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American Culture and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Despite setbacks in the production, Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was able to envision the success that Buffy has become. Yet, the popularity of this show should not be surprising considering it plays on the timeless themes of angst, coming of age, good vs. evil, redemption, selflessness, and sacrifice. The characters also are appealing in the way they seem to balance humor, horror, and the everyday soap opera of being a high school student. Within the series, Buffy and her friends have labeled themselves the "Scooby Gang," in reference to Hanna Barbera's Scooby Doo, Where Are You?, whose teenage cartoon characters chased monsters every week (Skippy 2). Each week, audiences also watch Buffy Summers and her "Scooby Gang" as they, once again, save the world from any number of monsters who are intent on bringing about the apocalypse. Yet, as many fans as this show has gathered, it has just as many people who would like to see it off the air due to its violent, explicit, and often sexual undertones. This paper will discuss and analyze Buffy the Vampire Slayer within the context of American culture and media, examining such influences as teen life, historical and cultural background, commercialization, and real-world events.

Saving the world is never easy and neither is coming of age in America, which is a point driven home every week as the "Scooby Gang" struggle against monsters and themselves to strive for some type of normalcy in their lives. Yet, Buffy and her friends are meant to embody a "largely docile and normative teen culture" (Davis 4). Producers Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt achieve this teen culture by depicting Sunnydale High School as the typical "sunny middle to upper-middle class high school" found in a small town in Southern California, using the same school used in the high school drama, Beverly Hills, 90210 (Naylor and MacNee "Designing Buffy"). They also chose to use a Craftsman styled h...

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American Culture and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 13:54, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1706375.html