Buffy the Vampire Slayer

All of the screaming teenagers out there today who think Twilight is a pioneer in the adolescent vampire genre should really brush up on their 90s TV trivia. Of course, in our day, high school girls weren't quite so impressionable; it was pretty rare for one of them to even entertain a flirtatious relationship with one of these bloodsucking demons, let alone embark on a full-scale whirlwind romance. No, we kept it simple in the 90s. You find a vampire, you slay it. It was just that easy.

Call me a purist, but as someone who has yet to actually give any of the Twilight series a try (for fear of spiraling back into screaming tweenish obsession), I prefer a clearer good versus evil divide. I like to know who is on which side. In Buffy world, vampires are bad, slayers are good, and there's not a lot of room for gray area. Well, okay, except for Buffy's tryst with Angel. Oh, and then it turns out he's a good guy and gets his own spin-off. You know what? I retract my previous statement. It's pretty darn similar. Apparently the appeal of predominant supernatural teen themes stretches across generations. Who knew?

In Buffyland, though, vampires the only bad guys. In her television incarnation, Buffy and the gang had plenty of evil nemeses to battle throughout the series, including but not limited to demons, sorcerers, witches, mutants, and bad-guy little league coaches. That's what you get for building a high school on top of a portal to hell. For many of us, high school was a hell without all of the escaped demons and crazed wizards, so we can only begin to imagine the horror of actual dark forces at play in the midst of our search for the perfect prom date.

The television series was not the first step in the Buffy enterprise; The franchise was born in 1992 as the eponymous comedy horror film starring Kristy Swanson and Luke Perry. In the considerably lighter movie, Buffy is introduced as a traditional popular blond cheerleader stock character--also known as a stereotypical horror movie victim. Creator Joss Whedon subverted the blond-girl-screams-in-dark-alley-and-is-torn-to-shreds horror trope, though, by making Buffy into a strong-willed, self-sufficient warrior. Or at least that was his intention. In the film version, some things did get a bit lost in translation through the editing process, but luckily Whedon got a second crack at the story.



Buffy's TV incarnation transferred her to Sunnydale, California, home of the aforementioned hell portal high school. Charming, no? The show held true to the basic premise of its preceding film, but the tone changed significantly with the shift to the small screen. While the film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a tongue-in-cheek lightness to it, the television adaptation had a distinctly darker feel.

While the show maintained the same general premise as the movie, many details were altered to better suit the new format. Creator Joss Whedon had been less than pleased with the re-tweaking of his original script, lamenting the transformation of his horror movie into a fluffier comic film. When presented with an opportunity to adapt the concept for a television series, Whedon retooled the show to more closely match his original vision. In turn, the show ended up picking up at a slightly different point than the movie left off, but it was a shift that brought in a broader fan base.



The TV series saw our heroine and her friends through the gamut of typical teenage problems with a major twist: the demons they battled weren't only their identity and social stature, but actual live demons. Talk about hammering a metaphor to death. It's certainly a device that could have come across to viewers as trite and hackneyed. In practice, though, Buffy's emotional struggles were handled skillfully in their translation to external battles.

Lucky for TV Buffy, she didn't have to slay alone. Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) had a crack team of teen sidekicks called "The Scooby Gang." The Scoobies include Willow (Alyson Hannigan), Xander (Nicholas Brendon), and occasionally Buffy's benevolent "Watcher" Rupert Giles. The gang expands significantly over the show's run, growing to include character's like Buffy's younger sister Dawn (Michelle Tratchenberg) and former high school nemesis Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter.) While Buffy is the only true "Slayer", her gang of sidekicks help her considerably in her mission to take out evil, whether through their own powers, their knowledge of their former lives as demons or bad guys, or some other generally awesome qualifying factor.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer gradually acquired a rabidly devoted fan base, beginning the show's run with meager ratings and snowballing into a teen phenomenon. Buffy made a major ratings contribution to the then-fledgling WB network, bringing in hordes of adolescents viewers. The show remained successful throughout its run on the WB, but negotiation disputes landed Buffy on UPN in its sixth season. While the series retained a good deal of its initial popularity and had acquired an extremely loyal group of fans, by its seventh season it seemed to have run its course.

True to Whedon's original vision, it was refreshing to see the young blonde protagonist as a strong proactive force instead of as a meek helpless damsel in distress. It's nice to see a horror film where the adolescent girl finally gets to kick some supernatural butt. Unlike many other superheroes, Buffy was largely just a normal girl who fell into the role of protector of the universe. Hey, it's a tough job, but someone had to do it. If you're still hungry for your Buffy fix, don't worry; Joss Whedon was kind enough to expand the official canon to include a "Season 8" comic book. It's not quite the same as watching the live action unfold onscreen, but it will do in a pinch.