Ten Ways Buffy The Vampire Slayer Shows Feminine Power

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a 90's pop culture sensation and a cult classic. Today the show is still remembered as advanced for the genre and a great portrayal of female power.

1. Buffy subverts traditional horror tropes

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Buffy is a blonde spunky cheerleader, but she possesses enhanced speed, stamina, strength, and healing abilities as well as supernatural intuition and prophetic dreams. The show’s creator, Joss Whedon, wanted to subvert the stereotypical horror movie victim through Buffy’s character by reversing an anti-feminist trope of the damsel in distress. Lorna Jowett stated that “from the outset, then, Buffy plays with role reversal: the female is a vampire slayer, not a victim.” It is clear to see how Buffy (the show and the character) “inverts the male power embodied in the traditional vampire and its slayer”.

2. Willow is the least two dimensional character to exist ever

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Willow also represents female power in Buffy the vampire slayer through her mental and mystical skills. She is an extremely talented witch as well as a science and technology whiz kid, a trait usually exhibited by male characters. Willow doesn't conform to typical femininity and is a hero of the show in her own right just as much as Buffy. She has a great relationship with Tara, which isn't sensationalized or sexualized and is casually accepted by the other characters. She is also arguably the most powerful character in the show- she single handedly defies a god and almost destroys the world in a fit of despair and rage after Tara is shot, but is talked down by Xander's yellow crayon speech.

3. Xander is the damsel in distress

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Every cult pseudo-horror show has a damsel in distress, and in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xander often ends up fulfilling this trope- he is hypnotized, cloned, given magic chlamydia, and briefly falls for a man eating bug. As a core member of the so-called "Scooby Gang", Xander resembles Daphne more than any other actual Scooby member, which is ironic because Sarah Michele Gellar played Daphne in the live action Scooby movie (just a fun little factiod). Xander fills a traditional female role but is still a smart, funny, and occasionally useful character.

4. The cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is actually diverse

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Out of the twelve main characters in Buffy, six are female, which is a pretty accurate ratio. Two of them are gay, and zero of the twelve are objectified or only useful as a romantic interest, which happens in a lot of shows. It is true that none of the main characters are people of color, but there are multiple black reoccurring characters like Principle Wood, Forrest, and Mr. Trick, who are all in positions of power and cannot be contained by racial stereotypes.

5. Spike defies his own set of gender roles

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The character Spike appears very masculine but at a closer look, he actually defies most masculine gender roles. His signature leather jacket was actually stolen from a woman, and he talks more about love than any other character in the show. His unrequited lover arc inverts a traditionally female trope and he is portrayed as impotent or castrated after he is microchipped by the government below Sunnydale College. Even though he is a man, he shows that traditional female tropes and gender roles don't have to be associated with powerlessness.

6. Anya and Glory are ogs

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Anya is a rehabilitated former vengeance demon and Glory is a crazy hell god; the two don't have that much in common. However, both exhibit another form of power not usually exhibited by female characters. Anya and Glory are both monstrous and dangerous in a way that only men could be in the media, without being portrayed as a femme fatale or otherwise objectified. Anya is a well rounded three dimensional character who grows throughout the show but never loses her demonic tendencies and her weird bloodlust. Glory is just crazy powerful and actually crazy, and she doesn't let any man be her equal.

7. Dawn represents the hero in us all- but is still a giant glowing mass of otherworldly energy

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Dawn is not a slayer or a witch or powerful and unique in any way- she is just a teenage girl. But when Dawn loses the glowing mass of energy inside of her and becomes completely mortal and ordinary, she still steps up and trie to be a hero. After Buffy disappears into what is assumed to be a hell dimension and Sunnydale is left without a Slayer, Dawn still shows that even ordinary female characters can be strong too, without subverting tropes or representing any groups.

8. Cordelia isn't a mean girl

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Cordelia Chase is a homecoming queen and a total bitch, but she is definitely not a flat character. While most shows and movies portray characters that seems to resemble Cordelia as a mean girl trope, Cordelia is much deeper than that. She dates Xander- a total nerd- for a season or two, and even promises to be with him forever and care for him when she thinks he turned into a fish. When Xander breaks her heart, she uses Anya's power to create an alternate timeline where Buffy doesn't exist instead of exacting petty revenge on Xander. Even after she leaves the show and starts starring in the spinoff show Angel, Cordelia still defies her assumed role as a useless bitch. Cordy is also a great example of another type of female power, status and money, showing that you don't need to be able to kill vampires to be respected.

9. Drusilla is not just a sex object

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While its true that Drusilla is portrayed as a sexual hysteric, she actually has all the power in her relationship with Angel and Spike, and is highly valued as a vampire for her prophetic dreams. She sires Spike, which leads to a whole Oedipus complex thing that I don't want to analyze, and is an extremely powerful vampire. She is sexualized, but not objectified, because she uses her own sexuality to control the men in her life and to command respect from lesser vampires.

10. Giles

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Rupert Giles is the resident librarian and Buffy's watcher, but he is also a witch and helps challenge the gendered constructions that assume the the witch characters are both feminine and demonized. Giles is a traditionally male character, but his job is to help and support and respect the female Slayers, and so he sets himself far apart from the misogynistic villains Buffy regularly defeats like Caleb or The Trio.