Buffy
the Vampire Slayer first aired on March 10, 1997 and ran until
May 20, 2003. I still remember the first episode I caught—“The Pack” from
season 1. It was summer, I’d just moved to Florida, and the WB was rerunning
the first two seasons on Monday and Tuesday nights. It wasn’t long before I
realized I was watching what would become my favorite show, ever. Later on, I
fell pretty hard for Firefly, but
since it never really got to become a series, Buffy still holds the top spot
for me. More than that, I’m going to claim it changed all of our lives.
How, you ask? Here are five reasons. Feel free
to add more in the comments ;)
5. @$%-Kicking Heroines
Yes, there are fighting female characters who
predate her: Ripley from Alien, Xena, and Sarah Connor. But Buffy stands out
because for a couple of reasons. First, she’s young—just a high school
sophomore, facing down demons and saving the world. Second, she dusts vamps,
then goes home to change into a cute outfit for a night out at the Bronze with
her friends. She doesn’t give up her femininity to fight. Throughout the
series, Buffy struggles to balance a “real” life with her calling. But it’s not
incidental that she does: one of Whedon’s main themes as the series progresses
is that Buffy’s friendships, her ties to the world, are what set her apart from
the slayers who came before her.
4. Genre Mashing
Today, you can go to the bookstore and buy Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, or rent
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. We
don’t think too much about mixing our genres. But when Buffy premiered in 1997,
its mix of horror, comedy, and teen angst was still pretty new. The teens on
the show didn’t dress or talk like mini-adults. Just a few years before the
epitome of teen shows was Beverly Hills,
90210. On that show, their idea of comic timing was an occasional lame pun.
And the very special episodes felt forced. When Buffy was funny, it was
hysterical (see: Buffy and Spike’s “engagement” in season 4’s Something Blue). And when it was “vey
special” it was heartbreaking. I’m still not over the end of season 2.
3. Great writing on teen television
...and not just on gritty, "serious" dramas. Again, the teen shows of the nineties (I’d say
eighties, but there weren’t many teen shows before the nineties) were incredibly contrived and staged compared to Buffy. And forget about teen shows for a
second, think of the shows you watch now. Unless they have a former-Buffy
writer on staff (and sometimes even if they do) the dialogue can be kind of
cringe-worthy. Watch an episode of Revenge
or Once Upon a Time and then try to
imagine how it might sound if Joss wrote it. But he’s a little busy now since
the number one movie of 2012, I guess.
2. The Whedonverse
No power in the verse can stop him: Joss has
created an entire Whedonverse, for those of us who will follow him anywhere.
I’ve loved almost everything he’s done (the only exception for me is Cabin in the Woods.) Now that Avengers has exploded, a lot of the
formerly uninitiated are starting to discover the genius of Whedon: Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse. If you
have Netflix and a takeout menu your weekends could be set for the year.
1. Words
This one
is number one for me. The other week I was in a Twitter chat with some other debut authors, and one of the
questions was about our influences. A lot of writers in the chat were
mentioning classic authors. But I said Joss Whedon. The way his characters
spoke on Buffy still echoes through almost every show and book with teenage
characters. Watch an episode of anything on the CW or ABC Family and you’ll
hear at least a hint of Buffy-slang. His signature anthimeria: turning
adjectives to nouns or verbs, is now a part of our regular speech. The Scooby
gang was generally fighting for their lives, but they never stopped being witty
while doing it. Even small throwaways, like the names of random demons, were a
chance for comedy: for example, the sixth season demon M’Fasnick (like, Mmmm, coookies?)
Buffy was even known for tossing off a memorable one-liner before offing a vamp. The
way these characters spoke was revolutionary: inspired by real slang, improved
by genius writers. I catch myself writing a Whedonism pretty often. And I’m
guessing I’m far from the only one.
This
Sunday marks sixteen years since we were first welcomed to the Hellmouth Buffy
may not be the most important show of your life, like it is for me. But I can
almost guarantee that something you’ve laughed or cried at in the past sixteen
years has been influenced by the genius of Joss.
