TMC
03-07-2017, 10:07 PM
http://www.avclub.com/article/slayers-lineage-9-pop-cultural-precursors-buffy-251370
When Buffy The Vampire Slayer debuted on The WB in 1997, it signaled a new direction for the fledgling netlet, a pivot toward audiences who could see themselves reflected in Buffy Summers and her Sunnydale High classmates. Of course, it’s the distinctions between Buffy and all previous TV teens that made all the difference: “Into every generation, there is a chosen one,” the show’s introduction intoned, setting up the slayer’s genre-bending battle with vampires, demons, and other phantasmagorical stand-ins for adolescent woes, a crusade whose impact was eventually felt beyond The WB (and, later, UPN). But no work of art, however groundbreaking, develops in a bubble—and certainly not one as knowingly steeped in pop culture as Buffy. Just as its title character was preceded by a long line of slayers who kept the forces of evil at bay, so too are there works that made it possible for Buffy and friends to save the world.
When Buffy The Vampire Slayer debuted on The WB in 1997, it signaled a new direction for the fledgling netlet, a pivot toward audiences who could see themselves reflected in Buffy Summers and her Sunnydale High classmates. Of course, it’s the distinctions between Buffy and all previous TV teens that made all the difference: “Into every generation, there is a chosen one,” the show’s introduction intoned, setting up the slayer’s genre-bending battle with vampires, demons, and other phantasmagorical stand-ins for adolescent woes, a crusade whose impact was eventually felt beyond The WB (and, later, UPN). But no work of art, however groundbreaking, develops in a bubble—and certainly not one as knowingly steeped in pop culture as Buffy. Just as its title character was preceded by a long line of slayers who kept the forces of evil at bay, so too are there works that made it possible for Buffy and friends to save the world.