impalementation: mimicmiki:impalementation:“Something’s cooking, I’m at the gr
impalementation: mimicmiki: impalementation: “Something’s cooking, I’m at the griddle / I bought Nero his very first fiddle” -Sweet, 6.07 Once More, With Feeling “Wow. They’re all so…identical.” “Yeah. They all start to look the same to me too.” “Oh, no, not the employees, the, the chicken slices.” -Buffy & Manny the Manager, 6.12 Doublemeat Palace “Will you stop wolfing down those chips? One more bag and you’ll pop right out of your cummerbund. You’re not even hungry, you’re just nervous.” -Anya, 6.15 As You Were “No, we’re gonna sit down and have a real dinner. Someday.” -Buffy, 6.14 Older And Far Away “So! Who’s hungry? We got, uh-” “Ice cubes.” “All you can eat.” Buffy & Dawn, 6.15 As You Were “Breakfast will make all things better.” -Tara, 6.01 Bargaining, Part 1 buffy season six imagery: food [ 2 / 2 ] [more quotes and images in part one. commentary below the cut.] Keep reading this is a super interesting observation! i didn’t notice it at all at first, but in retrospect, you’re definitely right that there’s an intended food motif here. just thinking off the top of my head, i think there’s a ton of lines you can draw between the constant presence of food and buffy’s own disconnect with life - food is constantly associated with living, continuing your existence. it sustains, it fulfills, it keeps you breathing and bleeding. on angel but also many times on buffy proper a big deal is made of the fact that food is majorly tasteless to vampires. they can still eat, but they don’t need it, and they don’t share in the flavor, the texture, the sense of understanding it communicates with other people. buffy’s disgust with the meals in doublemeat palace is absolutely because they’re completely gross, but i also think it has a lot to do with her own depersonalization and dehumanization. there are so many shots in doublemeat of buffy just staring at the chicken, the ground meat, the grease and the oil, and for the most part she doesn’t show revulsion but a sort of vague detachment that manifests as a perverse fascination with this garbage that’s supposed to bring life and continued existence but only furthers her own lack of belonging in a mundane, painful world where she has to eat and work and exist all the time. the food becomes actively unappealing to her because what it represents no longer appeals to her anymore - continuing to exist, and the effort that requires. Totally! Really well put. The fact that food is life-sustaining and that Buffy is disconnected from it and only eating junk food definitely feels like an indication of her disconnection from life in general. The feeling of life itself feeling fake and gross and like an ordeal. I was thinking of the vampire connection too, and was surprised I couldn’t come up with any moments off of the top of my head that mention the tastelessness of food to vampires in season six. Even though the basic symbolism of detachment from life/detachment from food is similar. (Are there episodes in Angel that mention it that were running concurrently with Buffy? That would be neat.) But I do think it’s maybe meaningful that there are two different moments where vampires talk about the quality of blood? Spike wants to spice up his blood in All The Way and crumbles things into it in Dead Things, and that vampire in As You Were mentions that he doesn’t want to eat Buffy because of the Doublemeat food she’s been eating (oof at the “you are what you eat” implications of that). Like there’s this sort of irony that even though Buffy’s association with Spike is an indication of how dead and inhuman she feels, these vampire characters still care about the experience of their version of food more than Buffy does. She’s that detached. off the top of my head, angel episode 1.08 (i will remember you) puts a lot of focus on newly-human angel’s craving for food now that it has actual taste to him, which of course leans majorly into consumption of food as something with inherent ties to your humanity, and that runs in conjunction with buffy 1.08 (pangs) where a lot of focus is placed on thanksgiving customs, which involves a ton of food and suggests food as a way for people to bond, an established connection.the last three episodes of angel season 2, the pylea arc, also concern themselves with food though to a less-obvious degree, what with wesley, gunn, and lorne rushing past cordy to stuff themselves and angels perverse “hunger” when embodying his most dangerous and primal self. this happens at the same time as buffy season five’s ending, which is very concerned with death and the sacrifice of one’s humanity, with buffy saying she “feels like the job is turning her into stone” at pretty much the same time as angel running around in the sunlight, admiring his reflection, living as a human being on pylea. i’m less sure about the implications here, but it does feel like something could be intentional. yeah, i do find it hilarious how what with all the role-reversal in season 6 that extends to food as a connection to humanity as well, with the actual human being in the picture finding herself disgusted and detached from consumption while meanwhile we constantly see demons at bars pickier than they’ve ever been. -- source link