Buffy, Buffy everywhere.

[agoodwinsmith]

Last night my SOGP & I watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  It's still fun - my favourite Susan Sarandon moment is on the steps of the church when Janet gets her engagement ring.  The giggle is just perfect.

Struck by Riff Raff, I tried mapping the Buffy characters on the Rocky characters.  Brad and Janet are Xander and Willow.  Riff Raff is Spike, Frankenfurter is Angel, the Criminologist is Giles.  Rocky (the buff creation) is Riley.  Eddie could be the Master, which makes Columbia Darla.  But, as you can see, things are getting a bit weak.  There's no real place for Dr. Scott (maybe the head of the Watcher's council?), nor do you get a good place for Magenta (Amy, the rat witch?).  A feeble case can be made for Janet becoming the Buffy, but, really, there is a gapping hole where the Buffy should be, if this is a one-on-one match.

But, we do have an interesting collection of the same tropes - naive couple introduced to the weird world.  Creepy bony blonde male [1].  Pompous (not that Giles was ever very pompous) expert in the library.  Sex as transformative and treacherous.

I haven't watched many, but I know from my SOGP that the Rocky Horror is a broad send up of just about every horror and science fiction show of the 40's and 50's.  So, no doubt the expert in the library is a common fixture, as well as the naive couple, and sex as treacherformative.  I know that Weedon has said that he was deliberately subverting the little-blonde-as-victim trope, so I suppose it stands to reason that Buffy is based on a lot of the tropes of the old horror movies.


[1] - Recently I caught a bit of Olivier's Hamlet, where he's lounging in the great hall moaning.  Spike to the life.  Bony blonde dangerous deranged male.