Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Representation of women in television
What was the role of a female in television
Gender analysis of buffy the vampire slayer
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Representation of women in television
In 1997, a new series featuring a female lead aired, it was called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This show became popular instantly and to this day it still remains popular, if not more. This series was named by TV Guide critics as “one of the fifty greatest TV shows of all time”, because of its feminist portrayals (Heinecken, 91). Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created by Joss Whedon due to the fact that he felt bad for women in horror films, he felt like their depictions were almost always sexist. Whedon quoted that the show he has created depicts, “the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it.”, which is important to show to women of newer generations (South, 35). What made Buffy so special was that there was finally a female character that was at …show more content…
Whedon said that he wanted to create a show that would portray women having power and sharing it. While we have Buffy with power, there is not much power being shared within the series. In “What’s My Line? Part 1”, we are introduced to another female character, Kendra, who claims she is the new slayer. Buffy is confused and does not want her around, it appears as if she feels threatened by Kendra’s arrival.In this episode we see Kendra’s quest for legitimacy, to be accepted as the first generation slayer, but is denied because of the threat she poses to Buffy’s identity as the slayer (Wilcox, 90). Throughout most of the episode she insists that Kendra leaves and makes no real effort in getting to know her. Near the end of the second part of the episode, Kendra decides to help Buffy save her vampire boyfriend, in this sequence we see the two slayers working together to save Angel and stop the evil characters. Despite Kendra helping Buffy and her friends, she is still sent away at the end because her staying would still threaten Buffy’s position as the main slayer (What’s My Line? Part
Is the main message of Dracula, by Bram Stoker really about the exploitation of powers and how they affect Victorian People’s lives?
...oday. Taking for granted a "normal" life that revolves around school, parties and friends. The Crucible and The Matrix exhibit more cultural and social values than Buffy and they are both done exceptionally well, covering many different themes and aspects without taking away from the plot or story.
The stereotypical valley girl would have to be one of my longstanding favourite characters in both television and film. With the valley girl known for often being the quintessential popularity queen, it may not seem so obvious to include the Buffy we know today as part of the valley girl hall of fame. But one only has to go back to the 1992 film, Buffy the Vampire Slayer to observe the full extent of Buffy’s bleach blonde valley girl roots. To place Buffy within the larger category of the valley girl, first one must have an understanding of what exactly this means. Undoubtedly, the valley girl is a product of the eighties, or at least a character that was crystallised and labelled during this period, and she has been a significant presence in teen films and television ever since. It has come to my attention that there has been a definite change, or evolution over the last two decades, of the living, breathing barbie doll otherwise known as the valley girl. And, it seems, this evolution of the valley girl within teen film and television can be traced through the character of Buffy Summers, starting from her first appearance on the big screen in 1992.
Society continually places specific and often restrictive standards on the female gender. While modern women have overcome many unfair prejudices, late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century women were forced to deal with a less than understanding culture. Different people had various ways of voicing their opinions concerning gender inequalities, including expressing themselves through literature. By writing a fictional story, authors like Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henry James were given the opportunity to let readers understand and develop their own ideas on such a serious topic.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a difficult media to classify into one genre. An obvious classification of the programme¡¦s genre would be horror; but this isn¡¦t entirely true, because the show has more concepts and themes that a horror movie would, and deals with more issues as well. The show uses elements contained in the more fantasy-orientated horror movies (such as Dracula): these include mythological beings such as vampires, demons and zombies; things that aren¡¦t always contained in horror movies. In the episode ¡§Dead Man¡¦s Party¡¨, the show deals primarily with the undead (a vampire appears near the beginning of the episode, and has very little effect on the story). Mythology is also applied in the form of a Nigerian mask, which raises the dead. Mythology has not always been applied in horror movies that use such creatures, but most movies that use these creatures (especially those containing vampires) almost always follow several rules. Examples of such rules are:
... her to be the Slayer. Her only chance to find motivation in the world is to find a new desire. Both characters approach the same center, but from different ends of the drive-symbol spectrum. Thus, Whedon not only makes use of the Lacanian "between the two deaths" concept, but he also plays with making it dynamic (Spike) and with inverting it (Buffy). Then, at the very end of the episode, the two experiments are united in an elegant closure.
Due to traditional stereotypes of women, literature around the world is heavily male-dominant, with few female characters outside of cliché tropes. Whenever a female character is introduced, however, the assumption is that she will be a strong lead that challenges the patriarchal values. The authors of The Thousand and One Nights and Medea use their female centered stories to prove their contrasting beliefs on the role of women not only in literature, but also in society. A story with a female main character can be seen as empowering, but this is not always the case, as seen when comparing and contrasting Medea and The Thousand and One Nights.
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the main character Buffy Summers is the chosen Vampire Slayer, even though she does not want to be the chosen one, but there is always some type of danger in her town. As she is battling demons and vampires, she is struggling to live a normal life, but soon learns to embrace and accept her destiny. Buffy was a very popular show with seven seasons won two Emmy awards a Golden Satellite award and multiple Saturn awards. In every season Joss Whedon was able to incorporate something different to make each season stand out. A recurring theme throughout the episode “Hush” is that sometimes talking is not the most efficient way of communicating or showing affection.
“Hush” is a popular episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is due to the twenty-nine minutes of the characters not speaking because their voices are taken away. The characters see the value of communication to solve their issues. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is related to real life problems such as insecurities and weaknesses. Some of these insecurities and weaknesses involved are identitiesidentity, relationships, and responsibilitiesduties. Also, adolescence because it is a time of growing and realizations. They mature through their experiences and battles of everyday life. and fighting. This occurs in a place called Sunnydale ,where during this time of the episode which monsters lurk around and are hunted. In the episode “Hush”, the voices taken away from the residents of Sunnydale represent the theme that communication is needed for understanding and solving problems.
The critical material on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in print at least (see here the Slayage online journal), is expanding but currently somewhat limited. However, as a general rule two tendencies emerge. The first is to treat some self-contained aspect of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" as an ideological work. Such analyses concentrate upon the encoded more or less implicitly pre-determined messages that the text transmits. Certainly some ideological responses are definitely triggered by Buffy and I will briefly make reference to two critical examples. Brian Wall and Michael Zyrd adopt a Marxist master frame of analysis to determine the world historical content of Buffy.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer has broken many barriers in its seven-year stint, creating new genres and enabling innovation in a previously barren area of television. The largest leap the show has taken though, has been in the way it has embraced its fandom, creating a symbiotic relationship between Buffy the show and Buffy the fanfiction. Not only does Buffy fanfiction seize upon unexplored areas and inconsistencies inherent in the text, these forays are often paid homage to by the show, and in some cases, even made part of the canon itself. Ideas and fantasies created by the fans can impact upon the show in a way that has never been seen before.
Slasher films have attracted feminist academic attention in recent years, most notably from theorist Carol J. Clover. Clover's groundbreaking article, "Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film," was first published in 1987 and continues to influence feminist film critics today. With some success, these critical inquiries have recuperated the genre as one that might actually indicate shifting ideas about gender roles and female agency. Whedon nods both to the "slasher" as a subgenre and to feminist film theory in the Season 3 episode, "Helpless." In "Helpless," Whedon grafts the slasher scenario onto the Buffyverse but makes significant changes, based, I think, both on feminist responses to the genre and also on his own understanding of the show's audience demographics. Though Whedon puts his title character on a continuum with the slasher's female but "boyish" victim-heroes, Buffy b...
Females may be seen as small but they are not disregarded the way that other cultures have done for centuries. For many Native American cultures females and elder women play an intricate role as leaders and wise women. Though warring and hunting were left to the males, females made the daily decisions on how the tribe of village was run. They had many gender specific roles, but were seem more as equals. Spider Woman is a symbol of feminine power and knowledge. What we as individuals take from these teaching depends on the individual. I have come to see the potential and multi-ranged abilities of females in a new
...present powerful characters, while females represent unimportant characters. Unaware of the influence of society’s perception of the importance of sexes, literature and culture go unchanged. Although fairytales such as Sleeping Beauty produce charming entertainment for children, their remains a didactic message that lays hidden beneath the surface; teaching future generations to be submissive to the inequalities of their gender. Feminist critic the works of former literature, highlighting sexual discriminations, and broadcasting their own versions of former works, that paints a composite image of women’s oppression (Feminist Theory and Criticism). Women of the twenty-first century serge forward investigating, and highlighting the inequalities of their race in effort to organize a better social life for women of the future (Feminist Theory and Criticism).
A number of popular television shows and films filling mainstream media today have taken a spin to promote women to main character roles of power and command. The traits of these female characters, however, become illusionary as plots thicken to reveal their status to be subordinate to leading male character roles; of which are typically controlling or manipulative over gender stereotypic female traits within the script. While media is being blindly applauded for their newfound glorification of women in power, there remains an underlying message of male supremacy in more than many broadcasted portrayals. Today’s mainstream television media delivers a notion that only a man can pave way for the merit of a woman.