Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Season six is my favorite season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I like the dark themes, and I like seeing Willow grow up and mature as a result of her grief. (I also like the musical episode.) Recently, I was talking over Buffy when my friend, Bitch contributor Emily Manuel, reminded me about the surprising musical accompaniment to that season's final moments. This is the moment when Xander Harris forgives Willow Rosenberg, and Sarah McLachlan's "Prayer of St. Francis" plays in the background (lyrics):

I took your suggestions on your feminerd role models and tried to find instructions on making Miis for them for Nintendo Wii. There isn’t enough space to give full instructions on Miis here, but I’ll give you the list of the feminerd ones I did find on MiiCharacters, as well as a few I created, for which I’ve posted full instructions at my website.

Jennifer K. Stuller isn't your average Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan--she's a charter associate member of the Whedon Studies Association. In this episode of Read My Bitch, the podcast for Bitch magazine fans to read out loud a favorite article from the archives, Stuller revisits Rachel Fudge's article "The Buffy Effect: or, a Tale of Cleavage and Marketing," which was published in 1999, after the second season of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In our discussion afterwards, Stuller, a pop culture critic (author of Ink Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors and Grrrl on Film Bitch guest blogger), goes beyond what Buffy represents to feminists, but what legacy the Buffy has left--and what the future holds in store for small-screen heroines.

Stream the audio below, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or download from archive.org. Transcript available (.doc)

More after the jump!

Somebody should probably call these people up and inform them that actually, there is already a modern adaptation of Heathers on the air and it’s called Gossip Girl.  Oh yes, of course, Gossip Girl isn’t actually witty or smart or anything but Serena did kill that one guy and dates the modern version of Christian Slater’s character if said character had poured his dreams into modern Brooklyn “writer” “soulful” soullessness.  So please, for the love of God, don't try to remake it these days.  We'll end up with a poor substitute for Winona Ryder, I tell you what. 

Look, like everyone, I liked Heathers back in the day.  I just need to amend the proposition that I think that television is nice to women, somewhat, to say I think it's nice to women over the age of 18.   In fact, if anything, there is one archetype on television I think we have all had enough of in the last year: high-school bitchy.  (Lest you forget, in Tina Fey's famous words, this was Sarah Palin's most annoying personality trait.)  I am utterly and totally bored by the limited interpretation of the lives of teenage girls on television today.  Not a one of them seems to have the least bit of a problem with the world of consumerism and hot purses, and if they have academic or professional (read: fashion) ambition at all (read: Blair Waldorf), it is because such ambition would confer on them social status they would like to have.  Genuine intellectual curiosity, in a teenage girl on television today?  Pshaw.  You can't tear those ladies away from their Manolos!  And it's the reality too!  Have a look at The Hills sometime if you're looking for reasons to commit suicide, ladies!