Hello and welcome to Vampire Boot Camp!

 

I wasn’t going to start with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BTVS) for our first day of Vampire Boot Camp, but with the untimely passing of Anthony Stewart Head earlier this week, it seemed wrong to start with anything else.

 

(I’ll do my best to keep this, and the rest of our articles, spoiler-free!)

 

I didn’t watch BTVS when it came out - it first aired in 1997 and stayed on air until 2003, for a total of 7 seasons. I was only 9 in 1997, and the only show I was watching regularly at that point was Sailor Moon (actually, that was probably more around age 11 or 12…) When I was in high school, I had one friend who watched it obsessively - that was my first introduction. She named her cat Willow, talked about dressing up as Tara for Halloween, and was all about Oz. None of that meant anything to me at the time.

 

I don’t remember exactly when I picked the series up, but I was a fan right away. 

 

For those who haven’t seen the show, the premise is a fairly common one - nowadays, anyway. The Chosen One saves the world. “In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer.” The idea was to turn the damsel in distress trope on its head - the blonde bouncy bimbo is the one who saves the day, instead of the one needing to be saved, or worse, being killed in a dark alley. 

 

Joss Whedon, the show’s creator, attempted the idea once before: a campy, cheesy film by the same title, starring Kristi Swanson, Luke Perry, Donald Sutherland, Rutger Hauer, Paul Reubens, and introducing Hilary Swank premiered in 1992. It was written by Whedon, but not directed - and reportedly didn’t go quite the way he wanted. In the film, Buffy is a high-schooler in LA who’s told by a somewhat creepy old man that she’s got a destiny - she’s the slayer, and she’s the only one who can fight off the vampires and whatnot. This doesn’t go over well with Buffy, to say the least.

 

Without the success of the series, the film likely would have fallen out of public memory. These days, most fans think of it as a sort of prequel. There are one or two brief nods to it in the show’s early episodes (most notably, a reference to Buffy burning down the gym at her old school), but either one stands just fine on its own. 

 

In the series, Buffy has just moved to Sunnydale, CA - which just so happens to be on a Hellmouth. The Hellmouth is a portal (one that various baddies attempt to open throughout the show's 7 seasons), and it acts as a magnetic draw for all the things that go bump in the night - some of the various monsters of the week include: vampires, werewolves, demons (so many demons!), gods, robots, ghosts, a praying-mantis woman who is a HS teacher, mummies, alien-like egg creatures, giant snake monsters, hyena-people, and even just some regular humans of the evil variety. Buffy is determined to leave all of that slayer-stuff behind in LA, but to her dismay, the librarian at Sunnydale High, Rupert Giles, is her new watcher. (Essentially, he’s her somewhat stuffy British mentor and guide.) And even if he was so inclined, the vampires and aforementioned monsters are not about to let her escape the life so easily. Buffy quickly befriends the nerdy Willow and the buffoonish Xander, and as the series progresses, they adopt others into their circle (the Scoobies, unofficially) - meangirl Cordelia, shy Tara, mellow Oz, and even some monsters: the brusque former-demon Anya, and vampires Spike & Angel. Episodes vary between monster of the week types, and then those that play into the larger plot-line and lore. Every season had one (or two!) “Big Bads” that Buffy & the Scoobies would fight against - and despite the title, they aren’t always vampires. 

 

The TV series quickly became iconic. Our blonde, titular heroine appeared to be just like any other leading lady in the 90s - cute, occasionally peppy, sometimes questionable hair or fashion choices, only briefly a cheerleader, but always blonde (except for that one Halloween episode). The difference? Buffy kicked serious ass. And she was also a normal teenage girl - in between slaying vampires, she’s studying for finals. While she’s trying to prevent the apocalypse, she’s also campaigning for homecoming queen. And the cute guy that she’s interested in? Well, it turns out he’s a vampire. Buffy deals with all of the things that teenagers deal with: heartbreak, loneliness, betrayal, death, bullying, navigating social dynamics, field trips, absent adults, while also saving the world. A lot. And BTVS didn’t pull punches - beloved characters died (and only sometimes did they come back - “Hey, I’ve died twice!” IYKYK). One of the most heart-wrenching episodes of any TV show I’ve ever seen was The Body. I said no spoilers, so I won’t go into details, but this season 5 episode has a completely natural - and unexpected - death of a main character, and the rest of the episode showcases so many ways of grieving. There’s no music, very few cuts, and incredible acting from an often silly show. It’s a devastating gut-punch, and it is far from the only one in the series.

 

Like most shows, there are some great episodes, some episodes that are so cringey that you can’t watch them again, and some in between. If you ask fans about their favorite episode, you’ll get a myriad of responses. For me, it’s probably Hush - some hella creepy floating monsters called the Gentleman invade Sunnydale, and no one can speak. Others prefer the musical episode, Once More With Feeling - while it’s not uncommon these days for tv shows to feature a musical episode (or several - I’m looking at you, Riverdale) it was less common then. BTVS wasn’t the first, but it is one of the best-received. The Halloween episodes are a lot of fun - in Halloween, the characters become their costumes, and in Fear, Itself, all of the characters get trapped at a frat house’s Halloween party, where some of their worst fears come to life. It’s not a favorite of mine, but Buffy vs. Dracula is a fun nod to the OG vamp. Most of the season finales are phenomenal. And people hate on Beer Bad - it’s often listed as the worst episode (college!Buffy drinks some beer designed to revert the drinker to a caveman like state - enter Neaderthal!Buffy), but even that has its fans. The show is at times campy, at times heartfelt, sometimes deeply ahead of its time - and sometimes very much an icky-product of its time. 

 

Outside of the monsters, the actors, the lore, the live music from real bands playing at the Bronze - one of the things that BTVS was really known for was “Buffy Speak.” The script and way of speaking changed the way both characters in other media spoke, as well as how we spoke in real life. Many of the classic Millennial ways of speaking can be traced back to the quippy and fast-paced “Buffy Speak.” (To be clear, it’s entirely possible that this can be traced back to other places! But these things are widely attributed to Buffy.) Example include: verb-ifying nouns (did you know Buffy is believed to be the first usage of google as a verb?), adding -age and -y to words (brainwashy, cardboardy, slayage), adding “much” after just about any word (“Morbid much?”), lots of pop culture references, and unusual sentence structures .There have been several books and academic papers written about it, and college courses studying it.

 

BTVS is often praised for being a very feminist piece of media, especially for its time. Not only is Buffy herself a strong female character, but most of the supporting characters in the show. Her mother, Joyce, is a single mom, who struggles to come to terms with who her daughter is. Cordelia begins as a vapid, shallow mean girl, looking down on the Scoobies (while somehow always hanging around them), but ultimately becomes a deeply powerful character on Angel (a Buffy spin-off that ran for 5 seasons). And then of course there are the powered characters: Willow, Faith, Anya, Tara, Jenny Calendar - but part of the beauty of the show is that Buffy, as powerful as she is, as smart as she is, and as strong as she is - she can’t do it alone. At least not forever - no one can. And when we see flashbacks to past slayers, that’s ultimately their downfall - they were alone. They didn’t have a community: friends, families, even frenemies. But Buffy does. And so Buffy can carry on in a way that her predecessors couldn’t. And that’s really the heart of BTVS, in my opinion. The community surrounding Buffy. Yes, she is special. Yes, she is Chosen. But that only gets you so far.

 

But for being lauded as a feminist show, BTVS is not without its problems. One of those is Joss Whedon.

 

Joss Whedon, the creator, writer, and director of the series, was THE it guy, THE nerd-darling: for years. The success of BTVS (and it’s somewhat less successful spin-off, Angel) allowed him the opportunity to create and direct numerous other beloved projects - the short-lived Firefly (and the movie Serenity, not as well-received), Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog (created during the 2008 writer’s strike), and Marvel’s The Avengers & Avengers: Age of Ultron films. (He also has several projects that have somewhat of a cult following, but didn't attain quite the same level of fervor - Dollhouse, The Cabin in the Woods, and an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, of which I am quite fond, among others.) In 2020, however, allegations surfaced regarding Whedon’s behavior on the set of The Justice League. Others quickly followed, including accusations from BTVS cast members Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia), Amber Benson (Tara), and Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn). Whedon was said to be cruel, a bully, abusive, and unprofessional, creating toxic environments for actors and writers (particularly women). Reports indicate that Whedon wasn’t allowed to be alone with then teenager Michelle Trachtenberg. Other BTVS alums such as Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy), David Boreanz (Angel), Anthony Stewart Head (Giles), and Eliza Dushku (Faith) stood in support of the accusers and distanced themselves and/or spoke out against Whedon. 

 

Whatever you think of BTVS or Joss Whedon - the cultural impact of the show cannot be denied. The idea of vampires has long since fascinated us, even before Dracula publication in 1897, and there have been numerous pieces of vampire media - books, tv shows, movies, graphic novels, even video games - that have inspired people. And I’m not going to try to tell you that Buffy was the most important one! But I think you don’t have things like Twilight, or even our very own Dracula: Comedy of Terrors without Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Because BTVS, while nominally a horror show, or a teen drama, did an excellent job blending genres. It took itself just seriously enough - it could laugh at itself, but most of the time, knew exactly what it was, and who its audience was. It had heart, and made a lot of people feel seen. Buffy the Vampire Slayer holds a very special place in my heart, as it does for many people.

 

Never seen an episode but want to give it a try? If you don’t want to start with Episode 1: Welcome to the Hellmouth, other good options include: School Hard, Hush, Lie to Me, Fear Itself, Passion (warning - spoilers!), and Once More With Feeling.

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Verdict: Five out of five Stakes. What can I say? I love Buffy, even if it isn't perfect.