Why Buffy Kicked Ass - Letters - Brief Article - Letter to the Editor

Reason, Dec, 2003 by Miles Fowler

Virginia Postrel's piece on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ("Why Buffy Kicked Ass," August/September) is a welcome meditation on the libertarian aspects of that series, although Buffy is not always consciously or consistently an advocate of free markets or individual liberty. (Creator Joss Whedon actually explored those themes more with his short-lived TV space opera Firefly.)

One of the ongoing subplots of the series is Buffy's struggle to take back control of her life from the amoral Watchers Council, which for centuries has not only trained but dominated each generation's Slayer. Gradually, Buffy realizes that she does not need the council and that its directors have tried to control her in no small part because they fear her. (A chief mystery of the series is why there is only one Slayer when there are so many vampires; it turns out that those who created the first Slayer made only one precisely because they Feared having more.) At the end of the series's third season, the following exchange occurs between Buffy and Wesle55 the new and incompetent watcher the council has just assigned to her:

Wesley: The council's orders are to concentrate on ...

Buffy: Orders? I don't think I'm going to be taking any more orders. Not from you. Not from them.

Wesley: You can't turn your back on the council.

Buffy: They're in England. I don't think they can tell which way my back is facing.

Whatever Buffy lacks here in strict logic, she more than makes up for in autonomous spunk, showing us the true spirit of a hero.

By the way, although the series was in production and ready to air in 1996, it did not begin broadcast that year, as Postrel suggests, but had to wait until the spring of 1997. It was actually on the air for six and a half years rather than the commonly cited seven.

Miles Fowler

Charlottsville, VA