Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Buffy Versus Medieval Knights In Season 5

Not so long ago, Ken Kuykendall stood before a group of Mormon teens in an Atlanta suburb, dressed in starched white shirt and dark tie. He was there, he said, to talk about serious things.

Then Kuykendall literally ripped off his shirt to reveal a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" T-shirt and carefully laid out the moral values of the popular television show, featuring a sassy blonde in a micro-mini skirt who goes one-on-one with the world’s nastiest demons.

The Mormon leader told his gum-chewing audience that Buffy was not too unlike them. For the most part, she was a spoiled, rich teenager in southern California who loved nothing more than shopping and shmoozing and clubbing in a place called Sunnydale. That is, until she discovered that dark forces were everywhere and only she had the supernatural powers to thwart them.

"The safety of the world routinely rests on her attractive, usually bare shoulders," Kuykendall told his startled audience. Time and again she had to sacrifice her own desires to save humanity and the planet.

And that is what Jesus Christ wants us to do, too, Kuykendall told the teens.

Does that mean that "Buffy," with its vampires and paganism and witchcraft, is really just a disguised Christian tract?

Hardly, says religion scholar Jana Riess.

Sure, Buffy wears a crucifix (which wards off vampires) and she dies and is reborn at least twice in the series. Yet there are no easy answers, obvious God or organized religion in Sunnydale. ("Note to self: religion freaky," Buffy mutters in one episode.)

Still, the show depicts a world where evil never goes unpunished and doing good is its own reward.

"It’s a medieval morality play — only with skimpier clothes, wittier dialogue and cutting-edge music," says Riess, author of the just published What Would Buffy Do? The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide.

The series had an almost a cultlike following during its seven seasons on WB from March 1997 through May 2003. A spin-off show, "Angel," is ending this season, but several seasons of both are available on DVD and reruns.

Buffy the vampire slayer, Sarah Michelle Gellar, takes down a foe. The character in the popular TV series exemplified virtues that could inspire people of many faiths, from Christianity to Buddhism, say religious experts.

Riess’ book provides plot summaries and features an interview with Eliza Dushku, who played Faith, a rogue slayer friend of Buffy’s. Dushku, who was raised Mormon in Boston, now stars in "Tru Calling," another show that gives her weekly supernatural powers.

Riess, religion book review editor of Publisher’s Weekly, discovered the joys of Buffy watching reruns on late-night television while suffering from insomnia during her pregnancy about six years ago.

"At first I thought, ’I can’t watch any TV show with a name like Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ " Riess said this week. "Then I started to notice that the dialogue was really clever, with all sorts of allusions to classical literature, Shakespeare and Greek myths in a richly layered text. I was hooked."

The characters explore notions about sin and forgiveness, friendship and failure, redemption and self-worth — lightened up by puns and sarcasm and playfulness. And that’s spiritual, too.

"I know every slayer comes with an expiration date, but I want mine to be a long time from now. Like a Cheeto," Buffy says in one episode.

Riess argues that the show, created by an avowed atheist, also abounds in Buddhist parallels.

Buddhism begins with the idea that all life is suffering, she says, while Buffy puts it in 21st century vernacular: "Life sucks."

Buffy and Angel are like "bodhisattvas" or beings who have achieved enlightenment but forgo personal salvation to help others, she says. In Buddhist and Buffy universes, it is not necessary to believe in a personal god to be a moral person. All that is required is the courage to make tough choices and then accept the consequences.

Angel, by the way, is a vampire with a soul — meaning that he remembers his past evil and fights against it. After he and Buffy kiss for the first time, he seems speechless, says Kuykendall. Buffy walks away and the camera pulls back to show that Angel actually is gasping in pain because Buffy’s crucifix had fallen against his throat and burned him rather badly. But he hadn’t pulled away.

Kuykendall was "blown away" by the show’s depiction of a simple idea: "love hurts," he says. "You make sacrifices for the one you love."

When Buffy had sex with Angel, that moment of happiness nearly killed him.

"I cannot imagine anyone being able to give a more persuasive advertisement for chastity as the hell Buffy went through following their night together," Kuykendall says. "It just, essentially, ruined everything, and Buffy admitted time and again that it had been a mistake."

Or the time they went drinking at a fraternity party and "almost got eaten by a terrifying sewer worm when the college guys turned out to belong to a cult," he says.

Buffy the vampire slayer, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, tracks down evil in Sunnydale.

Still, the show is not all about the triumph of good characters. It has nuance and ambiguity, especially about the complexity of human nature, Riess says. "Buffy’s power originated from mating a human girl with a demon. When she realizes this, she is horrified. She has to acknowledge her capacity to do harm and learn to control it."

Mortals may not be descended from demons, she says, but they do have a capacity for cruelty. In Christianity, it’s called "original sin." And in order to be redeemed, humans must acknowledge it in themselves.

Take the husband who constantly interrupts and belittles his wife or tells stories that put her in a bad light, yet thinks he is a perfect spouse, Riess says. "He has no idea of his own darkness."

Most of the characters express a kind of yearning for eternity, says Dori Marshall, director of Christian education at Cottonwood Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City.

"I’ve heard many people say witches and vampires are anti-Christian, but I don’t think so," says Marshall, who named her golden labrador "Buffy."

"It’s like any pop culture," she says. "If we get our young people talking about God and their faith, it can have value. You never know when you are going to have points of convergence."

To Kuykendall, the show is positively faith-promoting.

Seeing Mel Gibson’s "The Passion of the Christ" made him feel he could never be as self-sacrificing as Jesus, he says. "But I can be like Buffy."