If you disagree with the above statement, this post is probably not for you.
I just realised that yesterday was the anniversary of the screening of the last ever episode of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. For those unfamiliar with the show, the show's premise is that an ordinary Southern Californian high school girl discovered one day that she was the latest in a long line of mystic warriors, gifted with supernatural strength and skill with which to battle Vampires. If that sounds like a less than promising premise for great drama, I can't blame you, I was sceptical myself at first, myself. There's really not a lot I can say in response to this beyond "watch the show if you get the chance, let it shake your scepticism."
For its first three seasons, the show's protagonist, Buffy Summers and here friends were students at Sunnydale High School. The town of Sunnydale, and more specifically, its high school, and more specifically still, the high school library were built over a mystical vortex leading to Hell. Dark, mystical energy was consistently being pumped up from this "hell mouth" attracting all kinds of evil into the area.
If, on reading the above description, you don't suspect that your high school was similarly situated, I can only say that your experience of high school was obviously very different to mine.
C.S. Lewis, in his discussion of the epic work of his friend J.R.R. Tolkien, wrote that, we have never seen humanity as we really are until we see that we are the like heroes of faery tales. Buffy, at its best, embodied this. It took the basic difficulties we all go through in high school: the struggles with classes, the conflicts with parents, the pressures to fit in and be popular, and raised them to level of a mythic struggle of good against evil.
It was an amazing show, I don't think television has really seen its like since.
I just realised that yesterday was the anniversary of the screening of the last ever episode of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. For those unfamiliar with the show, the show's premise is that an ordinary Southern Californian high school girl discovered one day that she was the latest in a long line of mystic warriors, gifted with supernatural strength and skill with which to battle Vampires. If that sounds like a less than promising premise for great drama, I can't blame you, I was sceptical myself at first, myself. There's really not a lot I can say in response to this beyond "watch the show if you get the chance, let it shake your scepticism."
For its first three seasons, the show's protagonist, Buffy Summers and here friends were students at Sunnydale High School. The town of Sunnydale, and more specifically, its high school, and more specifically still, the high school library were built over a mystical vortex leading to Hell. Dark, mystical energy was consistently being pumped up from this "hell mouth" attracting all kinds of evil into the area.
If, on reading the above description, you don't suspect that your high school was similarly situated, I can only say that your experience of high school was obviously very different to mine.
C.S. Lewis, in his discussion of the epic work of his friend J.R.R. Tolkien, wrote that, we have never seen humanity as we really are until we see that we are the like heroes of faery tales. Buffy, at its best, embodied this. It took the basic difficulties we all go through in high school: the struggles with classes, the conflicts with parents, the pressures to fit in and be popular, and raised them to level of a mythic struggle of good against evil.
It was an amazing show, I don't think television has really seen its like since.
No comments:
Post a Comment