Buffy The Vampire Slayer: What Does The Cheese Man Really Mean – Screen Rant

Joss Whedon's cult classic series,Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has featured some incredibly iconic characters during its seven season run, but the Cheese Man is one of the strangest - what is his real meaning and does he have any greater significance?

As the Slayer, Buffy and her friends - known as the Scooby Gang - have thwarted many an apocalypse and crushed numerous Big Bads, but the show's fourth season finale, "Restless", was a departure from the final battle that the previous three seasons employed. Instead, "Restless" explored the subconscious minds of the main characters as they all had different, increasingly violent run-ins with the First Slayer, a primitive woman by the name of Sineya, who was sacrificed by her tribe - chained to the earth - and created her and the rest of the Slayer line, by default. Though certainly a cruel thing, in some ways, to inflict on a young woman, it was through the invocation of Sineya and a spell known as the "enjoining spell" that Willow, Giles, and Xander were able to empower Buffy in her fight with Adam, aFrankenstein-esque monster who was created by The Initiative.

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Because the enjoining spell invoked the First Slayer, the aftermath of the battle where Buffy defeated Adam brought her restless spirit to each member of the Scooby Gang who was part of the spell, and while each dream involved her stalking, hunting, and trying to kill them in some way, the dreams also featured the Cheese Man.

The Cheese Man is known for lines that have since become iconic in the series such as, "I wear the cheese. It does not wear me". While his presence is certainly felt in the episode as some semblance of comic relief that the show has become famous for, especially due to its contribution to the overall zany, off-beat humor ofBuffy the Vampire Slayer, the greater significance the character itself holds is really very basic. In dreams, often there's some element that is nonsensical, that doesn't fit the rest of the happenings surrounding the dreamer. While the different members of the Scooby Gang and Buffy all experience strange, out of sorts happenings such as acting in a performance of "Death of a Salesman" or running an ice cream truck, the Cheese Man is really just a background prop, a random happenstance they all share. This is possibly due to further express that their subconscious minds were linked by the spell, as the Cheese Man is certainly obscure, but Joss Whedon simplified the answer about what his real meaning is, exactly.

On the DVD commentary for "Restless", Whedon stated that he has no deeper meaning or larger significance. Apparently, according to Whedon, fans of the show have tried to give him some kind of meaning or find other connections as to how he might fit into the already strange universe, but really his inclusion is just a facet of the nature of dreams themselves. In the world ofBuffy the Vampire Slayer, sometimes it's the little links to everyday things that viewers experience in their own, normal lives - like a completely weird, random dream - that adds to the show's overall charm and enduring nature. Sometimes, the simplest answer is the correct one.

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Jack Wilhelmi is the horror features editor at Screen Rant, and has been with the site since 2019. He is a lifelong fan of the horror genre, and loves any excuse to discuss genre-related topics, since none of his friends dare challenge him in horror trivia. He has been published on the independent horror blog Morbidly Beautiful, and has covered major genre film festivals such as Cinepocalypse in Chicago. He has also served as a judge for the Ax Wound Film Festival.In his free time, he is a devoted dog dad to a high-spirited rescue pup named Peter Quill and enjoys volunteering with various animal rescue organizations. Jack likes to travel and explore dark tourism-related and other various haunted locations. He enjoys studying psychology, the paranormal, and will watch literally any schlocky B-movie on the planet for a laugh. Follow him on Twitter @JackMacabre or his dog on Instagram @quillthethrill.

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Buffy The Vampire Slayer: What Does The Cheese Man Really Mean - Screen Rant