Buffy – the modern fairytale?

Michelle Lam

An interest in the heroines of popular culture and modern day story-telling led Michelle Lam to a Masters thesis in the Department of Critical and Cultural Studies on the modern fairytale aspects of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In the wildly popular TV show that ran from 1997 to 2003, Buffy is a babe who fights evil and wins. She is a teenager with extraordinary powers, vanquishing devils, vampires, beasts and monsters. She realises her special gifts with the help of a community of friends.

According to Lam, Buffy’s adventures send messages of empowerment to young women everywhere. The show also allows them imaginative space to explore their lives and times, their challenges and problems.

Lam says that Buffy offers “a snapshot of a generation…a reflection of issues in our culture”. It’s a fairy-tale for our times, fresh and cool. Its use of popular idioms and 'Slayer slang' resonated with a wide range of viewers. Stories centred on issues faced by all young people, but with a twist.

“Imagine sleeping with your boyfriend for the first time only to turn him into a demon,” says Lam, laughing. “There are lots of issues explored: girl power and how to deal with it, since no power comes without a price; lesbianism, and parenting. Then there are the heavy moral issues: the implications of good versus evil, redemption.”

When she attended a Buffy conference with other serious fans, a Channel 7 executive said that Buffy single-handedly redefined prime-time advertising for the station. This is a strong endorsement of the message of the show.

Lam is interested in all the ramifications of popular culture. She majored in Psychology for her Arts degree, then did a Masters in Media, Communications and Information Technologies.

“I wrote a criminology paper on the representation of criminals and the justice system in The X-Files. I did a media law paper on censorship of popular media, concentrating on the music of the rapper Eminem,” she says

“With Buffy, my analysis is all about story-telling,” she says. She looks at fairy-tales in their social and cultural contexts, at how they started out as folk-tales then were taken up by the bourgeoisie to teach the young how to behave as good little girls and boys. Then this interpretation was questioned by the counter-culture. “I’m interested in how particular generations use stories, and how they get used by a society.”

One chapter of her thesis traces portrayals of evil in Buffy, from vampires to authority figures such as school principals and government officials. The show dealt with contemporary issues, such as school shootings and wars. “I look at the way the show dealt with those. At the time of the invasion of Iraq, Buffy was dealing with evil you couldn’t see. Questions were raised, such as ‘Does violence create more problems than it solves?’”

In a post-Buffy world, her image lingers. Websites proliferate, there are Buffy trivia nights, and international, country and state-wide meet-ups of fans. “A lot of Buffy clone shows have been tried and failed,” says Lam.

Lam’s supervisors can be contacted at tburvill@scmp.mq.edu.au or jkirkby@scmp.mq.edu.au or visit the Department of Critical and Cultural Studies website at http://www.ccs.mq.edu.au

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