In 1997, a series following blue-eyed, blonde high schooler Buffy Summers, who was also a kick-ass vampire assailant, premiered and changed the lives of nerdfighters and genre fans everywhere. Buffy The Vampire Slayer, with its iconic leather coats and platform-booted battles against vampires, demons, and other forces of darkness, deepened our love for fantastical creatures. Thanks to the show’s seamless blend of genres including horror, comedy, and tragedy, the series gained millions of fans and spawned spin-offs like Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and The Magicians.
This week, a 20-year reunion for Buffy happened thanks to Entertainment Weekly. EW reunited the cast and creator Joss Whedon for their first group interview and photoshoot in over ten years. Like most high school reunions, amongst all of the fun, a sense of reflection washed over those involved. “[Buffy is] the ultimate metaphor: horrors of adolescence manifesting through these actual monsters,” reflected Sarah Michelle Gellar. “It’s the hardest time of life.”
David Boreanaz, who played Angel, Buffy’s vampire paramour, recalled that, “When you’re going through a really horrible part of your life, like your teenage years, you feel alone. And Buffy was a way to tell the audience you’re not alone.”
Buffy’s fervent fandom is rejoicing over the reunion across social media, with the hashtag #buffyslays20 trending majorly. Even Geller couldn’t help but freak out as she secretly posted photos of all of the cast members’ wardrobe trailers.
For fans, Buffy was more than just a television show. “The most important thing to me is that I have had people come up to me and say the show made [them] feel different about what they could be, about what they could do, about how they respond to problems, about being a female leader,” said Whedon. “People getting strength from my own little terrors is…There is no better legacy than that.”
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Text Jo Rosenthal
Image via YouTube