How Does Buffy The Vampire Slayer's Use Of Spoken Language

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The episode “Hush” from the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer does an excellent job of portraying the theme of ‘Language’, both the limitations of spoken language as well as the benefits. In the episode the characters in the town of Sunnydale have their voices stolen by fairytale monsters called “The Gentlemen”. Buffy and her friends must not only find a way to defeat The Gentlemen, but do so without being able to communicate with one another verbally. Though this episode is without verbal dialogue sound for about half of the episodes length, sound remains an important factor in portraying the plot and the episodes theme. The director uses varying sound techniques to portray different ideas in the episode. In some scenes the director relies heavily …show more content…

Filling a scene with no backing track at all, leaving only the diegetic sounds. As Tara walks into the student lounge at that can be heard are birds and students crying, until one student drops a glass bottle. This stark scene with the abrupt loud sound reminds the viewer how the characters would be feeling, as they cannot hear the extra-diegetic sounds that the audience is privy to. All of these elements work together to convey both the downfalls and benefits of spoken language. Parts of the episode would be completely lost on the viewer if not for the help of the score and extra diegetic sounds. Though the episode does touch on the benefits of being unable to speak to one another; Buffy is unable to get past small talk with her love interest until small talk is no longer an issue. Sound plays a large part in this part of the episode as well. When Buffy is finally able to kiss her love interest all diegetic sound is washed out by the swelling romantic score that overcomes the scene. Almost as though they are the only two people in the town. Sound is a powerful tool in cinema and the director of the episode “Hush” did an excellent job using it to his advantage to portray a powerful

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