Buffy Summers: Class Protector
Stakes and Spike and everything nice! How Buffy The Vampire Slayer crafted the perfect main character
I’ve been preparing for October for weeks and by that I mean I’ve been in a Buffy The Vampire Slayer K hole (a B hole if you will…. wait…. not that).
There should be a word for when you’ve lost yourself so far in a show, you start to long for it like a lover. You’re walking around, taking in the blue skies, 75 degrees, no humidity and you’re thinking, This is nice. But you know what would make it better? If my friends Buffy, Willow, Giles and Xander were here. Yes, I said it. Xander! I’m in love with all of them! Toxic nice guys included.
I truly believe anyone who likes television will like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show about a teenage girl with a cosmic duty to kill demons, who moves to the fictional Sunnydale, California where there happens to be a lot of them. She and all her besties fight evil together and save the town from being sucked into hell every other episode. It’s campy, but almost no one disputes Buffy’s intelligence or daringness to step outside the genre, from musical episodes to realistic depictions of grief. Buffy is the epitome of why I watch TV: to feel at home in the characters, following them through triumphs and emotional upheavals, watching their connections with each other flourish and be challenged, break apart and come back together. Joss Whedon and Marti Noxon (but mostly Marti Noxon) successfully built a world I'd skip town for any day, demons and Hellmouth be damned.
On Sunday, I was watching season three’s “The Prom.” There are a handful of Buffy episodes that really make me bawl and this is one of them. As you could imagine, it centers around Buffy and the gang’s senior prom. Near the start of the episode, Buffy gets dumped by her undead beau Angel. He’s doing it for her own good, but this doesn’t make it any less devastating and it doesn’t mean he had to do it right before prom. These men are living for a thousand years and still not getting it!
To distract from her grief, Buffy throws herself into fighting off whatever evil is threatening to ruin her friends’ big night (“I'm gonna give you all a nice, fun, normal evening if I have to kill every, single person on the face of the Earth to do it!”) She ends up wrestling with some hell hounds and still finding time to go home and change into a too-pale-shade-of-pink-for-my-taste strapless dress before the night is over. She makes it just in time for the class superlatives. A student named Jonathan1, takes the stage. “We have one more award to give out…Is Buffy Summers here tonight?” Buffy talked Jonathan out of killing himself in the previous episode, so it’s only right that he reads out this message from the prom committee: “We’re not good friends. Most of us never found the time to get to know you. But that doesn't mean we haven't noticed you. We don't talk about it much, but it's no secret that Sunnydale High isn't really like other high schools. A lot of weird stuff happens here. But whenever there was a problem or something creepy happened, you seemed to show up and stop it. Most of the people here have been saved by you.” He presents her with a golden umbrella, inscribed with “Buffy Summers — Class Protector.”
Afterwards, Buffy’s watcher/father figure/librarian Giles tells her, “I had no idea that children, en masse, could be gracious.” At this point in the episode, I am a puddle. But in the midst of my blubbering, I came to a realization. A lot of shows can build a likable ensemble cast — Buffy did something more impressive. It created a main character you can root for consistently.
This may seem pretty basic, but think about it. Of all the shows we love, do most viewers favor the “main” character? New Girl’s theme song croons “Who’s that girl? It’s Jess!” But eventually Zoey Deschenel’s character became so obsolete, she was replaced with Megan Fox. Mallika wrote about The OC last week. Are we really watching that show to get a glimpse into the life of Chino-bred bad boy Ryan Atwood? Or are we tuning in so we can see Seth and Summer’s enemies-to-friends-to-lovers romance blossom? And if your favorite character in One Tree Hill is Lucas or your fave in The Vampire Diaries is Elena Gilbert, I wanna talk to you.
Even the central characters I was rooting for at the start can falter after a few seasons. Was Meredith Grey the sun or just a “pick me” girl? Veronica Mars was truly testing my patience in season three. It became hard to justify Olivia Pope’s choices in the later seasons of Scandal. And I’ve written about how Amy Sherman Palladino’s women have fallen out of my good graces.
There’s a reason a side character ends up being “the heart of the show” for most shows. Waaay less pressure on those guys. A main character is, by nature, the center of attention. They’re special, for one reason or another. So your average viewer might find themselves aspiring to be that character, but never fully identifying with them. When a person is the gravitational center of a series, it's almost as if they can’t escape coming off as vapidly self-absorbed, or at least a little whiny.
By all definitions, Buffy Summers is set up to meet a similar fate. The series kicks off with a voiceover that says, “To each generation, a slayer is born. One girl in all the world, a chosen one.” One girl! In all the world! She’s a cute, tiny blonde with a wardrobe any 90s girl (and I) would kill for, who is extra strong and can do krav maga or whatever! If I saw her on Instagram I’d hate her deeply.
But against all odds, Buffy is not just relatable, but consistently lovable. I cry when she cries. I feel protective when she’s been wronged. I’m happy when she’s happy. In other words, I feel the way her circle of Scoobies, Xander, Willow and Giles feel about her. Meanwhile, there’s a disconnect in shows like The Vampire Diaries or Summer I Turned Pretty where the audience doesn’t fully understand why this one brunette with flimsy morals and a questionable logic is surrounded by people who’d give their souls, organs & social security numbers for her. You see memes on the internet saying “I don’t know if I’m team Jeremiah or team Conrad but I’m sure not team Belly!”
Obviously as the internet is cheering on Laurel slapping her daughter on SITP, we’re still seeing main characters (mostly women) draw ire from their audience. To channel one of those problematic main characters, I couldn’t help but wonder… is this intentional? Does it do some kind of service for the viewership to put a character at the center who’s less charismatic, less sympathetic? Maybe it helps inch the show closer to an ensemble cast (i.e TVD, The OC, Dawson’s Creek). But as I said earlier, Buffy has a strong ensemble cast and a strong lead.
I’d argue that if a main character doesn’t fit into the antihero archetype but by the end of the show is more loathed than loved by the viewers, they got there by accident. The writers made a few wrong turns, or even more likely, inadvertently set their heroes and heroines up for failure.
So how did Sarah Michelle Gellar and the Buffy writers crack the code? Can it be replicated? Or was it, like most things that work beautifully in television, just lightning in a bottle?
Should I compile my theories here like a Buzzfeed listicle? 5 reasons Buffy Summers is a relatable QUEEN who LITERALLY slays? Fuck it, why not:
Reason #1 - Buffy is not a character meant to be won.
Unlike some of our other teenage heroines, Buffy pretty much dates one boyfriend at a time with no overlap, you know, like a normal person (who isn’t Ariana Grande). Her romances are more akin to ones in an action film: they’re ancillary. They fit in with the larger story but they aren’t the story. And there are no teams. You’re either Team Buffy or you go home!
This is where the other vampire shows, The Summer I Turned Pretty, and even Gilmore Girls got it wrong. These love triangles where the woman has to “choose” between two men can give the illusion of female empowerment, but they never turn out that way. When a main character is a prize two brothers (why do they always have to be brothers?) are wrestling over to win, it usually leaves her stuck in the corner waiting to see who comes out on top. She’ll have a few openings to stand up for herself and exit the fray, but it’s clearly a hard-won battle, and she’ll inevitably get sucked back in and all but immobilized.
I’m thinking about poor Elena in The Vampire Diaries who in one of the show’s infamous “Dance of the Decades” episodes nearly fends off a vampire by herself by stabbing him in the hand with a pencil. It’s her more competent vampire boyfriends who eventually save her from harm but she triumphantly tells Stefan later in the evening, “I fought back!” I can’t help but picture Buffy and her duffel bag filled with stakes laughing from a distance.
Reason #2 - Buffy is strong, and therefore safe.
The whole slayer deal means that for Buffy, vampires and demons and scary monsters are, for the most part, no sweat. Maybe it’s the superhero syndrome, but there’s something comforting about a character who you already know is stronger than most of the demons (the literal ones, at least) they have to face. This is why horror movies stress me out, watching those dummies make one bad decision after another until they’ve reached their bloody end. I loved the movie Nope because despite all the murderous aliens and chimpanzees, I had full confidence Keke Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya were going to figure that shit out. These are the kinds of characters you’d want to track down and bunk with during a natural disaster (I would include exactly 0 Marvel characters in this list).
Because Buffy is competent, she takes on the role of protector, which means she’s usually left without one of her own. As viewers, we fill in the negative space with our own emotions. We become protective of Buffy. I’ll sometimes find myself yelling at the TV screen telling Willow and Xander they’re being too hard on her. She’s been through so much! Leave her alone!
Reason #3 - Buffy gets the normal girl treatment.
Buffy might be the chosen one, but no one voted her homecoming queen. She gets dumped before prom. Her birthdays are always the worst. She missed picture day, so her name in her high school yearbook is accompanied by a gray question mark. She sleeps with a guy in college who never calls her back and spirals about it for two weeks. She sometimes has bad haircuts with itty bitty bangs. Her friends get passive aggressive and avoidant with her when she acts up and she is then forced to apologize. She’s not that good in school. She has a job (slayer) with some corporate overlords (the watcher’s council) who work her way too hard and wildly undercompensate her (by not paying her at ALL. This is why there’s only one girl in all the world, so they can’t unionize!)
The writers of Buffy are able to grasp what Amy Sherman Palladino could not. If you try to make your protagonist perfect, she will fail. Despite being as special as a girl can be, in a lot of ways, Buffy is average. It’s not just that she has normal girl experiences, it’s that people treat her like a normal girl. No one is worshiping at her altar. Even her boyfriends love her a normal amount. And this allows her to be a vessel for the human experience. She does a pretty good job representing what it’s like to be a high school girl, or a child of divorce or a lonely college freshman. Folks have even pointed out that Buffy’s mother’s reaction to finding out she’s a vampire slayer and their resulting relationship mirrors the coming out experience for many in the LGBTQ community.
“The Prom” is a tear-jerker for me because it’s one of the few times Buffy is revered by her peers, and it feels entirely earned. You can also see what it means to her, a credit to Sarah Michelle Gellar’s emoting. There’s something beautiful about watching someone receive love with no hesitation at the moment they need it most.
Reason #4 - Buffy can be vulnerable.
I’m harping too much on all these female protagonists, but the guys have it rough too. Ted Moseby from How I Met Your Mother has to be one of the more insufferable characters on television. Lucas Scott, Dawson Leery, Dan Humphry, Clark Kent of Smallville (had to put some kind of superhero in here to even the playing field): These men who we tell stories through are arguably much worse than our brunette damsels in distress. They all have a false perception of their own emotional intelligence. They think they’re sensitive, when they’re really just judgemental and manipulative. They have a nice guy complex while treating women like garbage. They drown in their pool of victimhood.
By virtue of being a woman, Buffy has these guys beat. She’s absent aSo victim complex and inherently more attuned to the emotions of people around her. And as a woman, she can get away with less. In the moments where she does run from her emotions, whether it’s by acting a little cunty2 at The Bronze or changing her name and moving to LA, everyone in her life demands an explanation and apology, even though she almost always has a good excuse.
But aside from the big, catastrophic moments where the pain is so massive she can’t face it head on, Buffy takes her emotions in stride. She allows herself to cry in her best friend Willow’s lap after a breakup. She’s never trying to conceal the love she has for all of her friends. It’s apparent throughout the series that she considers Giles a father, Xander a brother, Willow a soulmate (though the show failed their relationship in the later seasons). She’s not careless with her heart, but she doesn’t shy away from love either. Even her love for Faith, the other, more problematic, slayer is palpable.
The show, smartly, depicts Buffy’s willingness to trust and rely on her friends as the reason she survives. For someone who has every reason to be guarded and stoic, she’s neither.
Reason #5 - Buffy is played by Sarah Michelle Gellar
Let’s recap. So far, I’ve gathered that to be a truly likable protagonist, you need to not be anywhere near a love triangle. You have to be extremely competent on your own merits, but also be open and accepting of love and help. And your circle of friends needs to humble you, not worship you. Seems pretty achievable. But now we add the lightning in a bottle component. There’s just no one like Sarah Michelle Gellar.
The only person I can think to compare her to in this day and age is Florence Pugh, in that Pugh made Amy March in Little Women likable the same way Gellar made Daphne in Scooby Doo likeable. Gellar has been supremely unproblematic for three decades and still holding. Her marriage to Freddie Prinze Jr. is my favorite in all of Hollywood and any to lay a finger against it will fall a mighty fall at my witchly behest. Divorce autumn, you best not test me!
Gellar is somehow nice and bitchy and I think this is key both to her being the perfect person to play Buffy Summers and for her ability to have iconic characters who are blonde, brunette, and ginger. She could play all three of the PowerPuff Girls!
Her subtle snark and natural realness lends itself perfectly to the pre-slaying banter which is Buffy’s bread and butter. And perhaps the other element a likable protagonist needs is a bit of an edge. Afterall we hate Elena Gilbert, but we love Katherine Pierce. We see Gellar lean way further into the primadonna in movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Cruel Intentions. In Buffy, she manages to maintain a nice girl image with a bitchly presence boiling underneath, occasionally bubbling up when she’s got Spike chained to a bathtub or a literal roommate from hell borrowing her sweater without asking. Gellar does it so well. I put her in a category with Kirsten Dunst in that I can’t put my finger on what makes them so elite but that’s why they’re so elite.
So there you go, throw in a once-in-a-generation actress, a little bitchiness, and all the stuff I said earlier and you have a main character everyone is sure to love. Now that the writers strike is over, it’s time to get to work!
B Plot
Question: What’s a phrase you say a lot because you heard it on a TV show?
Mallika: Something I love to do is wear shoes that I know will give me blisters for five days and then act surprised and complain incessantly when they do in fact give me blisters. Every time I pull out my favorite black boots and my fiancé politely asks, “Why don’t you wear shoes that will not make you miserable for once?” I respond “Fashion knows not of comfort.” I actually don’t know one thing about fashion and realize my boots aren’t cute enough to be worth the pain, but I do know a thing or two about Blair Waldorf, who said this to Jenny Humphrey in season one of Gossip Girl.
Rachel: I want to have more of a deep cut here. But if I’m being completely honest, there is one phrase that I have either said or had said in my direction several times in the last few weeks and it’s as basic as it gets:
And they say we don’t watch reality TV! For my runner up: I have been writing a story that involves bankruptcy and I cannot stop using it as an occasion to channel Michael Scott and say,“I declare BANKRUPTCY.” Also in another life, you would catch me singing this song all the time.
C Plot
With power comes great responsibility and that’s why we’re so sorry for getting the iCarly reboot cancelled after dumping on childhood revival shows a few weeks back. While we personally don’t care who Carly’s mom is, the fact that they ended it on such a major cliffhanger does in fact feel illegal.
In good childhood-reboot-show news, Jamie Lynn Spears has been booted off Dancing with the Stars. The only thing more embarrassing than going on Dancing with the Stars nowadays is getting kicked off two weeks in. As Joe from You says, “The universe has a funny way of keeping us humble.”
Ed Westwick (Chuck Bass) and Kelly Rutherford (Lily van der Woodsen) reunited for some mommy/son time during Paris fashion week. When a man is acting up, we swear, you can always see it in his hairline. Someone please hire Kristen Bell in one of those celebrity strike auction things to record, in her Gossip Girl voice, “Hey Upper East Siders, we know at least one bed bug is coming back from Paris Fashion Week, and that’s Chuck Bass.”
She should do this for free actually, as an act of goodwill to answer for her husband making Queer Eye’s sweet, sweet Jonathan Van Ness cry. This has not been a good season for short, spunky women with tall, loud husbands.
And finally, Paul Wesley never thinks about the Roman Empire.
played by Danny Strong who has my favorite career in Hollywood. He would go on to play Doyle in Gilmore Girls and then write several award winning movies and TV shows, and ??The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1 and 2??? That man’s IMDB is insane)
Ok I’m retiring this word now. I don’t even think I’m using it right anymore.