by Helen Abbott

Created on: June 02, 2008

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of the finest examples of fantasy television I know. The show comes from the mastermind brain of Joss Whedon who wanted to create a spin on the blonde-girl victim of horror films. The opening scene of the show, in Welcome to the Hellmouth' (Season 1, Episode 1) depicts two young teenagers breaking into a school at night. Although the girl is scared the boy encourages her to go on. A media-savvy audience knows what is coming. The beautiful blonde girl with the floaty voice will end up dead. But this is where BtVS redefines the horror genre. After the boy assures her they are alone she turns round to reveal she is a vampire and then proceeds to kill the boy. This opening provides something of a mission statement for the how: nothing is quite as it seems.

Like the vampire (Darla Julie Benz) in the opening credits the protagonist, Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) appears to be the stereotypical damsel in distress; she is the pure Californian girl with long blonde hair, a bubbly personality and an interest in shopping. However our heroine could not be further from the flighty bimbo the audience expects her to be. She is, as the title suggests, a vampire slayer. The writers have perfected the art of bending stereotypes and quashing expectations. One example of this is the episode Earshot' (Season 3, Episode 18) where Buffy overhears someone threaten to kill everyone in school. The following day she discovers the bullied geek Jonathon (Danny Strong) in the bell tower with a gun. The audience, led by Buffy's own assumption, thinks that Jonathon is going to open fire on his classmates in resentment of being picked on. However this could not be further from the truth. He had actually gone to the tower to commit suicide (he was not the threat after all). Buffy reminds Jonathon that people are not ignoring his pain because they are horrible, they are ignoring his pain because they are dealing with their own.

What makes this show so brilliant is not Buffy's role as a vampire slayer, it is the character focus on the difficulties of being the slayer. The action scenes may be fun but the heart of BtVS lies in her struggles to shift between a normal life, as a high school student, college student, friend, girlfriend, sister, daughter etc, to her predetermined destiny as a superhero. The show deals with these difficulties through a mixture of humour and emotion. One example of this is in the episode The Body' (Season 5, Episode 16). In this

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>