Blog 15

In my paper about "The Witch" episode, I am focusing on the effect of over-controlling parents on their children.  I want to know what the reasoning behind parents acting this way is.  I’ve already been through this in my last blog, but I want to answer questions like why parents want to live through their children, and why do parents have such high expectations for something their child doesn’t even enjoy? Does this effect the child’s independence later in life? Will it prevent them from being able to make decisions on their own? Does the child feel obligated to please their parent? Or is it that they want attention from their parent, so engaging in the same activities their parents were in will get them attention easier.  After reading these articles I should be able to get a grip on most of these questions.  

Works Cited

Crain, William. "Controlling Childhood." Encounter 2008: 3+. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 7 Oct. 2010.

Vassallo, Suzanne, Diana Smart, and Rhys Price-Robertson. "The roles that parents play in the lives of their young adult children." Family Matters 82 (2009): 8-14. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 7 Oct. 2010.

Arthur-Banning, Skye, et al. "Parents Behaving Badly? The Relationship between the Sportsmanship Behaviors of Adults and Athletes in Youth Basketball Games." Journal of Sport Behavior 32.1 (2009): 3-18. Academic Search Alumni Edition. EBSCO. Web. 7 Oct. 2010.

Riesch, Susan K., et al. "Furthering the Understanding of Parent–Child Relationships: A Nursing Scholarship Review Series. Part 5: Parent–Adolescent and Teen Parent–Child Relationships." Journal for Specialists in Pediatric Nursing 15.3 (2010): 182-201. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 7 Oct. 2010.

Blog 14. The Witch

I chose to re-watch the episode “Witch” from the first season.  I liked the whole theme of parents putting too much pressure on their kids and not letting them live their own lives.  In this episode, Buffy decides to try out for cheerleading.  Girl’s on the squad start getting hurt, Buffy realizes these aren’t natural causes.  There is a witch somewhere casting spells to hurt these girls, eventually getting them kicked off the squad.  Buffy figures out it is one of the alternates, Amy, who is doing this to the girls.  Amy’s mom, Catherine, was a super star cheerleader in high school, and they would call her “Catherine the Great”.  Buffy knows Amy is forced to live in her mom’s shadow.  Later in the episode, we find out that Amy’s mom’s expectations for Amy are much higher than a normal parent’s expectations should be.  When Buffy and Giles show up to Amy’s house to talk to her mom, they are shocked to find out Amy’s mom has switched bodies with Amy just to cheer on the cheerleading squad.  When Buffy says to Amy (in her mom’s body), “She switched your bodies didn’t she? She wanted to relive her glory days”, she pretty much explains the situation perfectly.  Amy’s mom believed that since Amy was not living up to her standards, she was “wasting her youth,” so Catherine decided to take it.  Some parents are way too harsh on their kids when it comes to expectations. Why do adults want to relive their experiences through their kids? Do they not realize it’s their child’s life not theirs.  Parents should learn to be happy for their children and not try to control their lives.  

Blog 13

Today I watched the episode “The Dark Age”, and it was mainly based around Giles’ past.  Buffy and her friends joke around during the beginning and talk about how Giles has never done anything fun in his life and the only thing he thinks about is probably schoolwork.  A man shows up to the library one night looking for Giles, but he wont answer the door.  Some zombie comes out of nowhere and kills this man, and the police find him in the morning.  It turns out Giles knew this man from his younger days and used to hang out with him.  After more zombies start coming for Giles, Buffy gets concerned.  He tells her about his past and how him and his friends used to summon this spirit to get a “high”.  Apparently one time it got out of control and this spirit took the body of one of his friends.  The only way Giles was able to take care of this was to kill his friend.  Now the spirit is back and wants to kill everyone that was in Giles’ group of friends.  Giles then puts Buffy and her friends in danger after they find out about this spirit.  This episode takes on the idiom of having “skeletons in the closet”.  Giles has one, pretty much literally.  Everyone finds out about the man he killed, and the spirit he used to conjure up. This episode shows that everyone has their secrets, and many times they are not what would be expected.  How do people keep such big secrets like this?  Why is it such a big deal that these secrets are kept? And is it necessary to keep a secret from people that may be put in danger because of it?

Passion.

So the episode of Buffy  (“Passion”) that I watched today started off with Angel hovering over Buffy in her bed, watching her sleep.  This totally reminded me of an Edward and Bella situation.  I loved it.  This episode was mentioned in the “High School is Hell” article.  The whole metaphor was about Angel not being himself anymore after he slept with Buffy.  When Buffy and Angel slept together, Angel reached a point of true happiness, which caused his soul to be taken from him.  After his soul was taken, his only goal was to kill Buffy.  He will do anything just to make her miserable.  He starts by killing Willow’s fish, then tries to kill Buffy’s mom, then eventually kill’s one of Buffy’s teachers.  Buffy has a very serious talk with her mother, and tells her all about how Angel has changed.  This really made the theme obvious, considering they purely talked about how Angel was not the same as he used to be.  Why does this happen in so many relationships? I guess having sex either makes a couple even stronger, or ruins their relationship.  It can change a relationship for the worst if this is all one of the people is looking for.  Even though Angel wasn’t just looking for sex in his relationship with Buffy, that is what happens in many cases.  Usually it’s the girl who gets screwed over in relationships like this, but it can happen to the guys as well.  It’s always smart to play it safe in a new relationship, and make sure the choices that are made won’t hurt what you already have.

More Buffy

Hello Bloggy.  I’m on the second season of Buffy still, and I watched episode 16.  The beginning of the episode starts off with Xander and Cordelia dating.  I don’t have a clue how this came about but apparently Cordelia’s opinions of Xander must have changed at some point, and now she likes him.  Cordelia’s friends keep giving her crap for dating a loser, and since she’s always very popularity conscious, she decides to break up with him.  I could tell that Cordelia didn’t actually want to lose him, but she would rather have her friends than a boyfriend.  Xander reacts to this breakup by finding Amy, the witch, and blackmailing her into helping him cast a spell.  He wants a spell that will make Cordelia fall in love with him, but instead the spell works out differently.  The spell ends up attracting every girl in Sunnydale to Xander, and this causes much mayhem.  The girls get brutal and try to kill the other girls and even try to kill Xander.  Giles is actually the one to save Xander in the end, which is surprising since Buffy is usually the one to save the city.  Finally after all of the women no longer are attracted to Xander, Cordelia stands up to her friends and tells them she can date whoever she wants to date.  So in the end Xander got what he wanted.  Cordelia shouldn’t have let her friends push her around like that, and their opinions shouldn’t have mattered so much.  So many people in high school will do anything to fit in, and do things like break up with their boyfriends just because he isn’t cool enough.  Although a friend’s opinion is important, no one should ever let it control them.  It’s always important to be yourself. We hear that all the time but its pretty major to actually take that advice.  

Reptile Boy

Today I watched the 5th episode of the second season of Buffy, and it was a pretty action-packed episode. It took on the scene of a typical college frat party.  Lots of kids and lots of drinking.  Cordelia convinces Buffy to go with her, since the frat boys were all over Buffy, and obviously Cordelia just wants to fit in.  When Cordelia and Buffy get to the party, Cordelia immediately runs off with one of the boys.  Buffy hangs out alone for a while, until one of the frat boys asks her to dance.  They talk for a while about Buffy’s maturity, and he convinces her to take a break from reality and just have fun.  So of course, when Buffy is offered a drink, she takes it.  Not too smart of a decision on her part.  Buffy and Cordelia were obviously given some drugs, and passed out on the bed.  They woke up in chains and were sacrifices from the frat’s master.  Buffy saves everyone in the end, and they all end up ok.  I think the theme of this episode is everything that your parents tell you about a college party.  No taking any open drinks, no going off alone with someone you don’t know, and don’t go anywhere by yourself.  The girls failed all of these rules.  Anything can happen when aren’t in control of the situation, and by taking the drinks the girls were no longer in control.  This happens very often in real-life situations, and I think many kids are aware of this.  Usually the kids that are taken advantage of are not put up for sacrifices, but nothing good ever comes out of it.  Buffy should have paid more attention to her surroundings, and not let the boy get control of her.

Season 2 of Buffy

Bloggy! It's Friday! Hulu's first season of Buffy expired on September 30, so I had to start off with season two today.  I was a little lost with what was going on with all of the different characters, but eventually the underlying theme of killing vampires came back.  Buffy comes back after being gone all summer, with no killing of anyone.  Apparently, Buffy killed of the Master at the end of last season, and she was very disturbed about this.  This whole episode was based around Buffy’s attitude and how she was treating everyone.  Buffy is not really herself anymore.  She ignores her friends, is rude to all of her peers and also to her parents.  In this episode, the vampires in Sunnydale are trying to bring back the Master back to life.  In last season (which I missed), the Master had somehow killed Buffy for a few minutes.  The Master coming back to life obviously upsets Buffy, but she is much more upset than in previous episodes.  It takes her until she finally crushes his bones with a sledge hammer to mentally be back to herself again.  If Buffy never really got closure with the Master’s bones, would she have stayed like that forever? Would she have lost all of her friends since she had acted so rudely to them? I guess this is related to people in reality who suffer from depression.  Many people will lose their friends because they don’t act like themselves anymore, and are no longer enjoyable to be around.  Luckily, Buffy’s friends really are true to her and acted like nothing was wrong in the end.  They must be pretty good friends to ignore how they were treated.  See you later Bloggy.