Buffy's Deeper Meanings

With Buffy the Vampire Slayer taking the Australian television market by storm, it is becoming increasingly obvious that Buffy does more than just kick vampire butt.

Star Sarah Michelle Gellar not only entertains teens nation wide, but also questions morals and values - the same values that have been plaguing the gothic genre since Bram Stoker's Dracula - and socialises with the majority of young Australians' lives.

Popular culture is becoming increasingly consumed by a moralistic tone, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the perfect example. Ever since Stoker wrote his highly publicised novel in 1897, Dracula has had a large effect on today's society.

The classic good versus evil morals that Stoker introduced in his book is highly evident in many television programs presently reaching out to a wide range of audiences. The series involving Buffy is based upon this very theme.

Gellar plays the heroine, the good guy (or girl) that must defeat evil at all costs. While she is sexy, sleek, exceptionally strong and wears the right clothes - in other words, the perfect heroine in the minds of wide eyed teenage Australians - the job she has to perform saves lives. The enemies she has to defeat are both scary and extremely dangerous. The wider audience not only sides with Buffy, they connect with her. And it is this connection that sets the perfect platform for moral and valued lessons to be passed on. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an adapted version of Dracula, clearly evident through the vampire theme of the program, yet it is also argued that in Stoker's text, the same good versus evil battle was born. When the good guys in Dracula are up against the odds, the odds of a stronger and smarter enemy, the faith they have in the good fight get them over the line. The message this conveys to audiences worldwide is both strong and important. Buffy might be all about entertainment and appealing to the emotions, yet clearly the series does more than just entertain.

And yet the meaning behind Buffy doesn't stop there. One of the most recognisable features of the gothic genre is also evident throughout the series.

Bram Stoker was the first to publish a book that questioned the morals of an individual, the idea that every person had two sides - that of a light side and a dark side, or a good and evil personality. The idea of a vampire's bite, created in the novel Dracula, is completely based around the value of turning to the dark-side. Star Wars and Hitchcock's Psycho are also highly-rated films that have questioned the same notion. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is another in a series of followers

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