Paint the Town Red. Even though it didn't turn out as he wanted it, does that give it more credence than other comics because a cast member was involved? He did play the character for several years and would understand his character's motives in theory. Scott Allie, editor-in-chief at Dark Horse, said that he got Joss Whedon's approval for the story and the art, so does that make that particular comic canon even though it is filled with retcons, contingency errors, and not-so-great writing? How many other pre-Season 8 comics that Dark Horse released were screened by Joss himself? If Allie hadn't jumped online to defend himself when the story circulated about how Marsters was disappointed with his comic-writing experience, we wouldn't have known that Joss even saw Paint the Town Red before it went to print. Again, does it matter that Joss approved it when it comes to canon? Does it matter that Joss has picked and chosen from "non-canon" comics to use their elements in the Season Eight comics?

Staying on the topic of comics and moving to a different publisher, a lot of people have questioned the canon-ocity of IDW Publishing's Angel comics. Certainly, the comics released before After the Fall had some retcons and some floating timelines, but much like Dark Horse's pre-Season 8 comics, no one thought too much of them being canon. However, once Joss was asked to help lay out the plot of After the Fall, the big coup at the zoo, to use an Ozian phrase, occurred. Since Brian Lynch scripted ATF with help from a Joss-approved outline and Lynch was adding in characters from his Spike: Asylum series, did that make Asylum and its sequel Shadow Puppets canon? Even though Lynch explained that he didn't consider them to be, his character Betta George is well-acquianted with Spike off-the-bat in ATF, which would seem unusual given that Spike would have had no time to meet him prior to his soul being restored and George seems to regard him as a good guy at the ready. If one accepts that Joss Whedon's name on the cover is what gives something canon-ness, then ATF is canon. However, Joss was not around on a daily basis to oversee what was being written. From what IDW editor-in-chief Chris Ryall and Brian Lynch have said, Joss left them a list of things for the future comics after ATF that he would like to see happen and what he wanted to keep from happening (he'd like Cordelia, Wesley, and Fred to remain deceased). IDW seems to be honoring those requests from all appearances, but since Joss left them instructions to go beyond ATF and his involvement, does that mean that Joss considers the IDW comics post-ATF (Kelley Armstrong's Aftermath, Lynch's Being Human, Boys & Their Toys, and Spike: Unlimited, Bill Willingham's Immortality for Dummies, and Bill Williams's Spike: the Devil You Know) to be a proper continuation of from where ATF left off? Is it the same as Joss leaving Buffy and Angel in semi-capable hands while he was helming Firefly? If not, when does the Joss seal of approval wear off?

In my opinion, when a series reaches the kind of merchandising heights that Star Trek, Star Wars, all the DC Universe, all the Marvel Universe, and Buffy (to a lesser extent) have reached, it becomes a metaseries, "stories which reference each other and some overall similar chronology, cast, and/or background, but are not similar enough to be considered direct sequels" (Wikipedia). Going back to my anime example of Shoujo Kakumei Utena, even though the manga series, TV show, movie, movie manga, and SEGA video game (oh, and there's a stage musical that I forgot to mention- Japan is weird) all differ from one another, they are all part of a series. Fans don't argue about which is more canon than the other. They accept them as separate entities that could potentially cross paths but probably never will coexist. They are all canon, their own canon. Many Japanese series are like this- Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo, Ah! Megami-Sama, Gundam, etc. The even wackier thing is that the same anime has a different canon depending on whether you are watching the American dub or the original Japanese. For example, in the English dub of Sailor Moon, many gay male characters are airbrushed into female characters to not incite backlash from the American audience. Both versions are presented on screen, but what you have access to determines how you view the show. In your fanfic is Zoicite a boy or is he a she? Both are correct technically. Also, Full Metal Alchemist has two anime series- one that follows the manga more closely and one that doesn't. They're both considered canon. Another difference between Japanese manga and American comics is that many manga series are done by a singular artist (a mangaka), but upon the artist's death, the manga sometimes stop being produced, but manga and anime sometimes continue after the death just like American comics. Again, what is this thing called canon?

The only conclusion that I can come to is that canon is us, the audience. We determine it each in our own way, and we ensure that fandom carries on in its various forms. We choose what versions of our fandom we interact with, whether or not we buy comics or buy the books or play the video games or watch the cartoon pilot on YouTube or listen/read interviews/commentaries with the writers, actors, and such. Instead of being so concerned with trying to unify such an expansive and rich 'verse into a teeny tiny fandom box, we should be grateful that we have so much to work with a decade after the show has gone off the air! When Joss Whedon is long deceased, I hope that there will be still new Buffy stuff coming out that I can share with my future children and grandchildren, and I hope I won't be arguing with the young whippersnappers about what is canon proper (throwing down old skool Trekkie versus new Trekkie style) and can just enjoy sharing something together.

So, that's all I've got, and I actually feel a lot better. We are never going to agree, and we're all just a little bit mad, but usually the best people are.

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: The Den.
Current Music: TruTV.