Who Are You (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

"**Who Are You**"
"Who Are You"
Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode
Episode no.	Season 4; Episode 16
Directed by	Joss Whedon
Written by	Joss Whedon
Production code	4ABB16
Original air date	February 29, 2000
Guest appearances
	Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers; Amber Benson as Tara Maclay; Leonard Roberts as Forrest Gates; George Hertzberg as Adam; Chet Grissom as Detective; Alastair Duncan as Collins; Emma Caulfield as Anya; Eliza Dushku as Buffy/Faith; Rick Stear as Boone; Jeff Ricketts as Weatherby; Kevin Owers as Smith; Amy Powell as Reporter; Rick Scarry as Sergeant; Jennifer S. Albright as Date;
Episode chronology
← Previous; "This Year's Girl"	Next →; "Superstar"
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 4)
	List of episodes

"Who Are You" is the 16th episode of season 4 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Written and directed by series creator Joss Whedon, it originally aired February 29, 2000 on the WB Television Network.

Plot[]

Note: Buffy's and Faith's names refer to their consciousnesses, rather than their bodies.

Buffy, in Faith's body, is abducted by the Watchers Council's team. Meanwhile Faith, in Buffy's body, gives herself a makeover and heads to The Bronze, where she has ruthless fun at the expense of Spike and Tara. Tara recognizes that something is wrong, and she and Willow perform a spell to find the real Buffy. Faith visits Riley and has sex with him while Buffy escapes the Council's team and heads back to Sunnydale in search of Giles and her friends.

Buffy convinces Giles of her identity with the help of Willow and Tara. Meanwhile, Adam convinces a group of vampires of their superiority and they attack a church. Faith tries to leave town, but after seeing what is happening on the news, goes to the church to help while Buffy does the same. Faith and Riley each kill one of the three gang members, but the leader overpowers Faith. Before he can kill her, Buffy stakes him from behind. They fight, and Buffy, with the help of Willow and Tara's conjured Draconian Katra device, restores herself and Faith to their rightful bodies. Faith subsequently escapes and leaves town, and Buffy discovers that Riley had sex with Faith during the body swap.

Production[]

In a scene where Faith in Buffy's body tries to seduce Riley, the camera "cut[s] to a medium close-up shot of her leather-clad backside", ostensibly Riley's point-of-view shot. Jason Middleton notes that this is a rare case where the audience's gaze is "positioned in a highly fetishistic relation towards Buffy's body". However, Middleton notes, the show disavows this viewing position by reminding the audience that it is Faith's positioning the body, connoting its "look-at-me-ness"; Buffy herself is disconnected from this image of her body. Riley, with whom the viewer is identified, disavows the shot by appearing confused and taken aback rather than sexually predatory. Middleton concludes this covertly allows "a scopophilic position ... for the viewer, even as the show disavows this position".^[1]

Analysis[]

Gregory Stevenson, in Televised Morality: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, finds it significant that Faith's moment where she "confesses the truth about herself and begins to experience the weight of moral responsibility" occurs in a church.^[2]

In their book discussing existentialism in Buffy, Richardson and Rabb argue that this episode and the previous (intended or not) explore the impact of Sartre's Look - the outside view that causes a person to redefine themselves from the perspective of the Other. Faith can now literally see herself as Buffy sees her. When the real Buffy escapes from the Watchers' Council and challenges Faith, the two fight, and Faith (in Buffy's body) repeatedly punches her own face in a fit of self-loathing, shouting, "You're nothing! Disgusting, murderous bitch! You're nothing! You're disgusting!" According to Richardson and Rabb, "Faith is finally seeing herself as Buffy sees her and is even harder on herself than Buffy has ever been."^[3]

References[]

^ Jason Middleton (2007). "Buffy as Femme Fatale: The Cult Heroine and the Male Spectator". In Elana Levine and Lisa Parks (ed.). Undead TV. Duke University Press. pp. 158–160. ISBN 978-0-8223-4043-0.
^ Stevenson, Gregory (2003), Televised Morality: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Oxford: University Press of America, p. 122, ISBN 0-7618-2833-8
^ Richardson, J. Michael; Rabb, J. Douglas (2007), "Buffy, Faith and Bad Faith: Choosing to be the Chosen One", Slayage, 23, archived from the original on 2007-09-27, retrieved 2007-07-26

External links[]

"Who Are You" at IMDb
"Who Are You" at BuffyGuide.com

[Middleton-1] Jason Middleton (2007). "Buffy as Femme Fatale: The Cult Heroine and the Male Spectator". In Elana Levine and Lisa Parks (ed.). Undead TV. Duke University Press. pp. 158–160. ISBN 978-0-8223-4043-0.

[2] Stevenson, Gregory (2003), Televised Morality: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Oxford: University Press of America, p. 122, ISBN 0-7618-2833-8

[3] Richardson, J. Michael; Rabb, J. Douglas (2007), "Buffy, Faith and Bad Faith: Choosing to be the Chosen One", Slayage, 23, archived from the original on 2007-09-27, retrieved 2007-07-26

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v t Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes
Season 1	Unaired pilot "Welcome to the Hellmouth" "The Harvest" "Witch" "Teacher's Pet" "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date" "The Pack" "Angel" "I, Robot... You, Jane" "The Puppet Show" "Nightmares" "Out of Mind, Out of Sight" "Prophecy Girl"
Season 2	"When She Was Bad" "Some Assembly Required" "School Hard" "Inca Mummy Girl" "Reptile Boy" "Halloween" "Lie to Me" "The Dark Age" "What's My Line, Parts One and Two" "Ted" "Bad Eggs" "Surprise" "Innocence" "Phases" "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" "Passion" "Killed by Death" "I Only Have Eyes for You" "Go Fish" "Becoming, Parts One and Two"
Season 3	"Anne" "Dead Man's Party" "Faith, Hope & Trick" "Beauty and the Beasts" "Homecoming" "Band Candy" "Revelations" "Lovers Walk" "The Wish" "Amends" "Gingerbread" "Helpless" "The Zeppo" "Bad Girls" "Consequences" "Doppelgangland" "Enemies" "Earshot" "Choices" "The Prom" "Graduation Day, Parts One and Two"
Season 4	"The Freshman" "Living Conditions" "The Harsh Light of Day" "Fear, Itself" "Beer Bad" "Wild at Heart" "The Initiative" "Pangs" "Something Blue" "Hush" "Doomed" "A New Man" "The I in Team" "Goodbye Iowa" "This Year's Girl" "Who Are You" "Superstar" "Where the Wild Things Are" "New Moon Rising" "The Yoko Factor" "Primeval" "Restless"
Season 5	"Buffy vs. Dracula" "Real Me" "The Replacement" "Out of My Mind" "No Place Like Home" "Family" "Fool for Love" "Shadow" "Listening to Fear" "Into the Woods" "Triangle" "Checkpoint" "Blood Ties" "Crush" "I Was Made to Love You" "The Body" "Forever" "Intervention" "Tough Love" "Spiral" "The Weight of the World" "The Gift"
Season 6	"Bargaining, Parts One and Two" "After Life" "Flooded" "Life Serial" "All the Way" "Once More, with Feeling" "Tabula Rasa" "Smashed" "Wrecked" "Gone" "Doublemeat Palace" "Dead Things" "Older and Far Away" "As You Were" "Hell's Bells" "Normal Again" "Entropy" "Seeing Red" "Villains" "Two to Go" "Grave"
Season 7	"Lessons" "Beneath You" "Same Time, Same Place" "Help" "Selfless" "Him" "Conversations with Dead People" "Sleeper" "Never Leave Me" "Bring on the Night" "Showtime" "Potential" "The Killer in Me" "First Date" "Get It Done" "Storyteller" "Lies My Parents Told Me" "Dirty Girls" "Empty Places" "Touched" "End of Days" "Chosen"