Puppets in Pop Culture

Popular Culture Association in the South
"Break Out the Champagne, Pinocchio": "Angel" and the Puppet Paradox
Author(s): Cynthea Masson
Source: Studies in Popular Culture, Vol. 35, No. 2 (SPRING 2013), pp. 43-67
Published by: Popular Culture Association in the South
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23416335
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Cynthea Masson
"Break Out the Champagne,

Pinocchio":
Angel and the Puppet Paradox
"The search for the essence of puppet theatre is an endless series of paradoxes."
—Margaret Williams ("Aspects of Puppet Theatre" 75)
In the final few moments of Angel Season One, Wesley explains

an aspect of the Shanshu Prophecy that will affect Angel for the remain
ing four seasons of the series: "The vampire with a soul, once he fulfills
his destiny, will shanshu—become human" ("To Shanshu in L.A." 1.22).1
"Break out the champagne, Pinocchio," replies Cordelia, alluding to Carlo
Collodi's story of the iconic wooden puppet who famously utters, "I am
sick of being a puppet. I want to become a real boy" (Collodi 150). Iron
ically, instead of becoming human, Joss Whedon's figurative Pinocchio
becomes a literal puppet in the "quality edutainment" episode "Smile
Time" (5.14). What is the purpose of this "wee little puppet man" ("Smile
Time")? Yes, as Fred says, he is indeed "cute," with "the little hands, and
the hair" ("Smile Time"). But why, over mid-way through the series' fifth
and final season, does a champion, a vampire with a soul, metamorphose
into, of all things possible in the supernatural world of Angel, a puppet?
Stacey Abbott convincingly argues that "the episode's parody extends to
Angel's crisis in masculinity" (101).2 I argue that the show's use of pup
petry, both figurative and literal, ultimately relates to Angel's choice re
garding the Shanshu Prophecy. Unlike Pinocchio, who "become[s] a real
boy" in the final chapter of the novel (Collodi 150), Angel elects to "[sign]
that pesky future away" in the final episode of the television series ("Not
Fade Away" 5.22). Angel, by giving up the potential to become human, si
multaneously takes hold of the strings of his inner puppet and thus chooses
his destiny.
43
Cynthea Masson
Joss Whedon describes himself as "puppet peopled" (Partney 60).

As "Smile Time" writer and director Ben Edlund describes the situation,
"Joss has had a lot of Muppets in his past," and as Whedon himself ad
mits, "We were part of a whole Muppety circle" ("Hey Kids!"; Partney
60). Joss Whedon's father, television writer Tom Whedon, worked with a
variety of puppets and puppeteers, including Kermit the Frog, Jim Hen
son, and Henson's "closest partner" Frank Oz (Being Elmo)? Indeed, as
outlined in the book Street Gang, Tom Whedon regularly hosted at his
home "the patriarchs of Sesame Street" (Davis, Cha. 11). Thus, it should
be no surprise that Joss Whedon, as Ben Edlund reports, "brought [An
gel Puppet] to the table" (Partney 62) nor that both literal and figurative
puppets appear throughout the Whedonverses. Examples of literal puppets
include the ventriloquist's dummy featured in "The Puppet Show" (Buffy
1.9) and the shadow puppets featured in both "Get it Done" (Buffy 7.15)
and "Heart of Gold" (Firefly 1.13).4 Figurative puppets appear repeatedly
in the Whedonverses. In The Cabin in the Woods, for example, the people
controlling the cabin and vicinity are repeatedly referred to as "puppe
teers." "You think I'm a puppet," cries Marty, "gonna do a puppet dance?"
Marty's ultimate decision takes Whedon's use of figurative puppetry to a
sobering extreme: Marty would prefer to sacrifice the entire world rather
than surrender control to the puppeteers. On occasion Whedon has even
incorporated puppet references into descriptions of his characters: dur
ing a panel discussion on Dollhouse, Whedon comments, "That Topher—
what's wrong with him? He just creates these character people and then he
just puppets them around" (Dollhouse: Cast and Creators).
Though Whedon may not have read the specific theoretical and
cultural texts drawn upon in this essay, he could certainly appreciate the
application of puppet theory—yes, puppet theory—to the puppet theater
of the Whedonverses. Three specific areas of puppet theory are particu
larly relevant to my analysis of Angel·, first, the puppet as an embodiment
of the living/dead; second, the puppet as representative of free will and
determinism; and third, the bond between the puppet and the puppeteer,
especially in relation to the soul. Given that Angel himself embodies the
living/dead, given moreover that Angel the series repeatedly addresses
44 Studies in Popular Culture 35.2 Spring 2013
"Break Out the Champagne, Pinocchio": Angel and the Puppet Paradox
overarching questions regarding free will and determinism, and finally

given that the series features both figurative and literal puppets and pup
peteers, puppet theory provides a productive lens through which to ex
amine both show and character. Viewed with this lens, "Smile Time," in
particular, is not merely a humorous and entertaining interlude in Angel's
final season. Instead, the episode emphasizes the significance of Angel's
embodied paradox; thus "Smile Time" is crucial to the series not despite
the Angel Puppet but precisely because of the Puppet.
Regarding the first area of puppet theory relevant to an analysis
of Angel, vampires and puppets share an existential condition: they are
simultaneously living and dead.5 Thus, as Adam confirms in the Buffy epi
sode "Who Are You?" (4.16), "Vampires are a paradox." So, too, are pup
pets. Puppet theorist Kenneth Gross calls puppets "dead things that belong
to a different kind of life" ("Madness" 184); he contends, "The puppet has
something about it of the animated corpse, zombie, or vampire, things that
unnaturally survive death" ("Madness" 197). Margaret Williams writes,
"The most common definition of the puppet is the oxymoron of a 'liv
ing object'" ("Including" 119); Chiara Cappelletto, likewise, describes the
"tension between the living and non-living," calling the puppet an "oxy
moron of inorganic expressivity" (335). The puppet, writes Tzachi Zamir,
"[plays] ... on the boundaries between lifelessness and life" (409).6 Not
surprisingly, the language of puppet theory, replete with such discussions
of the living/dead, bears striking resemblance to the language used to an
alyze Angel. The opening chapter of The Literary Angel, in the words of
Lorna Jowett, begins, "The way vampires blur boundaries (between life
and death, for example) affords great potential for exploding fixed cate
gories of identity" (17). Stacey Abbott writes of the "unique interplay" of
Angel, "in which the boundaries between good and evil, man and monster,
life and death, are repeatedly blurred" (8). Angel's "complexity," as what
Abbott and others call a "hybrid," involves not only the inherent para
dox of any vampire but also Angel's particular paradox as an ensouled
vampire—an embodiment of demon and soul, which (as will be explained
shortly) also relates to puppet theory (28).7
Regarding the second area of puppet theory relevant to an analysis
45
Cynthea Masson
of AngeL both the works of Joss Whedon and the texts of puppet theorists
engage with philosophical quandaries on free will and determinism. Re
garding puppets, Margaret Williams explains, "Since the puppet's apparent
autonomy suggests free will, while its manipulation evokes determinism,
the issue of 'who controls whom' is one of the many recurrent paradoxes
in puppet theory" ("Including" 122). This paradox likewise pervades the
Whedonverses from the designation of a "Chosen One" (as the protagonist
is called in Buffy the Vampire Slayer) onward: is Buffy free to choose, or
is her path predetermined? Numerous Whedon scholars have engaged at
length with the topics of choice and/or destiny and/or determinism, in
cluding (but certainly not limited to) K. Dale Koontz in Faith and Choice
in the Works of Joss Whedon and J. Michael Richardson and J. Douglas
Rabb in The Existential Joss Whedon.8 More recently, in a chapter on An
gel in The Philosophy of Joss Whedon, Susanne Ε. Foster and James B.
South illustrate that "[t]he possibility of genuine human choice—one not
controlled by forces outside the agent—is called into question repeatedly"
(176). Throughout the Whedonverses, this repeated emphasis on choice is
also repeatedly linked to puppetry.
Regarding the third area of puppet theory relevant to an analysis
of Angel, both Team Whedon and certain puppet theorists engage with
the concepts of "demon" and "soul." Notably, Williams explains that the
"pervasive metaphor in puppetry" of a manipulator "pulling the figure's
strings" can be "interpreted as determinism or even inner demons" ("In
cluding" 121). Theoretically, the so-called "inner demon" works as a pup
peteer seeking to control its puppet while, simultaneously, the puppet at
tempts to exercise control over its inner demon or puppeteer. Accordingly,
the "puppet as 'living object'" has also been interpreted by some puppet
theorists, such as Poh Sim Plowright, to represent a "body-soul dualism"
(Williams, "Including" 122). Williams, citing Plowright, explains, "The
'something' that seems to exist within a puppet, even to control its manip
ulator, takes on the quasi-theological terminology of'soul'" ("Including"
122).9 Thus, in puppet theory, the puppeteer is alternately viewed as de
mon and soul. So too do Angel's demon and soul vie for status of figura
tive puppeteer.
Various puppet theorists refer to the pairings of living and dead,

free will and determinism, puppet and puppeteer (and, on occasion, demon
and soul), as inherent parts of what they call the puppet paradox—these
theorists include Chiara Cappelletto in an article entitled "The Puppet's
Paradox." What we see in the Angel Puppet is a physical manifestation of
the puppet paradox which, in his particular case, is also an embodiment of
the very paradoxes with which Angel has already engaged for centuries.10
A line in the comic Spike: Shadow Puppets is particularly germane to il
lustrate the doubling effect of the metamorphosis of an ensouled vampire
into a puppet: "My name is Spike. I'm not really a puppet. I'm a man.
Turned vampire. Turned vampire with a soul. Turned puppet. Puppet vam
pire. With a soul. So don't worry."" In Faith and Choice in the Works of
Joss Whedon, Koontz argues that "vampires provide 'negative space' for
humanity to see itself differently due to contrasting what we are from what
we aren(34). Puppeteer and theorist Roman Paska makes a comparable
observation when discussing the "deep anxieties" puppets can provoke,
saying, "It's the absence of the human that is frightening" (qtd. in Boxer).
Koontz goes on to explain that ensouled vampires "dwell in a category of
'double negatives' as they are neither humans with souls, nor vampires
without souls" (34, 46). The puppet—a human simulacrum, representing
the living, the dead, the soul, the demon—could likewise be placed within
the "double negative" category. Consequently, Angel Puppet is a double
double negative—or, to put it another way, ensouled vampire squared.
That is, Angel Puppet in "Smile Time" represents again what Angel al
ready represents—the puppet embodiment exaggerates his existing exis
tential condition. After seven seasons of Buffy and five of Angel—a com
bined twelve seasons—of reiterating, time and again, the complexities of
being alive yet dead, of housing both a demon and a soul, of freely making
choices in the face of determinism, and of being a figurative puppet to
figurative puppeteers, Whedon and company found in the Angel Puppet an
unique means to defamiliarize and thus refresh the overarching physical
and philosophical issues at the heart of Angel.
47
Cynthea Masson
For centuries, puppets have been figurative signifiers of the human

condition. In his book Puppets and "Popular" Culture, Scott Cutler Sher
show outlines the use of puppets in literature from the Renaissance onward,
calling the puppet "a strikingly multivalent metaphor" (52). Readers can
reach a similar conclusion from a range of puppet theory books, including
Harold B. Segel's Pinocchio ,'v Progeny, Victoria Nelson's The Secret Life
of Puppets, and Kenneth Gross's Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life. Yet
as Corona Sharp outlines in her study of the figurative uses of puppet ter
minology, more often than not "the human being is compared to a puppet
in a derogatory sense" (27). Metaphorically, explains Sharp, "man can be
seen as an imitation of a puppet, pulled about by external forces" (28).12
This use of the puppet metaphor as a signifier for determinism can be
found in both Buffy and Angel. In the Season Four Angel episode "Inside
Out" (4.17), Gunn insists to the demon captive Skip, "We make our own
choices." In rebuttal, Skip responds, "Yeah, sure. A cheese sandwich here,
when to floss. But the big stuff, like two vampires squeezing out a kid?"
He temporarily ends his decree at this statement but, shortly thereafter,
implicates the entirety of Team Angel in Season Four events, declaring,
"You're all puppets." Worth noting here is that Skip's "cheese sandwich"
philosophy may appear to be merely a humorous take on determinism,
but it in fact effectively highlights an ongoing dilemma in both Buffy and
Angel·, if our choices are limited because major milestones are determined,
how can we be anything but mere puppets? The answer to this question
is in fact provided early in the Whedonverses in the Season Two Buffy
episode "Becoming, Part One" (2.21): in a voiceover to the harrowing
scene in which Buffy discovers Kendra lying dead in the library. Whistler
declares, "No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does." He
then describes his take on determinism with a basic puppet metaphor: "So
what are we, helpless? Puppets? No," he insists. "The big moments are
gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts.
That's when you find out who you are." Whistler thus utters a primary
tenet of Whedonian wisdom: We can be mere puppets or, regardless of
circumstances in which we appear to be puppets (destined or otherwise),
we can strive to become puppeteers, to exercise free will, to determine
ourselves. Being a literal puppet in "Smile Time" compels Angel to deter

mine himself, to be the puppeteer to his "wee little puppet" body. Mean
while, events leading up to "Smile Time" emphasize Angel as a figurative
puppet.'3
One repeated trope of figurative puppetry in Angel is that of the
external manipulator (or figurative puppeteer) controlling the physical
body or bodies of others. Examples in this category range from the innoc
uous to the horrific. On the one end of the figurative puppeteer continuum,
we can place both Wesley's reference to a demon culprit in "Happy An
niversary" (2.13) as "a puppet acting under the control of someone else"
and Angel's description of the zombie police officers in "Thin Dead Line"
(2.14) as "They walk, they talk, but somebody else is pulling their strings."
On the other end of the figurative puppeteer continuum, we can place both
Jasmine and lllyria (who will be discussed later). The plot arc of Season
Four offers a particularly poignant precursor to Angel's status as both fig
urative and literal puppet in Season Five. Season Four highlights the dev
astating implications of losing complete control of one's mind and body
to an external manipulator. Such is the case with Cordelia, who, as Angel
surmises in "Inside Out," has had someone "pulling her strings." When
Gunn interrogates Skip demanding to know, "Is it Cordy or not?" Skip
responds, "Oh, it's her. She just ain't driving," which, in turn, prompts
Angel to question whether "[something took control of her on a higher
plane." "Inside Out" is also the episode in which Skip contends, "You're
all puppets." Though the Team may disagree with Skip's assessment of
their puppet status, only a few episodes later they do indeed become fig
urative puppets to puppet master Jasmine. Fred, temporarily alone in her
quest to vanquish Jasmine, asks a bookstore clerk, "So, you don't worry
that it's possible for someone to send out a biological or electronic trigger
that effectively overrides your own sense of ideals and values, and re
places them with an alternative coercive agenda that reduces you to little
more than a mindless meat puppet?" ("Magic Bullet" 4.19). As we grad
ually learn, Jasmine offers world peace at the cost of free will: as Angel
says to her at the end of "Peace Out," "That's what you took away from
us—choice." Of course, the moral of Season Four (and of many a Whedon
49
Cynthea Masson
episode) is that individuals must resist being "mindless meat puppets" by

destroying the puppeteer and thus regaining choice.
However, such separation between the puppet and the puppeteer,
resulting in the outright destruction of one by the other, is complicated (if
not impossible) when the puppet and puppeteer co-exist—as is the case for
Angel, where the demon and the soul vie for control within the same body.
Can Angel, even with the soul as figurative puppeteer, maintain control
when his body houses a demon whose danger is always inherently pres
ent? As Kenneth Gross argues, "the implied danger of the puppet" is that
it "has a life of its own" and, moreover, "has ambitions to become itself
a puppet master" (Puppet 21).14 For Angel, the demon represents such a
danger—a danger repeatedly emphasized in both words and actions. For
example, in "Guise Will Be Guise" (2.6), when Angel says, "I can't let [the
demon] control me," the fake Tish M'Gev responds, "You don't think it
controls you?" In "Through the Looking Glass" (2.21), Angel, as Wesley
explains, "accessed his demon, but he can't find the balance he normally
would in our world. His demon self has totally overcome his human side."
In "Orpheus" (4.15), Angelus stakes claim to Angel's body despite the
soul: "I'm deep in, Faith—soul or no soul.'"5 His premise is supported by
evidence as he and Faith watch the ensouled Angel don vampire face and
drink human blood. The only apparent means to an end here is for Angel to
become human, thereby eradicating the demon, a potential offered by the
Shanshu Prophecy. In the opening episode of Season Two, Angel confides
to Cordelia, "I saw the light at the end of the tunnel—that someday I might
become human." However, this "bright" radiance, as Angel describes it to
Cordelia, becomes a mere glimmer in the distance as the seasons progress
("Judgement" 2.1)—that is, until Season Five when Spike, a second en
souled vampire with the potential to become human, brings the Shanshu
Prophecy back into the effulgent spotlight.
In Season Five, Angel reaches what might be called the existential
crisis of the puppet paradox—a crisis that culminates in "Smile Time."
As an employee of Wolfram & Hart, Angel is regularly positioned as —to
quote Lindsey in "You're Welcome" (5.12)—a "pathetic corporate pup
pet." In "Lineage" (5.7), the fake Roger Wyndam-Pryce makes a similar
assessment of Angel: "He's a puppet. He always has been. To the Pow

ers That Be. To Wolfram & Hart." In "Just Rewards" (only the second
episode of Season Five), Angel plays the figurative puppet to puppeteer
necromancer Magnus Hainsley. Roman Paska describes puppetry as "a
kind of necromancy" (qtd. in Williams, "Including" 120). Sarah Boxer
likewise discusses necromancy, claiming puppeteers "would prefer to
think of themselves as liberators who can wake up the living dead." 16
"And the dead shall rise," intones Hainsley, as he literally pulls Angel's
figurative strings. "Control. That's all anyone really wants, isn't it?" asks
Hainsley ("Just Rewards" 5.2). Throughout Season Five, as he struggles to
retain control, Angel is repeatedly positioned as Wolfram & Hart's figura
tive puppet. Yet in "Just Rewards," whether he recognizes it or not, Angel
learns a valuable lesson: even as a puppet he can fend off the threat of an
abusive puppeteer with the help of his inner demon—a lesson reprised in
"Smile Time."
Considering the relevance of potential humanity to both Spike and
Angel, it should be no surprise that Season Five revives one particular
puppet allusion to what Shershow dubs "the most familiar single puppet
in contemporary American culture" (225): Pinocchio and his yearning to
be a "real boy." Spike first uses the phrase "real boy" in Buffy's "Once
More, with Feeling" (Buffy 6.7) where, referring to one of the wooden
henchman, he mockingly quips, "Someday he'll be a real boy." In An
gel, the phrase takes on a more serious connotation when Spike uses it
to describe his own potential. Thus, in "Hell Bound" (5.4), when Fred
explains her theory on how to recorporealize Spike, concluding, "I think
I'm getting close," Spike asks, "To making me a real boy again?" The
"real boy" reference prompts Fred to think not of Spike's potential but,
in her words, of "Angel's thing with the prophecy." "What prophecy?"
asks Spike. "The Shan-shoe-ha something or another," says Fred. "It says
that if Angel helps enough people he gets to be human again." "Oh, re
ally," replies Spike. "Goody for him." Though Spike's words may appear
to indicate nonchalance, his facial expression indicates otherwise, and his
curiosity is certainly piqued. Only two episodes later, in "The Cautionary
Tale of Numero Cinco" (5.6), Spike asks Wesley whether he can "look up
51
Cynthea Masson
that. . . sans shoes thingamabob" in the source books. "You know," says
Spike, "the prophecy that says that Angel gets to be a real boy again." It
is during this conversation that Spike suggests that he, not Angel, could
be the vampire with a soul destined to become human. The repeated "real
boy" allusion works to suggest that Spike, like Angel, is also a figurative
puppet. Though, in comparison with Angel, Spike appears to have little
conflict with his inner demon, he is certainly controlled by an external ma
nipulator in that he is both brought to Wolfram & Hart in the first place and
then recorporealized at the manipulator's whim. In Season Five, figurative
puppets are plentiful.
Overall, however, the "real boy" references may have more to
do with Angel than Spike. The renewed interest in the Shanshu Prophecy
prompts Angel, despite his protestations to Wesley that "prophecies are
nonsense," to read the text for himself; thus we see him at the end of "The
Cautionary Tale" utter a request to a source book: "Shanshu Prophecy.
English translation." A few episodes later, during one of his hallucinatory
dreams in "Soul Purpose" (5.10), Angel watches a celebration for Spike
who, as Wesley recounts in the dream, has "save[d] the universe from
eternal bloodshed, horror and misery" and, therefore, as Fred explains,
"[d]eserves to become a real boy!" The Blue Fairy (as she is named in
the episode's credits)—a major character from Pinocchio—arrives on the
scene, sprinkles some fairy dust, and Spike hears his beating heart for
the first time in over a century.17 "You're human, Spike! You're alive!"
exclaims Fred. Angel watches the scene from the sidelines, his clothing
morphing into that of a shy, geeky Wolfram & Hart mail boy. Though only
in a dream, the Pinocchio allusions bring puppetry to the thematic fore
front with merely a few episodes to go before Angel's literal puppet trans
formation in "Smile Time." Angel is clearly preoccupied with the Shanshu
Prophecy and, at least as his subconscious suggests, with the possibility
of becoming human. This preoccupation would include the alternate pos
sibility of forever remaining a figurative puppet. Given that Angel will
"shanshu" only "once he fulfills his destiny," the freedom Angel may po
tentially gain when he becomes human is inherently linked to determinism
(to whoever or whatever determines the destiny Angel must first fulfill)
and thus to his status as figurative puppet. To revoke his puppet status in
relation to the Prophecy, Angel must revoke the possibility of becoming a
real boy.18
All the puppets in "Smile Time," including Angel, can be said to
be both puppets and puppeteers. Though the actual puppets are controlled
by a staff of puppeteers (including, from the Jim Henson Company, Alice
Dinnean-Vernon, Drew Massey, Julianne Buescher, and Victor Yerrid),
within the fiction of the episode, the puppets (including Angel) have con
trol of their own puppet bodies.19 That is, like Pinocchio, they are physi
cally puppets, but they move, think, and speak of their own accord without
external manipulators; by virtue of their puppet nature, they are their own
puppeteers. The episode titled "Smile Time" features within it a children's
television show titled Smile Time. The characters of this children's show
are also puppeteers of their human puppets—both of the fictional viewers
controlled through a "hidden carrier wave" and of the fictional production
staff within their studio. This reversal—puppets puppeteering humans—
is emphasized in the scene featuring Polo (the lead puppet demon) and
Gregor Framkin (the creator of Smile Time). In response to the human
Framkin's plea for death as a means to escape his puppet status, Polo asks
threateningly, "Are you saying you want to talk to the hand?" The close
up of Polo's hand as it thrusts into the gaping puppet hole in Framkin's
back graphically illustrates the potentially abusive relationship between
puppeteer and puppet—one replicated by various figurative puppeteers
throughout the Whedonverses.20
However, the relationship between puppet and puppeteer can be
one of productive unity rather than abuse. "My puppet and I are one,"
claims puppeteer Sirppa Sivori-Asp (3). Within puppet theory, this unity
between the puppet and the puppeteer is repeatedly connected to the
soul—a connection critical to my analysis of the Angel Puppet. In the two
episodes immediately preceding "Smile Time," the status of Angel's soul
is brought into question through two searing accusations. First, in "You're
Welcome" (5.12), Lindsey taunts, "I came to fight the vampire with a soul.
Guess you shouldn't have sold it, huh? Look at you, from champion to pa
thetic corporate puppet in just a few months." Second, in "Why We Fight"
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Cynthea Masson
(5.13), the former World War II sailor Lawson (the only man Angel sired
as a vampire after being ensouled) claims, "You gave me just enough,
didn't you? Enough of your soul to keep me trapped between who I was
and who I should be. I'm nothing because of you." Lawson, whom Angel
used to fight Nazis, insists, "You don't win a war by doing whatever it
takes. You win by doing what's right." To take a stand against corporate
puppetry, to wage war against the figurative puppeteers of his world, Angel
must recognize that he did not sell his soul, indeed that his soul is powerful
enough to guide both himself and his Team to do "what's right." Though
"Smile Time" may not appear at first glance to emphasize Angel's soul,
when viewed from the lens of puppet theory, it does. Sivori-Asp claims,
"I have a visible soul, my puppet" (2). Williams, in discussing Sivori-Asp,
explains that "the 'soul' of the artist is expressed through the medium of
the puppet" ("Aspects" 70). Similarly, in the film Being Elmo, puppeteer
Frank Oz (an associate of Tom Whedon) says, "When a puppet is true
and good and meaningful, it's the soul of a puppeteer you're seeing." Of
course, these people are speaking figuratively of literal puppets and literal
puppeteers. However, similar connections are addressed by various puppet
theorists, including Kenneth Gross who claims, "The story of puppets be
comes the story of embodied souls and ensouled objects" (Puppet 118-19).
If the puppet is inherently an ensouled object and Angel is an
ensouled vampire, then Angel Puppet is, once again (and so to speak),
an ensouled vampire squared. That is, the prominence of Angel's soul is
emphasized through his embodiment as Angel Puppet. Indeed, the very
presence of a soul is the distinguishing factor between Angel Puppet and
the other "Smile Time" puppets, as confirmed in one frame of Spike: Shad
ow Puppets: "Soulless demons. Bloodthirsty murderers. Wee little puppet
men." Despite the limitation of having "the proportionate excitability of a
puppet [his] size," Angel's soul is not only intact but emphatically intact.
Additionally, by virtue of Angel's literal puppet body, the once merely
figurative notion of his soul as puppeteer is now literal. Based on the re
lationship, as described in puppet theory, among puppeteer, puppet, and
soul, a notable syllogism emerges: if Angel is both puppet and puppeteer
within and of his physical manifestation as a puppet, and if, moreover,
the puppet represents the soul of the puppeteer, then Angel Puppet is an
embodiment of Angel's soul. In his human body Angel has a soul, but in
his puppet body Angel signifies the soul. This signification is crucial as an
emphatic gesture prior to Angel's decision to do "what's right"—to choose
his destiny by revoking the Shanshu Prophecy and "killing every single
member of the Black Thorn," the demonic secret society that plans to con
trol the world ("Not Fade Away"). As Sharon Sutherland and Sarah Swan
argue, the soul provides "an understanding of morality that is superior to .
. . prophetic writings" (142).
Puppet theorists who engage in discussions of the soul in relation
to puppets inevitably consider Heinrich von Kleist's "On the Marionette
Theater."21 This early nineteenth-century philosophical treatise compares
human dancers to puppets, granting superiority to the puppets. Here, 1 offer
a sampling of critical responses to Kleist's work as a means of illustrating
additional connections made by puppet theorists between the puppet and
the soul. Victoria Nelson names Kleist as one of the authors who, through
the use of the puppet trope, "revived the ancient paradox of spiritualized
matter by identifying human simulacra . . . with the soul" (ix).22 Margret
Schaefer contends that Kleist "is arguing essentially that humanity is lia
ble to states of mind-body disunity, states in which the 'soul' and the body
are not a harmonious whole, but a collection of parts warring against one
another" (369-70). She asserts that Kleist "conceptualized the puppeteer
as mystically within the puppet: puppet and puppeteer are one," at which
point "the self sees itself, not the other, as the source of the power and
greatness it feels through merger with the other" (377). The "parts warring
against one another" in Angel are not simply body and soul but demon and
soul; therefore, the "source of power" resulting from a "merger with the
other" can be understood in Angel Puppet as an empowered union of de
mon and soul working together against the threat of an external manipula
tor. Thus, in the final puppet fight of "Smile Time," when Polo says to An
gel, "I'm gonna tear you a new puppet hole, bitch" and, shortly thereafter,
in reaction to Angel Puppet's strength asks, "So, you got a little demon in
you?," Angel, morphing into Vampire Puppet, says, "I got a lot of demon
in me." In the close-up of Vampire Angel Puppet, when viewed through
55
Cynthea Masson
the lens of puppet theory, we see something we have never previously

witnessed in the Angelverse—the soul with the face of a demon.
In his moment of conjunctive union, Angel not only vanquishes
Polo—a literal puppet and abusive puppeteer—but, symbolically, all man
ner of puppetry he has experienced up to this point. From this moment forth
Angel will be puppet master of his choices, will refuse to be afigurative pup
pet, and, by the end of the series, will take a stand against the world's most
abusive puppeteers. Early in "Smile Time" (prior to his transformation),
Angel confesses to Wesley that he worries what will happen if he shares "a
moment of perfect happiness''' with Nina; he fears he will lose his soul and
revert to the fully demonic vampire Angelus. By the end of the episode, he
is walking hand-in-hand with Nina, the woman with whom he eventually
becomes lovers. What happened to convince Angel that he would not lose
his soul? What happened is that he turned into a puppet. Cappelletto, in
her article "The Puppet's Paradox," concludes, "[puppetry] must not be
taken merely as a metaphor for the passivity of man but rather as the direct
inorganic expression of his conflicting existential condition" (336). As a
literal puppet. Angel is confronted anew with his existential and paradoxi
cal condition as the living dead, as an ensouled demon, as both puppet and
puppet master of his choices. As a literal puppet—as ensouled vampire2—
Angel found the power to wield his sword, rally the troops, and utter the
humorous yet commanding battle cry: "Let's take out some puppets!"
"[F]or many people," explains puppeteer and theorist Henryk
Jurkowski, "being a puppet means being transformed" (qtd. in Williams,
"Aspects" 73). Immediately following "Smile Time," the theme of trans
formation continues in "A Hole in the World" (5.15); but the episode pro
vides a stark contrast to "Smile Time" not only in the shift from comedy to
tragedy—from laughter over Angel Puppet to tears over Fred's death—but
also in the depiction of puppetry. A thematic link between "Smile Time"
and "A Hole in the World" is established in part by two notable verbal
echoes emphasizing the humor of Angel's metamorphosis in contrast with
the seriousness of Fred's. First, in "Smile Time," having found Angel Pup
pet with his stuffing coming out after a werewolf attack, Lome takes him
in his arms and yells, "Doctor! Is there a Geppetto in the house?" Simi
larly, in "A Hole in the World," Lome embraces the fallen Fred, as Wesley
yells, "Get medical! Someone get medical now!" Second, Angel Puppet
insists, "1 do not have puppet cancer," while Fred, barely able to stand as
lllyria takes over her body, insists, "I'm not going to be cut down by some
monster flu. 1 am better than that." Of course, Angel is cured of his "pup
pet cancer" whereas Fred succumbs, against her will, to the "monster flu."
Illyria's puppet is the "shell" of Fred—initially exhibiting what Bronwen
Calvert refers to as "puppetlike movements" ("Shells" 5.16; 203).23 The
irony here is that metamorphosis to literal puppet is far less threatening
than metamorphosis into a figurative puppet. Whereas Angel's metamor
phosis emphasizes a productive unity between puppet and puppeteer and
the importance of the soul in maintaining a unified balance, Fred's meta
morphosis to a figurative puppet emphasizes an opposite extreme: that of
the puppeteer taking absolute control of the body, a process that necessi
tates destroying the soul, in this case through "the fires of resurrection"
("Shells").24 In the Angelverse, and by extension in the Whedonverses,
metaphorically speaking, in order not to lose your soul you must be your
own puppet master.
By "Not Fade Away," the final episode of Angel, Spike and Angel
exchange one last puppet reference. Spike asks, "What do you think all
this means for that Shanshu bugaboo? We make it through this, does one
of us get to be a real boy?" Angel responds, "Are you kidding? We're not
gonna make it through." "Well," says Spike, "long as it's not you." In
other words, by the end of the television series, becoming a "real boy" is
no longer at issue other than as a joke between battle comrades. With this
final "real boy" reference, we recognize that Angel has taken an alternate
path to that of Pinocchio—as in many a Whedon show, a traditional story
is turned on its head. "How ridiculous I was when I was a puppet!" de
clares Pinocchio at the end of Collodi's story. "And how happy I am to
have become a real boy!" (Collodi 262). Pinocchio's happiness may be
short lived if, as argued by both Harold Segel and Nicolas Perella, his "real
boy" status entails simultaneous transformation into a figurative puppet.
57
Cynthea Masson
Segel asserts, Pinocchio remains "in a near constant state of rebellion

against authority until his final transformation into a real boy" (41). Pere
Ua, likewise, insists that the once "wayward" wooden puppet, as a real boy,
will "never again . . . deviate from the role he must play in society" (35).
For Segel, "the boy Pinocchio becomes at the end of the work is destined
to become far more of a puppet once he enters adulthood than he was as a
puppet" (42). Angel, unlike Pinocchio, refuses to conform; in the final epi
sode, he literally signs away his future as predicted by the Shanshu Proph
ecy, saying to the Circle of the Black Thorn, "I have no desire to become
human" ("Not Fade Away"). Whether or not the Prophecy would ever have
come to pass (and regardless of what happens in the comic After the Fall,
set after the television series), what's important here is that Angel chooses
at the end of the television series to live with his inner demon. Thereafter,
he begins his greatest battle against the world's figurative puppeteers, no
tably drawing upon his demon side to overcome Wolfram & Hart's liaison
to the Senior Partners whose "blood is filled with their ancient power."
In choosing not to become a real boy, Angel chooses his destiny, thus
acting as a puppet master rather than a puppet. Through the puppetry of
Season Five, Whedonian philosophy on the existential condition is once
again reiterated: certain aspects of life may not be in your control—to be
born, to be human, to have a soul, to battle an inner demon, to contract a
monster flu—but you can choose your response to imposed conditions.
Angel may have to die, but he can determine how he faces that death.
Certainly, "Smile Time" was dubbed an "instant-classic episode"
not because of puppet theory but because of the puppet (Partney 60); fans
enjoyed the humor inherent in a wee little puppet man—after all, he's
"made of felt" and his "nose comes off" ("Smile Time"). And the enjoy
ment is not limited to the fans; according to crew member Dan Kerns,
"A total of 18 minutes were lost because the entire cast could not stop
laughing during their first rehearsal with the Angel Muppet" (27).25 When
asked by Matt Partney whether the puppet episode was "always a given
inevitability on Angel" Whedon responded, "No, one day it just occurred
to me. We talked about doing an all marionette Buffy one time, but we nev
er really followed through on that. . . . It just occurred to me that if Angel
were a Muppet, it would make me very happy" (62).26 Whether Angel

Puppet was inevitable or not, given his "puppet peopled" history, Whedon
would surely have known, as Shershow outlines in Puppets and "Pop
ular" Culture, "the puppet was repeatedly inscribed in Western culture
as a marker or rubric of the 'low'" (6). So too, once upon a time, was a
television show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In other words, Whedon
understands that highbrow ideas can be expressed through traditionally
lowbrow means, and his use of puppetry is no exception. "If we're going
to be silly," says Whedon regarding his use of puppets, "let's be serious
about it!" (Partney 63). To live and to die, to be ensouled and to house an
inner demon, to make choices and to face destiny, to embrace paradox:
Only someone as familiar with puppets as Joss Whedon could inspire a
creative team to use a Muppet as an aesthetic representation—a literal em
bodiment—of the most revered principles of the Whedonverses.27
Cynthea Masson
Vancouver Island University
59
Cynthea Masson
Notes
1 Angel, a television series created by Joss Whedon and David Green

wait, ran on the WB Network from 1999 to 2004. The Shanshu Prophecy is a
section of the "Prophecies of Aberjian," a scroll taken from Wolfram & Hart by
Angel in the episode "Blind Date"(1.21).
2 Abbott explains that the episode "taps into the series' preoccupation
. . . with undermining conventional representations of masculinity and heroism
through a critique of Angel's embodiment of the position of hero" (100).
1 Tom Whedon co-wrote the Muppet production Hey, Cinderella (1969),
which Jim Henson directed and for which Frank Oz was a puppeteer. The show
was hosted by Kermit the Frog. (For further information see Michael Davis's
Street Gang and Jennifer K. Stuller's "The Ink-Stained Amazon Presents.")
4 For a discussion of the puppets in "Get It Done," see Matthew Pate
man's The Aesthetics of Culture in Bufify the Vampire Slayer, especially 189-91.
Kenneth Gross discusses " Wayang Kulit, the great shadow-puppet theater of Java
and Bali" as an example "where puppet theatre has served as a means for making
contact with the dead" ("Madness" 197). Kenneth Gross also discusses shadow
puppets in a chapter of Puppet entitled "Shadows."
5 Regarding the definition of puppet, Shershow says, "anything that has
been defined or envisioned as a 'performing object' is appropriate in my analysis"
(3). However, according to Margaret Williams, Henryk Jurkowski "has arguably
demolished Puppetry together with The Puppet, not in any negative sense, but in
demonstrating that no single theory or definition will contain the many phenom
ena which can be included under that umbrella term" ("Aspects" 70).
6 Williams also says, "Paradox seems inherent in the very concept of a
living object, and playing with paradox is half the fun of puppet theory" ("Includ
ing" 122). Jurkowski coined a term "opalisation" to refer to "the constant oscil
lation and tension between the awareness of the puppet as a lifeless thing and the
illusion that it lives of itself' (Williams, "Aspects" 72).
7 In her analysis of the multiple genres used to create the series' distinc
tiveness, Abbott argues, "the show's generic interplay conveys the complexity
of Angel himself, for as a vampire he is equally a hybrid, marking the fusion of
living and dead, human and demon" (Angel 28). Moreover, she argues, "[Angel]
is further hybridized as a vampire with a soul, a mixture of good and evil" (28).
8 See also Katia McClain's "Angel vs. the Grand Inquisitor."

9 Williams cites various puppeteers and theorists regarding the soul and
its "exact location" ("Including" 122). She explains, "'Soul' seems to confirm a
puppet's mystical being, though it is as often located in the physical link with the
puppeteer as in the figure itself' ("Including" 122).
10 Angel was sired in 1753.
11 I would argue that Spike: Shadow Puppets, featuring Spike and Lome
puppets, revolves around a conventional good-guy-puppets versus bad-guy-pup
pets plot rather than around the sort of existential crisis experienced by Angel;
thus, I do not read the comic as an extension of the serious issues at the forefront
of Season Five of the television series.
12 This idea can be traced back to Plato, who "suggests that the gods
manipulate us like marionettes" and "that the puppet, man, is pulled in various
directions by the strings of his passions" (Shershow 21; Perella 31).
13 Other figurative puppet references occur in "Villains" {Buffy 6.20)
when Xander dubs Dark Willow a "Puppet Master" and in "Redefinition" (Angel
2.11) when Daria refers to her "stint as Wolfram & Hart's puppet."
14Tzachi Zamir likewise discusses the danger of the puppet to the pup
peteer: "The puppeteer's capacity to be manipulated by the puppet, tricked, at
tacked, or even killed . . . creates an effect that oscillates between the comic and
the downright horrifying" (392). Margaret Williams notes, "In some non-Western
cultures a puppet is believed to control or empower its human manipulator" ("In
cluding" 121).
15 "Angel's the one that belongs on the outside, not you," says Faith to
Angelus, but Angelus insists he will remain within Angel even after his soul has
been reinstated: "You'll just hang up your spurs and ride off into the sunset know
ing you put the monster back in his cage. But I'm always here, Faithy. Deep in"
("Orpheus" 4.15).
16 Boxer also notes, "The closest human analogies to puppets are not
powerless citizens under dictators but mummies and corpses made to dance."
17 Spike was sired in 1880.
18 Though Angel learned, as early as the Season One episode "I Will Re
member You" (1.8), that becoming human necessitates a "mortal body" and the
loss of vampire strength, the Shanshu Prophecy nonetheless provides "hope" for
the distant future. According toWesley, "Hope is the only thing that will sustain
[Angel]" ("Cautionary Tale").
61
Cynthea Masson
19 Julianne Buescher's name is misspelled in the "Hey Kids It's Smile

Time" featurette.
20 In the "Smile Time" section of her book Angel, Stacey Abbott reads the
abusive control by the puppet/puppeteers as analogous to other forms of abuse.
For example, she posits "connotations of pedophilia inherent within their attack
on the children" (98). She also argues that the image of Framkin (which she spells
"Frampton") "turned into a human puppet, manipulated and tormented by the
demons, serves as a convincing metaphor for the helplessness and frustration felt
by TV creators in the face of the network" (99).
21 Kleist's work is known by a variety of titles in English, including "On
the Puppet Theater," "On the Theater of Marionettes," and "Concerning the Pup
pet Theater."
22 Another author is Rainer Maria Rilke in the Fourth Elegy of Duino Ele
gies, which includes the line "Angel and puppet: a real play, finally" (25). Zamir
discusses "an old tradition of conceiving the soul as a second, miniature body, a
manikin" (392). Along similar lines, Victoria Nelson discusses the "paradoxical
link between human simulacra and the idea of the soul" in the ancient Mediterra
nean world (ix).
23 "Winifred Burkle is the shell I'm in," declares Illyria. Wesley later
confirms, "Everything she was is gone. There's nothing left but a shell" ("Shells").
24 Wesley utters a similar lament later in the same episode: "Her soul was
destroyed resurrecting Illyria" ("Shells"). Stacey Abbott argues that Fred/Illyria
"is even more of a hybrid than any other character on the show as she is a mix of
Fred and Illyria, dead and alive, human and God, male and female and good and
evil" (60).
25 Kerns was a lighting technician who worked on all 110 episodes of the
series.
26 Ben Edlund says, "I am very thankful he asked me to write it. It was
based off a story that we broke. And [Whedon] was very involved in that" (Part
ney 62).
27 An extended version of this paper, which included a 146-slide Pow
erPoint presentation, was originally presented as the opening keynote address at
SCW5: The Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses (University of British Co
lumbia, Vancouver) on July 13, 2012.
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Cynthea Masson works in the English Department at Vancouver Island Univ

sity, where she teaches a variety of writing and literature courses. Her Ph.D.
English (McMaster University) focused on medieval literature and the rheto
of mysticism. Though she has published in the field of Medieval Studies, mos
her academic conference presentations and publications since 2005 have been
the area of Whedon Studies. Her fiction includes The Elijah Tree (Rebel Sato
2009), a novel that combines theories of medieval mysticism with contempor
issues of faith and sexuality. She is currently co-editing A Joss Whedon Re
and working on her second novel, The Alchemists'Council.
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Popular Culture Association in the South

"Break Out the Champagne,

Angel and the Puppet Paradox

In the final few moments of Angel Season One, Wesley explains

Joss Whedon describes himself as "puppet peopled" (Partney 60).

44 Studies in Popular Culture 35.2 Spring 2013

overarching questions regarding free will and determinism, and finally

46 Studies in Popular Culture 35.2 Spring 2013

Various puppet theorists refer to the pairings of living and dead,

For centuries, puppets have been figurative signifiers of the human

48 Studies in Popular Culture 35.2 Spring 2013

ourselves. Being a literal puppet in "Smile Time" compels Angel to deter

episode) is that individuals must resist being "mindless meat puppets" by

50 Studies in Popular Culture 35.2 Spring 2013

assessment of Angel: "He's a puppet. He always has been. To the Pow

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54 Studies in Popular Culture 35.2 Spring 2013

the lens of puppet theory, we see something we have never previously

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Segel asserts, Pinocchio remains "in a near constant state of rebellion

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were a Muppet, it would make me very happy" (62).26 Whether Angel

1 Angel, a television series created by Joss Whedon and David Green

60 Studies in Popular Culture 35.2 Spring 2013

8 See also Katia McClain's "Angel vs. the Grand Inquisitor."

19 Julianne Buescher's name is misspelled in the "Hey Kids It's Smile

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Abbott, Stacey. Angel. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2009. Print.

Gross, Kenneth. Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life. Chicago: U of Chicago

"Heart of Gold." Firefly. Season 1. Episode 13. Writ. Brett Matthews.

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Kleist, Heinrich von. "On the Theater of Marionettes." Selected Prose of

Perella, Nicolas J. "An Essay on Pinocchio." Italica 63.1 (1986): 1-47.

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"Why We Fight." Angel. Season 5. Episode 13. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight

Cynthea Masson works in the English Department at Vancouver Island Univ

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