I don't know if you'd be an outlier in the sense I mean, ita--I wasn't thinking so much about the specific details of American adolescence as portrayed on the show as much as the broader concept that "adolescence" itself, the idea of an intermediate stage between childhood and full maturity, with its own culture and problems, is not a human universal.
At least, I'm pretty sure I read that in some anthropology text or another at some point, and it made enough sense to me that I nodded sagely and said "Hmm" in a reflective way.
How do you skip human adolescence though? Without being raised by wolves.
I didn't know high school was hell until I started watching TV/movies about it. And I was in university by that point.
How do you skip human adolescence though? Without being raised by wolves.
By going straight to adulthood, with all the responsibilities and expectations thereof, as soon as you hit physical maturity.
IIRC, the article I read described adolescence as a relatively recent invention, from when cultures got complex enough that people needed additional preparation to take on adult responsibilities beyond what they'd have at age 12 or 15 or so.
Of course, I'm describing something I vaguely recall reading years ago, so it's entirely possible everything I'm saying is pure b.s. But it makes sense to me--I mean, I don't feel like my paternal grandmother, who married and had her first child at 14, had anything I'd call an adolescence, though the social concept certainly existed by that time.
By going straight to adulthood, with all the responsibilities and expectations thereof, as soon as you hit physical maturity.
Hmm. You're kind of describing my parents' generation in Jamaica. I think my father could get Buffy, but my mother despises metaphor, so she'd be no use.
Oh God, that's brilliant.
Oh. Too painful to breathe. Laughing so hard.
My gut feeling is that they'd miss a lot of the metaphor, but that the overall quality of the storytelling is so good that they'd understand what was going on and enjoy it.
I think Paul (homeschooled) got most of the metaphor, even without the experience. (edit: what he missed was a lot of the pop culture refs.)
I thought Spike was stalkerish in S5, not charming. It was pretty well established in IWMTLY that building the April bot was a bad thing and then Spike goes and builds a Buffybot. Sure she was cute and funny, but still...ick.
I thought Spike was stalkerish in S5, not charming. It was pretty well established in IWMTLY that building the April bot was a bad thing and then Spike goes and builds a Buffybot. Sure she was cute and funny, but still...ick.
The reason that all works for me is it contributed to that tension inherent in Chipped!Spike. He really was not so much a monster, and still not a man. He wasn't bad enough, and wasn't good enough. Yeah, the bot building was one of the bad things he did, and then, in the same episode, he endured a severe beating and risked death, to protect Dawn (and Buffy). He did lots of despise-able things, right along side some noble things. I really thought they did a good job setting up both Buffy's attraction to him, and her self-disgust. Both seemed reasonable to me.
