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What Would Buffy Do?
The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide
by Jana Riess
Jossey-Bass, 2004. 183 pages.
Reviewed by Christy Risser-Milne
Cultural phenomenon Buffy the Vampire Slayer has, over the course of its seven television seasons, brought to birth thousands of fan sites, tens of thousands of Buffy-related trinkets, and hundreds of thousands of fans rabid for anything Buffy. Ironically, Jana Riess’s new book about the less-than-explicit spirituality of the show may be the best of the lot.
Using a show that’s all about killing evil baddies, nearly all of whom come, literally, from the mouth of Hell, to talk about spiritual matters (which are not Hell-related), reaches beyond ironic and into the realm of really cool.
Amazingly, Riess accomplishes this with great integrity and insight into a television show often dismissed, at best, by non-fans as trite fluff, and, at worst, by the Christian Right as a demonic influence upon young people the world over.
Making use of the television show’s innate wit and humor, Riess explores the dark world inhabited by Buffy and her closest friends, and finds within a world of light, friendship, love, and moral lessons that serve as an example to us all.
“Buffy is a classic medieval morality play -- only with skimpier clothes, wittier dialogue, and cutting-edge alternative music,” Riess writes.
I must admit that I completely ignored Buffy the Vampire Slayer for its first five seasons because of personal, inexplicable vampire-related fears. (I was scarred as a child by a careless babysitter who liked horror movies, what can I say?) I began watching it because my then-fourteen-year-old cousin and I found common ground in talking about it. (My cousin began watching the show when Buffy’s mom died of cancer, just as her mother had died, and found solace and help in grieving her mother’s death through Buffy.)
Despite the title, the show is not really about vampires. It is about a young woman, a girl really, with a calling (presumably from a largely unrecognized, unacknowledged, and unsought-after God) to fight against Evil in its most personified form: vampires, demons and nasty creatures of all shapes, sizes, and ooze potential. In the adventures and misadventures in which she fulfills this calling, Buffy is accompanied by a cast of characters who become her closest friends; her family of choice. So strong is their bond that these friends work together to, literally, bring Buffy back from the dead because they fear she is trapped in a Hell dimension at the end of the fifth season.
One of these friends gave Riess the title for this book. Xander, a geeky guy who starts with a crush on Buffy and ends up as a capable, strong, compassionate man who is handy with power tools, says to Buffy in one of her frequent moments of self-doubt, “When it’s dark and I’m all alone and I’m scared or freaked out or whatever, I always think, ‘What would Buffy do?’ You’re my hero.”
Blending Wiccan Pagan ethics with bits of Christianity and lots of Buddhism, Riess eloquently explains why this show resonates so powerfully with members of Generations X and Y.
“One of the catchphrases of Generation X has been, ‘I’m not religious, but I’m very spiritual.’ The same might be said for the show as well. It’s not religious per se -- meaning that it allies itself with no particular institution and sometimes seems at odds with organized religion. But it is deeply spiritual, and at its heart Buffy understands the real purpose of religion. Religion is more than creeds and dogmas and institutions . . . at its heart, religion is actually about community.”
Fans will no doubt buy this book simply because a photograph of Sarah Michelle Gellar, the actor who plays Buffy, is on the cover (although the cover designer would have been better-served to find a more flattering image of the lovely Miss Gellar). But everyone who wants to understand the spiritual longings and confusion resident in anyone born after the year 1966 should read this book.
You don’t have to be a Buffy fan to understand the book. Reiss provides excellent synopses of each season and major characters appearing in the “Buffyverse.” And while I giggle at the serious mention of a “Buffy scholar,” Riess has done her research and knows the show well enough to lovingly initiate the unknowing into the fandom of Buffy. (If nothing else, this book will inspire you to watch some of the watershed episodes Reiss so ably describes.)
Riess, a Gen Xer herself, honestly and eloquently names, through the lens of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the reason so many churches are empty today. Why the buffet that religion has become is so attractive. Why the absolutes proffered by fundamentalists in any faith are so often rejected by the young. Both Buffy and Riess are contemporary theologians worthy of note by anyone serious about faith in this seemingly faithless world.
What Would Buffy Do? offers hope. Hope that communities like the one surrounding Buffy will exist, survive, and thrive in the face of all adversity while the world quite literally -- it is a show of extremes -- falls to pieces around her.
In the final episode of the show, Sunnydale -- the fictional town in which Buffy and her friends save the world every season -- has been destroyed. They stand at the edge of an enormous crater that has swallowed Sunnydale whole. After a brief sigh, the friends wonder what to do next. Giles, the adult who has trained and guided Buffy all these years, mentions that there is another Hellmouth in Ohio. Without hesitation, the friends turn and head off into the sunset to face the next challenge together. Riess encourages us all, no matter the circumstance, to go and do likewise.
Christy Risser-Milne is a closet fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, largely because of the show’s similarity to her favorite theologian of all time, Xena: Warrior Princess.
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