Essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer - 5067 Words

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Mentors feature prominently in the Gothic genre. From Dr Van Helsing in Bram Stokers Dracula, who leads the young heroes into their quest to annihilate the Count, to Rupert Giles, the Watcher in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, older and more experienced adults have provided essential guidance for the younger protagonists of the genre. The differences in media of expression and the subsequent adaptations from novel to television series has not affected the presence of this character, more than a hundred years after the publication of Dracula in 1897. What also unites the novel and the series is their fin-de-sià ¨cle resonance. According to Elaine Showalter, sexually and socially subversive themes feature strongly†¦show more content†¦The old man always appears when the hero is in a hopeless and desperate situation and needs guidance because his parents are absent or inadequate . Giles indeed appears as, to quote Xander in Never kill a boy on the first date (1:5), super librarian. Defined through his knowledge of books and his appetite for them, his strength is also typically his weakness, as his predicament in Nightmares (1:10) shows. His anguished though characteristically understated call, Im having a problem. I - I cant read, points to his Achilles heel. In the first three series of the show taking place in Sunnydale High, Giless lair is the library. After Buffy enrols in university, Giless bachelor flat becomes the de-facto library of the Scooby Gang. His bookishness defines him and gives him his role among the cast of protagonists. In Primeval (4.21), Giless contribution to the groups attack against Adam is his intelligence, Sophus, his mind. Giles is the brain of the group, Buffy the hand that strikes. Similarly, Van Helsing in Dracula intervenes in the novel when the young characters need someone with access to occult lore to explain Lucys ailment. His knowledge defines him too: Jack Seward refers to him for the first time as Professor Van Helsing, of Amsterdam, who knows as much about obscure diseases as anyone in the world (Dracula, 111), and alter as Van Helsing, the great specialist (Dracula, 117).Show MoreRelatedBuffy The Vampire Slayer Analysis942 Words   |  4 PagesIn Gina Wisker’s article â€Å"Vampires and Sch ool Girls: High School Jinks on the Hellmouth†, she makes the point that Buffy is a new kind of women within vampire fictions. She supports this point by showing how Buffy is not a stereotypical helpless woman in a vampire film; Buffy is a strong independent woman who kills vampires and other creatures. While Wisker makes a very strong argument, this idea of a new kind of women could be extended to Willow and a new kind of men shown in Xander and Giles.Read MoreBuffy the Vampire Slayer Episode 4101787 Words   |  7 PagesIn Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode 410 â€Å"Hush,† a group of demon-like creatures known as The Gentlemen take over Sunnydale, stealing the voices of everyone in the town and the hearts of seven random people. At this point in the series Buffy and Willow start college and Buffy meets a boy named Riley, who is a teacher’s aide in their class. During class Buffy has a dream of a little girl holding a wooden box who is singing a cryptic rhyme a bout The Gentlemen that says things like â€Å"Can’t even shout†Read More Buffy the Vampire Slayer Essay6510 Words   |  27 PagesBuffy the Vampire Slayer While the first seasons of Buffy are structured around an external threat seeking to corrupt the order of the world, later the source of the threat becomes increasingly internal, and the characters must embrace a side of themselves which is evil, irrational, or dangerous. When Giles kills an arguably innocent Ben, he does not suffer the moral ambiguity that Willow encounters when she kills a guilty Warren. Willow has to deal with an evil internal to her in a way GilesRead More The Feminist Perspective of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Essay5032 Words   |  21 PagesThe Feminist Perspective of Buffy the Vampire Slayer In her feminist critique of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Anne Millard Daughtey described Buffy as a show which obviously promotes female strength and power (159). Buffy herself is a symbol of female empowerment (149); as feminists we can all take comfort in the fact that Buffy kicks butt and so can we all (164). Sherryl Vint agrees that Buffy is a positive role model for young women, one which feminism should celebrate (para. 3). I findRead MoreBuffy the Vampire Slayer and the Horror Genre Essay877 Words   |  4 PagesBuffy the Vampire Slayer and the Horror Genre Typically the Horror or more specifically Vampire genre will have the theme good vs. evil where the hero represents good and the villain represents evil. This is consistent in Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Buffy is the hero and the evil vampires she slays (in this episode Glory/Ben) represent evil. There is also a clichà © within this genre where good is always triumphant over evil. Buffy in this episode conforms to this clichà ©Read MoreEssay on Reasons for Popularity of Buffy The Vampire Slayer1515 Words   |  7 PagesReasons for Popularity of Buffy The Vampire Slayer Vampire stories have been told for hundreds of years, and like all things, they have evolved with time. As technology has moved forward so did the stories, and vampire films soon became popular. These stories have recently moved onto the small screen, the most popular of which, a modern adaptation of the tradition vampire myth called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This popular programme has a massive following here inRead MoreBuffy the Vampire Slayer as Horror Genre Essay831 Words   |  4 PagesBuffy the Vampire Slayer as Horror Genre The horror genre has very set conventions and rules and horror films have stuck to these but in Buffy the vampire slayer a new set of rules are written. Joss Whedon has given the audience another dimension to horror by subverting the genre, in doing this the effectiveness of the program is increased. In the first episode BuffyRead MoreThe Power and Limitations of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Essay2234 Words   |  9 Pagescultural sensations that does just this is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the main title character of the series, Buffy Summers herself. Yet is Buffy really as admirable as she seems to be on the surface? The fact is that for all the good that Buffy appears to do for her fans, there have been some very crucial issues in Women Studies that she has failed to lend her empowering nature to. This paper will discuss the powerful influence that Buffy the Vampire Slayer has over its viewers, and some of the problemsRead More A Feminist Reading of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Essay2992 Words   |  12 PagesA Feminist Reading of Buffy the Vampire Slayer      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In numerous interviews, creator Joss Whedon has explained that the inspiration for Buffy the Vampire Slayer struck while he was watching horror films and TV shows in which pretty women run away from or get killed by monsters in alleyways. Whedon claims he wanted to give this paradigmatic girl-victim a new role: that of the monster-killing hero. Whedons explanation of his own artistic inspiration reveals at least two things aboutRead More Comparing Sexuality and Power in Dracula and Buffy the Vampire Slayer1657 Words   |  7 PagesSexuality and Power in Dracula and Buffy the Vampire Slayer    At first glance, Joss Whedons Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the hour-long TV series which premiered in 1997 and is now in its third season, bears little resemblance to the book which started the vampire craze -- Bram Stokers Dracula, published a century earlier. And yet, looks can be deceiving. Although the trendy -- and often skimpy -- clothing and bandied about pop-culture references of Buffy clearly mark the series as a product