How do you think Buffy has influenced the contemporary vampire drama “True Blood” and the “Twilight” series of novels and films?
The contemporary vampire/romantic gothic drama has (in my opinion) been influenced by Buffy to a large degree. Meyer's Twilight novels/the subsequent movies and the tv series True Blood provide fans with issues similar to that of Buffy (young characters overcoming obstacles for the greater good), which subsequently is further shared with classics such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Rose, 2002). Using similar ideologies, all three examples develop characters and three relatively similar plots surrounding the romantic/gothic dramatic concept. The only blatant difference is the degree of sex featured in each of the examples. Twilight featured somewhat sexually attractive cast members and True Blood is based on sex (from what i have been told). I have not read the two/watched the two texts, however i believe that the hearsay i have heard has allowed me to justify any claims that i make.
Buffy established the idea of a hero defeating vampires whilst maintaining a relationship and displaying qualities that readers can relate to, much like Twilight and True Blood. Examples of such include the episode 'Goodbye Iowa', in which Buffy deals with the problems created by the Initiative, then moves on to discussing her relationships problems with Anya - "Riley was meant to be Mr. Joe guy. We were gonna do dumb things like hold hands through the daisies" (Goodbye Iowa, 2000). This reflects the themes of both Twilight and True Blood, where similar situations occur.
Rose, A (2002) Of creatures and creators: Buffy does Frankenstein, in R. Wilcox & D. Lavery (eds) Fighting the
forces: what’s at stake in Buffy the vampire slayer. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Goodbye Iowa (Season 4 script from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Retrieved 20 September, 2005 from: http://www.pukkie.net/reference/btvs_transcripts_season_4.pdf=
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ReplyDeleteHi Tristian,
ReplyDeleteI noticed how you have differentiated texts being produced by the vampire genre today and Buffy. You say that Buffy is less based on the sexuality side rather then something like Twilight because of the physical appearance of the cast members. However this is actually a similarity. Twilight cast members are the heart throbs of teenagers much in the way David Boreanaz, who played Angel in Buffy, was the teenage heart throb when the show was on air. And a character like Buffy being the typical blonde 'bombshell'. The sexuality feature of the vampire genre is nothing new and can be seen in films like Bram Stokers 'Dracula', far before Buffy was conceived.
Buffy was a revolution to the vampire genre though. The idea of using the setting of high school and teenagers as the source of its drama and incorporating the vampire or demon as being of this much younger age is just one way that Buffy influenced the texts we see today. Have you noticed this too?