Buffy - Feminist

So I figure I would analyze “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” from the feminist perspective. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is a show about a teenage girl who is a slayer. What is a slayer? Well “"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.” Basically, she is a girl who fights evil. She is given super strength, speed, and senses. Buffy and her friends work together to try and stop evil. Buffy has two main friends, Xander and Willow. Xander is an average sized guy who is always ready to aid Buffy. Willow is a smart girl who is great with computers and later learns how to be a witch. Throughout the series, more characters are added in and phased out but one thing seems to stay true throughout the series, most of the main characters are women. Another thing is that most of the people with powers in the series are the female characters.

Giving most of the female characters powers and having the guys as back up is very different from a lot of popular stories about good versus evil. Most texts usually give females a secondary role and have a male leader. I would say the actions of this show counteract the hegemony of shows wear people get super powers of its time. Back then super hero series consisted of power rangers and comic teams turned movie, like X-men and Spiderman. All these shows and movies had a dominant male character and if they had a woman with power, she was not as strong as the lead. If she was strong as the lead male, she had problem controlling her power.

Buffy paved a way for a new role of for new shows and movies with empowered women who counter acted the old way of thinking. Some examples include shows like Charmed, True Blood, and Heroes. These shows had/have many female leads. These shows now set the standard for how shows about super powers and the paranormal are viewed. The hegemony has changed. Now more of these shows get dominated by women and putting them in power. Overall It is interesting to see how shows have changed in how pop culture views gender and the paranormal super powered person.