Into Every Generation a Slayer Is Born: How Buffy Staked Our Hearts *PDF
Explore the history and cultural impact of a groundbreaking television show adored by old and new fans alike: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Over the course of its seven-year run, Buffy the Vampire Slayer cultivated a loyal fandom and featured a strong, complex female lead, at a time when such a character was a rarity. Evan Ross Katz explores the show’s cultural relevance through a book that is part oral history, part celebration, and part memoir of a personal fandom that has universal resonance still, decades later. Katz—with the help of the show’s cast, creators, and crew—reveals that although Buffy contributed to important conversations about gender, sexuality, and feminism, it was not free of internal strife, controversy, and shortcomings. Men—both on screen and off—would taint the show’s reputation as a feminist masterpiece, and changing networks, amongst other factors, would drastically alter the show’s tone. Katz addresses these issues and more, including interviews with stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, Charisma Carpenter, Emma Caulfield, Amber Benson, James Marsters, Anthony Stewart Head, Seth Green, Marc Blucas, Nicholas Brendon, Danny Strong, Tom Lenk, Bianca Lawson, Julie Benz, Clare Kramer, K. Todd Freeman, Sharon Ferguson; and writers Douglas Petrie, Jane Espenson, and Drew Z. Greenberg; as well as conversations with Buffy fanatics and friends of the cast including Stacey Abrams, Cynthia Erivo, Lee Pace, Claire Saffitz, Tavi Gevinson, and Selma Blair. Into Every Generation a Slayer Is Born engages with the very notion of fandom, and the ways a show like Buffy can influence not only how we see the world but how we exist within it. Read more
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Why Must Read Into Every Generation a Slayer Is Born: How Buffy Staked Our Hearts?
To be very fair, the author warned me. Right at the beginning the author acknowledges that they love the show and they “do not Stan blindly,” but I wish I knew a bit more what I was getting into. The book does celebrate Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but it also HEAVILY focuses on “the problematic figurehead who created the show” engulfed by too many personal stories and quotes about: resentments, arguments, grudges, lack of friendships on set, and much more that I wish I could un-know. While I delighted in reading the author’s theory on why Angel vamps out the first time he and Buffy kiss, to knowing what his top 3 favorite weapons are (mine is Faith’s badass knife for sure) -the joys I felt were quickly obliterated by too much darkness in a show (that, yes has very dark moments-see season 6) is only a source of joy and light to me. I guess I prefer to stay blissfully unaware that certain coworkers weren’t friends on set or that one villain who died is angry that they died. If you are a Buffy fan who can handle the things I could not (seriously there isn’t one part-not one part of Buffy that I don’t love-I love it occasional plot flaws, Kennedy (ugh) and all) and this book made me too sad. I hope it finds a Buffy audience that loves it in the same/similar way that Buffy devotee and super fan Evan Ross Katz does, but it wasn’t for me.
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