The Buffy Factor (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Member Name: Hunting_Bears

Product:	Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Date:	02/07/03 (463 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great writing, cool characters, Sarah Michell Gellar

Disadvantages: none dude it rocks!

This is an extract from an essay I wrote for my Visual Culture class in April 2003. I hope you find it interesting. Martyn Brown a.k.a. Hunting Bears

'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' was first aired in 1996 on Fox television. Due to the success of films like Wes Craven's 'Scream' (1996) the teenage market was opened to exploitation by the film studios and television companies, the teen horror sub-genre was a big hit with youthful audiences around the globe. The film studios made post-modern horror movies and the films' protagonists were experts on popular culture and knew the 'rules of the game'. The characters were no longer oblivious to the horrors that confronted them, Kevin Williamson wrote a scene in 'Scream' (1996) in which video store clerk describes the rules of the horror film to a group of friends at a party.

'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' was first released as a film in 1992, written by Joss Whedon and directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui, (one of the television show's producers) the film was an early example of post-modernism in the horror film. It mixed Californian stereotypes raised on MTV, obsessed with fashion and speaking their regional dialect and hip American-English phrases with European vampires. The film was not a success but the embryo for the television series was there. 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' is radically different from the film and it is clear that Joss Whedon mixes gothic horror, MTV, popular culture, Californian stereotypes and the American horror genre together to create a post-modern television show. By labelling 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' as an example of post-modernist television it by no means indicates that the show is superficial and cares for style over substance. Baudrillard wrote that: 'The surface is all we see and all we have access to'.

If this is true in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' establishes its substance thr
ough style. In postmodernism style is the substance. The television show does rely heavily on style but does not exist on style alone. In film and television, postmodernism through style applies parody, hyper-reality, pastiche, irony, nostalgia, intertextuality and reconfiguration to create the substance. Joss Whedon's characters and situations are intricate and have great depth and explore themes of friendship, love, death and the rites of passage from being a teenager to becoming an adult.

In 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' there is an attempt to create a 'moral centre' for the show, with characters such as Angel, Willow Rosenberg, Buffy Summers and Faith there is a constant struggle between being a force for good and evil. These characters are all killers and the moral implications of this are explored in the show.

Joss Whedon uses Freud's theories on the forces of the unconscious and conscience being in constant tension with each other, in that characters in an American television show are represented at various times as being incredibly evil, malicious and murderers which raises interesting questions about the morality of the characters.

Joss Whedon's post-modernist treatment of characters explores the idea that people are capable of extremes of good and evil, Buffy Summers and Angel are instinctive killers and the characters are supposed to be the heroine and hero of the show. Normally superheroes are seen as paragons of virtue, people to look up to, selfless and can do no wrong. Whedon's use of the work of Sigmund Freud complicates the characterisations.

All this is wrapped up in an MTV style world that is littered with popular culture references; for example in Season Five's 'Buffy vs. Dracula' Buffy defeats Dracula by having knowledge of films which feature the character of Dracula. She quips after staking him for a second time: "You don't think I watch
your movies? You always come back". As playful and comedic as that piece of dialogue is, it also highlights an example of postmodernism and uses gothic horror and referential humour that is a staple of postmodernism in film and television.


Joss Whedon's Buffy Summers is a parody of the superhero. She is the reluctant superhero, a social misfit, misunderstood, she hangs out with people perceived by high school hipster Cordelia Chase as geeks (Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris) and is constantly running into trouble with vampires and various authority figures (principals and parents).

Joss Whedon draws on 1990's female icons like Madonna and Winona Ryder mixing these with characters like Mina Harker from 'Dracula' (1897) and horror icon Jamie Lee Curtis (one of the first women in the horror genre to fight back).

Buffy Summers is a good example of the post-modern character in the teen horror genre, characters such as Sidney Prescott from 'Scream' (1996), Laura Strode from 'Halloween' (1978) and Nancy from 'Nightmare on Elm St' (1984) represent strong female roles in the slasher sub-genre. The irony cannot be lost that despite her general ass-kicking attitude, Buffy is physically very small and mentally unfocused especially at school. Buffy is supported by a team dubbed the 'Scooby' Gang named after popular cartoon series 'Scooby Doo' in which a group of teenagers assisted by a talking dog solve crimes which was a cultural icon in the 1970's. 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' sometimes revels in its stupidity and constant reference to pop culture icons.

The group consists of Xander Harris (the ineffectual male who appears to be based on Jonathan Harker from Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'), Willow Rosenberg (a computer hacker), Cordelia Chase (the true Californian stereotype) and Rupert Giles (Van Helsing in disguise). In her essay on traditiona
l gothic and contemporary culture in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' Michelle Callander writes about the Scooby Gang in relation to the gang in Bram Stoker's 'Dracula':

"The Crew and the Gang need to protect their community from threat of foreign invasion, a threat of corruption of their race, their kind. That threat, whether it be to nineteenth century London, or a twentieth century middle-class suburb, signifies fears which are both anthropological, cultural and national"

Though rather dramatically put Michelle Callander highlights something that is not only specific to gothic literature such as 'Dracula' but can be found in the teen horror sub-genre to which 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' belongs. In films like 'Nightmare on Elm St' (1984), 'Monster Squad' (1987), 'Friday 13th' (parts one to a hundred), 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' (1974) the threat of an invading malevolent force is what causes conflict and teens band together in this genre to stand and fight or to die trying.

Rupert Giles played by Anthony Stewart Head is a very interesting character in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' because Whedon creates the quintessential British gentlemen mixed with the vampire hunter Van Helsing from Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'.

Giles descends from the gothic hero Van Helsing and actors like Edward Sloane, Peter Cushing and Anthony Hopkins who have played the character throughout cinema history. What gives Giles a postmodernist twist is that mixed in with his stereotypical English professor appearance (glasses, tweed jacket) is that he acts as a 'Watcher' (part of an English organisation known as the Council who train vampire slayers) to Buffy Summers. He teaches Buffy about vampires, demons and how to kill them.

Rupert Giles is a mixture of gothic hero, Eastern martial arts master and university professor, the reconfiguration is very in
teresting because Joss Whedon is taking various elements from Far Eastern martial arts, 19th century gothic literature, cultural stereotypes and mixing them together.

The character of Angel/Angelus played by David Boreanaz is an interesting character because he is both an evil vampire and a romantic lead. Angel/Angelus is definitely drawn from Count Dracula himself. Buffy develops a relationship with Angel and this draws parallels with the characters Mina Harker and Dracula in Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'

The vampires in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' are seen as ancient, pre-dating European Christian mythology but Joss Whedon also uses the vampire genre's usual Christian iconography such as stakes, holy water, sunlight, crucifixes and such but mixes these with inventive methods including portals to hell, swords and black magic.

Joss Whedon also uses ideas found in the classical horror films of the 1930's and British Hammer films. In 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' in a vampire such as Angel there is a definite link with Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi's versions of the Count.

Before Universal's 'Dracula' and the various Hammer films the portrayal of the vampire were Max Schrek's evil, rat-like features in 'Nosferatu' (1922) and Lon Chaney's grotesque make-up in 'London After Midnight' (1925, Tod Browning). 'Dracula' (1931, Tod Browning) and 'Dracula' (1957, Terence Fisher) re-introduced the notion of sexual attraction, female desire and seduction that featured heavily in gothic literature that dealt with vampires.

In 'Buffy vs. Dracula' these elements feature heavily and are put to ironic use as Buffy quips "You come in here with your music video wind and hypno-eyes".

Angel is seen as a romantic anti-hero and this is a post-modern reconfiguration of the vampire. Joss Whedon adds something new to this
particular area. Vampires are perceived as dangerous and evil but the character of Angel does have redeeming qualities (primarily a soul due to a gypsy curse, heroism, intelligence and an obsession with redemption).

Whedon also incorporates a novel twist in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' - vampires are seen as demons occupying a dead person's body. Joss Whedon's vampires move around by day and so long as they are not exposed to direct sunlight can sit in darkened rooms under the cover of blankets.

In a scene from 'The Harvest' (Season One, Episode Two) Buffy deliberately confuses a vampire into thinking it is daylight (in fact it is a nightclub lighting rig) before killing him and quipping that "It's daylight in about nine hours".


Sunnydale, California is the archetypal American suburb, an affluent paradise in which the sun is always shining and people go about their daily lives paying scant attention to the evil that lurks in the shadows. Joss Whedon's town is nostalgic and ironic in equal measure.

David Lynch explored and arguably started the post-modern dissection of suburban existence with his film 'Blue Velvet' (1986) and his television show 'Twin Peaks' (1990). Joss Whedon appears to have been heavily influenced by David Lynch because the show needs conflict between the ideal and the real views of Sunnydale.

In 'Twin Peaks' FBI agent Dale Cooper arrives to solve a murder in a picturesque mountain town where the inhabitants are barking mad despite appearances to the contrary.

In 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' the sun-drenched daytime setting of high school gives way to a truly gothic atmosphere set among the tombstones, crypts, cemeteries and the surrounding woodland, and incorporates vampire attacks, battles emphasising threat and death. Even the name Sunnydale is misleading as it denotes happiness, the ideal American
town that could be found in a Steven Spielberg film.

In American culture there is a nostalgic obsession with the 1950's as representing 'better times' before the 1960's when there was a counter-culture movement. The big irony surrounding the setting of Sunnydale is that it is literally a bad place due to 'the Hellmouth' in which demons and vampires regularly feed off and threaten the teenage population.

In Sunnydale the townsfolk always appear to be confused at the high mortality rate. In the episode 'Out of Mind, Out of Sight' (Season One, Episode Eleven) high school principal Snyder comments that "I won't have any pupils dying in school, not this week anyway". The population of Sunnydale does not seem to connect the death rate with vampires and demons despite Buffy Summers rescuing classmates and partygoers on more than one occasion.

In 'Graduation Day' (Season Three, Episode Twenty-One) Buffy is given a special achievement award of 'Class Protector' for always saving the day. The use of irony and nostalgia in the examples given are central to 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' being read as a postmodernist text.

Now that 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' has finished there will be an eternity to dissect what made the series so special and so damn good.

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