Buffy The Vampire Slayer

TV show like medieval morality play

Characters’ actions have consequences

The TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer becomes much more than one young woman stalking the undead in a book exploring the show’s spiritual values.

What Would Buffy Do? The Vampire Slayer As Spiritual Guide (Jossey-Bass, $21.99) by Jana Reiss deftly portrays the TV show as challenging media stereotypes and revealing essential spiritual themes in American pop culture. The show, which ended its seven-year run in May, 2003, re-emerges as something of a medieval morality play.

In the "Buffyverse," as Reiss terms it, the world may be mostly God-neutral with little hint of an all-powerful creator. But make no mistake about it, evil is alive and well. So is good.

"The book is organized by values. I decided to just look at some of the spiritual values," Reiss says in a telephone interview.

"Self-sacrifice is a major issue for Buffy. This is part of hero literature everywhere, from today’s Superman to classical Greek mythology. The idea of the hero having to sacrifice personal gain to help others is very important in Buffy. That being the slayer is hard. In the beginning, the first season, Buffy is making sacrifices such as not being a cheerleader. She’s not able to have a normal relationship with her mother. She’s not able to have a boyfriend. All of those when you’re 16 are quite serious.

"In the fifth season, she actually sacrifices her life to save the world," Reiss says, adding: "Of course, she is resurrected. Otherwise there’d be no show."

Juxtaposing her analysis against the backdrop of Buffy episodes and quotes from thinkers as diverse as Reinhold Niebuhr and Confucius, Reiss shows how Buffy goes beyond the average TV show to a level where characters’ actions have consequence. She explores the religious themes implicit the popular series and investigates what it has to say about friendship, honesty, redemption and forgiveness.

With humour and aplomb, Reiss produces a thoughtful book, poking fun at others and even at herself for their fascination with Buffy.

At first, Reiss was embarrassed to admit she was a fan.

"Now I’m just embarrassed that I was ever embarrassed," she says. "Buffy is a complex and nuanced series, full of ambiguity. If offers no clear-cut answers, but takes moral and spiritual issues very seriously."

Once Reiss, religion book review editor for Publishers Weekly, got over her uncertainty at being a Buffy fan, other viewers began coming out of the closet.

"There were some people who raised their eyebrows when I says I wanted to write a book about Buffy, the vampire slayer," Reiss says. "There were far more people in the academic community and in the church community who says, `I’m a Buffy fan, too.’"

A gifted writer, Reiss holds degrees from Wellesley College and Princeton Theological Seminary. She earned a Ph.D in American religious history from Columbia University. She makes no bones about her reasons for writing this book.

"The primary reason is that I absolutely love the show," she says. "I have to have an excuse for all the hours I’ve spent watching the show and thinking about it and being fascinated by it. This seemed like a great opportunity to legitimize my preoccupation.

"On a more serious note, I really do believe that people who have theological or academic training cannot dismiss popular culture," she says. "They do so at their own peril."