Nothing edges into your soul like the show that you watched as a teen, and for millions of people around the world, that show was Joss Whedon’s revolutionary post-apocalyptic series, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Kicking off its run in 1997, Buffy introduced some of the most compelling storylines and dynamic characters in television history. From groundbreaking episodes like ‘The Prom’, ‘Hush’, ‘The Body’, or ‘Once More With Feeling’, the show demonstrated that it was so much more than just fluff entertainment for teens. It was ground-breaking and innovative, with its sharp writing and clever use of dark comedy. Not to mention Buffy, Xander, Willow, Spike, Cordelia, Angel and Giles; some of the most fleshed out, well-written characters to ever grace our television screens.
During a recent talk as part of “Thinking Out Loud”, Concordia University’s series of public conversations in partnership with The Globe and Mail, Emily Nussbaum, a television critic for The New Yorker, who in 2016 won a Pulitzer Prize for her incisive critiques of modern television, mentioned that it was with Buffy that she first became enamored with TV. “I developed this strange fanhood for this show that I’d never had for any kind of art before,” she says, going on to discuss the cultural impact of the series, describing it as something worth discussing through a critical lense. “I ended up talking about it and debating about it a lot. It got me interested in what was changing in TV.”
Though a critically acclaimed show that still has an active, devoted cult following, Buffy isn’t necessarily recognized as a television trailblazer, and is instead hailed as one of the best “Teen Shows” out there. That issue is at the route of Nussbaum’s assessment of the show; that television critics tend to undervalue the worth of TV that isn’t necessarily marketed towards an adult audience. Pre-Buffy, there was a pretty clear divide between high-brow and low-brow television. Comedies, for instance, were never taken seriously. Take Seinfeld for example, arguably one of the biggest sitcoms in history; a show that knew it would never measure up to The West Wing’s of television, and that actively made fun of its position in pop culture, proudly wearing its “This is a show about nothing” theme like a badge of honor.
Buffy bridged this divide. It was a show that mixed comedy and drama like no other before it. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, the show’s storylines usually involved life and death scenarios. With clever, self-aware writing, it managed to bring out the humor in these situations, all the while holding on to its dramatic current. Regardless of the fact that the show revolved around a group of high school teenagers fighting vampires and demons, it was still very much grounded in reality, representing a wide range of topics to its large, impressionable audience.
Whether it was the struggles of high school that the Scooby Gang had to go through, or them transitioning into college and facing the harsh realities of the job market, Buffy proved that it was a show that could be both funny and intelligent. The show also actively represented the LGBTQ+ community, with Willow Rosenberg being one of the earliest gay characters accurately and proudly represented in popular television. Willow’s coming out journey was a huge testament to the writer’s involved in the show’s talent and broad vision, representing a changing of tides for mainstream television. There was not a single gimmicky factor to Willow and Tara’s relationship; it was flawlessly written, directed and acted.
Buffy Summers single-handedly paved the way for other powerful female characters in television and film. Joss Whedon introduced her at a time when TV was in desperate need of representative female characters. For the most part of the 90’s, the most popular series was Beverly Hills, 90210, a soupy teen drama that addressed its predominantly female audience as if their primary concern in life was to know where to find the cutest prom dresses (and a gorgeous, blue-eyed catch to buy them for you). Buffy, on the other hand, revolved around a refreshingly realistic female character; strong yet vulnerable, winning over audiences with her individuality and sheer self awareness. The irony of it all is that Buffy, a show that was about saving the world from vampires and demons, ended up being one of the pivotal shows to pave the way for TV that feels much more human, highlighting both the dark and light moments that we encounter in life.
Comments are closed.