I am a die-hard Buffy fan. Ask me one little thing about it, and I will start my story with this very important fact: I watched the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on television when I was at the perhaps-too-young-for-such-violence age of eight. I didn’t plan it, but I was there. It was March 10, 1997. I had just given my favorite brunette Barbie to my little neighbor in an inexplicable act of generosity. Confused, with the burning anxiety of regret creeping down my esophagus, I welcomed the opportunity to go inside when my mother called me home. In the coming years, I would gladly welcome the opportunity to watch a teenage chick stab the shit out of some vampires.
Also, I have seen every episode at least three times. Do you know how many episodes of Buffy there are? There are one-hundred-and forty-four.
Like any true, pure fan of something — a fan who has lived through the lens of the object of their fandom, to a point that no one else could possibly understand — I get really stressed out when I think about all the other fans. I sometimes feel like I need to prove my fandom. Recently, I did this by reading an un-namable number of academic articles written about Buffy and collected at Slayageonline.com, the digital resting place for the journal of Buffy-studies called Slayage. (Did you know that there are more academic articles written about Buffy than there are about Alien, The Wire, and The Simpsons combined? It appears academics, too, need to prove their fandom.)
It occurs to me that some of the things I read could be endlessly entertaining to those unfamiliar with the Buffyverse.
Enjoy:
- “The myth of the vampire has endured as a cultural icon of Western horror, achieving the kind of social immortality that mirrors vampires’ existence as the undying undead.”
- “Although they can appear human, vampires also possess a vampface which reveals their ‘true demonic visage.’”
- “Of course, the paradox of the immortality of vampires is that they cannot die because they are already dead. It is not eternal life they experience, but eternal undeath.”
- “Surprisingly, the Buffybot has not received much critical attention although it is a key to unlocking the complicated matrix of language, identity, and meaning.”
- “Perhaps it is an illustration that there are no facile answers to the threat posed by the First Evil.”
- “It is true that not every apocalypse in Buffy is addressed dialogically.”
- “To build a moon rocket without concern for Newtonian physics would fly in the face of everything every space program has ever done. This doesn’t make it brilliant.”
- “Like Mr. Pointy, Hrunting proves useless, and Beowulf defeats the demon with a sword he finds in its cave.”
- “Far right American political perspectives are connoted in the white protagonists’ survivalist mentality, stockpiling weaponry and rejecting police and military authorities for direct action in their self-appointed role as guardians of the Sunnydale community.”
- “It should be noted that the device of the episode is that a magic spell makes the characters sing their innermost feelings.”
- “Like Artemis, Buffy is a hunter, with the “scoobies”—named for the cartoon Great Dane—acting as the dogs which traditionally accompany Artemis.”
- “Buffy is, after all, the Slayer of Vampires.”
Excerpts taken from: Staking Her Colonial Claim: Colonial Discourses, Assimilation, Soul-making, and Ass-kicking in Buffy the Vampire Slayer; “I hear it’s best to play along”: The Poststructuralist Turn in Buffy the Vampire Slayer; “It’s Bloody Brilliant!” The Undermining of Metanarrative Feminism in the Season Seven Arc Narrative of Buffy; Warrior Heroes: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Beowulf; The Caucasian Persuasion of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; “Every Night I Save You”: Buffy, Spike, Sex and Redemption; The Outsiders’ Society”: Religious Imagery in Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Staking Her Claim: Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Transgressive Woman Warrior
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