be difficult and cruel, Joss tells us, but you have the power to create your own family. Your new family can be more important, more real, than the family you are born into. This theme replays itself throughout the series, from the initial formation of the Scoobies in season one to Xander’s failed attempt to form a new family with Anya in season six.
As Joss tells it: “When we created the show, they said, ‘Do you want [Buffy’s] family?’ And I said, ‘Well, mom and whatnot, but basically, she has a family. Her father is Giles, her sister is Willow, and it’s already in place.’ I had some things go on in my life that made me say, ‘I really want to get this message out, that it’s not about blood.’ Tara was the perfect vehicle for that.
“ Family is as much of a didactic message show as I’ve ever done. Hopefully an entertaining one.” This theme is obviously heartfelt for Joss, but he insists it’s no reflection on his upbringing. “I actually love my family!” he laughs. “We’ve been an unconventional family. I was a child of divorce, and there was a lot of shuffling around. And [there were] people who were not in my family who became of my family.”
A particularly innovative episode was The Body , which was later nominated for an Emmy. The episode, written and directed by Whedon, employs long scenes with minimal cuts to convey a deeper sense of physicality and reality. Joss had lost his mother a few years before and the episode had a special poignancy for him.
Michelle Trachtenberg poses with Sarah Michelle Gellar.
I really want to get this message out, that it’s not about blood.
—Joss
“I really made the episode to capture something very small. The black ashes in your mouth numbness of death. The very morbid physicality of it. It’s why Buffy threw up. Why Dawn said she had to pee. Why the girls kissed. Why there were so many shots of the body.
“You know, I worked my ass off on [that episode]. And my whole cast was extraordinary. But I really thought people were going to sort of hate it, because the whole point was, there’s no catharsis. There’s no point where you go, ‘We’ve learned this!’ or ‘She’ll always be a part of us!’ It was just, ‘My mother is a dead body. And that’s all.’ But people actually did get a kind of catharsis from it. A lot of people who have lost people said it really helped them deal with it or it really moved them. I was surprised by that, because my intention was just to capture that reality, not really to comment on it or be helpful about it.
“The reactions of all the characters were based on things I’ve done. My mother was not the first person I lost. The first person I ever lost, there was a whole thing where I had to find a black tie, because I thought you had to wear a black tie to a funeral. Of course, it was California, so people showed up in Hawaiian shirts, but I didn’t know that! And I couldn’t find one anywhere in LA. I went to dozens of stores, and I was sweating and shaking, like, ‘If I don’t find this, it’ll be sacrilege!’ That’s where the Willow thing came from.
“And then when I lost my mother, there was that numbness that I tried to capture with Buffy , but at the same time, I had already lost someone, and I was around a lot of people who hadn’t so then I was sort of in Tara’s shoes—watching other people’s reactions, and just trying to help and get through it. So it’s all there. Everybody’s got a piece of that.”
The finale of season five, The Gift , represented the culmination of a story arc that Whedon had forshadowed in season three. As everyone knows, Buffy sacrificed herself to save the world—the ultimate sacrifice. Or was it?
By the end of season five Whedon portrayed a Buffy that is traumatized and deeply tired. She has lost Angel, Riley and her mother and the resolution she showed when she killed Angel at the end of season two has faded. She isn’t willing to kill
As Joss tells it: “When we created the show, they said, ‘Do you want [Buffy’s] family?’ And I said, ‘Well, mom and whatnot, but basically, she has a family. Her father is Giles, her sister is Willow, and it’s already in place.’ I had some things go on in my life that made me say, ‘I really want to get this message out, that it’s not about blood.’ Tara was the perfect vehicle for that.
“ Family is as much of a didactic message show as I’ve ever done. Hopefully an entertaining one.” This theme is obviously heartfelt for Joss, but he insists it’s no reflection on his upbringing. “I actually love my family!” he laughs. “We’ve been an unconventional family. I was a child of divorce, and there was a lot of shuffling around. And [there were] people who were not in my family who became of my family.”
A particularly innovative episode was The Body , which was later nominated for an Emmy. The episode, written and directed by Whedon, employs long scenes with minimal cuts to convey a deeper sense of physicality and reality. Joss had lost his mother a few years before and the episode had a special poignancy for him.
Michelle Trachtenberg poses with Sarah Michelle Gellar.
I really want to get this message out, that it’s not about blood.
—Joss
“I really made the episode to capture something very small. The black ashes in your mouth numbness of death. The very morbid physicality of it. It’s why Buffy threw up. Why Dawn said she had to pee. Why the girls kissed. Why there were so many shots of the body.
“You know, I worked my ass off on [that episode]. And my whole cast was extraordinary. But I really thought people were going to sort of hate it, because the whole point was, there’s no catharsis. There’s no point where you go, ‘We’ve learned this!’ or ‘She’ll always be a part of us!’ It was just, ‘My mother is a dead body. And that’s all.’ But people actually did get a kind of catharsis from it. A lot of people who have lost people said it really helped them deal with it or it really moved them. I was surprised by that, because my intention was just to capture that reality, not really to comment on it or be helpful about it.
“The reactions of all the characters were based on things I’ve done. My mother was not the first person I lost. The first person I ever lost, there was a whole thing where I had to find a black tie, because I thought you had to wear a black tie to a funeral. Of course, it was California, so people showed up in Hawaiian shirts, but I didn’t know that! And I couldn’t find one anywhere in LA. I went to dozens of stores, and I was sweating and shaking, like, ‘If I don’t find this, it’ll be sacrilege!’ That’s where the Willow thing came from.
“And then when I lost my mother, there was that numbness that I tried to capture with Buffy , but at the same time, I had already lost someone, and I was around a lot of people who hadn’t so then I was sort of in Tara’s shoes—watching other people’s reactions, and just trying to help and get through it. So it’s all there. Everybody’s got a piece of that.”
The finale of season five, The Gift , represented the culmination of a story arc that Whedon had forshadowed in season three. As everyone knows, Buffy sacrificed herself to save the world—the ultimate sacrifice. Or was it?
By the end of season five Whedon portrayed a Buffy that is traumatized and deeply tired. She has lost Angel, Riley and her mother and the resolution she showed when she killed Angel at the end of season two has faded. She isn’t willing to kill
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