Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Cancelled four years ago, ’Slayer’ still packs a cultural punch

Tiny blonde by day, Slayer by night: Juggling school and vampire slaying can’t be easy, but Buffy Summers did it for seven years - and died twice doing so - all in the name of girl power.

I had never seen the show before. Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Probably some generic teen drama I had rightly overlooked during my years of channel surfing in high school. Just another teenage boy’s wet dream of some big-boobed blonde running away from the forces of evil in a short skirt and a tight shirt.

I was wrong.

The fan-dubbed "Buffyverse" came into being in 1997, when Joss Whedon created Buffy from the ashes of the 1992 movie of the same name. The show became the golden child of the WB and then UPN networks, despite chronically low ratings that brought the show to the verge of cancellation several times during its seven-season run. In 2003, UPN put a stake in the show.

But the loyal fan following inspired myriad Buffy products, Buffy sing-a-long entertainment shows, and a spin-off show - Angel, which followed the adventures of Buffy’s vampire lover Angel and lasted a respectable five seasons - and established itself as one of the greatest shows of all time, according to TV Guide. You can take Buffy-themed classes - though not at NU - write Buffy fan ficiton on the Web, catch syndicated episodes on FX, or snag all seven seasons on DVD.

And now Buffy fanatics have something more to look forward to. The slayer has been asleep for a few years, and now Whedon is ready to bring her back to life in a new comic book series. Scheduled to be released in March, the series - with the first four issues were penned by Whedon himself - will continue the vampy fascination that Buffy followers have yearned for. Packed with new Scooby adventures, nearly 30 issues of the series are in the works. The comic book series will stand as the season eight that never was.

I had always been oblivious to the shock-and-awe effect Buffy had on the small screen. And now, nearly three years after the end of the series, it’s just beginning to surface.

It was a hot, summer afternoon last summer when my slayer education began. I was locked out of my apartment and rather than sit on my porch and soak up the smell of Chicken Shack in the air while I waited for my roommate to come back, I trekked up to Hamlin to hang out with a friend. Buffy was upon me.

Medill junior Rachel Aherin was seated with my friend in the living room, both completely enthralled with season six.

It didn’t take long for them to both excitedly run through the show’s history to catch me up. Sarah Michelle Gellar is this generation’s slayer, the girl who defends humanity - usually the residents of Sunnydale, Cali. - from the hordes of evil that prey on it. In the Clark Kent tradition, she must closely guard her slayer identity for the safety of her loved ones. Of course, a few friends are in on the secret, and she’s put under the tutelage of a British watcher - who happens to be Sunnydale High’s librarian - forming the core Scooby Gang.

Clearly, Buffy Summers is not just a hot blonde. Buffy stood for all that was strong and valiant in a female. The plot isn’t just centered on a hot girl defeating demons, but rather the obstacles of adolescence, the transition from high school to college, from teenager to adult, from powerless victim to fearless heroine. Buffy is the walking equivalent of girl power. No, not the lame girl power you would find surrounded by flowers and butterflies on a sticker posted to your fifth-grade trapper keeper. This was a girl power with actual punch. And attitude. And roundhouse kicks to the face.

To my surprise, Buffy’s addictive quality hasn’t stopped claiming victims as it continues to be rediscovered by young adults such as Aherin. She hadn’t always been a Buffy fanatic. She didn’t even watch the show when it was on TV. But once the slayer slashed her way into Aherin’s television set, it was hard to turn off the action.

Aherin was hooked when she discovered the series between her freshman and sophomore years in college.

"I started watching it and I didn’t stop. Ever," she says.

So, what is it that makes the show so addictive?

Ask any fan and they’ll tell you it’s because the show is littered with pop culture references, witty running jokes, and an array of hidden metaphors. These features make the idea of a five-foot-nothing blonde chick as a superhero not so far-fetched, Aherin says.

"Because I found (Buffy) after I had graduated and I had been at NU for a while, I could relate really easily to the things that were going on the show," Aherin says, now the proud owner of all seven seasons of the show.

The show isn’t just the blonde hair, boobs, and blood show I had pictured it to be. It’s a way for fans to relate and cope with their own coming of age, cleverly packaged in a fantastical series that allows a break from the mundane and a peek into how things would be if vampires and demons roamed the streets, trying to turn us into a meal.

"Buffy is a real person. She goes to college, she drinks, she takes care of her little sister," Aherin says, "But there’s this other side to her which is also the ’I’m also the savior of the world’ side."

My Slayer education is now complete.