I'm generally not much of a TV watcher, I never have been--there seemed so many more-appealing (or useful) ways to spend my precious and rare free time.
Getting older though, having health issues that sap my energy, and the COVID lockdown changed all that. There's undoubtedly, and absolutely, far too much worthless dross on TV, but I've grown to appreciate the value of the little gems there are out there, often in the most unexpected of places.
I found one such gem in what I thought would be a fun bit of silly escapism: Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I'd never watched the (reportedly, less-than-impressive) movie (and, of course, much unpleasantness has since come out about its original creator) and so I settled in to binge-watch the TV show with reasonably-low expectations. It wasn't long, though, before it knocked those expectations' socks off.
Much as The Twilight Zone was created so Rod Sterling could explore social issues that he could not have gotten away with doing if he had taken them on openly and front-on, Buffy turned out to be a genius little show that could justly have been titled How to Survive Adolescence.
No, most teenagers don't have to fight literal vampires, demons, and other manifestations of evil, but, to teens, the problems and challenges they face might as well be. And when cloaked in fantasy, these problems can be laid out and addressed along with strategies to handle and even defeat them--all without ever becoming preachy or saccharine "After School Special-y."
What's more, the fantasy/magic element offers the freedom for characters to sometimes do things that would otherwise be out of character, allowing the writers ways to delve into questions or issues that might otherwise have been difficult to work into the overall narrative.
I can't think of an issue that the series didn't ultimately at least touch on, from falling in love (including senseless infatuation, unrequited love, a relationship that's solely sexual, and having an online "love" not be who they claimed) to rape attempts and physical abuse; from drug addiction (costumed as an addiction to magic) to the dangers of drunkenness making people more likely to act stupid (an admittedly silly episode); from running away (and coming home to severe depression; from the importance of family to the danger of toxic ones; and that truly evil people can sometimes wear kind faces. And that's only scratching the surface.
I do wonder how many kids realized this (at least subconsciously) and were able to internalize and put to use the lessons the series taught. I've learned in the past several years that many adults, particularly those that are "conservative", seem to be inherently unable to see the underlying message of metaphors or even grasp that there's a message there. I suspect that this may apply even to teenagers. But, then again, it's possible that those teens wouldn't have been drawn to a fantasy-type show in the first place.
I've now re-watched the whole series three times through (barring one episode that truly nearly spoiled the series for me the first time, horrifically breaking, as it did, the willful suspension of disbelief that's necessary to truly enjoy any book or show) so I could more-closely watch each character's development and truly appreciate the skill of many of the writers. (I often do this with books--reading it through quickly first, to get caught up in the story and then slowly savoring it the second time.) And the musical episode (another thing magic allowed the show to pull off) is one of the most remarkable things I've seen and I've re-watched it more than any other.
Buffy, incredibly, (although nothing is perfect) managed to stand up to this repeated viewing and detailed forensic examination as well as pretty much any work of literature I've ever read. In, in fact, it actually increased my respect for those who crafted this magical gem, cleverly disguised as a bit of fluff.
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