Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale

Editor: James B. South Open Court Publishing Company ISBN 0-8126-9531-3 paper, $17.95 ISBN 0-8126-9530-5 cloth, $24.95 320 pages

Ah, vindication at last! It’s hard enough living in an intellectual town like Berkeley and admitting that you have any kind of TV habit - much less admitting that your favorite show has the embarrassing handle of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." With this erudite and entertaining volume of philosophical essays about the noirish teen dramedy - contributed by actual professors and grad students and smart people like that - Open Court restores dignity to my intellectual profile. I can now pontificate on "the eudaimonistic moral structure of the Buffyverse" or "feminism and the ethics of violence" or even the "slayer’s solution to Aristotle’s love paradox" without having to excuse my low tastes in entertainment.

Editor James B. Scott notes in his Introduction that Buffy creator Joss Whedon has claimed that his show’s popularity is rooted in his original profound intent: "I designed Buffy to be an icon, to be an emotional experience, to be loved in a way that other shows can’t be loved." What might sound like the silly hyperbole of a TV writer to those who haven’t seen the show sounds like a proven strategy of genius to its fans. The only drawback to reading this volume to catch up to the series now is that it will soon be relegated to the underworld of reruns and DVDs; series star Sarah Michelle Gellar has announced she’s leaving at the end of the current (seventh) season, which will probably spell the final ending for her and her evil-fighting gang of friends. Veteran fans will remember that she died once before - only to be dragged out of heaven via witchcraft by her pals, who were nearly driven mad with grief - and we shall never forget the season-ending shot of her tombstone bearing the epitaph SHE SAVED / THE WORLD / A LOT . Try just a couple of the fun essays in this collection, and you’ll understand why we’re gonna miss Buffy something awful. - P.MILLER • 4-6/03