About the Book
For every television series, the original vision grows within a press of forces-both social and artistic expectations, conventions of the business, as well as conventions of the art. Bad television—predictable, commercial, exploitative—simply yields to the forces. Good television, like the character of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, fights them. Fighting the Forces explores the struggle to create meaning in an impressive example of popular culture, the television series phenomenon Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In the essays collected here, contributors examine the series using a variety of techniques and viewpoints. They analyze the social and cultural issues implicit in the series and place it in its literary context, not only by examining its literary influences (from German liebestod to Huckleberry Finn) but also by exploring the series' purposeful literary allusions. Furthermore, the book explores the extratextual, such as fanfiction and online discussion groups. The book is additionally supplemented by an online journal Slayage (www.slayage.tv), created by the book editors in acknowledgement of the ongoing nature of television art. Rhonda V. Wilcox and David Lavery have written and edited several books and articles exploring the social, literary, and artistic merit of quality television. In addition to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, their work has covered a variety of programs including Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure, The X-Files, and The Sopranos.
Table of Contents:
Part 1 Foreword: The Color of the Dark in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Part 2 Introduction
Part 3 Forces of Society and Culture: Gender, Generations, Violence, Class, Race, and Religion
Chapter 4 "Who Died and Made Her the Boss?" Patterns of Mortality in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Chapter 5 "My Emotions Give Me Power": The Containment of Girl's Anger in Buffy
Chapter 6 "I'm Buffy and You're . . . History": The Postmodern Politics of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Chapter 7 Surpassing the Love of Vampires; or Why (and How) a Queer Reading of Buffy/Willow is Denied
Chapter 8 Choosing Your Own Mother: Mother-Daughter Conflicts in Buffy
Chapter 9 Staking in Tongues: Speech Act as Weapon in Buffy
Chapter 10 Slaying in Black and White: Kendra as Tragic Mulatto in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Chapter 11 The Undemonization of Supporting Characters in Buffy
Chapter 12 "Sometimes You Need a Story": American Christianity, Vampires, and Buffy
Chapter 13 Darkness Falls on the Endless Summer: Buffy as Gidget for the Fin de Siècle
Part 14 Forces of Art and Imagination (Past): Vampires, Magic, and Monsters
Chapter 15 Of Creatures and Creators: Buffy Does Frankenstein
Chapter 16 Sex and the Single Vampire: The Evolution of the Vampire Lothario and Its Representation in Buffy
Chapter 17 "Digging the Undead": Death and Desire in Buffy
Chapter 18 Spirit Guides and Shadow Selves: From the Dream Life of Buffy (and Faith)
Chapter 19 Hubble-Bubble, Herbs and Grimoires: Magic, Manichaeanism, and Witchcraft in Buffy
Chapter 20 Whose Side Are You On, Anyway? Children, Adults, and the Use of Fairy Tales in Buffy
Part 21 Part III. Forces of Art and Imagination (Present): Fan Relationships, Metaphoric and Real
Chapter 22 Crossing the Final Taboo: Family, Sexuality, and Incest in Buffyverse Fan Fiction
Chapter 23 "My Boyfriend's in the Band": Buffy and the Rhetoric of Music
Chapter 24 Buffy's Mary Sue is Jonathan: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Acknowledges the Fans
25 www.buffy.com: Cliques, Boundaries, and Hierarchies in an Internet Community
Part 26 Afterword: The Genius of Joss Whedon
Part 27 Episode Guide for Seasons 1 to 5
Part 28 Bibliography
Part 29 Index
About the Author :
Rhonda V. Wilcox is professor of English at Gordon College. David Lavery is professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University. Rhonda V. Wilcox and David Lavery have written and edited several books and articles exploring the social, literary, and artistic merit of quality television. In addition to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, their work has covered a variety of programs including Twin Peaks, Nothern Exposure, The X-Files, and The Sopranos.
Review :
All 'Buffy' books are not created equal. Anyone interested in delving into the issues raised by the show (including what constitutes feminism, how we can define 'the other,' and whether the world can be reduced with Manichaean simplicity to the battle between good and evil) should invest in Fighting the Forces.
In giving 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' the academic attention it so deserves, Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer acknowledges the richness and complexity of the program. Be advised, however, that it is not simply a rah-rah, Buffy is great lovefest. Rather, it is a thought-provoking deconstruction of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' as text that is sure to be of interest to both scholars and fans alike. Taken together, the essays in this book provide insight into what is at once a complicated yet underrated program. Like the program itself, Fighting the Forces gives the reader, if you'll pardon my pun, a lot to sink her/his teeth into!
Fighting the Forces is a solid collection and shows how much substance there is to a show that to the casual observer might seem campy and shallow.
A collection of scholarly essays treats the show with the serious attention fans have long known it was worthy of. Although the essays take an academic approach, the arcane jargon is nearly absent, yet each essay offers a serious, entertaining perspective on the social, literary, and artistic aspects of Buffy.
Race, gender, religion, history, music, technology: who would've thought you could deliver an entire liberal arts curriculum by talking about nothing but Buffy? Rhonda Wilcox and David Lavery, important voices in contemporary television studies, have gathered a compelling set of essays that make up one of the best books available about a single TV series. The scholarship is sophisticated, but the prose is readable and amusing. The volume avoids both the slobbering panegyrics of fan books and the incomprehensible jargon of so many academic books. Including the introduction and afterword there are 22 chapters: read one a week and it'll last the whole TV season.
Fascinating reading which provides a deeper understanding of the richly detailed Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The twenty essays collected in Fighting the Forces, and others available on its companion website www.slayage.tv, demonstrate a higher level of critical rigor and quality of writing.
Will appeal to the more intellectual of the show's core teenage constituency, helping empower them with respect to the often crypto-vampiric institution of academia.
[The book] contains 20 essays organized into three overlapping sections, all of which deal quite seriously and affectionately with aspects of this silly-sounding but quite seriously-written program.
