Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Girl Power Movement, and HEROISM
The image of a five-foot blond girl kickboxing a giant demon is difficult to ignore especially when she is dressed up in a very feminine gown, hair coifed and all. The girl is known as Buffy Summers, heroine of the popular WB network television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, Buffy is the chosen one; her destiny is to fight vampires and demons in order to save the world. Originally targeted towards male teens, recent surveys show that teenage girls comprise the majority of the audience (Dempsey 1997, 28). Furthermore, surveys indicate that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of WB’s highest rated prime-time shows (Rogers 1998, 60). Since its inception in 1997, Buffy has been hailed by critics as “one of the brightest new shows of the season” (Gliatto 1997, 17). The show has consistently appeared on top of various critics’ lists of annual Best Television Shows for three seasons in a row (Tucker 1999, 21). How can a show like Buffy achieve critical and commercial success when it breaks every traditional notions of a superhero? According to Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet’s article, Superhero: The Six Step Progression, featured in the book, The Hero in Transition, “the superhero is also an adult, white male who holds a white-collar job in his secret identity” (1983, 185). In contrast, Buffy is an adolescent white girl who does not hold a job in her secret identity. The only characteristics similar to the archetype of a superhero are Buffy’s race and her unwillingness to reveal her secret identity. Blythe and Sweet further elaborate that female superheroes rarely capture the audience’s fascination (185). Yet, three seasons later, Buffy continues to kickbox its way to the top of the critical reviews and commercial success, longer than other contemporary shows which feature female superheroines such as Wonder Woman and The Bionic Woman. As a matter of fact, to analyze how Buffy contrasts with the other heroines may bring insights as to why the audiences respond to the show. When Bonnie Dow studied The Mary Tyler Moore Show and second-wave feminism, she analyzed the roles of television women in the genre of situation comedies that preceded the creation of the show (1996, 24-58). The practice of understanding the text to see how it fits into a vast universe of other works is known as intertextuality. This paper focuses on a similar account of portrayal of female superheroines in prime-time television during the third-wave feminism. Such a portrayal involves the analysis of the interaction between intertextuality employing Dow’s study, the study of the prevailing formal characteristics of the narrative of the show using Malcolm O. Sillars’ characteristics of narrative, the investigation of the notion of heroism applying Joseph Campbell’s heroic journey, and the exploration of the nature of the audience utilizing Kenneth Burke’s theory of identification.
Girl Power Movement and the Superheroine
Dow, in her book Prime-Time Feminism, argues that situating a television show within the context of a variety of discourses and using them as framing and guiding interpretations broadens the understanding of the text (1996, 26). Echoing Fredric Jameson, Dow writes:
Jameson posits that mass culture texts possess intersecting ideological and utopian (or transcendent) dimensions; the ideological dimension encompasses the ways in which a text facilitates legitimation of the existing order and functions hegemonically. Jameson also maintains, however, that texts have a simultaneous utopian dimension that ‘remains implicitly, and no matter how faintly, negative or critical of the social order from which, as a product and a commodity, it springs.’ (20)
Therefore, for Jameson, the social and political text must have some effects on the mass cultural text, while for Dow, debates on feminism must have some effects on televisual representation of women. In Buffy’s case, popular understandings of third-wave feminism must have some effects on the televisual representation of female youth as seen on the show.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted on the WB network in March 10, 1997 at a time when the struggling network was looking for shows featuring empowered female leads (Stanley 1997, 9). At the same time, the girl power movement was on the rise. The girl power’s basic premise was that female youth could have fun but be in control as well (Labi 1998, 60). Coming in at the height of the girl power movement, the network wanted a show that reflects female youth’s ideologies (Stanley 1997, 9). Thus, Buffy the Vampire Slayer features a 16-year old female lead who shows control of her destiny by fighting demons and saving the world, yet she is also concerned about joining the cheerleading team and savoring high school romance – the basic elements that cater to adolescent girls.
The girl power movement, or third-wave feminism can be best explained by first understanding how the feminist movement started. According to Deborah L. Siegel’s article, The Legacy of the Personal: Generating Theory in Feminism’s Third Wave, first wave feminism started during the escalation of activism which began in the 1830s and culminated around the campaign for women’s suffrage that ended in 1920 (1997, 7). After decades of dormant activity, feminist movement resurfaced during the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminist Mystique in 1963, the protest of the Miss America pageant in 1968, and the emergence of liberal feminism’s symbol as personified by “thoroughly heterosexual, thirtyish, never married Gloria Steinem” (Dow 1996, 29). The second wave ended, “or at least suffered major setbacks—first with the defeat of the ERA and then with the advent of the Reagan-Bush era” (Spiegel 1997, 7). Third wave feminism appeared during the late 1980s as a response to the backlash the second wave feminists suffered. If the first wave was concerned about women’s suffrage and the second wave was about career women, the third wave is about female youth and their desire to have their voices heard. As Barbara Findlen points out in her book, Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation, “young feminists are constantly told that we don't exist. It’s a refrain heard from older feminists as well as in the popular media: ‘Young women don’t consider themselves feminists.’ Actually, a lot of us do…. The country hasn’t heard enough from young feminists. We’re here, and we have a lot to say about our ideas and hopes and struggles and our place within feminism.” (1995, xiv, xvi). Indeed, third-wave feminism is materially different from other waves because of the history that preceded the movement. Findlen recounts in her introduction, “AIDS, the erosion of reproductive rights, the materialism and cynicism of the Reagan and Bush years, the backlash against women, the erosion of civil rights, the sky-rocketing divorce rate, the movement toward multiculturalism and greater global awareness, the emergence of the lesbian and gay rights movement, a greater overall awareness of sexuality – and the feminist movement itself” (1995, xiii). In other words, third wave feminism is a combination of social and sexual awareness – female youth can be socially responsible while maintaining their femininity.
In the 90s, the girl power movement seemed to operate on two distinct levels. First, these girls proved to be a major force in the pop culture market. Second, and most importantly, academic scholars started to legitimize female youth as a subject worthy of critical inquiry (Kearney 1998, 844). Alice in Wonderland, the first international conference on girl and girlhood, was held in Amsterdam on June of 1992, the same month the movie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, opened in theaters. This conference was considered groundbreaking because not only did it attempt to validate female youth as an academic subject, it also charted the future direction of not only girlhood but also feminist epistemology (Kearney 1998, 844). The papers presented at the conference moved beyond the traditional notions of adolescent girls “becoming woman” and focused instead on female youth as a distinct form of subjectivity. One of the articles presented was Girl Power: Young Women Speak Out! by Hillary Carlip. Carlip compiled a powerful collection of girls’ voices with chapters devoted to various girls’ cultural identities such as “Teen Mother,” “Farm Chicks,” “Jocks,” and “Riot Grrrls.” “Riot Grrrls” is the one chapter that infused bold feminist statements. A riot grrrl named Misty writes, “No one can save you from your oppression except yourself. GIRLS UNITE!” (1995, 58). Another riot grrrl, Kelly, retorts, “WE ARE ALL SUPERGIRLS” (1995, 39).
Barbara Findlen’s collection, Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation, was also submitted at the conference. Despite the various subjects these young authors wrote, the common theme evident was acknowledging feminist consciousness. According to Mary Celeste Kearney’s article, Girl Power: Young Women Speak Out!, the most common theme in Findlen’s collection is the writers’ strong belief that the battle against gender oppression and inequality is not over (1998, 844). Most young women in Findlen’s article believe that the battle can only be fought with their involvement. Nomy Lamm, one of the youth writers says, “If there’s one thing that feminism has taught me, it’s that the revolution is gonna be on my terms. The revolution will be incited through my voice, my words.” (1995, 85). The articles submitted in the conference signified a sign that young women were indeed embracing feminism in large numbers (Kearney 1998, 844). According to Kearney, “this alone is significant since the feminist movement, often defined through its connections to older women and ‘adult’ issues such as employment and reproduction, has often limited the power of younger women’s voices” (844). Christine Doza, one of the writers in Findlen’s article describes her alienation from the “second wave” feminists: “I read Ms., flipping through its pages like a tornado, looking for anything but what’s there. I don’t have a career, I don’t have a husband, I don’t need to know how to raise my son…I don’t need help in recovering from being raped when I was a kid. I am a kid” (Findlen 1995, 252-53).
Originally, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was targeted towards male kids. However, recent surveys showed that teenage girls comprise the majority of the audience (Dempsey 1997, 28). Gail Berman, one of the show’s executive producers, approached Whedon to create Buffy for the TV screen because “there were no TV shows out there pitched to young girls” (Dempsey 1997, 28). And the girls are responding; female youth sees Buffy as a strong female figure. According to Nadya Labi’s article, Girl Power for the Next Generation, the character girls love seem to be in control of their own destiny (1998, 60). Buffy is a strong female character who is in control of her destiny as a young girl and as a slayer. Once she accepted her role as the “chosen one,” she stuck to her responsibilities no matter what the consequences might bring. Read in this backdrop, Buffy the Vampire Slayer reflects the lives of female youth in high school. Issues such as dealing with a loving yet oblivious mother, being labeled as an outcast, falling in love with the wrong boys, and trying to fulfill the responsibilities of a good student and a loving daughter, ring true to an adolescent girl. Buffy’s dilemma is how to balance her life as a teenager and as a heroine.
If the Buffy character is to be seen as a female TV superheroine, it is important to analyze the significance of who Buffy Summers is in contrast to other female TV superheroines. The fact that Buffy is the youngest among the TV superheroines illustrates the key role of intertextuality in potential interpretations of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Previous female TV superheroines featured heroines that rely on supernatural powers, heroines that use magical costumes, heroines that rely on mechanical parts of their bodies, and heroines that lived in ancient times.
Shows that feature heroes with supernatural powers can be traced back from the 50s and the 60s with Bewitched (1954 – 72), I Dream of Jeannie (1965 – 70), and The Flying Nun (1967 – 70). All of these characters are superior to men because they have magical powers (Dow 1996, 33). Susan Douglas, in her book Where the Girls Are, comments about the intertextuality of supernatural women and the current social situation in the 50s and the 60s: “It was within the context of prefeminist agitation, combined with the unsettling phenomenon of wild packs of girls chasing the four mop-tops across America, that there appeared on TV, and with a vengeance, a new female mutant, a hybrid of old and new, of negative and positive stereotypes. We saw…. a genie who was not a rotund, balding man but a shapely and beautiful young woman; a witch who was not a murderous old hag but an attractive young housewife; a cute, perky nun who could fly” (1994, 126). The same can be said about Buffy in that she is a cute, perky teenage girl who kills vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness. However, Buffy does not use magical powers to kill evil. She does not emerge from a magical bottle to slay a vampire, she does not twitch her nose to stake a demon, and she does not fly to chase a monster. Buffy uses an innate sense of physical strength that can be attributed to tedious practice and preparation. She fights vampires, demons, and monsters by her mere usage of physical strength. Therefore, in the 1990s, physical strength is valued more than magical powers.
Three TV superheroines can be classified as heroines in costumes. In the 60s, Batgirl helped Batman and Robin (1966 – 69) in their pursuit against evil, and the 70s brought Mighty Isis (1976) and Wonder Woman (1976 – 79). Batgirl’s powers came from her handbag and skirt. Her handbag transformed into her weapons belt, and her skirt became a cape. Furthermore, she sported a skintight spandex outfit that “did not suggest that women should try to escape stereotypical notions of feminine dress” (Inness 1999, 144). Isis’ crime-fighting costume appeared to be a traditional Egyptian gown but showed a lot of leg “and would not have been out of place in the Rockettes” (Inness 1999, 144). When Wonder Woman made its debut in 1976, the superheroine emerged complete with magic tiara, bracelets, lassos, and emanating an orange/whitish glow everytime she twirled to transform herself as the star-spangled superheroine. Not to mention that the revealing outfit she transformed to barely covered her voluptuous body. It seems that the sexual revolution of the late 60s and early 70s reflected the way televisual superheroines were presented. In contrasts, Buffy does not rely on magical costumes, but instead prefer to wear designer brands that she, and her female youth audience, can easily buy from the nearby mall. As a matter of fact, Buffy is seen as a medium that effectively showcases “the same heightened sense of awareness when it comes to catching small-designer-label trends that Buffy has when it comes to fighting demonic evil” (Udovitch 2000, 62).
Wearing magical costume is not the only difference that separates Buffy from her predecessors. Their personas and characters differ as well. While Batgirl fought crime, she was just a supporting player to both Batman and Robin. Oftentimes, she was always in great danger, and the crime-fighting duo had to save her from the evil clutches of Penguin, the Joker, and Catwoman. Buffy, on the other hand, is the main character and oftentimes, saves her family and friends from danger. Both Isis and Wonder Woman were career-oriented adults who were from far-flung mystical places. Isis was a schoolteacher whose powers drew from the Egyptian goddess Isis, and Wonder Woman was a government agent who was originally from the mythical Amazon Island, Paradise. Buffy is a high school student who did not come from any mystical place. She belongs to the 90s and does not conjure mythical powers to draw her strength.
Another superheroine that came from far-away land is Xena, the Warrior Princess (1996 -). Xena is a warlord who started as a bloodthirsty villain in the show Hercules. After she got her own series, Xena roams her mythical land determined to atone for her sins (Inness 1999, 163). Because of her history, Xena is a morally ambiguous character. In contrast, Buffy is not a morally ambiguous character, yet she struggles to balance her duties as a slayer and as a girl. There are times when she needs to choose between the two, and her choices are not easy – either to save the world, or go out on a date.
A superheroine that may be close to Buffy’s character is the super-mechanized Jaime Sommers, otherwise known as The Bionic Woman (1976 – 78). Besides the obvious difference – Buffy is all-human, while Jaime is part machine, part human – both superheroines are far more independent and central characters than most superheroines are. In fact, “when we compare the Bionic Woman to other women featured in 1970s shows, we begin to recognize how unusual she was. As a star of an action-adventure show, she was breaking new ground by showing that women could be tough heroes like James Bond or Steve Austin. Of course, earlier there had been Mrs. Peel, but she had always been accompanied by Steed. The Bionic Woman was usually on her own” (Inness 1999, 47). In the same vein, when we compare Buffy to other superheroines, we can recognize how unusual she is. She is breaking new grounds by showing that girls can be tough heroes like James Bond, or for that matter, Rambo and the Terminator. It is also interesting to point out that both characters, Jaime and Buffy, have the similar-sounding last name of Sommers/Summers. The two shows are even similar in, what feminist critics call, “character contradictions” (Inness 1999, 47). Inness, echoing Susan Douglas says: “In 1976 came television’s most ingenious resolution to the tension between feminism and antifeminism. What we got was the bionic bimbo, the superhuman woman with lots of power, maybe even a gun, flouncy hair, a mellifluous voice, and erect nipples….she was able to run sixty miles an hour, yet she also was a beautiful woman who affirmed many stereotypical notions about femininity and the desirability of beauty in women” (47). Heather Olsen, in her article He Gives Us the Creeps, comments about Buffy’s mixed messages: “But despite its premise that girls can have power, Buffy is paid for by companies that encourage young women to spend their money on looking clean, fresh, and sexually alluring” (1999, 80). Olsen further states that the title character’s “skimpy outfit is a bit of a contradiction” (80). Inness explains this character contradictions by saying: “This paradoxical message seems confusing at first until we acknowledge that the popular media are never feeding their audience a single message about women’s roles; instead, the media convey countless different messages, with some contradicting others….as our exploration of toughness continues we find that ambiguity remains an essential element of tough women in the popular media. We are always confronted with a messy and contradictory message about women’s toughness that seems to take one step forward and two steps back” (49). Since media is a reflection of its culture, Buffy’s character contradictions are similar to the ideologies of the girl power movement. If the movement is saying it is okay to assert femininity as long as you are in control of your destiny, then it is okay for Buffy to dress the way she does because she is in control of her own destiny. Besides the character’s penchant for wearing skimpy outfits, Buffy is also often criticized for Sarah Michelle Gellar’s dramatic weight loss, and for being a spokesperson for Maybelline’s new line of makeup geared towards teenage girls. In defense of Gellar, the show’s creator and writer, Joss Whedon, replies: “Why did we hire a beautiful woman?….I know it’s a revolutionary concept but I sold the network on it somehow. Would a girl this pretty be an outsider? Probably not. But that pretty a girl isn’t expected to be anything but a bimbo. That’s why she keeps dying in horror movies. She has no skills! To take that character and expect more from her is what makes it tick for me” (Lippert 1997, 25).
The Narrative of the Slayer
Character is one of the prevailing formal characteristics of stories that Malcolm O. Sillars highlighted in chapter eight of his book, Messages, Meaning, and Culture: Approaches to Communication Criticism, titled Narrative Analysis: Reading Culture Through Stories (Sillars 1991, 161). According to Sillars, the purpose of narrative criticism is to “understand the culture that spawns narratives” (Sillars 1991, 157). Since human beings make sense of the world by the stories they tell, and the stories are symbolic actions that create social reality, then it is important to analyze how social reality is interpreted through symbolic actions. For example, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it is important to study how the show’s motifs mirror adolescent girl culture. Sillars encouraged the narrative critic to ask: “What culture is reflected in the content and form of the story?” (157). In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the content and form of the stories told clearly reflect the ideologies of the adolescent girls. Some examples include plots in which Buffy tries to be a cheerleader (“Witch”), balances dating and responsibilities (“Never Kill a Boy on the First Date”), and confronts teen insecurities (“Nightmares”). Sillars also noted that looking at prevailing formal characteristics of stories such as theme, structure, peripetia, narrative voice, character, and style should help a critic see how stories function in society (157). According to Sillars, a critic can use any combination of the six characteristics of stories (165). In understanding Buffy and third-wave feminism, it is important to study the narrative voice to find out how it is interrelated to the show’s theme, character, and style.
According to Sillars, “the narrative voice also implies a stance, an attitude conveyed by the source implied in the text” (163). The show’s narrative voice is clearly Joss Whedon. The reason he created the show is because he was getting tired of seeing blond girls being victimized in horror movies (Olsen 1999, 79). Joss Whedon’s rationale in creating Buffy as a strong female character stemmed from his studies of gender and feminist issues at Wesleyan University (Jacobs 1997, 23). Whedon is a third-generation TV writer whose grandfather wrote for The Donna Reed Show and Leave it to Beaver, and whose father wrote for Alice – three generations of men who created female TV characters that symbolized their eras (Lippert 1997, 25). Donna Reed represented the TV housewife of the 60s, Alice embodied the liberated woman of the 70s, and Buffy personified girlhood of the 90s.
Upon graduation from college, Whedon landed a job as a staff writer for Roseanne. He immediately disliked the show’s star, and the producers’ catering to Roseanne’s whims (Jacobs, 1997). One year later, Whedon sold his Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie script and was utterly dismayed by the film. The movie toned down the feminist aspects, and hiked up the camp factor that resulted to an uneven portrayal of the heroine. When Whedon was approached to create and produce Buffy the Vampire Slayer based on his original idea, he accepted, provided he obtained full creative control of the show. The result is a “great TV series risen from the ashes of a piece of burned-out junk: the 1992 film of the same name” (Tucker 1999, 21).
The series’ premise is simple enough. “Welcome to Hellmouth,” Buffy’s pilot, introduces the audience to sixteen-year old Buffy Summers, a high school junior from Los Angeles, who moved to a small California town of Sunnydale after she was expelled from her previous school for burning down the gym. Metaphorically, this premise can be applied to Joss Whedon’s move from the big screen to the small screen. After the original movie bombed in the theaters, Buffy moved to the smaller venue of television where it enjoyed tremendous success.
Upon enrolling in the local high school, Buffy is immediately accepted by the school’s token popular girl, Cordelia Chase, because of her looks and style. The exchange of dialogue between the two characters reflects how teenage girls communicate through language as symbols, and in this example, utilizing language to talk about the current fashion trends and fitting in:
CORDELIA: We’ll you’ll be okay here. If you hang with me and mine, you’ll be accepted in no time. Of course, we do have to test your coolness factor. You’re from LA, so you can skip the written, but let’s see. Vamp nail polish?
BUFFY: Um, over?
CORDELIA: So over. James Spader?
BUFFY: He needs to call me!
CORDELIA: Frappaccinos?
BUFFY: Trendy, but tasty.
CORDELIA: John Tesh.
BUFFY: The Devil.
CORDELIA: That was pretty much a gimme, but…you passed!
BUFFY: Oh, goody!
Sillars note that, “word choice, grammar, and figures of speech reflect a culture” (164). In Buffy, the word choice, grammar, and figures of speech reflect the youth culture, specifically the female youth. In the above example, the audiences instantly gather that Cordelia’s character is only interested in socializing with equally popular teens. When Cordelia and Buffy bumped into Willow, the show’s “brain,” and in the high school world, a “pariah,” the exchange of dialogue is as follows:
CORDELIA: Willow! Nice dress! Good to know you’ve seen the softer side of Sears.
WILLOW: Uh, oh, well, my mom picked it out.
CORDELIA: No wonder you’re such a guy magnet.
Cordelia then turns to Buffy and says: “You wanna fit in here, the first rule is: know your losers” (“Welcome to Hellmouth”). In Buffy’s world, high school is as dangerous as the world of vampires. She gets an early glimpse of the social division from this dialogue. However, Buffy shows social heroism when she befriends the high school losers, Willow and Xander, also known as the “geek,” and in return, is stigmatized as a loser herself.
The other side of Buffy’s life is as equally complex as her high school life. The show’s primary myth goes: “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” (“Welcome to Hellmouth”). When Buffy needs books for school, she goes to the library to check out some references, and is met by the school Librarian, Rupert Giles, who introduces himself as her Watcher. Another myth of the show proclaims that there is a Watcher for every Slayer to teach and guide her the rules and regulations of slaying. Giles just moved from a job as a Curator of a London museum to be Buffy’s Watcher. Although Buffy shows signs of social heroism, she clearly refuses the role of a superheroine:
GILES: A Slayer slays, a Watcher…
BUFFY: Watches?
GILES: Yes. No! He, he trains her (stutters)…he, he prepares her…
BUFFY: Prepares me for what? For getting kicked out of school? For losing all of my friends? For having to spend all of my time fighting for my life and never getting to tell anyone because I might endanger them? Go ahead! Prepare me.
If Buffy’s life, both high school and slaying, is in turmoil, her romantic life is even more precarious. In the first episode, Buffy meets Angel, a mysterious guy who cautions her about upcoming danger. Later in the season, the audience finds out that Angel is a vampire cursed by the Gypsies because he killed one of their teenagers. The Gypsies expelled the demon out of Angel, and restored his soul, thereby making him suffer for the rest of his vampire life. He is forced to face the guilt for hundreds of years because vampires are supposed to live forever, until a Slayer kills them. The problem lies beneath the impending romance between the Slayer and the Vampire. When Giles finds out that Buffy and Angel are falling in love, he comments: “A vampire in love with a Slayer. It’s rather poetic, really – in a maudlin sort of way” (“Invisible Girl”).
The show’s pilot episode “establishes the series’ mapping of the high school social minefield and the series’ satirical stance” (Wilcox 1999, 18). To explain further, the show’s first season establishes the series’ mapping of the high school social minefield and the series’ satirical stance. Sillars notes that: “Culture is defined by the themes that are developed in the story….Only when themes are repeated over and over do we come to see their importance to the culture” (158). In Buffy, the major theme in the first season is that adults do not have a clue as to what the teens are experiencing. It is also interesting to point out that the main villain is himself a very old vampire known as the Master, who is waiting for the Anointed One to help him rise out of Hellmouth. Another of the show’s myths suggests that Sunnydale is seated on top of Hellmouth, or the opening of hell, which explains the paranormal events that happen in the town.
Besides Giles, all of the adults in the series do not have a clue of impending situations, events, and catastrophes. Buffy’s mother, for example, does not have a clue about her duties as the Slayer. A. Susan Owen’s article, Vampires, Postmodernity, and Postfeminism, claims that: “Buffy’s mother is marked as ‘ordinary’ – she is emblematic of second-wave liberal bourgeoisie feminism” (1999, 26). Third-wave feminism has always been looked at as the daughter of second-wave. Like a typical mother and adolescent daughter relationship, most second wave feminists do not understand the complexities of the third wave (Siegel 1997, 49). This relationship is perfectly represented by Buffy and her mother, known as Joyce. In the second episode of the season, “The Harvest,” Joyce finds out that Buffy missed class and prevents her from going out. She thinks that Buffy is just going out with friends but unbeknownst to her, it is the night that the Master is suppose to rise from Hellmouth. Joyce does not know that Buffy missed class because she is investigating the tunnel leading to the Master’s lair. As Owen observes, “feminized adult female (Joyce) is well intentioned but largely ineffectual; her efforts to nurture and instruct frequently are framed as misguided or naïve” (26). For example, in the first season finale, “Prophecy Girl,” Joyce mistakes Buffy’s apprehensions about dying at the hands of the Master as teen angst about going to the prom. Her solution is to give Buffy a beautiful dress to wear to the prom, thus, enabling one of the most striking images of the series – a very feminized Buffy, all dolled up, wearing a pretty, white flowing gown, holding a bow and arrow in a hunter stance, hunting for the Master.
The use of language to align the vampires as adults is also one of the major themes of the series. Besides situating the vampires as adults, their use of language reflects adulthood. For example, the Master comments about his impending rise as, “Tonight I shall walk the earth and the stars themselves will hide” (“Welcome to Hellmouth”). Indeed, it sharply contrasts to the way Buffy and her friends talk. As Wilcox confirms, “the use of language in Buffy reinforces the theme of adult ignorance – and the grace and wit of the language embody one element of the heroism of the teen characters” (23).
Sillars note that the “characters in the story help to organize the cultural meaning of an event” (161). In other words, analyzing the characters tells a critic about what is important in a certain situation. This part of the paper analyzes how the characters use language as symbols to differentiate themselves from the adults, how the adult characters are portrayed as misinformed, or in some instances, as the villains, and how Buffy’s character, at first rejects the idea of being a superheroine, but when the society is threatened, she gives up the rejection and embraces the fact that she can save the world by accepting her calling as the heroine.
Buffy’s Heroic Journey
In the book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell argues that “religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth” (1973, 3). Campbell further adds, “throughout the inhabited world, in all times and under every circumstance, the myths of man have flourished….It is necessary for men to understand, and be able to see that through various symbols the same redemption is revealed” (3). In other words, the hero’s story is what Campbell’s “monomyth” (3) – it has endless variations but the same redemption always occurs. According to Campbell, when the hero departs from the society he belongs with, he has to undergo five steps (49-90). The first step is the call to adventure, which “signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown” (58). In Buffy, the destiny of the heroine is the fact that she is the Chosen One. She cannot escape her destiny, but she has the freedom to refuse it. The second step is the refusal of the call. Campbell warns that when a hero refuses a call, “the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved"”(59). In the first episode, Buffy initially refuses the role of the superheroine. Although her life is not endangered, she endangered the people around her. Therefore, she must correct the situation by fighting the Master, and stopping his impending ascension. The third step is the supernatural aid. Campbell notes, “For those who have not refused the call, the first encounter of the hero-journey is with a protective figure (often a little old crone or old man) who provides the adventurer with amulets against the dragon forces he is about to pass” (69). Giles represents the supernatural aid for Buffy. Although he does not possess supernatural powers, he guides Buffy by his wealth of knowledge represented by his supernatural books. If knowledge is power, then Giles certainly has power to guide Buffy in her journey as the Slayer. Forth step is the crossing of the first threshold. Campbell explains, “With the personifications of his destiny to guide and aid him, the hero goes forward in his adventure until he comes to the ‘threshold guardian’ at the entrance to the zone of magnified power. Such custodians bound the world in the four directions – also up and down – standing for the limits of the hero’s present sphere, or life horizon…. The usual person is more than content, he is even proud, to remain within the indicated bounds, and popular belief gives him every reason to fear so much as the first step into the unexplored” (77-78). Thus, when Buffy enters the Master’s lair for the first time, it is evident through her facial expressions the fear of facing the unknown. Prior to the season finale, Buffy is having nightmares about the Master and her impending doom. It has been prophesied that the Slayer will die at the hands of the Master. However, Buffy accepted the call of heroism, and she must face the consequences of that action. In “Prophecy Girl,” when the time comes for her to meet the Master, she faces it with great determination albeit with terrible fear. The fifth and final step in the departure of the hero is called the belly of the whale. Campbell elucidates, “The idea that the passage of the magical threshold is a transit into a sphere of rebirth is symbolized in the worldwide womb image of the belly of the whale. The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown, and would appear to have died” (90). Campbell, echoing Ananda Coomaraswamy, adds: “No creature can attain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist” (92). Thus, Buffy dies momentarily in the final episode of the first season titled “Prophecy Girl.” When she confronts the master, she is so taken with fear that she forgets her inner strength. The Master sensing this fear moves in for the kill, biting Buffy’s tempting neck, and pushing her into the pool of water. Buffy drowns and dies. The Master finally leaves his lair and is free to cause havoc. Meanwhile, Xander and Angel find Buffy dead, and Xander revives Buffy by giving her CPR, and as Buffy awakens, she feels revive, ready to face the Master as a heroic Slayer. She then finds the Master, faces him with no trepidation or fear, and with a single swoop, lifts him up, and throws him through the skylight, through the broken table that impales him. Buffy successfully kills the main vampire, saves the world, and maintains stability in society. Thus, Buffy’s departure phase in her heroic journey is complete. After departure, Campbell suggests that the hero faces initiation where trials and tribulations abound. Buffy, the show and the character, is currently in this phase of the heroic journey. She is actually in the initiation phase called “the road of trials” (97) because this is when the hero “moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials…he here discovers for the first time that there is a benign power everywhere supporting him in his superhuman passage” (97). In this phase, Buffy meets various characters who either aid her in her exciting journey, or prevents her from completing her heroic journey.
One article that helps to illuminate Buffy’s heroism is Roger R. Rollin’s The Lone Ranger and Lenny Skutnik: The Hero as Popular Culture, taken from the book, The Hero in Transition. In this article, Rollin suggests that there are five types of heroes namely the super hero, the supreme hero, the leader hero, the everyman hero, and the subordinate hero (1983, 27 – 30). According to Rollin, Super Heroes are “superior in kind” to human beings and oftentimes they are from another dimension or planet; the Supreme Heroes are only superior to human to a certain degree, but this superiority are great that they become to inhabit the forms of demi-gods; the Leader Hero may be superior to humans but not to the physical environment; the Everyman Hero are men and women whose powers are limited; and finally, the Subordinate Hero is a minority – whether because of age, class, gender, or physical ability – who becomes a hero figure (27 – 30). As discussed earlier, Buffy rejects the traditional notion of super heroes. Buffy, the character, is actually a mixture of the Leader, the Everyman, and the Subordinate heroes. She is a leader, whose powers are limited, and she is a young girl, which implies subordination to adult, white males. Yet, none of these hero limitations can stop her from saving the world. The fact that she is a common girl who does not possess any super-special powers but her strength makes it easy for the audience to identify with her. According to Rollin,
Audience-identification with Everyman-Heroes might seem to be far easier than with the (other types of heroes), for unlike these figures they have no natural endowments for the heroic. They are men and women whose powers, like ours, are limited who are noteworthy neither for their virtues nor their acquirements. They tend to be ordinary mortals thrust by chance or circumstances into extraordinary situations. Unlike most mortals, however, they do not back off: they accept the challenge, rise to the occasion, and thereby raise themselves above the legions of the average. Thus, they embody and evoke everybody’s daydream. (28-29)
Buffy and Audience-Identification
According to Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Thomas R. Burkholder’s book, Critiques of Contemporary Rhetoric, Kenneth Burke offers identification as the “key” term in what he calls the “new rhetoric” and focuses his theoretical attention there rather than on “persuasion,” the key term of which is “old rhetoric” (93). Bernard L. Brock, reflecting Burke in his book, Methods of Rhetorical Criticism, stated that: “A is not identical with his colleague, B. But insofar as their interests are joined, A is identified with B. Or he man identify himself with B even when their interests are not joined, if he assumes that they are, or is persuaded to believe so” (Brock 1989, 187). Therefore, human beings form selves or identities through various qualities or substances. Substances can be interests, physical objects, families, friends, customs, conventions, values, and beliefs. As human beings ally themselves with various properties or substances, they form substance with whatever quality or substance they associate. Burke calls this association, consubstantiality (Campbell and Burkholder 1997, 93). When two things unite themselves through substance, they share common conventions, values, or beliefs. In Buffy’s case, the female youth identifies with the character because Buffy reflects the teenage girls’ hopes, dreams, and desires. If the girl power movement’s premise is that girls can be social responsible and yet, be sexually aware at the same time, Buffy definitely reflects that ideology. She protects society from evil forces, yet she allows herself to be feminine in a lot ways – makeup, clothes, and boys. However, her priority will always be the protector of the good. Thus the female youth finds it easy to identify with Buffy.
Identification can be seen in three basic ways. According to Sonja K. Foss, Karen A. Foss, and Robert Trapp’s book, Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric, the three basic functions of identification are as a means to an end, it involves the operation of antithesis, and it derives from situations in which it goes unnoticed (174 – 175). Identification as a means to an end is simply a text identifying with its audience. As a means to an end, Buffy and its audience share a common substance because the main character of the show is the same age as the majority of the audience; Therefore, the show and the audience are consubstantial based on their age. Involving the operation of antithesis is “when identification is created among opposing entities on the basis of a common enemy” (Foss, Foss, and Trapp 1991, 175). Buffy’s audience identifies with the show even if they have not fought vampires and demons, because of the way the series aligns itself with the youth, wherein the major enemy is the adult. If humans use symbols to communicate, Buffy uses language as a tool to reflect how adults often misunderstand the youth. The adults are reflected as a confused parent, a misinformed teacher, or a strict high school principal. In real world, adults can also be reflected as the media; and in the third-wave feminism, the second-wave feminists are the adults. Also, the representation of the vampires, the evils, the monster as a metaphoric portrayal of the evils of high school makes it easy for female youth to identify. In a world where female youth are often raped, abuse, and killed, it is refreshing for the teenage girls to see themselves being represented as a strong girl who does not allow herself to be raped, abused, or killed. Therefore, the division between adults and female youth are clearly identified in the series. Foss, Foss, and Trapp mention that it is important to understand the notion of division or alienation, because in division, “we find a basic motive for rhetoric – people communicate in an attempt to eliminate division” (175). In other words, division can be seen as mass media’s misrepresentation of adolescent girls; therefore, a show like Buffy was created in order for these girls to have a hero to identify with. And since Buffy belongs to the category of Everyman hero who does not possess super-human powers, her audience finds it easy to identify with her. Not only does Buffy represent an honest portrayal of their lives, she also does not alienate the audience because of her usage of magical costume, or magical powers. Buffy’s primary weapon is her strength and her wooden stake. Buffy’s Everyman hero stance is one of the reasons why the show succeeds.
Buffy and Feminism
Buffy’s relationship with her mother clearly represents the estrange bond between third-wave and second-wave feminists. Gloria Steinem, who is herself the symbol of second-wave feminism, explains the relationship in the foreword of the third-wave book, To Be Real: “a depolarized, full-circle world view, one that sees and instead of either/or, linking where there has been ranking, has not always been a feminist specialty” (1995, xxiii). Positioning herself as the mother of the third-wave, Steinem adds: “After all, it will take a while before feminists succeed enough so that feminism is not perceived as a gigantic mother who is held responsible for almost everything, while the patriarchy receives terminal gratitude for the small favors it bestows” (xix). In Buffy’s world, confused, suburban mothers are the enemies, not because they kill their daughters, but because they do not understand where the teenage girls are coming from. Language, as a symbolic action, is the main tool that Buffy uses to show this division.
When George Magazine published its September 1998 list of “20 Most Fascinating Women in Politics,” it did not come as a surprise that Buffy Summers was the second on the list because, “what Buffy is really taking on is the regular assortment of challenges that threaten to suck the lifeblood out of teenage girls, like a suffocating high school hierarchy and a sexual double standard” (Wilcox 1999, 18). Buffy represents a heroic symbol to teenage girls. Hannah Tucker, a 17-year old writer best describes this heroic representation: “For some, Buffy’s appeal is its brutal portrayal of high school…. for others, it’s the pop-culture references….and for some, the lure of a Wonderbra’d blond chick fighting vampires, and that’s fine by me. Because the basic truth about Buffy herself is known to all who appreciate her: She is the intelligent, youthful hope” (Tucker 1999, 23).
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