Abstract
Transmedia storytelling denotes an approach to constructing narratives that incorporates a variety of paratexts and supplementary materials to constitute a storyworld that expands and elaborates on the central text. Working from an understanding of this phenomenon as observed and described by Henry Jenkins, Jason Mittell, and Colin B. Harvey, and in conversation with scholars of the Whedonverse(s) including Justine Larbelestier and Matthew Pateman, this chapter argues that beyond operating as an example of just such a transmedial text, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s narrative and characterological construction produces a work that is intracompositionally transmedial. The characters’ capacity to adapt to and incorporate transmedial storytelling determines their successes and consequently provides a transmedial blueprint for fans and critics of BtVS to aspire to.
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Notes
- 1.
Joss Whedon, “Restless,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 4, episode 22, directed by Joss Whedon, aired May 23, 2000 (The WB).
- 2.
Henry Jenkins, “Transmedia Storytelling 101,” Confessions of an Aca-Fan, 2007, http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html.
- 3.
David Fury, “Primeval,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 4, episode 21, directed by James A. Contner, aired May 16, 2000 (The WB).
- 4.
The term “mothership” is borrowed from Lost co-creator Carlton Cruse by Jason Mittell to illuminate the central text paratexts may supplement.
- 5.
Jenkins, “Transmedia 101.”
- 6.
Jenkins, “Transmedia 101.”
- 7.
Jenkins develops an extended sense of adaptation, in particular, in response to challenges Christy Dena makes to his previous understanding.
- 8.
Jenkins, “Transmedia 101.”
- 9.
Colin B. Harvey, Fantastic Storytelling: Narrative, Play, and Memory Across Science Fiction and Fantasy Storyworlds (London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 33.
- 10.
Harvey, 33.
- 11.
Harvey, 31.
- 12.
Harvey, 34–35.
- 13.
“Adam,” Buffyverse Wiki, accessed December 18, 2017, http://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/Adam.
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991), 17.
- 16.
Matthew Pateman, The Aesthetics of Culture in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006), 118.
- 17.
Joss Whedon, “Prophecy Girl,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 1, episode 12, directed by Joss Whedon, aired June 2, 1997 (The WB).
- 18.
Marti Noxon, “New Moon Rising,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 4, episode 19, directed by James A. Contner, aired May 2, 2000 (The WB).
- 19.
Once he is defeated, he only returns in the television show in “Restless” and in Season 7 opener “Lessons.” In “Restless,” he appears as the primary human component that the other constituent human and demon parts are grafted onto, and in “Lessons,” he is an aspect projected by the First Evil; both appearances are footnote-esque in different ways: The cameo in Buffy’s dream sequence in “Restless” obliquely reveals the source of Slayer line, and the cameo in “Lessons” is utterly un-noteworthy except as a visual callback in a sequential rundown of Big Bads that Buffy has defeated.
- 20.
Jason Mittell, “Transmedia Storytelling,” in Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling (New York, NY: NYU Press, 2015), 294.
- 21.
Justine Larbelestier, “Buffy’s Mary Sue Is Jonathan: Buffy Acknowledges the Fans,” Fighting the Forces: What’s At Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002), 234.
- 22.
Harvey, Transmedia Storytelling, 3.
- 23.
Pateman, The Aesthetics of Culture, 120.
- 24.
Jane Espenson, “The Replacement,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 5, episode 3, directed by James A. Contner, aired October 10, 2000 (The WB).
- 25.
Jenkins, “Transmedia 101.”
- 26.
Jane Espenson, “Superstar,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 4, episode 17, directed by David Grossman, aired April 4, 2000 (The WB).
- 27.
Doug Petrie, “The Yoko Factor,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 4, episode 20, directed by David Grossman, aired May 9, 2000 (The WB).
- 28.
Pateman, The Aesthetics of Culture, 113.
- 29.
Ibid., 118.
- 30.
Ibid., 118.
- 31.
“Restless,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- 32.
Larbelestier, “Buffy’s Mary Sue Is Jonathan,” 235.
- 33.
Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (1949) (New York: Dramatists Play Service Inc., 1980).
- 34.
Joss Whedon, “Restless,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- 35.
Carl Ellsworth, “Halloween,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 2, episode 6, directed Bruce Seth Green, aired October 27, 1997 (The WB).
- 36.
Francis Ford Coppola, John Milius, and Michael Herr, Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, performed by Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando (USA: Zoetrope Studios/United Artists, 1979).
- 37.
Pateman, The Aesthetics of Culture, 175.
- 38.
In the context of intracompositional transmedia storytelling, there is much to say about Faith and Dawn that simply cannot be addressed here. Suffice it to say that Faith’s narrative arc throughout the series, the dream Buffy shares with her at the end of the third season that prophesies Dawn, and Dawn, who appears as a surprise reveal only at the end of the fifth season’s first episode, suggests how narrow my scope must be and how wide it might be.
- 39.
Joss Whedon, “Chosen,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 7, episode 22, directed by Joss Whedon, aired May 20, 2003 (UPN).
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———, writer. “Lessons.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 7, episode 1. Directed by David Solomon. Aired September 24, 2002, on UPN.
———, writer. “Prophecy Girl.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 1, episode 12. Aired June 2, 1997, on The WB.
———, writer. “Restless.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 4, episode 22. Aired May 23, 2000, on The WB.
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McKee, M. (2019). “You’re Not the Source of Me”: Navigating and Mastering the Transmedial at the End of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Fourth Season. In: Kitchens, J., Hawk, J. (eds) Transmediating the Whedonverse(s). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24616-7_6
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