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Thread: Buffy at Twenty

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    Buffy at Twenty

    I learned from Public Radio yesterday that Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered twenty years ago. Being Public Radio, they did their best to suck the fun out of it with tedious discussions about cultural impact and feminist subtexts. I was a little surprised to learn that there was so much Buffy scholarship out there. Apparently, there are people out there willing to dedicate years of their lives to writing dissertations about various aspects of a TV show. I remember liking the show when it ran, but it never struck me as being all that significant. Of course maybe there were people who thought the same thing about Hamlet. Who knows what they'll be studying as great art in the future?

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    To be fair, the original movie came out *25* years ago. One quarter of a century. In case that helps you feel younger.

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    The movie was quickly flushed down the memory hole, despite giving us the best performance of Pee Wee Herman's career. It's the TV series that seems to resonate through the years. I'm not entirely sure why that should be; although I always enjoy the dialogue in Joss Whedon stuff.

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    Quote Originally Posted by LDAHL View Post
    I learned from Public Radio yesterday that Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered twenty years ago. Being Public Radio, they did their best to suck the fun out of it with tedious discussions about cultural impact and feminist subtexts. I was a little surprised to learn that there was so much Buffy scholarship out there. Apparently, there are people out there willing to dedicate years of their lives to writing dissertations about various aspects of a TV show. I remember liking the show when it ran, but it never struck me as being all that significant. Of course maybe there were people who thought the same thing about Hamlet. Who knows what they'll be studying as great art in the future?
    Hey, I love doing stuff like that! It doesn't hurt anyone after all. One of my college papers about King Arthur was not about whether or not he was real but what we could tell about the cultural values of the time the stories were written by the way love was portrayed. If I won the lotto I could dedicate myself to the Philosophy of Whedonverse!

    Honestly though I did find it was important to me at the time and later to have some different stories being told, well developed characters and ways of supporting girls/women being real people. I know that Josh Whedon gets asked why he keeps writing strong female characters, i hear the answer is because people are still asking about it. I think one of his strengths is in letting characters die, even loved ones, even essential ones, and not always as part of an amazing plot twist. Buffy's mom just died.

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