At 18, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Is Still Revolutionary — The Atlantic:
Eighteen years ago, Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired for the first time on The WB in a two-part debut. “Welcome to the Hellmouth” introduced viewers to Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a likable, popular 16-year-old who just happened to have a destiny that included saving the world from the undead; while also introducing Buffy to Sunnydale, a small, run-of-the-mill California town that just happened to sit on a Hellmouth—a portal of mystical energy that attracts demons, vampires, and other boogeymen.
Just a note that it was tremendous fun to listen to James Marsters speak about
Buffy in the panel discussion Blake and I attended at Raleigh Wizard Con last weekend. It was subversive then, and while the female action hero genre has taken off since, the effects of it haven't transformed society to the extent we would have hoped. (Check the
latest news about fraternities, for
example. Penn State's and NC State's disgraces are just two of the most recent. So skeeved right now.) So, we need more Buffys.
