OMG, Buffy Crazy: The Mad Woman in the Attic Syndrome and Why "Normal Again" Doesn't Fit Buffy's Characterization
byIn the episode "Normal Again," Buffy finds herself fighting yet another demon. When this demon stabs her, Buffy begins to lose her grip on reality or, as the episode, leaves the viewer to guess, she possibly comes to view her correct reality. Ironically, this demon is summoned by the Troika who know who they are in the world just about as much as Buffy does since returning from the dead at the beginning of Season Six.
When Buffy enters this alternative reality, she's a mental patient in a state hospital who has mostly been catatonic through her stay. The viewer finds out that Buffy entered the hospital around the time she was called to her Slayer duty, and she admits to Willow that she did spent time in a mental hospital when she told her parents about her job as a Slayer. When she's called in the alternative vampire-free world, she starts hallucinating about fighting vampires and creates the Scoobies. Buffy's psychiatrist explains that every 'character' in Buffy's universe is a subconscious manifestation of something that she needs or desires.
Joss Whedon started BtVS as a metaphor for high school being hell. There are invisible girls who turn that way because they're ignored and hellhounds who attempt to wreck the prom on call from a bitter student who couldn't find a date. Even in the later seasons, the characters are assigned spots by the writers such as Xander being considered the heart of the group.
After the episode aired, many people, who were unhappy with the direction that Season Six was taking, thought that this episode would've made a perfect ending for the season and perhaps for the show. It's the classic cliché of 'it was all a dream.' It also is an easy explanation for Buffy's erratic, depressed, and detached behavior for the past season, among other flaws or unpopular twists in show.
The character of Buffy herself was based on Whedon's idea of instead of having the petite blonde girl be eaten in the horror movie cliché, he'd have her killing the monsters. And while, I'd never call this simple gender reversal feminist, it does set a precedent for who Buffy is. At the end of the day, Buffy's going to kill the monsters or die trying. She might not know who she is, but she's not going to let society, the Watchers Council, her boyfriends, or the villain of the week/season tell her who she is or her right as the 'Chosen One.' She rejects Angel's insistence that they can't be together (all of Season 3 and "I Will Remember You), the Council's authority ("Checkpoint"), and eventually her friends' advice ("Empty Places"). Sometimes, like in "Empty Places," this leaves her in an unpopular and sticky situation.
What "Normal Again" does is bring in the element that Buffy is not truly in charge of her life. She can't be because she's too mentally deficient to make the proper choices for her welfare. In this world, Buffy's 'problems' complicated by her place as a Slayer are solved and fixed by doctors. Essentially, she's becoming the stereotype of the madwoman in the attic who can be fixed by modern medicine, and if not, must be locked away from the world because she's a threat to society as Buffy is in the "Normal Again" universe.
The madwoman in the attic is the idea that a woman who desires to be more than a wife or nun and shows that she is unsatisfied with her place in society has something wrong with her. Some are hidden away and placed under psychiatric treatment including Bertha Mason from Jane Eyre and the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper"; some find their independence, but don't know quite what to do with it (Edna from The Awakening and Thelma and Louise); and finally, some are corrupted by that newfound power such as Shakespeare's Lady MacBeth. The madwoman is fixable by modern medicine, religion, and/or death.
A favorite cure of mine for the 'woman problem' is the vibrator. The vibrator was invented in 1869 by a doctor seeking to cure 'female disorders,' including hysteria. Hysteria was believed to be caused by the uterus freely roaming around the body causing inexplicable emotional outbursts. Doctors would bring their patients to orgasm and note the calm and relaxed nature the women exhibited afterward. But this is not to say that all treatments were pleasure oriented: others included lobotomy, hysterectomy, female circumcision (the removal of the clitoris or female genital mutilation), and isolation from all sensory stimulants.
As the madwoman, Buffy's instructed by her doctor to kill off all the characters she's created. By doing so, she will regain control of her 'real life.' These characters are the ones who believe in Buffy's independence; the ones, who no matter their fights and misfortunes over the years, end up standing around the Sunnydale crater, looking down on their former lives and a semi-defeated evil. Buffy ends up not believing the mental hospital scenario because Joyce tells her to "Believe in herself"; Buffy is the Slayer and believes in her abilities as one. However, this line's validity and self-affirmation is destroyed by ending the episode with the psychiatrist saying that Buffy will never recover. Even if the ambiguous ending is to be believed, Buffy still had to destroy herself, along with pieces of herself (her friends), in order to 'normal again,' or be perceived as the social construct of normal.
While "Normal Again" gives the average viewer a nice look into the meta behind the supporting characters of BtVS, the episode essential ruins the character of Buffy. It leaves her as a victim, like those other petite blondes in horror movies, of her own mind and has a diagnosis for a cure. (Considering that most of society believes in the treatment of mental disorders through therapy and medication, it's unlikely that if Buffy truly suffered from schizophrenia that viewers would object to her treatment.) By curing or locking away an insane Buffy, she's no longer the keeper of her destiny, no longer the Slayer. She's going to be the woman running into the dead end alleyway and being killed by the monster unless saved by a male protagonist. If "Normal Again" is to be believed, Buffy is reduced to the madwoman instead of the complex character who's story spreads over seven seasons; she is only another mislead woman who needs to be fix by society, making this episode a worse ending than "Chosen" was.
A/N: If you'd like to read more about women and the medical profession, I'd suggested reading For Her Own Good : Two Centuries of the Experts Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English.