It’s been 20 years since the last episode of Buffy has been diffused. Yes, two decades. Since we know very well that you will soon launch a marathon to review everything, here are two books to experience your nostalgia with some additional keys to analysis – feminist in particular.
When fall arrives and Halloween approaches, several generations cannot hold back a nostalgic thought for Buffy – Or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series worn by Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan and even James Marsen reeks of memories of childhood or adolescence, on cassette or during the Saturday trilogy on M6. The series followed the adventures of a vampire slayer, also a high school student.
The series was broadcast from 1997 to 2003: in 2023, it has been exactly 20 years since the last episode of Buffy has been diffused. For this anniversary, two publishing houses are each offering a work analyzing the series, one written by Marion Olité, the other by Fabien Clavel.
Buffy or the stake revolt (Marion Olité)
For Marion Olité, Buffy is a kind of feminist Super Mario: “ each season is the equivalent of a level whose boss represents one of the forms of patriarchal domination to be fought, on the path leading to the emancipation of its superheroine. »
In Buffy or the stake revolt, the journalist specializing in series addresses the political and social aspects of the series from our adolescence. She constructs a fascinating rereading of the series, where the power of narrative metaphor appears more clearly to us. High school, ” it’s hell »: in this part, for example, Marion Olité develops the symbolic bestiary that Buffy and her friends face during the pivotal period of high school — where we face, literally, our demons. She also elaborates on the power of friendship, or even on feminist representations (and, conversely, on the tropes of male gauze of the time).
This is a scholarly but enjoyable work, which never gives the impression of a professorial explanation of the text: it is rather a passionate and fascinating analysis, which takes an affectionate – and feminist, it feels good – perspective on this series. important part of our adolescence. Marion Olité allows us to live differently Buffy : result, after reading the book, we desperately want to rewatch the series with this analysis in mind.
Buffy, baroque epic (Fabien Clavel)
Himself a fantasy writer, Fabien Clavel sets out to apply a literary analysis to the TV series. And it starts from a postulate: Buffy is a… baroque series. For the author, this very particular aesthetic explains at the same time why some find in Buffy a form of bad taste, when others feel an infinite love for it, which resists revisiting through the ages.
An interesting part of the work concerns in particular the mythico-epic space developed in the series, which allows Buffy to develop its own mythology based on classical mythology. Fabien Clavel also questions the question of narrative genre: is Buffy a superhero? Are we in urban fantasy, science fiction? Added to this are certain western codes, the place of martial arts. In any case, we understand, upon reading the work, that Buffy is of a “ inexhaustible complexity ”, as the author states at the end.
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