Let's Talk about Buffy

When this challenge popped up, I struggled to pick a target. Too many highly praised works disappointed me, for different reasons.

Some I wasn't the target audience for.

Some were relevant to a time or country I didn't get to experience.

Others I just don't get.

And there are a lot of things out there that I don't get: all sorts of metaphors, sarcasm, and paramount details in mass media systematically fly over my head.

But acclaimed works don't become acclaimed for no reason, and I try my best to keep an open mind when someone is kind and patient enough to explain why they enjoyed something I didn't.

For example, recently I had a lovely chat with fellow Vocal creator and horror enthusiast Matthew Batham, which led me to consider giving The Exorcist a second chance. Some things are best enjoyed through the eyes of another.

So, once "It wasn't for me", "I don't like it", and "I don't get it" are out of the window...

...what should we talk about?

Let's talk about something that I was the exact intended audience for, at the correct moment in time, and that I still consider one of my favorite shows ever.

Let's talk about "Buffy - The Vampire Slayer".

This show from 1997 is pretty much universally hailed as a groundbreaking classic. Critics and fans widely praise its clever writing, deep metaphors, and structural influence on modern television.

Google it, and you'll see many call it "the best show of all time".

The premise is simple but unique for the time:

All the ooky-spooky things lurking in the dark are real, and one teenage girl stands between us and the apocalypse.

She is "The Chosen One", endowed with inhuman physical strength to fight against all darkness, while balancing school, love, and all the other problems of a teenager and — in later seasons — young woman.

Not many shows at the time simultaneously addressed all those issues, had a darker tone, a feisty sense of humor, and a fighting young woman as a protagonist.

Heck, there aren't that many now either!

And while I agree with the merits of the show in this regard and in terms of popularizing the "Big Bad" season-arc format, I completely missed out on the metaphors of how the show turned high school and adulthood struggles into literal monsters and demons.

But we already know that's a weak spot of mine.

So let's not dwell on it.

The bone I have to pick with Buffy relates to its writing.

The quality of it is very hit or miss.

There are some genuinely great episodes, with "The Body" being one of my favorite representations of grief in a TV series.

But there are also a lot of inconsistencies and contradictions throughout the episodes. So much so that it can feel as if the writers didn't watch the show themselves.

Let's check a few examples.

In one episode, Buffy jumps as high as 4 meters while being attacked by four football athletes turned fish creatures and doesn't break a sweat, while a few episodes later, she is lowered with a rope and pulley into a room, and when the pulley is stuck, she cannot use the rope to climb back up.

In the same episode, her vampire boyfriend (read: inhuman strength) cannot pull the rope to get her back up, while a few seasons later her human boyfriend can perform the same task.

Vampires are often described as being as cold as a dead body (room temperature for those of you who have never touched one: it feels very cold), yet the Slayer's sister has a passionate make-out session with one without realizing he was a vampire.

When Buffy dies at the end of season one, Xander brings her back by performing CPR. Her Angel cannot because he "has no breath", yet Vampires can smoke. Angel himself sucks smoke out of a victim's throat when he goes evil.

But these "bloopers" are not the issue I was referring to.

I love Buffy, and I'm willing to forgive her many things.

I'll forgive her for being yet another white American rich girl because in the 90s, TV writers had unanimously decided that only white American rich people were worth talking about.

And I'll forgive her for including no body diversity. Even the "nerdy unpopular girl" is a beautiful skinny white girl. She's just not as up to speed with the latest fashion. It was the 90s, and diet culture had brainwashed everyone.

And, although it's harder, I'll forgive her for being unable to own up to specific labels.

Willow's character, who loved two men, made love with one of them several times and enjoyed it, identifies as gay. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think people become "gay now" (quoting Willow) after having loved and lusted for the opposite gender.

I guess "bisexual" was a label too hard to handle in the 90s.

And so was "autistic".

The character of Anya talks without filters, doesn't get social norms, metaphors, or sarcasm. She's brilliant with math and practical things, while struggling with her identity and fawning to please her partners.

And she gets constantly mocked and put down for being like this.

But it was the 90s, and autism in women wasn't something we were ready to talk about.

What I cannot forgive is what Buffy did to me.

Personally.

If you could jump on a time machine and meet 15-to-25-year-old Sasha in the streets, you'd notice the influence that Buffy and other "underworld" type television had on me in terms of fashion and partner choices.

Kudos for the former. If I had the time and money, I'd still be rocking my goth attire over the more pragmatic mama-pajama stuff I wear now.

Very, very sad for the latter.

But how on earth is it Buffy's fault?

Love is a broad and hard-to-define concept. One that even adults struggle to grasp, let alone highly impressionable young girls.

And how do children learn?

By observation and imitation.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was written to be a role model we could all look up to. One that said it's ok for women to be strong, even physically strong, and it showed us a lot of her struggles.

Especially around the subject of love.

It told us that a girl should pine after a guy but never tell him and wait for him to make the move. Love is pain, and the woman is the passive subject of it.

A woman should take all sorts of abuse from a man as long as he loves her, and if he uses her and discards her, she should blame herself and drown her sorrow in booze.

But, more dangerously, it sold us a pedophile grooming a teenager as true romance.

That's right, Buffy's only true love in the show is Angel.

A vampire who was so awfully evil that he got cursed with the return of his soul. Although in the Buffyverse, a soul is more like a conscience than a personal essence or anything of the sort. And having a soul makes Angel constantly hurt about the awful things he did as a vampire.

For whatever reason, the people who cursed him included the side note that an instant of true, unencumbered happiness would break the curse and return him to being a soulless, awful evil demon.

He falls in love with Buffy.

He is in his late 250s and falls for a 16-year-old.

That sounds awful, but the show has a way of rationalizing it for us. See, Angel was only 26 when he was sired, and hasn't been himself until he got his soul back, so he is basically a boy in a man's body, and Buffy is "so mature for her age"; she is not a girl, she is a "young woman" (don't you hear the grooming tune?).

Even if we discount the extra 100 years Angel had his soul, he would still be 26, and it would still be inappropriate for him to date and sleep with a 16-year-old.

Because, of course, despite being fully aware of how his curse works, he decides to sleep with Buffy on her 16th birthday... and 16 is not the age of consent in California and hasn't been for a long time! Surely not in the 100 years that Angel has been roaming around with his soul.

So on the night of Buffy's 16th birthday, Angel becomes evil again.

After a short parenthesis of chaos, one where Buffy's mother first acknowledges that she "looks different" (there's a painful trope from the past: men literally change you with their magical penises), then slaps her in the face for having slept with that old dude. Because yes, the 16-year-old is clearly the one to blame for it.

Luckily, Angel is then cursed again by Buffy's friends; killed and sent to hell by Buffy herself; returned to Sunnydale for no apparent reason, and free to date Buffy again!

But it only lasts a few months before he is forced to move to the other side of the country because he realizes that being around Buffy would make him inevitably lose his soul again.

And she doesn't have a choice on the last one.

Now.

Hit the brakes.

And take some notes about how men and relationships work.

Angel's curse breaks only by experiencing true unencumbered happiness. And he can date and make out with Buffy for months without losing his soul. Only having sex with her can remove the curse.

That means that Angel does not experience true happiness when kissing, hugging, holding hands, spending quality time together, or talking sweet nothingness with Buffy... only when having sex.

Take notes: men require sex to be happy.

Angel cannot live in the same state as Buffy without losing his soul. It is only a matter of time before he slips and has sex with her. He literally cannot keep it in his pants.

And that inevitability? It doesn't concern Buffy. I'm sorry, but... where is consent?

Take notes: men cannot be expected to contain themselves when they want sex, and it has nothing to do with what you want as a woman.

"How romantic!"

And what else is portrayed as extremely romantic? Buffy losing her virginity on her 16th birthday to a 26-year-old in the body of a 250-year-old.

But we repeat the pedo-tune again and again: she is the Slayer; that means she is very mature for her age, and that makes it alright.

Right?

Yeah...

Except, a few episodes down the line, Angel reveals that he fell in love — but really, if snuggling tight in front of the sunrise doesn't make you happy the way sex does, just call it lust — with Buffy before she became the Slayer.

That means not only before she turned 15 (or at most on the same day, since she inherited her Slayer powers on the day of her 15th birthday), but also before she had this "mature for her age" quality.

Now, even if we remove the extra 100 years from his human soul, Angel was still 26 inside, and fell "in love" at first sight with an innocent 14/15 year old specifically because of her being so innocent.

"I saw you before you became the Slayer. I watched you, [...] and, um, and I loved you. 'Cause I could see your heart. You held it before you for everyone to see. And I worried that it would be bruised or torn. And more than anything in my life I wanted to keep it safe"

So... he watched her without her knowledge and noticed that she was an easy target, and... loved her?

Who thought this was a good idea?

Who the hell thought to themselves, "Yes, I am writing a show targeting young, immature female brains; I should show them that a stalker, groomer, pedophile who cannot keep it in his pants, with or without your consent, and does not experience the loving bliss of a hug is so romantic!"?

Now, the show tries to make up for it later on, making Spike (a soulless vampire) go through the same steps as Angel did with the stalking, the brooding, and consent-less sex for Buffy to reject and treat him poorly.

Except this doesn't feel like the empowering comeback they were hoping for.

For once, Spike falls for Buffy when she is in her early 20s: despite being a demon, he is no pedophile.

And he keeps helping her and being there for her, without getting anything in return. It feels like the kind of selfless and unconditional love we should be taught to cherish, yet we are told to despise.

And I'm not the only one to think so. Spike's character was considered so charming and popular that the writers needed to remind us he was evil, and decided to do so by making him try to rape Buffy.

Which will push him to fight to get his soul back and try to be a man who could deserve her... and she will never love him.

Her heart will forever belong to Angel. Because...

...he was her first time?

...they spent a few months dating?

No, really, why?

Why are the writers telling me that the unconditional love of someone willing to go through a lot of trouble to be a better person should be turned down, while the "love at first sight" of a creepy pedophile is forever?

And, while we are on the topic of Spike...

When friends and family find out that Spike is harboring feelings for Buffy, her own mother asks her whether she led him on.

Again with the victim-blaming, mom!

Everyone detests and despises Spike, yet it is Buffy's behavior that is questioned.

So take more notes: if you get a stalker, it is your fault, and you should deal with it yourself. Do not ask for help from your mother; she will either slap you in the face or question your behavior.

It took me many years of reflection on the many crappy relationships, ranging from bad to straight-out-abusive, to realize what mass media — especially unlimited access to television since a very young age — had done to me.

And while with a lot of other TV shows, I can chalk it up to an issue in the "broader societal narrative" and move on, with Buffy it feels personal.

She was written specifically for young, impressionable girls like me, to be a role model and teach us how to navigate life.

And failed at it spectacularly.

While I still think that Buffy is highly enjoyable and will happily watch it with you, I think its writing is highly overrated.

And I would never let my daughter (if I had one) watch it alone.