Bad Poetry, Angsty Teen Archetypes, and the Great Rock & Roll Romance
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| Title: | Bad Poetry, Angsty Teen Archetypes, and the Great Rock & Roll Romance |
| Creator: | Evette |
| Date(s): | 2004 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | Buffyverse |
| Topic: | Drusilla/Spike |
| External Links: | https://ship-manifesto.livejournal.com/8874.html Bad Poetry, Angsty Teen Archetypes, and the Great Rock & Roll Romance (now offline) |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Bad Poetry, Angsty Teen Archetypes, and the Great Rock & Roll Romance is a ship manifesto for the pairing Spike/Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: The Series.
It was linked on the Drusilla fansite Charm School, who previously archived a similar essay by Evette titled Why Spike/Dru.
Excerpts
Asking me to talk about Spike and Drusilla is sort of like asking me to talk about tacos. "Why are tacos so great?" one might ask. I am only left to point at tacos and go, "Because it's a taco! Taste it! Love it! Do as the taco says!" Except that does not an interesting essay make, and now I'm hungry.So what made me a Spike/Drusilla shipper? Well, my first ever episode of BtVS was "Crush." I was mildly interested in the hot British guy that wore leather, but nothing about the show grabbed me until the scene when Spike and Drusilla enter the Bronze together and begin to dance. I was first impressed by the complete change in Spike's attitude– at the start of the episode he was a rather broken creature begging in his own pathetic way for Buffy's affections. The guy that walked into the Bronze was not the one I'd been watching for the previous twenty or so minutes. Spike and Drusilla owned the place; but when they danced they only saw each other. It was a beautiful five minutes. Of course, Spike screwed it all up, but I was hooked. I was disappointed when I went over to my friend's house the next week and she informed me that no, the pretty dark - haired girl would not be on the show. I then began devouring tie-in novels and comic books like… tacos.
Spike and Drusilla fit some very definite types and that only adds to their mythic dynamic. Drusilla is a broken, mad, manipulator. She often dresses and behaves like a young girl. Though she does sometimes use these for her benefit (especially to manipulate Spike and Angelus), she is still very much insane and very emotionally immature. Our first shot of Spike is of a Billy Idol-esque creature made of cigarette smoke and motorcycle boots set to a hard guitar riff. However, this tough guy façade is proven to be a façade once Drusilla enters the room. We see that Spike is complete and total construct. In order to be Drusilla's lover, he has completely remade himself into something greater. (There is an excellent comment on the "Fool For Love" commentary about Spike gaining the layers of his persona- the scar, the coat- in each flashback and such). Like Drusilla, Spike is emotionally a child. He is impatient and extremely demanding. At best, they often display the attitudes one might expect from a pair of starry-eyed fourteen year olds.This is, in essence, what they are. Spike and Drusilla are teenagers that never have to grow up. By becoming vampires, they have both become immortal and given themselves the power to live in a world of their own making. They live out a gory adolescent fairytale where love is eternal and the only rules you have to follow are your own.
Comments
That was a great essay one of my favorite 'ships! *loves on you for it* I didn't start watching Buffy until late S6, but I fell in love with Spike and Drusilla the moment I saw them together. There aren't a lot of people (that I've seen) that really get Spru. I see a lot of "Drusilla never really loved Spike" people out there. This definitely captured the twisted and wild S/D I know and love.[1]
You had me from the mention of Tacos.I have to admit that I am fond of Spike/Dru in the series, but I'd never actually thought about the inherent childishness of their relationship.[2]
I'd not heard of (or thought of) the Sid and Nancy comparison but it does fit well. I like the idea of Drusilla and Spike as an eternal teenage romance, the pwer games they play (or she plays I suppose) do look like a (slightly twsited) version of high school couples in many ways.I think in any S/D you have to factor in Angelus, he looms so large in their lives and in their characters, particularly Drusilla as a survivor of torture and abuse.
This essay was fantastic, thank you.[3]
Someone showed me this!It is well done, but I would disagree on some points, primarily the accusations of Dru being a manipulator, which incidentally, Juliet herself agreed with me on when I met her as well. :)
While she probably knows how to, I'm not sure the examples you gave of her doing so were of that. For example, I think she was genuinely sad and has a way of going to emotional extremes in the 'Lie to Me' scene. She is just very emotional and displays it a lot more than most. I put that, in part, down to her being psychic and empathic and meaning that emotions just affect her more than they would with some characters.
Also, the thing about dressing and acting as a young girl. Whlie there is certainly some of it that came about because of Angelus' conditioning in the years before Spike had been met, a great deal of it would be real. Notice how she mainly appears quite strictly 'adult', so to speak, when being predatory and having her vampire/demonic nature come to fore. At other times she is very much reserved and conservative and shy as well. I look on that, not as being manipulative, but from psychological conditioning from when Angelus was chasing her down. In the end, virtually all of her mannerisms and mentality can be trace dback to that time. Look at the convent scene in 'Dear Boy' and how she could no longer find anywhere to escape. For me, it is indicative of one who, where they could no longer hide physically, just reatreated, instead, mentally. In her case, back to a sort of childhood personality, since the tormentor couldn't reach there. He had poisoned and polluted so many other areas of her life and it was in that scene that the 'you can't run' lesson being learned appeared to be most exemplified.[4]