SATURDAY, MAY 29, 8:15—10:00 OPENING CEREMONIES: KEYNOTE 3

SUE TURNBULL, "NOT JUST ANOTHER BUFFY PAPER": TOWARDS AN AESTHETICS OF TELEVISION

At the end of one of my undergraduate courses on popular culture and the media, a student wrote on his evaluation 'Enough Buffy' As a teacher and as a fan of the show this irked. What did he mean 'Enough Buffy' when too much Buffy is not nearly enough?. In any case, I'd only shown one clip in the whole course, although I might have mentioned the series on a few other occasions .... er, come to think of it, quite a lot actually.

 

Once the agony of rejection and implied criticism had worn off, I started to think through what this comment might mean for those of us interested in bringing popular culture and particularly, a popular television series such as Buffy into the classroom. If we do it, why do we do it and what are we hoping to get out of it? What happens if the students don't like what we teach? What are the criteria for inclusion or rejection? Does taste matter? What happens when the popular is no longer popular (think Shakespeare)?

 

This paper will rehearse some of the major impulses and arguments for teaching popular culture which have developed over the last century, with particular reference to Buffy, before launching on a wild surmise about how Buffy might be taught, within what I envision as a new aesthetics of television studies, which could, of course, include Angel and Firefly.

 

Sue Turnbull is a Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. Her Ph.D thesis involved an ethnographic study of the role of the media in the lives of young women, and since completing it she has continued to publish in the area of media audience research. She is co-author with Kate Bowles of Tomorrow Never Knows: Soap on Australian Television (1994). Her most recent published research has been in the area of crime fiction and its readers and Australian screen comedy. In partnership with Vyv Stranieri, youth programs officer at The Australian Centre for the Moving Image, she has just published a study guide for teachers entitled Bite Me. Narrative Structures and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2003).

 

Turnbull, Sue. "Tabula Rasa or Mystic Writing Pad?: Tracing Identity in Buffy the 
Vampire Slayer." Sonic Synergies, Creative Cultures, Adelaide, Australia, July 2003.

___. "Moments of Inspiration: Performing Spike." Staking a Claim. Adelaide, Australia, July 2003.

___. "Teaching Buffy: The Curriculum and the Text in Media Studies." Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 17.1(2003): 19-31.

___. "'Who Am I? Who Are You?' On the Narrative Imperative of Not Knowing Who You Are in Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Metro No. 137: 66-75.

___ and Vyvyan Stranieri. Bite Me: Narrative Structures + Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Melbourne: Australian Center for the Moving Image, 2003.