Markup View

Author: badassbookworm92

Nov 1st 2012 at 5:28:08 PM

Ok, my bad for all the confusion. This is similar to Euphemism Buster, but not identical. Here's the example that gave the name, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Ted":

Context: Buffy is angry that her divorced mother is dating someone, but for obvious reasons doesn't want to say anything. The guy her mom's dating, Ted, previously won over her friends by making really good food.
-->Buffy: Vampires are creeps.
-->Giles: Yes, that is why one slays them.
-->Buffy: I mean, people are perfectly happy getting along and then vampires come and they run around and they kill people and they   take over your whole house, they start making these stupid little mini-pizzas and everyone's like, "Oh, look! A mini-pizza!" but I'm telling you, I have...
-->Giles: [interrupting] Buffy, I-I-I believe the subtext here is rapidly becoming, uh, text.

The point being, Buffy was expressing anger and resentment towards vampires, but was actually talking about her mom's boyfriend, which was made obvious when she referenced his mini-pizzas. In this example, it's Played For Laughs. Here is another example from another Whedon show, Dollhouse, where it is used extremely seriously (For those of you who haven't seen the final episode of Dollhouse, be warned that the following example contains spoilers):

Context: The main character, Echo, has had UST going on with a guy named Paul for almost the entire series. In the final episode, he is shot and killed, and because the cast is still striving towards their objective, Echo has not shown any emotion yet regarding this event. Meanwhile, another character pairing, Priya and Victor, were former lovers but are separated because in Priya's eyes, Victor has done some morally reprehensible things, even if he says it was to protect her and their son. Echo confronts Priya about it:
-->Echo: What the hell is wrong with you?
-->Priya: It's this tech, its been eating at my life and-
-->Echo: He's in love with you! Are you really that thick?! This isn't something that comes on a drive. They tried to pull it out of him, they wiped his mind for years, and he never stopped loving you. You wanna kill the tech? Kill it. Shut it down. Lock him out. Give him nothing. [Echo starts knocking things off of tables out of anger] You can string him along for years. You've got years together, and what did you do but waste it. [beginning to cry] Never tell him that you loved him? Never tell him that you're grateful for him? He's dead! [flips table] He's dead! He's just...dead. [sobbing uncontrollably] I never even told him...

See, about the part where Echo says "Lock him out", all the statements begin to be true of both Priya/Victor and Paul/Echo. There's a subtext to the setting that's fairly easy to pick up on. However, that subtext disappears when Echo says "He's dead!", because Victor is still alive.