Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Retreat will explore spiritual side of ’Buffy the Vampire Slayer’

Whether it’s Halloween or Harry Potter, the mere whiff of "dark" magic in pop culture seems to come under fire from the religious right.

And yet not all people of faith object to the shadowy side of human experience. On Saturday, in fact, a seminar will explore the religious themes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the popular 1997-2003 TV series about a young woman who fights forces of evil. The show has a reputation for being one of the most studied shows in television history.

David Lavery, a professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, will lead the event, which takes place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Penuel Ridge Retreat Center in Ashland City.

A leader in the field of "Buffy studies," Lavery doesn’t think it’s at all surprising that a place like Penuel Ridge, a spiritual retreat center committed to nurturing the contemplative life, would want to host such a gathering.

"Buffy’s themes are all spiritual," he said. "Redemption, love, sacrifice, heroism, ’chosen’ families (biological ones in Buffy almost never work), life and death.

"When Buffy dies at the end of season five," he added, "her grave reads ’Buffy Summers (1981-2001), Beloved Sister, Devoted Friend. She saved the world a lot.’ "

The event at Penuel Ridge is no anomaly. Jana Riess, the religion book editor at Publishers Weekly, has written a volume called What Would Buffy Do: The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide. The magazine Christianity Today, meanwhile, once published an article called "Don’t Let Your Kids Watch Buffy! (But Tape It and Watch It Yourself After They’ve Gone to Bed)."

Lavery, too, has published widely on the subject and also serves as the co-editor of Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies. His forthcoming book, a critical biography of the show’s creatorcalled Joss Whedon: Wonder Boy, will be published later this year.

"People with progressive views on religion and spirituality find that Buffy speaks to them, much as the Harry Potter books might," he said.

"The depiction of evil has always enthralled the imagination," he added. "True religion, as William Blake thought, marries heaven and hell, as does Buffy."

’Buffy’ shows struggle, redemption

Maybe foremost among those things that speak to the show’s fans is its handling of the issue of vocation or calling, particularly Buffy’s own struggle with her place and purpose in the world.

"It is absolutely central," Lavery said. "Buffy fights against her calling, but she never shirks her duty. Hey, she dies—twice. The title of the final episode, ’Chosen,’ is very telling."

TV, he added, is a medium ideally suited to depict this emergence and formation of the self.

"Television has the time to show us characters growing a soul in real time. Buffy had seven years and 144 episodes to track Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles and Spike as they became real.

"Spike’s redemption is probably the most dramatic. The series takes him from an evil monster to a champion who loves Buffy (even if she doesn’t love him) and saves the world in the finale. The transformation takes six years."

Transforming nagging gender stereotypes was just as crucial to the show’s creator.

"Whedon was determined to overthrow the image of the helpless woman, to create a character who could turn around and kick monster butt," Lavery said. "There is a huge debate about the show’s feminist credibility, but Buffy certainly enlarged the possibilities for female heroism in our time.

"I recently read a brilliant essay by a young woman on how the series enabled her to stand up to her abusive father. But Buffy moved me powerfully too — a 50-plus English professor with two daughters. It was an emotionally and intellectually rich show."