BTVS is built on the foundation metaphor of female empowerment and that’s gotta be good. We live in a world that depicts women as objects most of the time and it is absolutely necessary to see women presented as powerful in ways other than sexual. I have a 14 year old daughter I’m trying to inspire, I want better for her than mindless bimbo role models as seen populating teen dramas and music videos!
BTVS has fundamentally changed my expectations for female characters across the board. I went to see Casino Royale (the James Bond film) recently and came away simple appalled at the disintegration of the leading lady’s character as the film progressed. She went from being an empowered professional feminist to being a mere shadow of her former self, completely defined by her lover, Mr. Bond for whom she sacrifices her own life at the end of the movie. It was just horrible! All I could think was that Buffy would have done much better in the same situation. Because of BTVS I want to see female characters that are intelligent, confident, multi-dimensional, who try and risk, who learn, who are valued rather than objectified and who offer encouragement to women and girls who engage with the texts in which they feature.
I admit I used to be a bit of a romantic and read the odd romance ‘novel’ but now I can’t even do that! Buffy and Spike’s relationship also altered my perception of romance. Once upon a time I was a real sucker for traditional romance and happily ever after stories but BTVS has fixed that up good and proper. Buffy and Spike have a distinctly non-traditional romantic relationship. At times they are bad for each other, while at others they seem to suit each other wonderfully. They certainly don’t have a perfect relationship – they have their ups and downs, highs and lows but the point is their relationship takes work and they work at it – something we rarely see in popular fictionalised relationships. They overcome the obstacles and problems they encounter and rather than give up they try to find solutions. Now that’s romantic! Oh, did I mention hot? Buffy and Spike are also pretty hot.
Recommendations
So I think, if you’re going to watch television you may as well choose high quality television and you can do much worse than BTVS and Angel. I certainly recommend it highly. Finally, here are a few episode suggestions from each season of both series that might get you might like to check out:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: welcome to the hell mouth, angel, prophecy girl, school hard, innocence, becoming, lover’s walk, the wish, graduation day, pangs, something blue, restless, fool for love, intervention, the gift, once more with feeling, tabula rasa, grave, beneath you, lies my parents told me, chosen. Angel: city of, the prodigal, to shanshu in la, are you now or have you ever been, darla, reprise/redefinition, birthday, sleep tight, tomorrow, spin the bottle, orpheus, home, destiny, time bomb, not fade away.
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