Buffy studies, also called Buffyology, is the study of Joss Whedon's popular television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, to a lesser extent, its spin-off program Angel. It explores issues related to gender, family, ethics and other philosophical issues as expressed through the content of these shows in the fictional Buffyverse.
Neda Ulaby of NPR describes Buffy as having a "special following among academics, some of whom have staked a claim in what they call 'Buffy Studies'".[1] Though not widely recognized as a distinct discipline, the term "Buffy studies" is commonly used amongst the academic Buffy-related writings.[2]
Development as academic field
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The original run of Buffy (1997–2003) eventually led to the publication of a number of books and hundreds of articles examining the themes of the show from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives including sociology, psychology, philosophy, theology, and women's studies. One of the first texts was written by David Graeber, who published the article Rebel Without a God [3] in 1998. Since January 2001, Slayage: The Online Journal of Buffy Studies has published essays on the topic quarterly, and it continues to do so. Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer was published in 2002, and since then many more Buffy books have been published by academic book publishers. There have also been a number of international conferences on the topic.[4] "College courses across the globe are devoted to the show, and secondary schools in Australia and New Zealand also provide Buffy classes."[5] The topic can even be undertaken as part of a Master's degree in Cult Film & TV at Brunel University, London.[6] Increasingly, Angel is being analyzed alongside its predecessor, e.g. in the 2005 publication, Reading Angel.
The creator of Buffy, Joss Whedon, has responded to the scholarly reaction to his series: "I think it's great that the academic community has taken an interest in the show. I think it's always important for academics to study popular culture, even if the thing they are studying is idiotic. If it's successful or made a dent in culture, then it is worthy of study to find out why. Buffy, on the other hand is, I hope, not idiotic. We think very carefully about what we're trying to say emotionally, politically, and even philosophically while we're writing it... it really is, apart from being a pop-culture phenomenon, something that is deeply layered textually episode by episode."[7]
The response to this scholarly attention has had its critics. Jes Battis, who authored Blood Relations in Buffy and Angel, has stated that study of the Buffyverse "invokes an uneasy combination of enthusiasm and ire", and meets "a certain amount of disdain from within the halls of the academy".[9]
Examples of explored themes
Gender studies
Lorna Jowett, 2005: Sex and The Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan.
In this paper, published by Wesleyan University Press, Jowett, senior lecturer in American Studies at The University of Northampton and Buffy fan, states that ‘Buffy may be “Barbie with a kung-fu grip”, but she is still Barbie’ (p. 197). Jowett identifies the show as being “post-feminist”, while arguing that it fails to challenge gender stereotypes in meaningful ways. Jowetts book's first 3 chapters are entitled: Girl Power, Good Girls and Bad Girls, in which Jowett dissects the stereotypes within the female characters that, she argues, are reinforced by the show. The next three chapters are broken into the male stereotypes: Tough men, New Men and Dead Boys. Jowett states that reinforcement of stereotypes exists within the show for male characters as well.[10][11]
Pop culture studies
Dee Amy-Chinn and Milly Williamson, 2005: The Vampire Spike in text and fandom: Unsettling oppositions in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Amy-Chinn, senior lecturer at Oxford Brookes University and Williamson, of Brunel University, focus on a specific character in this paper, Spike, who as argued by the authors, embodies “the simultaneous expression of erotic repulsion and attraction” and a “fear of and desire for the ‘other’”. The authors compare and contrast the character of Spike to the show’s general treatment of sexuality and self.[12]
Marcella Lins, 2020: Libertarianism in Pop Culture: Applying libertarian principles to Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Season 4.
Marcella Lins, researcher at Universidade Anhembi Morumbi, revisits Buffy’s Season 4 and analyzes it through a libertarian perspective. Over this season, a great number of relevant subjects are discussed, such as the form and function of the state, its relationship with society, the subversion of public authorities and the morality of law and punishment. It is expected that the successful adoption of libertarian ethics and principles to understand this TV show might bring out Libertarianism as a valuable philosophical alternative to be taken into account when looking for solutions to current issues.[13]
Media studies
Rhonda Wilcox, 2005: Why Buffy Matters: The Art of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Why does Buffy Matter? In this paper Wilcox makes the attempt to bring this television show into perspective for us. Wilcox says, “It matters because it shows that television can be art, and deserves to be so studied…the depth of the characters, the truth of the stories, the profundity of the themes, and their precise incarnation in language, sound and image – all of these matter.” (Wilcox 419). While giving in depth details of all of these elements and also drawing on other academic articles about Buffy, Wilcox helps to bring this television series to the same page for all fans interested in Buffy; from those who are a bit unsure about the series all the way to those die hard fans.
Wilcox, Rhonda & Lavery, David, 2002. “Fighting the Forces: What’s at Stake for Buffy The Vampire Slayer.”
"Fighting the Forces” explores the struggle to create meaning in an impressive example of popular culture, the television series phenomenon “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. These essays analyze the social and cultural issues implicit in the series and place it in its literary context. Editors Wilcox and Lavery have opened an intriguing doorway to fans of this show, “Issues of gender, generations, race, class, and violence are treated seriously, through an in-depth analysis of both main characters and sidekicks. Class and race are discussed through a study of Buffy’s and her friends’ relationship with the two "other" slayers, American white trash Faith and Jamaican Kendra.” Wilcox and Lavery analyze these many concepts while critiquing other scholarly essays such as “God, New Religious Movements, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Everything Philosophical About Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”[14]
Family studies
Burr, Vivien, and Jarvis, C., September 2007. “Imagining the Family Representations of Alternative Lifestyles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
This paper offers studies of the family and how media families affect the views of young people. Through the television show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Burr explores the dangers and advantages of non-normative family forms, especially the non-genetic or ‘chosen’ families. (Burr) There is also a focus that Buffy “endorses a non-hierarchical, ‘democratic vision’ of the family. (Giddens, 1992) Also, Buffy can generate ‘interactive social worlds’ that are a main focus of the spreading of new social, familial practices (Plummer, 1995). Family is viewed in a new and different way through Buffy that leads to such innovations as well in practice and research on the subject.[15]
Aesthetics
Kociemba, David, 2006: “Actually, it explains a lot": Reading the Opening Title Sequences in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
This paper examines the opening title sequences of the television series in detail, looking at the use of imagery, color, editing, logo, credits, title, and scoring. The opening title sequences of Buffy the Vampire Slayer function as a microcosm of the series itself. They reveal the influence of the creators’ perception of their audience and their own work, the medium's narrative and artistic conventions, and the media industry's own practices. They construct the series’ past, shape the viewer's present experience of the episode, and prepare the way for future narratives. This article won the "Short Mr. Pointy" award for excellence in scholarship in Buffy Studies from the Whedon Studies Association.[16]
Additional works
The full title "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is shortened to BtVS in the following table.
^Ulaby, Neda (May 13, 2003). "Buffy Studies". National Public Radio. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
^Cantwell, Marianne (February 2004). "Collapsing the Extra/Textual: Passions and Intensities of Knowledge in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Online Fan Communities". Refractory: a Journal of Entertainment Media.
^"Rebel Without a God – David Graeber". davidgraeber.org. Retrieved 2023-02-02.
^See: "Boffins get their teeth into Buffy", BBC (18 October 2002). "Vampires: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil Archived 2005-12-15 at the Wayback Machine" Wickedness.net (2002). "The Slayage Conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Paper Archive Archived 2006-06-22 at the Wayback Machine", Slayage.tv (2004). These sources report on three conferences respectively: "Blood, Text and Fears" (University of East Anglia, UK, 2002), Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil (Budapest, Hungary, 2003), and "The Slayage Conference" (Nashville, USA, 2003).
^Scholars lecture on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' Archived March 14, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, Ctv.ca (May 29, 2004).
^"Study Buffy at university". Metro.co.uk. May 16, 2006.
^"10 Questions for... Joss Whedon". The New York Times. May 16, 2003. Retrieved December 19, 2007.
^"Philosophy Home". Archived from the original on June 10, 2008. Retrieved June 10, 2008.
^Battis, Jes (June 2005). Blood Relations: Chosen Families in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel". Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. p. 9.
^Potts, Annie (August 1, 2007). "Review: Lorna Jowett: Sex and the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan". Feminism & Psychology. Los Angeles, California: SAGE Publications. Retrieved March 1, 2018.
^Jowett, Lorna (2005). Sex and The Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University.
^"European Journal of Cultural Studies -- Sign In Page". Archived from the original on 2006-10-17.
^Lins, Marcella (2020). "Libertarianism in Pop Culture: : Applying libertarian principles to Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Season 4". MISES: Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, Law and Economics. 8. doi:10.30800/mises.2020.v8.1317. This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
^Christine Jarvis; Viv Burr (2005). "'Friends are the family we choose for ourselves': Young people and families in the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Young. 13 (3). doi:10.1177/1103308805054213. S2CID 141418363.
^"Qualitative Social Work -- Table of Contents (September 2007, 6 [3])". Archived from the original on 2007-10-28.
^"Slayage 22: Kociemba". Archived from the original on 2009-10-25. Retrieved 2009-07-29.
^Kreider, Jodie A.; Winchell, Meghan K. (2014-01-10). Buffy in the Classroom: Essays on Teaching with the Vampire Slayer. McFarland. ISBN 9780786462148.
External links
Online works
Slayage: The Online International Journal of Whedon Studies Archived 2019-01-12 at the Wayback Machine - A fully electronic peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the scholarly exploration of the creative works of Joss Whedon - especially Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is edited by David Lavery and Rhonda Wilcox. New issues appear twice yearly.
Buffy The Patriarchy Slayer - Bibliography of scholarly articles on Buffy Studies.
All Things Philosophical - A comprehensive guide to philosophy and ethics relating to the Buffyverse.
Buffyology - Extensive bibliography of academic articles available online or in print.
Tea at the Ford - Literary discussion of Buffy/Angel
Lancasteronline.com - "'Buffy' the academic slayer"
Graber, Mary (August 6, 2007). "Colleges' open minds close door on sense". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved December 22, 2017. [dead link] Alt URL
Salon.com - Report on Buffy conference (article featured on front page in November 2002)
Ctv.ca - Scholars lecture on Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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