In the twenty years since the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired, it’s enjoyed quite a legacy. It’s still dissected and beloved by not only nostalgic millennials aching for a past that was far easier than the present, but by academics, critics, and other bonafide adults.
It’s frequently featured on lists of the greatest TV shows ever - and with good reason. It’s easy to forget just how groundbreaking Buffy was but in the last twenty years we’ve seen a number of not only blatant imitators and obvious successors, and Buffy-shaped imprints across shows that you would never even have expected to feel its influence.
It’s referenced constantly, both onscreen and off, and has made a lasting impact on TV that we’ll feel for another 20 years to come. Buffy was funny, it was brave, and it was at times devastating. It changed the way that many producers think about making shows and better writers than me have discussed it in far more detail, but here let us celebrate just a few of the things it did better than anyone.
It put women front and centre
The inimitable Xena: Warrior Princess came before Buffy in the early 90s as a show that gave the spotlight to strong, ass-kicking women. However, it was still pretty rare to find a fantasy or science fiction show that prioritised women and their experiences. The men of Buffy assist with the narrative, observe everything and do provide their occasionally needed insight; but ultimately, Buffy was about women.
Take the men out of most shows and you’d have very little left. Women had been in ‘women’s shows’ for years, but with Buffy, they were finally allowed to star in things that were just as exciting as the shows that men got to lead. It focused not only on Buffy’s immense physical strength but the emotional nuances of being a woman.
It allowed women to be bitchy and still beloved while exploring issues of misogyny, rape, and other things that are present in women’s day-to-day lives; all in a package that appealed to an entire audience. Debates have raged for 20 years about whether or not Buffy was a feminist show, but at the very least it prioritised the experiences of women and made an entire generation of girls feel seen and empowered.
It paved the way
Sure, Xena came first. And so did Sabrina, by a little. But then Buffy, which single-handedly boosted The WB Television Network’s ratings, was so incredibly well-received and ferociously adored that many others hopped on its tails. It was partly due to the success of Buffy, and partly because Buffy arrived at the centre of a supernatural storm, that we can pretty much guarantee that it inspired Charmed, Tru Calling, and basically every vampire show since, and more than its fair share of absolutely forgettable shows, books, and films.
It also changed the way that shows were written; inspiring other writers to weave long-running story arcs into their shows, and prompting a tonne of other people to emulate screenwriter Joss Whedon’s witty (and occasionally annoying) dialogue. It also gave people more confidence in shows that told the stories of strong women, and we can thank Buffy for a great many of the heroines that we have on our screen to this day.
It popularised the occult
You would most likely be lying if you sat there and pretended that with the combined influence of Buffy and Sabrina in the late 90s, you never sharpened a stake or made a 'potion' at a sleepover.
Buffy made loads of things very, very cool. And while the occult was already seeping back into popular culture at the time, Buffy definitely brought it into the mainstream in a big way. Young girls (and boys) everywhere spent the late 90s cooking up potions, hunting for vampires, and attempting to do backflips in their living rooms. So much so that an article in the Independent back in 2000 reported that a teachers’ union was warning parents that 'children are at risk from satanic and occult material posted on the internet', and that 'interest had been heightened by the huge popularity of television programmes such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is based on a teenage girl who has violent battles with satanic forces'.
It took risks
As if putting a show about a female Southern Californian vampire slayer on the air (and keeping it there) wasn’t enough of a gamble, Buffy went further than its contemporaries did, and that many have since.
Rather than sticking to its (pretty infallible) monster of the week/big bad/long-running story arc prototype, it took very real risks that could have damaged its reputation. One of those risks was having a lesbian relationship on screen. In a world pre-L Word and even pre-Alex and Marissa, Joss Whedon had to fight some pretty tough battles to bring us Willow and Tara. He had to fight even harder to get them to kiss on screen, despite the fact that we had seen several hetero sex scenes by that point.
He also took risks with episode formats and artistic decisions - more than I have space for here, but a couple of examples include the season four episode Hush. The episode was predominantly silent, but the risk paid off to the point that the episode is remembered as one of the best by Buffy fans, but by basically all TV writers as well.
Then there was Once More With Feeling, the season six musical episode. Whedon was repeatedly warned against it, his own actors didn’t want to take part, and it could have damaged his and the show’s reputation - but it too paid off. Whedon repeatedly took risks that placed Buffy in history books, a place may not have been if he had played it safe.
It was brutal
Warning: if you’ve been under a rock for twenty years, spoilers ahead.
And on that same note, Buffy took risks in killing its darlings. If Joss Whedon is remembered for nothing else, it will be for murdering the characters that we hold close to our hearts.
Buffy was most of the time astoundingly funny, but unlike many of its perceived contemporaries, it knew just how to stop your laughing and stab you in the heart. It killed Tara, Anya, Spike, even Buffy once or twice. It constantly reminded you of the reality of Buffy’s life as not only a superhero but a very normal sixteen-year-old girl who should have been doing literally anything other than saving her friends’ lives.
It showed us her fear and her strength. It showed the gut-wrenching sadness of losing your virginity to a boy who turns out to be a monster. In The Body, one of the riskiest and most devastating episodes, it showed the reality of losing a parent and it did it all without music. It showed the consequent reality of having no money and not being able to work a regular job. In The Gift, it showed Buffy sacrificing herself for the world and for her younger sister; Buffy’s monologue to Dawn has been dissected and quoted over and over in the years since, and it’s still as devastating as it was in 2001. Buffy was at its best when it was brutal, and it did it better than any regular non-supernatural drama.
Like this? You might also be interested in...
8 Things Buffy The Vampire Slayer Taught Me About Friendship
Follow Marianne on Twitter @marianne_eloise
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.