How does 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' subvert the horror genre?

has prophetic dreams. In a typical horror film she wouldn’t tell the group of these dreams, and would keep the information to herself, probably leading to her death. However she does tell Giles of these dreams, and asks him for guidance, thus subverting the genre. Finally, Willow is a witch and so her powers and knowledge of this world, and her spirit often help. This and the group essence of the ‘Scooby gang’ are especially prominent in the final episode of season 4 Primeval. Buffy is unable to overcome to villain alone, but a spell cast by the group, which unifies each member of the ‘group’ together, helps her defeat the villain when she would have died alone. She knows that the group will always help her, as shown in a conversation between her and Xander in this episode, where he says “Buffy, I still don’t like you going in alone,” and she replies, “I won’t be,” The media attributes and parts of the programme beyond the script and characters also help to make the programme unique from other horror films and programmes. The way that camera angles and sound effects are used is one of these. When you watch ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ you are aware that is a horror programme. The target audience for the programme would have some knowledge of other, more conventional horror productions, and would probably make some presumptions about what is going to happen based on this knowledge. In a typical horror film the camera follows the victim, panning around them and showing shots of their back as if the audience is seeing them through the villain’s eyes, giving the victim an extra sense of helplessness. Your perception of this situation is used against you when watching ‘Buffy’, and a typical example of this at the beginning of the first episode, Welcome to the Hellmouth. The camera first uses low shots of the floor and under the desk, and lingers on specific objects such as the skeleton in one of the classrooms. This gives the impression that there is a creature in the school. Then we see a couple that we presume are pupils breaking into the school. The camera pans around the two and shows shots of them, which makes them, look vulnerable. Sound affects such as crashes and the soundtrack are also used to create a tense atmosphere. It is then that the female member of the couple turns out to be the vampire and villain, and so even the way that camera angles and sounds are used in ‘Buffy’ is subversive.The setting is another one of these attributes. It comes across as relatively normal at first and in the first few series’ the main setting is a typical American high school in a town called ‘Sunnydale’, whereas in most horror productions there will be obvious aspects to the setting that show such as secluded areas and ‘creepy’ seeming settings. The fact that Sunnydale (also known as the ‘Hellmouth’) at first seems such a normal setting makes the abnormal events that go on a lot more realistic that if typical settings were used. However, the High School setting was chosen for more reasons than just to make the programme seem realistic. It is conveying the message and the whole setting is the metaphor that high school equals hell. Many of the stories that involve high school teenagers are, in the eyes of Buffy’s creator, Josh Whedon, just an exaggeration of what a nightmare and the horror high school really is, such as werewolves being a ‘puberty nightmare’ and there are also stories about events that are easily identifiable with, such as unpopularity, except these events are then exaggerated and made to fit into the genre in ways such as, in the unpopularity story, the girl turns invisible.Making the set-up realistic also stretches to the characters, and especially Buffy herself. Despite being the ‘slayer’, who is technically a superhero, she is also very like a normal teenager girl, and has the same sort of interests as any other ‘normal’ girl of her age. She is often emotional, has interests in boys and clothes and is also very self-aware. You see this almost immediately in ‘Welcome to the Hellmouth’ when she is trying to decide what to wear for the dance; she holds up two separate outfits in front of the mirror and comments on both of them, firstly, “Hi, I’m a complete slut,” and secondly “Hi would you like to buy a copy of the watch tower.” These sentences also show that she is aware of the ‘male gaze,’ another key way in which ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ subverts the horror genre, by ‘breaking’ this. The male gaze is the way that men see or would like to see women. The women are the focus of the male attention and the text is set up as a fiction of male fantasy or desire. It also shows men as the dominant gender, and this is especially prominent in horror pieces in situations such as when women are alone in vulnerable positions in alleyways or other such deserted settings. In Buffy they often show women in these positions, such as in ‘Welcome to the Hellmouth’, when Buffy walks down an alleyway on her own. You see her back and then you see someone (who turns out to be Angel) walk up on her. She immediately reacts and attacks him in self defence, taking control of the situation and being proactive, whereas in a typical film, such as in the scene where the girl is on her own in a deserted medical building in ‘Valentine’ she would have tried to run away from the villain, and would most probably have ended up being murdered. The male gaze is often even physically broken such as in ‘Welcome to the Hellmouth’ where Buffy first arrives at the school. Xander, who is on his skateboard, spots her and you see her through his eyes, but his gaze is physically broken when he crashes into a barrier and falls.Breaking the male gaze is just one of the ways that ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ actually changes the whole role of women in the horror genre. Whereas typical horror films portray females as the negative side of binary oppositions and the men as the positive side; for example, typically males plan, are the oppressor and are rational and logical whereas women are shown as impulsive, fearful, the victim, and they don’t plan. This whole concept is completely undermined in ‘Buffy’, as was the intention of the creator Joss Whedon, who wanted the ditzy blonde who walked into the alley to get attacked by a monster and then ‘she kicks his ass.’ In a typical horror film the ‘ditzy blonde’ is nearly always murdered. The negative way that women are portrayed and punished in the majority of horror pieces is also portrayed in breaking one of the many standing rules. In a conventional horror film Buffy would be killed for this as she is the female and therefore it is and ‘evil’ and punishable act on her before. In this case, however, it is Angel who is punished with a spiritual death, and so, even though the sex equals death ‘rule’ is still there, it is not in the usual way. This- women not being punished for their sexuality- is a common event in ‘Buffy,’ and another example of it is seen in the way that she wears a range of clothes, which are sometimes quite revealing, and would ensure punishment in a typical film or programme- such as in Valentine, where it is interesting to note that the only lead female surviving at the end is wearing trousers compared to the other’s dresses at the party where the majority of the murders take place. This is not relevant in ‘Buffy.’Females being portrayed in a positive light also comes across in the male/female divide which also exists in ‘Buffy’, just in a different way to the norm. This divide is especially prominent in the way Buffy stands up to male authority, an excellent example of this being the episode Primeval where the leader of a group- the Initiative- set up to keep a track on monsters such as Vampires. The Initiative is very much an example of the male ‘lone hero’ figure seen in many horror films. The ‘leader’ we see Buffy trying to persuade to let her fight the main villain in the series refuses her help, believing that he and his group are better off without the help of an outsider, despite the fact that she shows she knows and is more experienced than he is. When this figure is portrayed he usually prevails, but in this instance it is the group dynamic of the ‘Scooby gang’- a very female gendered group in their way of communicating and working- which triumphs by using each of them to defeat the villain, whereas the majority of the Iniative are harmed, and many murdered, by the creatures they attempt to overcome, and the group is eventually finished.Females being strong and capable of many things is a common occurrence in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’ It is a rare occasion when you come across a female villain in horror films and television programmes, but in Buffy it is an accepted part of the programme, and there are many examples of strong female characters, both heroes and villains, especially Willow and Buffy herself. Willow even has magical powers, which she does not use for evil but for good, something rare for the genre. The female ‘superhero’ seen in Buffy is also an uncommon occurrence in the genre, as the men are typically the heroes and save the day, as are they the villains. Women are portrayed as not being able to look after themselves, and this is seen very well in ‘Valentine’ when the lead, Kate, is running from the murderer. She finds a gun, but we then see that she does not know what to do with this piece of equipment, whereas when the male figure uses it they are portrayed to be completely confident using it. Buffy, however, knows how to use weapons and it is Xander (in ‘Welcome to the Hellmouth’) that takes the women’s role in not knowing what to do when he finds Buffy’s stake- a phallic symbol- and seems confused by it, similar to the reaction of Kate (in ‘Valentine’) with the gun. The reversal of the gender’s roles is a typical and successful way that ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ subverts the genre. Although the rules, codes and conventions often used in horror productions can work to create good pieces of drama generic horror films, such as Valentine, can also tend to be quite repetitive and eventually, after you have seen many, boring. As ‘Buffy’ does break the genre’s ‘mould’ by changing and twisting the rules of it, it makes the programme more watchable, realistic and attractive to people- especially females and our changing society. ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ is very different to anything written in the past. If you compare this programme and the film to books and films such as Dracula, set in a time when women were not men’s equals, even though there is a ‘group dynamic’, the woman in that group is often seen as not being capable to help or be of any useful contribution other than to write and other such tasks. In our society nowadays women have equal rights and are not seen so much as objects of desire and only useful for being housewives and at service to men, as they might have been in the past. Films that portray women in the helpless light are not as readily accepted as they might have been in the past and ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ is a good example of how society’s attitude to women, especially in the media, is slowly changing. It is because of this and the other subversive aspects of the programme despite many elements and codes of the genre still obvious in the programme, most of which being the less controversial ones, that makes ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ so different to a typical horror film, and this is the main way the programme ensured it’s success. In conclusion the way that Buffy The Vampire Slayer mixes the subversive elements with typical codes and conventions of horror films and programmes, rather than sticking to a the typical format, makes it more successful and entertaining than many films of it’s genre.