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From Eonline.com

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Buffy Slayed by School Massacre - Five Years Anniversary

By Joal Ryan

Wednesday 21 April 2004, by Webmaster

Remember five years ago...

Vampire-slayer Buffy will not overhear a deadly schoolyard plot. At least not next week.

Colorado’s Columbine High massacre has prompted more prime-time tinkering, this time involving WB’s teen-hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The network will sub a rerun for a brand-new episode about a "would-be killer" and a "schoolyard massacre." The ill-timed installment, titled "Earshot," was due to debut next Tuesday—on the one-week anniversary of the Columbine incident that left 15 people, including the two suspected teen shooters, dead.

"This is something we need to do," a WB spokeswoman said today.

According to a network synopsis, "Earshot" found Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) endowed with the power to read minds—and, in turn, to uncover a "potential mass murder plan at the school."

In place of "Earshot," the network will air an adventure entitled "Bad Girls," a repeat.

Earlier this week, Canada’s YTV announced its intentions to pull "Earshot" in favor of a Buffy rerun.

"It’s not appropriate at this time," YTV’s Laura Heath told Jam! Showbiz. "Our programming people are parents and it’s just, as a parent, it would be offensive to air something like that."

The Columbine incident previously prompted CBS to swap out a scheduled airing of Promised Land. The family drama was to broadcast a story Thursday about a school-related drive-by shooting. But the network decided to run another, bullet-free episode instead.

Marilyn Manson’s scheduled April 30 show in Denver is another victim of the shooting’s aftermath. Local concert promoters pulled the plug on the show this week, saying they didn’t want to antagonize locals with the shock rocker.

There was also news Thursday that MGM was about to lead a sweeping video recall of the 1995 Leonardo DiCaprio film, The Basketball Diaries. But the studio says it won’t officially acquire the movie’s rights until the summer—and while it doesn’t have any plans to manufacture further copies, it doesn’t have any plans to recall existing ones, either.

The Basketball Diaries, featuring a dream sequence in which a trenchcoat-clad Leo blasts away at classmates, recently was named in a lawsuit filed by the families of school-shootings victim in West Paducah, Kentucky.


4 Forum messages

  • > "Buffy" Slayed by School Massacre

    22 April 2004 15:42, by krapnek

    This is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard - and I’ve heard a lot of dumb things these past years. The families of school-shootings victim in West Paducah, Kentucky should be prosecuted for abusing the judicial system. Or maybe we should blame black & white movies for racism?

    The cowards censored Earshot the first time it was aired too.

  • > Buffy Slayed by School Massacre - Five Years Anniversary

    22 April 2004 18:31, by DurangoKid
    If we ignore violence in schools, it will just go away, right? If we bring the issue out into the open, it could force us to ask questions about how our society in general places a premium on violence. It could even bring to mind how the highest office in the land will ignore the global violence it inflicts and seeks to blame the victims of our military and corporate adventures. We can’t have that! So, let’s pretend that violence in schools is completely unrelated to anything substantive and is only some artifact of media.

  • > Buffy Slayed by School Massacre - Five Years Anniversary

    22 April 2004 19:04, by Lia
    God, people always have to place blame somewhere don’t they? Maybe if they put it on somewhere besides Hollywood like say, oh, the parents who messed these kids up in the first place, stuff like this wouldn’t happen so much.

  • > Buffy Slayed by School Massacre - Five Years Anniversary

    23 April 2004 07:16, by Anonymous

    Media is not the only form of violence interfering with children today. To say the least, movies and entertainment type television are much less real than say for instance the news. Have you ever watched CNN or MSNBC all day---some of the things there "scare" me more than anything. Things like that bother me more because they are "real."

    Movies, entertainment tv, etc are not real. Parents and children need to be able to tell the difference between what is real and not real. I grew up in a household where I was told that movies with blood/guts/etc were not real. I watched lots of "scary" films, etc but I know the difference between reality and make believe. Plus I understand the difference between right and wrong. I think there are other factors that come into play with situations like Columbine, other than just the media.

    BTW, if anyone wants to watch a pretty good film about situations like Columbine then see a small indie film called, "Homeroom." It’s a good film, plus on the DVD they talk to students from the Columbine tragedy.