(Spoiler alert for the entirety of Buffy the Vampire Slayer series.)
I was twelve years old the first time I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer in its entirety. The show had already ended its run on television, but I had found the boxset on sale at my local DVD store. Now, here’s the thing: I knew what Buffy was, a show about a young woman who was chosen by fate to battle evil forces. I had vague memories of my cousin babysitting me while we were visiting family, and her putting it on in French and making me and my little brother watch it. But before the moment that boxset was in my hands, I had never watched the entire series, nor in English at that. For the next few months, every day after school, I would pop a DVD in and just lose myself in the Buffyverse. I fell in love with the characters, I cried with Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) when her mom died, I laughed at Xander (Nicholas Brendon), swooned over Faith (Eliza Dushku), and mostly discovered my sexuality alongside Willow (Alyson Hannigan). Buffy the Vampire Slayer became a staple for me, a show I would rewatch with love and care, carrying that precious boxset everywhere I moved.
But a few years ago I started my ultimate rewatch and for the first time, I didn’t find myself enjoying this show as I used to. It was like watching a different show; something I didn’t know. All I could see was the abuse that those female characters we had all praised as strong characters had been put through while realizing that the men didn’t need any of that to get stories. I was watching the show with a lens that forced me to realize, yes, Buffy The Vampire Slayer might have been a show that helped me through a lot but now, I was ready to admit that maybe it wasn’t as perfect as I always preached.
There is no denying that the women of Buffy the Vampire Slayer are strong. The show changed a lot for the television landscape when it came to women characters, with many praising Whedon and the writers room for so much ass-kicking. But it is also impossible to not dive into the treatment of the female characters compared to their male counterparts. I am in no way saying that male characters on the show don’t suffer, or have trauma. That would be denying the obvious. They have their fair share of trauma, but Buffy The Vampire Slayer over-relies on women’s trauma: it bathes itself in it, even abuses it at points. A woman’s trauma becomes synonymous with the strength of her character, and by the end of the show, trauma and character are one and the same
Why is it that Buffy the Vampire Slayer seems to be incapable of growing their female characters without traumatizing them? That is a question that we will probably never be able to answer, because the reality is we weren’t in the room where it happened. But we can watch and analyze. Buffy The Vampire Slayer was created by a man, Joss Whedon. A man that has been put on a pedestal for years, and hailed as one of the few good men. Even after his ex-wife came forward with allegations of infidelity and stating that she had to go seek help for PTSD because of the emotional abuse she had suffered at his hand, most still saw Joss Whedon as the feminist who created Buffy.
Even today, as allegations against him surfaced, in particular with Ray Fisher coming forward with his treatment on the Justice League reshoots, Charisma Carpenter coming forward with her treatment on the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and Michelle Trachtenberg following suit with her own claims against the writer/director, Joss Whedon has yet to face any consequences for his actions, or even release a statement about the events. But now, knowing all of this, how can we sit here and watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer and not see a correlation? How can we watch and not see that this was a man putting forward a show in the image of what he saw women as? Weak until they suffered a traumatic event, and rose above.
Let’s take a closer look at two characters in particular: Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg.
Many have found Buffy Summers to be a catalyst for the rise of the heroine in television. Buffy Summers didn’t invent the strong female character, but she was one of the more prominent ones, one that a lot of teenagers could relate to. She had the same problems that most of us did as a teenage girl and relating to her was easy. The moment I knew that Buffy would always suffer to become stronger was when she walks into her house to find her mother dead in Season 5 Episode 15 “I Was Made to Love You.” But no other season decided to make Buffy suffer more than season six, when Buffy comes back to life. During the final episode of season five, Buffy sacrifices herself in order to save her supernaturally-created younger sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg). Her sacrifice saves the world again but more importantly, saves her sister’s life. It’s only after having spent months in what the Scooby Gang believes to be Hell that Buffy is revived, but she is simply not herself. With this plot, the show decides to give us one of the hardest seasons to watch, a season where Buffy Summers is weak and suffers from PTSD. For one season, we sit through Buffy slowly getting more and more depressed, only to rise above by the end and emerge stronger than ever.
Willow Rosenberg was, by far, the character I loved the most during my first watch of the show. As I watched her journey, I discovered my own sexuality. I fell in love with her and for the first time, I finally saw a lesbian character able to be happy and grow alongside her friends. And then, “Seeing Red” happened. I don’t even want to dive deeply into the “Bury Your Gays” trope that Buffy employed, but to me, the hardest thing to watch was the aftermath. For most of the series, Willow had been teased to be the most powerful witch. We saw bits and pieces here and there, mostly in season six where she started abusing her magic. But the moment Tara (Amber Benson) dies in her arms, Willow finally taps into her full potential and becomes Dark Willow.
Tara had been a groundbreaking character, one of the first integral lesbian characters on prime-time network television. Her relationship with Willow was the first recurring depiction of a lesbian couple on primetime television. Tara and Willow were more than just a couple. For a lot of young fans they were the only depiction of themselves that they had. The moment that the stray bullet hit her, everything changed for me. It was just another example of a female character becoming more powerful after suffering, but it was also the first time I had to witness the death of a gay character. Willow only taps into her full potential after suffering and holding the love of her life in her arms as she dies.
There are more examples of abuse of women in Buffy. I could write a full article on just Faith Lehane – her character arc is simply suffering on top of suffering. But it isn’t just limited to the flagship show. What about Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) and Winifred (Amy Acker) in Angel? Or even Anya (Emma Caulfield) and her treatment on Buffy?
I get that characters need to suffer to make good television. What I take offence to is when a show is incapable of crafting other stories for female characters outside of that pattern. Sure, we become stronger after a traumatic event, but is it necessary that something awful happens with every single woman every two episodes, while Xander just coasts along for the ride most of the time? The problem I have with Buffy is that we hailed it as this untouchable piece of television when in reality, it reflects the men in charge, and the time it was created in.
It isn’t impossible to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and still enjoy it. But we can also look at it as it is: an imperfect piece of television history, created by a man that wanted to be seen as a feminist and yet, only found that he could craft strong female characters after they had suffered more than anyone else. Buffy will forever be a piece of me, but now, as I watch it again, I can’t help but sigh every time a strong woman is broken down to a million pieces while the men just walk freely, without anything happening to them.
