Communication and Storytelling in Buffy’s Hush

The tenth episode of season four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Hush” is probably still one of the most well-remembered episodes of the series. Initially airing in 1999, writer Joss Whedon wrote the episode as a response to criticisms of the show which said it’s only successful due to the witty dialogue between characters. In repsonse, Joss wrote an episode which stripped almost all dialogue from the show.

In this episode of Buffy, the monster of the week - known as the Gentlemen - strip a whole town of people’s voices in order to extract seven hearts without the victims screaming. Definitely creepy. Most of the episode focuses on themes of communication and language. The speaking beginning of the episode starts with Buffy’s professor directly addressing this theme, stating that “communication” and “language” are not the same thing. From a myth studies perspective, this episode gives us a lot of material to discuss communication, storytelling and the construction of fairy tales.

During the beginning talking portion of the episode, Hush sets us up with several arguments that involve aspects of miscommunication between the characters. Buffy and Riley’s newly budding relationship struggles when it comes to aspects of talking. For two people whose success has always been based on their ability to fight, their ability to speak and communicate emotions constantly fell flat. In Buffy’s words, every time they started to speak it would turn into a babblefest.

Willow has a problem of too much talk as well, but in terms of her Wicca group at the school. Her and Tara, though unaware of each other’s issues, are struggling to find a place in a Wicca group that is “all talk” according to Willow. Anya and Xander are also at odds. Anya wants to know from Xander’s mouth how he cares for her, but Xander seems to find it difficult to communicate the same sentiment in words.

Language has always played an important role in Buffy. Saving Sunnydale frequently involves precise language of spells, for example. In fact, multiple levels and types of communication share a particular relationship throughout most of the show. There is an intertextuality to Buffy, an interaction that exists between the various forms of communication. The writing and reading aspects of texts are often interpreted via verbal communication. The research which Giles and the rest of the Scooby-gang put into figuring out who the monster of the week is and how to defeat them is often found in books - written forms of knowledge and communication that has been passed down. The discovery of the solutions, however, are communicated through verbal communication to the rest of the Scooby-gang. In essence, written/read communication is interpreted to the audience and the characters through verbal communication.

In Hush, this gets turned around. Several of the characters pick up small whiteboards in order to write what they would normally speak. Riley at the military compound is seen writing his notes on a yellow legal pad. Buffy and Willow show up at Giles’ house with whiteboards around their necks to communicate their thoughts in some other way than verbal speech. In other words, in Hush, the verbal communication is now being interpreted through written and read communication.

But these various forms of communication - verbal, written, read - are all text based. These are words which are simply given a variety of different forms. But words are not the only form of communication which exists. The body, too, can be interpreted. The body can communicate stories, intentions, emotions and even the story of the self through the way its dressed, the way its modified, and the way it moves. However, this type of social communication is something that does not take much time to learn how to read, but does take time to effectively create. These are social cues which are inherent in the way we think and move, and yet takes time to learn how to translate to your own bodily being.

This is also seen in Hush. The vocal removal the Gentlemen enact a forced change in the way the community of Sunnydale communicates: the original practices of vocal communication was removed and therefore everyone had to suddenly learn to communicate through bodily movements, or through writing and reading. Some characters had a much easier time communicating with the body than the others. The first instance is a silly moment between Xander and Spike. When waking up not being able to talk, Xander immediately blames Spike, and after Spike’s attempts to explain in other ways, simply gives a gesture which effectively explains the situation to Xander.

Less humorously, we see the diference in how this communication works when Willow and Buffy come to Giles. Buffy and Willow are clearly unable to figure out how to communicate effectively with Giles with the new change, and struggle to communicate their fears, as well as their relief with seeing Giles okay. Giles, on the other hand, is able to easily communicate many emotions all in one gesture. His hand on Buffy’s shoulder is a simple gesture which communicates understanding of Buffy’s emotions, a motion of comfort to demonstrate “I’m here for you” while also recognising that this means Buffy is about to have a lot of work on her hands. It’s a small gesture, and even though Buffy struggles at communicate these things herself, she easily reads the gesture in this way. It’s also read by the audience.

Willow also struggles to communicate everything she means. Unlike Buffy, Willow tries to write her thoughts, but it turns only into “Hi Giles”. This is a phrase which can carry a lot of weight when spoken, with different tones and even speed able to convey different feelings. When written, however, it falls a little flat. Giles, however, can easily seen into the more nuance of what Willow is struggling with, and gives her a comforting hug. This is the precise reaction Willow needed, and what she failed to communicate with words.

There is a field of study called “bodylore” - a subfield of folklore studies which focuses on the nature of the communication of the body. The idea is that folklore - like stories of other sorts, as I’ve mentioned on this channel many times before - is not limited to text. It’s not just the written story, or the read story, that is folklore. Folklore is also lived out in the body, through the way we dress, the way we move, and even the way we eat. Buffy’s Hush helps to communicate stories through this concerted effort of bodily storytelling - relying on movements, facial expressions and other forms of bodily performance to tell the story.

So let’s talk about the monster of the week themselves: the Gentlemen.

The Gentlemen are perhaps one of the scarier monsters in Buffy. In appearance, they are tall, male-facing creatures who wear suits and have a big fake smile plastered on their face. The do not walk, but float when moving through the world. Their helpers actually move on the ground, crouched, always low to the ground. Their wearing of straight jackets definitly provides a certain stigma to mental health which is probably not the best.

The most interesting aspect of the Gentlemen is their own lack of spoken language. Like the rest of the town, the Gentlemen are silent. I don’t think this is because their spell also affected them, but rather that they as creatures are simply without speech. Like the rest of the town, they must instead rely on bodily movements to convey their intentions. Often, this is down with quite a lot of flourish - primarily to make a point about their communciation but more so because it’s just plan ol’ creepy. But regardless, the group’s effective way to communicate through their body is a scary juxtaposition to the Scooby-gang suddenly unable to figure out how to cope.

And it’s not just the Scooby-gang that struggles. When Buffy and Willow are first walking to Giles, they see how much the community is beginning to break down. One of my favourite little snippets from this is the religious group calling about the endtimes on the street, specifically because their placard reads Revelation 15:1. This specific verse is describing seven angels with seven plagues, which is a nice subtle reference to the Gentlemen needing to take seven hearts.

The whole episode explores the notion of a disruption in language and what this means for a community and individuals. Despite the kids’ struggles with verbal communication at the beginning, there is still an intense need for them to speak - to fill the void and commuicate in the only real way they know how. The arrival of the Gentlemen provides a disruption to language - removing the language entirely to force the characters and the town to communicate differently. Meanwhile, this different form of communicate is where the Gentlemen excel. The bodily movements and the subtle ways of communicating without speech is the type of language the Gentlemen utilise regularly.

We learn about the Gentlemen’s connection to Fairy Tales through reading, rather than listening as we typically would in a Buffy episode. First we see it on the title of a book pulled by Giles. Second, we read it when Giles shows his, well report, for lack of a better word. According to Giles, the Gentlemen are Fairy Tale creatures who appear in a town and steal the ability to speak from all in the town for the purpose of removing seven hearts without hearing the screams. The way the Gentlemen were defeated was that the princess screamed, and therefore destroyed the creatures.

What’s interesting about this episode, is there are many elements to the Gentlemen’s existence in Sunnydale that goes unaddressed. The where, why and when of the Gentlemen’s appearance isn’t addressed. We don’t know where they came from, other than the vague idea of “fairy tales”. We don’t know why they show up at all, or why they want the seven hearts. And we don’t know when the Gentlemen could show up at any given town. The only thing that matters is that the Gentlemen showed up, and now Buffy has to deal with them.

I kinda like this aspect of the villains of the piece, but mostly because this is kinda how fairy tales work. Most fairy tales don’t spend time on reasons for things happening, or why certain towns or people are chosen as victims over others. It just kinda happens, and then soemthing else happens to either solve the monster problem or not, and then the story ends. And that’s all we get. Like fairy tales, the Gentlemen are not given detailed back stories or explanations. Their reasons aren’t explored because, most liekly, there is little reason to begin with. What reason is there to simply tell as story?

The destruction of the Gentlemen is served through another disruption of language. The language of silence, the language of the body, is being disrupted by the sudden appearance of the voice. The elegant as well as over the top way the Gentlemens’ bodies communicates is suddenly disrupted by the clumsy way the Scooby-gang talks. The language that they initially disrupted has disrupted them back in turn.

When Joss Whedon wrote Hush, he initially intended it to be a challenge to the critique that Buffy relies too heavily on the dialogue. To strip dialogue from the episode and rely on storytelling through body and visuals, he proved he was able to write without dialogue. However, I think he also proved a point about the spoken word and the power it holds for the communities which speak. The show’s depiction of Sunnydale falling apart is not because of some inaccurate view of how a community may face issues, but rather as a demonstration that the spoken word is a reflection of the community. Without it, the sense of community begins to falter.

While some characters, like Xander and Anya, solved their problem without the need for speech, others required some level of speech to fulfill their community. Perhaps Xander and Anya’s difference could be explained through Anya not being fully human, and therefore still not yet being a full member of the community whose language has been disrupted. But the other members of the Sunnydale community still require speech. Despite Tara and Willow working together to create magic without speech, they needed speech to communicate their history and experiences both with magic and with each other in order to fully move forward. Buffy and Riley’s relationship was put to the true communication test. They both struggle to communicate in speech, but also failed to communicate properly with the body. While fighting with the Gentlemen, Buffy attempts to communicate which object to break to Riley, who mis-understands and destroys the wrong object. They’re failure to communicate is present both in the bodily communication and in the spoken. In fact, the episode ends with the two saying they should talk, and then nothing but silence exists between them.

While Hush is an episode of silence, it’s also an episode which says something very loud about speech and communication, the power it has for our society, and the importance of bodily communication as being a social pairing with our words. But sometimes, ineffective communication means our community and social bonding completely break down into silence of every form.