What makes 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' a popular TV Programme?

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Paul Garbett 10DXS

What makes ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ a popular TV Programme?

By Paul Garbett 10DXS

Vampire stories have been told for hundreds of years, and like all things, they have evolved with time. As technology has moved forward so did the stories, and vampire films soon became popular. These stories have recently moved onto the small screen, the most popular of which, a modern adaptation of the tradition vampire myth called ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’. This popular programme has a massive following here in the UK and also overseas and is now in its 7th series of programmes and has been seen on TV screens around the world for over four years.

Vampires are well known for their fanged teeth, slick combed back black hair and red and black capes; however, in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ these traditions have made way for ghoulish monsters and female fighters. We each have our own different ideas about what and who vampires are, but, the media use their power on us to create a strong image of what a vampire ‘should’ look like and have endorsed traditions believed for many years. When I say the word vampire, what do you think of? I am sure that many of us would think of a dark figure with fanged teeth and wearing a distinctive black cape with a red collar. In order to maximise viewing figure, the creator’s of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ have made a good blend of the horror genre and the typical American high school programme. This mixture of different genres is suitable for many different age groups and tastes.

The first episode is titled ‘Welcome to Hellmouth’ this name is an oxymoron as it uses words that express good and bad. The build up to the episode shows a young couple breaking into the school through a window in the science lab. This action not only ads tension but also shows a link between science and the supernatural, something that has been talked about for hundreds of years. The woman turns into a green hideous monster and kills that boy. This is very rare for a vampire tale as traditionally vampires did not look like monsters and also they only attacked defenseless females.

The episode starts properly when Buffy Summers, a 16-year-old girl moves to Sunnydale, from LA with her mother. This is not the setting that we would expect for a vampire story as the word ‘Sunnydale’ hardly paints a picture of a dark, scary place full of vampires. Therefore, this name subverts the traditional signifier’s. On the first day of school, Cordelia, the popular girl inducts Buffy into the cool crowd despite this Buffy attempts to be friends with three other students, Xander, Willow and Jesse. This gesture shows us that Buffy is a good judge of character, strong minded and that she is a leader not a follower.

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Buffy goes to the school library to get some text books. The library, although a more unusual setting was much more like something from a vampire story, it was dark and empty. To add tension the producers used ‘scary’ disjointed music to try and set the scene and the camera moves in onto a newspaper article, to which you can read the headline which refers to a missing teenage boy. This article casts a question mark over the ‘normal’ nice Sunnydale.

Then a figure appears behind Buffy, it is Giles, the new school librarian and Buffy's new watcher. He ...

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