Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A Critical Overview

1
Buffy the Vampire Slayer A Critical Overview

• Eric Lin
• E 10 Presentation
• February 25, 2004

2
Introduction to Buffy

• Buffy and her friends fight evil
• follows them through high school and college for
  7 seasons
• on many critics top 10 lists
• awards including Emmy and Golden Globe
  nominations
• devoted cult following

3
Mixes Several Genres

• teen dramas dealing with teenage angst and
  transition to adulthood
• shows like Beverly Hills 90210
• fantasy elements
• vampires, demons, and magic
• often contained surprisingly sophisticated humor
• sharp, intelligent, and realistic writing with a
  good share of neat twists

4
Strong Female Characters

• Buffy, the protagonist
• a slayer, given mystical powers to fight evil

• Willow, the best friend
• researches books, hacks computers

• characters whose roles are typically played by
  males

5
Traditional Mythology with Twists

• for example, vampires
• dead humans who feed on blood
• can sire more vampires
• harmed by sunlight
• twist Angel, the vampire with a soul
• nature of good and evil?

6
Socially Relevant Themes

• early episode where an ignored student becomes
  invisible

• lesbian relationship between Willow and Tara

• series of episode where Willow becomes addicted
  to magic parallels to drug addiction

dark magic
7
Socially Relevant Themes (continued)

• one major villain was a robot-demon hybrid
  created by scientists

• very serious episode that dealt with the death of
  Buffys mother

8
Strong Continuity

• episodes connected by a flowing story, rather
  than being stand-alone (like Law and Order)
• Examples of continuity
• most seasons build up over many episodes to a
  major season villain
• some characters return a few time every season
• references to events from previous episodes
• Previously on Buffy summaries at the beginning
  of each episode
• after Angel received his own spin-off show,
  crossovers between Angel and Buffy

9
Creative Writing

• Hush, an episode that includes 28 minutes
  without dialogue

10
Creative Writing (continued)

• Once More with Feeling, a musical-like episode
  consisting mostly of song and dance numbers

11
Buffys Legacy

• spin-off called Angel
• potential movies
• DVD season sets
• games
• comic books

12
Conclusion

• Buffys acclaimed qualities include
• intelligent, creative, humorous writing
• strong continuity
• strong female characters
• relevant themes
• will hopefully inspire other similar genre-mixing
  shows in the future

Thanks to http//www.powow.com/redsun/ http//
www.buffyscreenshots.com/ http//www.david-borean
az.com/ for screen-shots.