Buffy The Vampire Slayer

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In exploring the Amazons pattern, Fingeroth mentions Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), seeing it as the outcome of a gradual evolution in public taste for the female heroic. Buffy built upon the success of Ripley in Alien (1979), Sarah Conner in The Terminator (1984), and Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider games (1996-present). Such heroines have become liberated from earlier superheroine restrictions: “This new archetype is… allowed to cry and wear makeup and heels, and still credibly take on the most powerful forces of villainy. And she does not have to be evil to be powerful” (ibid, p.93, author’s italics). They are thus avatars for or representations of the feminism celebrated as a mainstream American social ideal.

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