Buffy The Vampire Slayer

The instructors guide discussion for the day’s theme that is written on the whiteboard — “What does it mean to be a man?” — and the 15 students in attendance pose questions and contribute their ideas about gender roles. When class ends, a reminder is given about next week’s assignments, and the students shuffle out the door.

The class doesn’t look much different from any other small discussion section at the UW, but in fact, it’s so different that there hasn’t ever been anything quite like it here.

“This is the first class I’ve taught about Buffy,” said Ed Chang, one of two instructors for the course. The “Buffy” he’s referring to is “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” a paranormal TV show starring Sarah Michelle Gellar that aired on the WB from 1997 to 2003. As far as Chang knows, this is the first class about the show taught at the UW.

Upon closer inspection, it’s a little more obvious why this is a class whose full title is Serious Research Mode: Critical Approaches to Buffy (and Stuff). A book entitled “Sex and the Slayer” rests on a table at the front of the classroom, and on the projection screen are the results of a Google image search for Xander Harris, one of the show’s main characters.

But all of this seems to beg the question: Why Buffy?

“People look at ‘Buffy’ and say ‘This is the quintessential teenage experience,’” said Jane Lee, the course’s other instructor, who, like Chang, is a doctoral student in the English department.

Now in her sixth year at the UW, Lee claims that Buffy’s academic value stems from the parenthetical “and Stuff ” mentioned in the name of the class: a phrase that refers to the multiple themes and dialogues that run throughout the show.

“It’s not just about monsters and vampires, but it deals with sex, it deals with drugs, it deals with peer pressure — all the things we’d normally associate with teenage angst and growing up,” she said. “Aside from that, it does a lot with gender, it does a lot with race: things we like to think about critically. What’s

nice about it is [that] it gives it in this really casual, pop-culture setting.”

Both Lee and Chang are self-described fans of the show, but that’s only part of the reason they chose it as the topic for their two-credit “focus group” class.

“When we first started thinking about this, we were obviously coming at it from the perspective of people who like the show,” Chang said. “We thought it would be great to do a class that engages some of the scholarship around Buffy as well.”

Despite Buffy’s status as a cult favorite, or perhaps because of it, Lee said there has been academic work about Buffy, though “it’s not seen as viable.” A journal called “Slayage” is one example she gave. Some of this work makes up the weekly readings, which students are expected to do before watching an episode of the show in class.

The students in the class, which meets Wednesdays from 12:30 to 2:20, are almost exclusively “Buffy” fans.

“I’ve been watching it since 2000, in the fifth season,” freshman Jenille Manalo said. “And then I started watching it from the beginning. That was when I was in middle school, and now that I’m in college, I found out about the class.”

Manalo said she was interested in doing critical readings of “Buffy” to examine the show at a level that most never would.

“A lot of people say how the things they go through in the show are relatable, but there’s quite a

bit more to it,” she said. Fifth-year senior Bronson Young was also intrigued

by the possibility of exploring the show in depth. “Other people always ask, ‘Why is that one of

your favorite shows?’” he said. “I give my reasoning — how relatable it is, and things like that. But [I’m interested in] the other things that are out there.”

Chang said that students like Young, a chemistry major, are typical of those who take CHID focus groups, which he has taught in the past on topics such as “Harry Potter” and video games.

“It’s usually one or two people who are CHID [majors], and everyone else is [from another major],” he said.

Chang also pointed out that many of the students are not just fans of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” but also fans of the body of work of Joss Whedon, the show’s creator. The class attended a live performance of “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” another Whedon project, last week.

Overall, the instructors see “Buffy” as a jumping- off point for the discussion of other issues.

“The things that we’re talking about aren’t just local to the show,” Lee said. “And hopefully, if you can do that with something you love so much, you’ll be inspired not to just do that with your coursework, [but you’ll] come away with a sense that you can read relationships around you, and people and events around you, in similar ways.”

On this particular Wednesday, the discussion veers back and forth from “Buffy” to other topics:

the NFL, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” to name a few. But Lee said that her class also tries to relate the show to more serious topics, especially current events. In recent weeks, the shooting in Tucson, Ariz., and the uprising in Egypt have come up in discussion.

“[The idea is] we can get you into the classroom with something that you really love, but at the same time, help you develop that love into something that’s critical, intellectual, political [and] analytical,” Chang said. “Curiosity about your world is really important for things like critical thinking.”

For Lee, Chang and the students of CHID 496 G, “Buffy” is more than just vampires and werewolves. It’s a vehicle for discussion, a lens for viewing current events. And even though teaching a class about a TV show comes with its own set of challenges, it proves to be rewarding in the end.

“It’s harder to get students to think about Buffy critically than it is when we walk into my classroom and I say, ‘We’re going to read Dickens,’ which is already accepted as [something you approach critically],” Lee said. “And they don’t always like it, but part of that not liking it is learning to read and think about it critically.”

Chang added: “And the hope is that they will like it better, or in a different way, or in a richer way.”