Buffy the Vampire Slayer Essay -- TV Television Show Essays

Buffy the lamia SlayerMentors feature prominently in the Gothic genre. From Dr Van Helsing in Bram Stokers genus Dracula, who leads the young heroes into their quest to annihilate the Count, to Rupert Giles, the Watcher in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, older and more experienced adults hurt provided essential guidance for the younger protagonists of the genre. The differences in media of expression and the subsequent adaptations from novel to television series has not affect the presence of this character, more than a hundred years after the publication of Dracula in 1897. What also unites the novel and the series is their fin-de-sicle resonance. According to Elaine Showalter, sexually and socially subversive themes feature strongly in periods of cultural insecurity. In addition to the century that separates Buffy from the Count, there has been a plethora of vampire movies and books of various merits. As a result, the late-twentieth-century average spectator knows the basic facts of v ampirism. Therefore, the creators of Buffy the Vampire Slayer need to challenge their audience through another aspect of the series. Turning to their advantage what might have been a serious hindrance, they adopt a self-reflexive ironic perspective on the genre. This tenuous but innovative tension between borrowing from the tenets of the Gothic and base away from them is especially appreciable when one evaluates the Watcher, Giles. Giles embodies both the principles of continuity and daring innovation that characterise the series and contribute to its appeal. The similarities between Dr Van Helsing in Dracula and Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer create a sense of thematic and structural continuity through different media. They share a sim... ...Unofficial Critical bloke to Buffy and Angel. Ed. Roz Kaveney. London Tauris, 2001, 98-119. 8. Wall, Brian and Michael Zryd. Vampire dialectics. Knowledge, institutions and labour. Reading the Vampire Slayer. An unofficial critical compan ion to Buffy and Angel. Ed. Roz Kaveney. London Tauris, 2001, 53-77.9. Jung, C. G. The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy Tales. 1912. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. London Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967. 10. Heilbronn, Lisa M. Natural Man, Unnatural erudition Rejection of Science in Recent Science Fiction and Fantasy Film. Contours of the Fantastic. Ed. Michele K. Langford. New York Greenwood, 1990, 113-9, 115.11. Auerbach, Nina. Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago U of Chicago P, 1995, 5.12. Tudor, Andrew. Monsters and Mad Scientists. A Cultural memoir of the Horror Movie. 1989. Oxford Blackwell, 1991, 114.