I just saw 'The Body' by reginaroadie

BUFFYVERSE

I just saw 'The Body'

POSTED BY: REGINAROADIE
UPDATED: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 05:51
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VIEWED: 4928
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Thursday, October 6, 2005 9:45 PM

Last night, I saw for the first time what many consider to be the best episode of BUFFY last night. Goin in, I was a bit dubious. But after the first ten minutes, when I saw Buffy put her hand to her mouth after she refers to Joyce as "the body", I'm inclined to agree with them.

I knew it was coming a mile away, but just seeing Joyce sprawled over the couch, her skin already pale and that wide eyed vacant look in her eyes, just terrified me more than any monster Joss could come up with. And seeing how all the characters reacted to the news and how they cope with the whole thing also really moved me. Especially Anya's little speech where she says "She's dead and I don't know why." That's it right there. That one line sums up the human race's attitude towards death.

I like how the ep deals with the physical aspect of death and the initial reaction in those first few hours of the news that someone close to you has died suddenly without warning. It leaves the spiritual aspect of it aside, which is something that you would expect to be dealt with first. I think the only other bit of tv that deals with death on such an intimate level that "The Body" did is all of SIX FEET UNDER, especially the last few episodes of the series. I know some people might think "How dare he compare that ep to anything that other show had produced", and vise versa. I'm a fan of both of those, and I actually think they're good companion pieces to how tv deals with actual death. I'd be interested in hearing what Joss Whedon or Alan Ball would have to say about each other's work.

The ep actually made me think about how I actually have perceived and dealt with a death in the family. It's happened twice for me. In 97, just before my 12th birthday, my Aunt Jill and Uncle Phil were expecting their third child. And we were cleaning out the combine (it was harvest around the end of August), and my grandpa had come to us to tell us the news that the baby was a stillborn. We stopped work then and we went back to the house to tell my mom the news. My brother and my dad had gone ahead to tell her the news and I had to go to the house first for some reason or another. But when I got to the shop where she was working on a project, she was already sobbing and cursing. We had a group hug, but then we kinda went our own ways. I agree with a lot of Joss's comments about death and how it actually splits us apart more than brings us together. I remember after that, I was in the basement by myself, just grieving. And to deal with the grief, I put on a movie. I didn't want to watch an action flick, or anything in which someone died. So I ended up putting on THE SOUND OF MUSIC, of all goddamn things. In retrospect, it didn't really do anything for me (the movie never did anything for me any time I had watched it). Eventually, I did get over it, and we went back to work that afternoon. It was actually a few days before Princess Diana was killed, so I always thought that Di was taking care of the baby up in Heaven. Unlike Joss, I do believe in the "Big Sky Bully", and I think that death is an essential component to life. Life and death is the ultimate ying/yang principle. One cannot exist without the other.

The second time it happened was a few years ago, actually. It was with my Grandma Fran. Of the two gma's I had, she was my favorite of the two. She was really into movies, she was friendly and funny and warm. Everything you want a grandma to be. And she was also a chain smoker. She went in for a checkup at the hospital, and she didn't come out. She had lung caner and brain tumors. She only had a few months, if any at all. I only saw her twice when she was in the hospital and she looked bad. I was still able to talk to her and tell her all my feelings. All of us did, so there wasn't that sense of "I'll never get to tell her how I feel". It was a few months later that I think I got a phone call or my brother Matt told me that she had died, and I didn't like bawl or do anything theatrical. Instead, I was a bit ambivalent to it. I mean, it was inevitable, so it didn't hit me or anything. This was just a confirmation. And I think at the end of April was when we had the service. Her body was already cremated, and so the whole family came to bury her ashes. They said that we could leave some stuff with her, so I wrote sort of a final letter to her with some dialogue from an ep of SIX FEET UNDER about death, where this one character asked "Why do we have to die?", as well as a toonie (a two dollar coin, for those unfamiliar with Canadian currency) as to pay the ferryman. I don't remember if anyone else did that, but I felt like someone had to do it, so I did. After the service, I kinda walked around in a daze through the graveyard with U2's "Kite" playing in my head. But the one thing I remember the most was seeing my Grandpa Maynard cry. I had never seen him cry before, so it really struck me then that she really was gone.

That one comment that Joss made in the commentary track for "The Body" ep about how we fantasize/deny the death during that early process actually happened. My mom was the first one of our family to actually see my gma's body. The nurse had called her to tell the fam that she was dead, and that they weren’t supposed to touch her before my mom got there. And when my mom got there, when she saw the body, she though "Well that nurse was an idiot. She's not dead. She's asleep." Her body was positioned so that she looked like she was sleeping, and not dead. But then it hit her that she actually was gone.

A year later, my Mom and I went up to Unity (small town where they lived), since everyone was there to go through the house, because he was selling it. In a year, he had met another widow and got married that weekend. And so most of my mom's side of the family were there to go through the house to see if there was anything that we wanted. I went through their vinyl collection, and the only thing I found of interest was a Simon and Garfunkel album and a The Who album. My cousin got The Who, and I got S and G, as well as some books off my gpa's shelf and a magnifying glass. And when we were driving home with the truck full of furniture, my mom told me how my gma and gpa actually were. And it was a toxic relationship. How my gma was just miserable living in Unity and how this dent that was in the kitchen sink was from when they got into an argument that was so heated that my gpa threw a coffee mug into the sink hard enough to make that dent, and how my Aunt Joyce, who was the youngest of my Mom's siblings would be caught in the middle of it and how she's call my mom or my Aunt Joan just sobbing in a phone booth. That weekend was the hardest on Joyce actually. She was a complete wreck the entire weekend (I actually walked in on her when she was crying and was wierded out by the whole thing).

And then today, I was talking to my mom about this (I made sure to tell her that I loved her), and she told me some stuff I hadn't heard before about all this. She said that me and my brother actually brought the best out of her. That she was better to me and Matt then she ever was to my mom. This, as well as the knowledge of how toxic of a family situation my mom lived with, really startled me. Even though I have this info, I still can't for the live of me, think of my grandma Fran other than the sweetest, kindest old lady I ever knew. It's impossible for me to think of her as a ball buster, though it does kind of explain how my mom's a ball buster and why my Aunt Joyce is a bit more high strung than usual.

But my mom and my gpa did have some closure from her. When she was in the hospital and my mom and my gpa were there on a daily basis taking care of her, there was one point where she looked into my mom and gpa’s eyes very clearly, and said "I'm glad you're here." And it really was all they needed to know and hear.

That was how I had dealt with death in my family. As an amateur videographer, it actually came up twice. My first thing that I was hired to do was a grad video for the grade below me in my old hometown. And one of the gals in that class, Valerie Singbeil, her dad had died three years earlier because of cancer. And I had wanted to bring that up. Because she was graduating and about to end one chapter and start another, I figured she would be thinking about her dad. And I was definitely going to treat the thing with reverence and dignity and not try to exploit it at all. But after talking with Bobby (her cousin and another classmate that was graduating that year as well), I decided just to drop the whole thing. That it wasn't necessary for the vid and too sensitive of a topic to bring up. The only time I did actually reference it was when during her bio speech the MC was giving about how she was going into nursing because she was inspired how the nurses had taken care of her father, I did a subtle zoom in on her face as it was being said to get her expression as she was thinking about it.

And the second time was during one of my weddings. It was a disaster wedding (the bride ended up asking me to leave before the night was over and she asked for a full refund, although to be fair, she was an abrasive Bridezilla). And one thing things she wanted me to focus on was her dad. He was only going to be at the wedding, because he had to go back to Wascana Rehab, because he had a brain tumor or something like that. He had lasted longer than they had expected, and she really wanted a lot of footage of her dad. And I had wanted to do a montage of his footage edited to R.E.M's "Everybody Hurts". I wanted a song that wasn't peppy, which would be disrespectful, that dealt with death, but in a respectful way. But this song suggesting ended up angering her. I was only trying to be respectful to her dad and to treat his experience of the day with dignity and diligence, but I guess she and her mom was too sensitive to the whole thing, and I think any suggestion would have just set them off.

So it's a real tough thing where you're dealing with death, especially if you're there to document the thing. How close do you get? Where's the line between respectful and disrespectful? Would I be able to handle it with dignity the next time it happens? I don't know.

So these are just the thoughts and experiences I recalled after I saw "The Body". I can't say that I totally understand what the characters were going through; because I don't think it has happened to me yet. But it did make me think about death and move in a way that I don't think I'll be able to shake off for a while.

I realize that maybe no one will respond to this message, but I would like some people to comment on how they were impacted when they saw "The Body" and their dealings with death.

Peace

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
XANDER: (baby-talk) Who's a little fear demon?
C'mon, who's a lit-tle fear demon?
GILES: Don't taunt the fear demon.
XANDER: Why? Can he hurt me?
GILES: No, it's just… tacky.

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Monday, October 17, 2005 6:57 AM

CHRISISALL

I saw the ep a couple of weeks ago for the first time, and it destroyed me, brought up all manner of stored up grief I'd been carrying around for decades. You never really recover from your mom's death, you just learn to live with it. And Buffy's experience with it was REALLY close to my own experience, so much so that I can't really go into comparing details (tissues are scarce right now, I used 'em up during the ep).
Your stories were touching and real, I wish I had the time and tissues to respond in kind.

Most powerful 45 minutes I ever viewed.

Later,

Chrisisall

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Friday, November 11, 2005 6:30 PM

ANGELCRUSHERD

I was fascinated by the reactions of Anya/Xander (no surprise there) but Joyce's death didn't do anything for me. Frankly, I didn't like her character at all, especially after she willingly led the town against every one of our heroes. I was glad to see her go and her death provided a lot of quality to the episode.

I kind of wish she would've died around the first turning of Angel but then Anya wouldn't have been around to freak out, and that's a good part. Anyway, kudos to Joss for using her character to explore the concept of death and cleaning up the cast at the same time. No disrespect to Kristine, of course, I don't like the character, not her as an actress.

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Friday, November 11, 2005 6:41 PM

KNIBBLET

Willingly led the town against the Scoobies?

Are you talking about the episode with the demon who misled the town i.e., murdered twins, etc?

She was under the influence of the demon and no more responsible for her actions than when Xander's love spell backfired and everyone female in Sunnydale wanted hot Xander action.

http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/MN-Firefly/ Big Damn Shindigity Good Time
http://www.fireflytalk.com - Big Damn Podcast

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Friday, November 11, 2005 9:59 PM

ANGELCRUSHERD

It was my understanding that the two children merely haunted her, no brainwashing involved. It seemed to me as if her actions were her own, although brought on in response to the demon- not coerced by it.

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Saturday, November 12, 2005 3:37 AM

RIVERSBOUNTY

Uh, that was the whole power of the demon. The thrall it held over people. And geez, it was Joyce!

I know in the first few seasons she didn't know about the slayer thing and got on Buffy's case, and then when she found out it took her a while to adjust, but the idea that your daughter, someone you gave birth to, could die any night and you can't stop it, that sucks. She was being a mom.

I remember episode 3 of Season 2, "School Hard," where Joyce comes back and stops Spike from killing Buffy. I loved Joyce then, and no matter what she did after that, I knew her heart was in the right place. And I thought of my own mom, who I hope I don't take for granted, because she's always there for me, and I love her.

Joyce was trying really hard to understand and have a relationship with her daughter. By the time she died, she had finally succeeded. But even forgetting Joyce, as "The Body" was more everyone's reactions to her death than the death itself. I put myself in their shoes, and the thought of losing my own mom is devasting to me.

And perhaps the saddest part of all was the aftermath for Buffy. Joyce saw her always as the person she was, not as the Slayer who was expected to always be prepared for anything and strong all the time. Because once she lost her mom, her final link to her normal childhood, her normal life, hell, a shoulder to cry on no matter what, she began a downward spiral that took a long time to recover from. That pretty much goes for the rest of the gang too, as Joyce was the parent they all wished they had. Warm, loving, and protective.

Joyce was a huge part of the show, even if her amount of screentime says otherwise.

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Saturday, November 12, 2005 8:56 AM

ANGELCRUSHERD

I guess I was wrong then. I still don't think of Joyce as a crucial character. Yeah, her heart was in the right place and she gave a perspective that no other character could, but I just didn't feel anything special from her. I'm not saying she shouldn't have been present, all the characters play their roles in the unfolding of events. The Body was a good episode and without Joyce it wouldn't have been made.

About the not having known about the Slayer- Buffy says late in the series that she told her parents about it before they moved to Sunnydale and they put her in a mental institution. Whatever adjusting that Joyce had to do should've been menial because she had already gone through the phase before, just full of denial.

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Saturday, November 12, 2005 8:01 PM

FALLENANGEL

Well, that episode hit me like a ton of bricks. It kind of woke me up about the whole death thing. And Joss in that ep made it real.

I never really experinced death from someone close to me though. My mom, right now, is going through chemo. She has pancreatic cancer. She has had breast cancer in the past and beat it but now it made it's way in a different place. This is giving me a lot of thought about death. It, naturally, scares me. I don't know what happens after you die. Is there a heaven you go to like the so many times she told me growing up? Or it's all suger-coated so ppl can feel a lil bit easier about death? I hate surprises.

The Body ep gave me a lot of thouhgt of what would I do when MY mother dies. I have an older sister and brother but the thought that comes to mind is that I'll be alone. No one will take care of my anymore. I'll be on my own. That's scary. Now that I think about it.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."

-Wash.

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Tuesday, November 29, 2005 10:59 PM

SHINYGEEKET

I think The Body is one of the best Buffy eps, hands down. It hit me hard the first time I saw it, and does even more so now because I've actually lost a parent. Buffy was a show that dealt with death in a lot of ways, but I don't think it was ever more realistic, in the sense of actual grief, than in this episode.

"We will rule over all this land, and we will call it... 'This Land'."

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Wednesday, November 30, 2005 3:49 AM

SERGEANTX

yeah.... pretty much like everyone else here has said. Anyone who's dealt with the death of loved knows that feeling of helplessness well.

Watching the show I was reminded of an equally amazing song about someone losing their father. The chorus goes, " 'What do we do now?' was never said outloud." That's pretty much how I felt. It's just so hard to accept it as real, and even harder to imagine what life is going to be like from then on...

Anyway, one other thing that I'm not sure was mentioned - the complete lack of a musical soundtrack in the episode. It really underlined the shocked emptiness that pervades the story.

I'm with you on the time and tissues comment, Chris. I can't even really think about this one without a catch in the throat.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Wednesday, November 30, 2005 4:23 AM

BLACKEYEDGIRL

The Body. Oi. It's tough to even talk about. See, I've dealt with a lot of death (A LOT). My cousin was murdered on Christmas Eve, my great aunt (who I was very close to), my grandma (who I was very close to), my great grandma (who I was very close to) and others. Death is the only time my mothers side of the family seems to get together, it's our own macabre family reunion.

My mother is the strong one. She is generally a mess, but when bad shit goes down she is all on top of things, so much so that you start to wonder if she even cared. I know she did, about every single one of these people, cos after they died she was a different person.

Like Joss, I don't believe in god. I can't believe in something that would take away all of these people from me for no reason. Don't give me make you stronger bullshit. Just when I needed my grandmother most she was stolen from me. These deaths left my mother with debilitating panic attacks (mind you all of these people died withing a 6 year time span), which only subsided when another family tragedy struck. So I take no comfort in the idea of them all hanging out in heaven. I think when you die, your body is absorbed into the earth, your energy is absorbed into the atmosphere and you are reborn as grasses and stuff like that. It's the whole circle of life thing. And I'm okay with it.

I was woken up at 4 am by my aunt bawling that her son was dead, someone spiked his drink with methadone to steal a pair of snakeskin boots and $2,000. They never caught the bartender that did it. No one told me my grandmother had died cos I was at a horse show, she had gone into the hospital for hip surgery after falling on some ice and never came back out, they found advanced bone cancer, she was dead within 6 days. I never got to say good bye, I didn't get to see her at all. My great aunt, well I got to watch her die of pancreatic cancer. She fought it as hard as she could, but that's generally a battle you don't win. She stayed at home with my mom and her sisters and the hospice people taking care of her. They all did a marvelous job, but still it was awful when she went. My great grandmother was 97 and fell out of a car, hit her head and went into a coma. 3 days later she was dead.

I am an only child. We don't talk to my dad's family cos they practically disowned my dad after he married my mom, they now only call for money. So to lose so many people on my mom's side in so many ways has done 2 things: made death easier and made death harder. Easier cos everytime you go through it, go through the motions of it you get more familiar with them. I think i could plan a funeral in my sleep. Harder because I realize that without siblings and my dad's side of the family when my mother, her sisters and my father are gone, I will have no one. No body. My parents are in their mid-60's and I am constantly paranoid that they are going to die before I get married, before I have babies, before I do the few things they want for me. It's hard, and the thought kills me.

In The Body when Anya freaks out about brushing her hair and the fruit punch it slays me. I can usually hold it together until that and Willow trying to find her shirt. cos that's the thing, no one knows what to do, and there never is a why. People die, and it sucks, and it's not fair. There's no rule book, there's no excuses, there's nothing. it's worse if you don't have a god or anything, cos you get no answers. it's just you, and your head.

Much like someone else on this thread, all of this is very very hard for me to talk about.

I gotta say death is one of those things that until you've really experienced it, you won't get. I gotta tell you the idea about putting the thing about the girl's dead father in her graduation video was really disrespectful. Her father's death was not something to put on that video. It was hanging over her enough, to drag that into it would have been totally inappropriate. Also the 'Everybody Hurts' montage, wow, talk about kinda evil. It was very nice that you wanted to make is somber or whatever, but DUDE people want to remember the good times about their loved ones. they don't want to remember them wasting away and dying. They want something joyful. I can see how they would be completely offended, cos I would have been. She wanted something to remember her father by, when you would have offered her a reminder of his suffering and pain. Kinda bad. You won't get this until someone you really really love dies, like a parent (my grandmother and great aunt were like second mothers to me).

The pain, it never goes away. You just learn to live with it. I hate the holidays cos they haven't been the same without my grandma and great aunt. Just thinking about them makes me cry. Cos I think about everything they missed, and everything I didn't get to learn from them, and it's unfair. That's what hurts the most.

So yeah, The Body is one of the finest Buffy moments ever, but its also one I can only watch if I am truely feeling like suffering, cos it hurts. I've been through all those reactions and emotions and watched them go on around me. It's hard, and I think it couldn't have been done better.

Six Feet Under also did a pretty good job, but I still argue Joss did the best.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
http://pluralofapocalypse.blogspot.com
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Inara: "Do aliens live among us?"
Kaylee: "Yes. One of them's a doctor."

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Wednesday, November 30, 2005 5:36 AM

REGINAROADIE

I realize now that those two times I dealt with death as a videographer was higly inappropriate. I wouldn't go so far as to say evil. Malice was never my intent with those two. At the time, I thought I was handling them with kid gloves.

I now realize that just to acknowledge it at all was uncalled for, and will clearly avoid the subject if it should ever come up. I Suppose that by filming it and dealing with it in my projects that I would be able to understand death a bit more.

But you're right. It was a bit evil but only a misguided one and not deliberate.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"YES!!!I'm a man posessed by many demons....Polite demons that would open the door for a lady carrying too many parcels...BUT DEMONS NONETHELESS!!!! Yes. I have walked along the path of evil many times, it's a twisting, curving path that..actually leads to a charming plot garden, BUT BEYOND THAT EVIL!!!"

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Wednesday, November 30, 2005 5:51 AM

BLACKEYEDGIRL

I didn't mean that you were intentionally being mean, no it was totally innocent. You didn't understand or get it. I'm glad to see that now you get that it wasn't the best idea. I also didn't mean evil in the big evil way, just more like the opposite of nice and good. Ahh watch me dig myself into a hole! Regardless, i think you should capture life as a videographer, there's too much death around us every day so celebrating life becomes a very important job.

Also though the brightside: Cos of all this death, and my comfort level with death (cos for all my btiching I'm actually really good around death and stuff) I went into anthropology, and eventually got a certificate in Medicolegal Death investigation. I wanted to help grieving families by helping to identify the dead to return them and to find the circumstances surrounding such events. Now I work in fingerprints, where I get to fingerprint the unknown dead occasionally to identify them to give a family closure. It's not a pleasant job, but someone's gotta do it. Although I am still considering going into the funeral home business and getting my mortition liscense. Yeah I'm this creepy and morbid. ;)

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
http://pluralofapocalypse.blogspot.com
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Inara: "Do aliens live among us?"
Kaylee: "Yes. One of them's a doctor."

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