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Associate Professor Analyzes Thanksgiving in ‘Buffy’ Episode |
| By
Deanna Lytle |
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Nov 22, 2004 |
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The TV show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” may not be the first thing you think of during Thanksgiving, but Dr. Madeline Muntersbjorn believes the episode “Pangs” brings to light important issues about the holiday.
Muntersbjorn, UT associate professor of philosophy, is a scholar of the television show. She, as well as Tammy Kinsey, UT assistant professor of film, gave a presentation at the Slayage conference last May, which brought together more than 100 speakers from around the world to discuss the TV show. The Thanksgiving episode and its significance are topics of a paper Muntersbjorn is writing and researching.
“Pangs” begins with four different viewpoints on the holiday. “There is an anthropological professor speaking at an opening of an institute who’s talking about the fabulous melting pot of society,” Muntersbjorn recalled. “The character Willow, who represents the intellectual perspective, believes it’s a sham,” overlooking the following genocide of the native people. Buffy, however, wants to celebrate the holiday to re-live her own memories, referring to it as a “sham with yams.” Finally, the demon Anya considers the holiday a ritual sacrifice, as people are killing an animal in order to commemorate something.
Muntersbjorn approaches the issue of Thanksgiving as a combination of these viewpoints, namely “once you see what’s been swept under the table, can you still sit down and have a nice meal?” The truth is, the first Thanksgiving wasn’t as nice as people believe. According to the scholar Chuck Larsen in “Teaching about Thanksgiving” the Pilgrims invited the Wampanoag people to the meal to negotiate a treaty to secure the lands for the Pilgrims. In addition, the Wampanoags brought most of the food for the first Thanksgiving, and many believe the settlers would not have survived without their help. The Pilgrims were not always so gracious for their assistance, as a Thanksgiving sermon delivered in 1623 thanked God for the smallpox outbreaks among the Native Americans near Plymouth. Today, many Native Americans have re-appropriated the holiday as the National Day of Mourning.
Muntersbjorn believes that Thanksgiving is an example of how people “willfully ignore piles of information” in order to stick with what they believe. “People do not like to be told that they are wrong,” she said. “There is a false belief that your origin determines your identity — but history doesn’t determine who you are.” Instead of trying to sugarcoat Thanksgiving history, Muntersbjorn recommends that people accept the past but not let it determine the type of people they are. She also advises parents to emphasize the generosity of the native peoples to their young children, adding genocidal information when they are more mature. She also thinks that the world situation today is reminiscent of the Pilgrims’ imposition of beliefs on the Wampanoags. “We can’t sit back and say we’re better now because we still feel we know what’s in everyone’s interest.”
In the end, Buffy and her friends are able to work out their differences and sit down to a nice meal. Muntersbjorn believes you can celebrate Thanksgiving in light of history, “but you can’t forget,” she said.
Click here to read more about Buffy research.
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