The music at the start of BVS is both pulsating and youthful in its sound. This is common of teen dramas. As Banks writes the music “defines these dramas as distinctly young and trendy” (Banks, 2004, p.4) the text explored the teenagers anxieties on love, relationships, sex and their imminent growth to adulthood. The character Buffy was worried about her relationship with her new boyfriend, whilst the other characters all had emotional problems to deal with.
Banks writes that the ‘new protagonists within melodrama that they represent can articulate with great emotion teens’ fear of their own coming of age. This is central to the text because through its dealings with the growth into adulthood its audience can find a common problem with which they can associate. The vampires in the text represent the threat of adulthood. All the vampires are adults, while it’s the job of the teenagers to overcome these problems. As Plyden writes "The girl Slayer fights against the problematic of growing up in a patriarchy, with her interior conflicts expressed as literal demons and vampires which she must slay” (Thompson, 2002).
Another key convention within the text was the issue of alienation. The central character and her friends are all different. None of them are particular popular, while the central protagonist is seen as weird and out of place. She is best friend with what are usually described as geeks. One of her friends that bring about a key point in the analysis is Xander. He is man who is protected by a woman. His fate and well being are decided by a woman, Buffy. Buffy is superior to him, which causes him to struggle with the concept of masculinity. Xander’s role as the damsel in distress to Buffy’s knight in shining armor goes against traditional teen drama generic conventions
What’s interesting is that in teen dramas of the 50’s this was never the case. In melodramas of the 1950’s, with which today’s teen melodrama finds as its founder the lead protagonist was usually ‘a young man who struggles desperately to convey his pent up emotions’(Banks, 2004, p.3) In today’s other teen melodramas such as Smallville the protagonist saving the world is male. Yet Buffy defies conventions. Part of the reason for this is that ‘a genre develops according to social conditions’(Thwaites, 1994, p.100)
Generic conventions 'embody the crucial ideological concerns of the time in which they
are popular' (Fiske,1987, p.10)the ideology of the time helps dictate changes to genre.
Buffy creator Joss Whedon described Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an "all over the place transcending-genre kind of thing." (Stein, 2002) Well the text is mainly considered to be of the teen genre it does contain elements of the horror genre to. The fight against monsters and the idea of a patriarchal society is all central to the horror genre. The way that Buffy’s world is invaded by monsters, horror invades ‘home’ is another shared convention between horror and BVS.
However one aspect of BVS that goes against the horror genre is the role of women. In previous horror texts women were weak and frightened; however BVS changes traditional genre and ideological views. “Buffy's embodied strength, power, and assertiveness destabilize the traditional masculinity power of the vampire character in the horror genre, in effect policing those who prey upon the feminized” (Owen, 1999). Through the text femininity is conveyed as a forceful strong identity. Buffy is stronger then all the men she meets both physically and mentally. However Buffy is not empowered by past feminist movements in the text. She is empowered by herself. Indeed Karras writes that “Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy's relationship with her mother can be understood as a metaphor for the tenuous relationship between second and third wave feminists”(Karras, 2002) Buffy’s mother feels angry at the fact that Buffy doesn’t take full use of the rights she now has to the feminist movement of the 60’s.
In conclusion Buffy the Vampire Slayer contains generic conventions of the teen melodrama. Teenage anxieties such as friendship, love sex and growth to adulthood are all shown. However coupled with this are conventions of the horror genre such as the iconography of blood and crosses, as well as the idea of monsters and otherness. Yet BVS also manages to defy convention by establishing its protagonist as an all powerful, strong willed women. “Buffy as an open-image hero expose stereotypes and coded symbols that shore up a rigid war-influenced gender system in an attempt to chart new meanings for womanliness and manliness” (Early, 2001)
