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impalementation · 5 years ago

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i have a job

1.05 never kill a boy on the first date

OWEN: Hey! So. Where do you know Buffy from?

ANGEL: Work.

OWEN: (to Buffy) You work?

1.07 angel

BUFFY: Y'know, I'm the Chosen One, it's my job to fight guys like that. What's your excuse?

2.03 school hard

JOYCE: Wait till you get a job. Sleep tight.

Buffy gets up from her bed and walks over to her desk. She pulls open the top left drawer. In it is a jar of holy water, a cross, a few stakes, a set of brass knuckles. She looks up at her reflection in the mirror.

BUFFY: I have a job.

2.10 what’s my line part 2

KENDRA: You talk about slaying like it's a job. It's not. It's who you are.

BUFFY: Did you get that from your handbook?

KENDRA: From you.

2.11 ted

BUFFY: What? I kill vampires, that's my job.

2.13 surprise

XANDER: I mean, what kind of a future would she've really had with him? She's got two jobs--Denny's waitress by day, Slayer by night.

3.14 bad girls

FAITH: You're actually gonna take orders from him?

BUFFY: That's the job. What else can we do?

3.15 consequences

FAITH: I guess that means you have a job opening.

3.21 graduation day part one

WESLEY: Buffy, you don't know what you're doing.  

BUFFY: Get a job.

4.09 something blue

BUFFY: Spike, these are my friends. Besides, it's kinda my job.   

SPIKE: (pats her hand) For now.  

BUFFY: What? You want me to stop working?

4.11 doomed

BUFFY: Pain, death, apocalypse, none of it fun. Do you know what a hellmouth is? Do you have a fancy term for it? Because I went to high school on it, for three years. We do not have that much in common. This is a job to you.  

RILEY: It’s not just a job. 

BUFFY: It’s an adventure, great. But for me, it’s destiny. It's something that I can’t change, something that I can’t escape. I’m stuck!

RILEY: Buffy, where is the bad here? It just turns out we're even more well matched than we thought we were. I mean, you’re a-- (sees people nearby) fry cook--and so am I!  

BUFFY: Yeah, but you’re an amateur--fry cook, and I come from a long line of fry cooks that don’t live past 25.

 RILEY: Which is exactly the attitude I’m talking about. Look, I know the risks of what we do. I also know it’s more rewarding than any other job on the planet. And fun. 

BUFFY: Fun? The last person I know that believed that is in a coma right now because she had so much fun on the job. 

RILEY: I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take your work seriously.

4.13 the i in team

WILLOW: Well, what's their ultimate agenda? I mean, okay, yeah, they-they neuter vampires and demons. But then what? Are they gonna reintegrate them into society? Get them jobs as bagboys at Wal-Mart?

4.15 this year’s girl

RILEY: All my life [following orders]'s what I've been groomed to do. They say jump, I ask "How high?", I get the job done. Just don't know if it's the right job anymore.

BUFFY: I know how you feel. Giles used to be part of this Council. And for years all they ever did was give me orders.

RILEY: Ever obey them?

BUFFY: Sure. The ones I was going to do anyway. The point is, I quit the Council. And I was scared. But it's okay now.

5.01 buffy vs dracula

DRACULA: Very impressive hunt. Such power.  

BUFFY: That was no hunt. That was just another day on the job. Care to step up for some overtime?

5.02 real me

RILEY: You know what I mean. You have super powers, and college...a studly yet sensitive boyfriend. 

BUFFY: And a pesky life-or-death job that I can't quit or even take a break from.

5.10 into the woods

BUFFY: Vampires are vampires. And my job description is pretty clear.

5.12 checkpoint

BUFFY: You came to beg me to let you back in. To give your jobs, your lives some semblance of meaning.

5.13 blood ties

DAWN: You worry about me because you have to. I'm your job. Protect the key, right?

5.14 crush

SPIKE: It's not so unusual. Two people...in the workplace...feelings develop.

6.04 flooded

MR. SAVITSKY: Well, the problem is, you have no income. No job.

A demon attacks.

BUFFY: No job? I wish.

6.05 life serial

BUFFY: The demons! They were these three big apey things!

 XANDER: No. No, not here. Not at my job. That's your job.

6.11 smashed

BUFFY: Your job is to kill the slayer. But all you can do is follow me around making moon eyes.

6.12 doublemeat palace

SPIKE: Oh. I see. That why you took this job? Prove something to yourself? A normal job for a normal girl? Good way to drive yourself crazy, that is.

BUFFY: Ucch. That's great. That's, that's just great. I try to do the simplest thing in the world, get an ordinary job in a well-lit place, and look, I'm right back where I started. Blood and death and funky smells.

6.13 dead things

BUFFY: You got the job done yourself.

6.14 older and far away

HALFREK: I know it must seem weird, talking to a stranger about stuff, but um... I want you to know that if something's going on, something's up, my job...the most important part of my job...is looking out for you.

BUFFY: Dawn...the most important job that I have...is looking out for you.

7.03 same time, same place

BUFFY: I got to get a job where I don't get called right away for this stuff.

7.04 help

BUFFY: I'm a counselor here because I wanna help. I know what it's like to walk these halls and feel lost, alone. I just want to make things better, connect. (stands and intimidates) And I'm going to connect with your face if you don't stop wasting my time and help me do my job.

7.05 selfless

ANYA: I have a job to do. And so does Buffy. Xander, you've always seen what you wanted to. But you knew, sooner or later, it would come to this.

7.07 conversations with dead people

HOLDEN: What, you like fight vampires--professionally?

BUFFY: I don’t get paid. It’s more like a calling.

7.08 sleeper

BUFFY: (about to stake a vampire) Sorry, ma'am, but it's my job.

7.16 storyteller

ANDREW: (V.O.) It was cold last night, and the wind was crew-ell, but the Slayer had a job to do. (vampires attack Buffy) Unfortunately, vampires have a job to do, too.

7.17 lies my parents told me

NIKKI: You know I love you, but I got a job to do. The mission is what matters...right?

7.20 touched

FAITH: Things are different, because now...I'm your boss. [...] I'm your leader, which means I go first, and I make the rules, and the rest of you follow after me. Is that clear? So, Kennedy, back the hell off, and let me do my job, all right?

many things of interest here. putting it under a cut.

1. the tendency to talk about buffy’s opponents as if they’re bizarre coworkers. or people who have been equally roped into a duty. “i have a job to do. and so does buffy.” “two people…in the workplace.” “your job is to kill the slayer.” “get them jobs as bagboys at wal-mart?” (as if they’d be “unemployed” if they weren’t killing). one might say that demons count as “coworkers” not just because they’re part of buffy’s “work” but because, like buffy, they supposedly lack choice because of their demonic natures. buffy lacks choice about her duty and demons lack choice about morality. (again, supposedly. anya’s declaration in selfless that she has a job to do seems like it’s supposed to be pointed and ironic because anya does, as she has proven multiple times, have a choice. she has a self. and she demonstrates that self by giving herself up at the end of the episode. similarly, faith asking the mayor if he has a “job opening” indicates that she’s making a moral choice to change sides.). buffy’s line to spike in dead things about “[getting] the job done” may have been random, but it feels darkly meaningful in this context of spike failing to do his “job” as a vampire by killing her. is he succeeding for once by providing her a death-like escape?

2. the very few times that buffy clarifies that her slaying is not like a job. such as her conversation with riley in doomed or her conversation with holden in conversations. again, this distinction emphasizes buffy’s lack of choice. i’ve seen people be offended that buffy doesn’t charge or get compensated for her slaying–unlike angel–but it’s always made sense to me because buffy is in large part about how to make choices in situations where it feels like you have no agency. and if slaying had more of the trappings of an actual job, like money, it would give the false impression that her duty was something she had a choice about. (i’m talking on a symbolic level, not a practical level. on a practical level, of course there’s no real reason that buffy shouldn’t get paid.). because money is compensation for a choice. unlike buffy, riley is free to leave his job as a commando because he really is just an employee. similarly, angel can get paid (again, symbolically) because he does, technically, have a free choice about whether to be an agent of good. by contrast buffy’s lack of compensation indicates that she is in a state of forced servitude under the auspices of “heroism.” money would make the situation seem less unjust.

3. the conflation of “job” with “duty” and “role” and “purpose”. i think it’s very interesting when buffy tells wesley to “get a job” or tells the council she gives “their lives, their jobs, some semblance of meaning.” there’s an implication that the council lacks the sense of duty and meaning that buffy has. if wesley had a job like buffy has a job, what he’d really have would be a purpose. and buffy’s easy linkage of “lives” and “jobs” points to the way that her own life is inextricable from her job—because it’s not actually her job, it’s her duty. she is putting down these people who think they should have power over her by emphasizing how inessential they really are. they may have more choices than her, but they’re too lily-livered to do anything worthwhile with them.

4. the way this language of duty plays out in buffy’s relationship with dawn. dawn is buffy’s dependent in several different ways. she’s someone that buffy needs to protect from supernatural threats, and she’s also someone that buffy needs to emotionally and financially take care of. there is this open question of: if “jobs” are things that buffy resents because she doesn’t have a choice about them, then does buffy have the same resentment for dawn? how is dawn supposed to know whether buffy really cares for her? it’s something any kid would worry about with their caretakers, just put in a supernatural context. but because the concept of “jobs” is so layered and fraught for buffy (and the show), there is something particularly meaningful about buffy declaring that dawn is her “most important job”. in both a sweet way, and a very sad way in the context of season six. because to some extent, taking care of the “life” dawn represents is still a difficult and unpleasant duty for buffy. although one she is feeling increasing ability to prioritize.

5. the relationship between buffy’s slaying and the jobs she ends up doing for money. both her doublemeat job and her waitress job in anne involve buffy attempting to be ordinary in some way. to claim an identity during a time when she is very confused about her identity, and disconnected from her righteous slayerness. but both episodes end up painting this sort of drudgey labor as something that actually destroys identity. you may choose to have the job, but the job wants you to be a faceless cog in a machine. whereas buffy’s language in help paints her counselor job as actually an extension of her slayerness. she threatens someone in the name of her counselor job, but with the language of her slayer job (“I’m a counselor here because I wanna help. […] And I’m going to connect with your face if you don’t stop wasting my time and help me do my job.”). she’s talking about both, which suggests that buffy’s identity is at peace with that sort of work. because it’s work that has to do with helping people. this will take on greater poignancy over the course of the season as buffy is forced away from the “helper” part of her slaying job, and into the hierarchal role of “boss.”

…probably more but that’s all i have for now.

#gen #the quotes are all adapted from the buffyworld transcripts for the record

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