ouse for the Summer home, which represents the typical, middle-class, stable American home life. They even requested the make-up department to make Buffy less earthy and more "Buffy", or more like the quintessential "mall rat" by lightening her hair and giving her bubble gum nail color and lipstick (Naylor and MacNee "Beauty and the Beasts"). On the outside then, Sunnydale High is the typical American high school and Buffy Summers is the typical high school girl aspiring to be popular.
In this case, however, the high school sits on the Hellmouth, which attracts any number of freaks, geeks, and monsters, as represented by vampires, beasts, and evil geniuses lurking in the basement of the school as well as in the sewers and underground crypts of Sunnydale. This mix of typical teen soap opera and horror has attracted a core teen audience (Parents Television Council 1). According to Jane Brown, Ph.D. in journalism and a specialist in the study of adolescents and media, "kids often identify very closely with these fictional characters. . .we refer to it as parasocial interaction; or. . . false intimacy. . .they feel these characters are their friends" (quoted in Sisk 1). As Sisk further points out, however, while teens may identify with these fictional characters, it is an "idealized identification รป less a matter of 'this is who I am' than 'this is who I wish I were'"(Sisk 2).
Although weekly episodes are usually part of a two or three week arc, one of the best renditions of a typical high school gone wrong is seen in the episode, "Graduation Part Two" (Whedon, 1999). In this episode, Whedon takes the trauma of graduating from high school to its breaking point. In the midst of getting graduation robes, passing finals, staying awake in class, and signing yearbooks, Buffy and her friends must also find a way to save their high school (and the world) from the Ascension of the demon, Olvikon. The demon's representative on eart...