Customer Reviews

Fighting The Forces: What's At Stake In Buffy The Vampire Slayer?

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Now, let me start by saying that I don't typically read scholarly books about television series. Quite frankly, most of them are just chock-full of flowery, useless speech and precious little actual information or well-argued opinion.

I picked up this book because I'm a huge fan of Buffy and I wanted to see how badly a bunch of academics would mangle the themes and structures Joss & Co. employ on a weekly basis. Odd as this sounds, I was disappointed to find myself greatly enjoying each and every essay.

Now, not each one is a perfect gem and a couple of them made me wonder if the writer had ever actually sat through and enjoyed a single episode, but some of those essays were the most entertaining because they were quite thought-provoking.

I would recommend this book to anyone who's a long-time viewer of the show, regardless of academic experience, although it doesn't hurt to have a B.A. in something under your belt.

This book receives four stars simply because of a few minor grammar and spelling errors. In any other book, I'd let it slide, but this is supposed to be made by real professionals and should be perfect in that regard.

If you watch Buffy because of the great fight scenes and the pretty people, this book is probably not for you.

But if you watch this show because you see the amazing depth of the characters, the metaphor and mythology it uses expertly, or if you'd like to understand those things more, this book is amazing.

It contains essays on everything from gender and postmodern politics to the uses and purposes of fanfiction and fairy tales. These are the types of topics I discuss after viewing the show, but much more in-depth due to the writers expertise. (Many of them are processors of film, literature, media studies, women's studies, etc.) It's a facinating read for anyone really interested in the show, and for those who don't watch, it will show you that the show is much more than you think.

As a collection of critical essays on pop culture, I'd probably only give this 4 stars, but this is head and shoulders above the rest in comparison with the other collections of Buffy academia I've slogged through lately. (Reading the Vampire Slayer and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy - both good in their own right, but rather unpolished).

This collection has both the widest number of topics, and some of the best written essays on the show I've read. We get the usual ones like feminism, female representation, and race, as well as some extremely interesting ones on language uses and a nice homage to the creator. Like all collections of this type, there's a nice hefty appendix of sources and references, mostly online due to the relative lack of published work, but a surprising amount of them reference 'ordinary' fans (those of us without a PhD. in media studies). We also get a nice healthy examination of fanfiction and the fan dynamic, unlike one rather anemic essay in another volume. If you're having a hard time deciding how to get into cultural critisism, ignore the rather stuffy cover and check this out.

I had to read this book for a Buffy class that I took at my school this past spring. I found it pretty interesting, and a lot of authors are very insightful as to the meaning behind different dialogues, actions, dress, etc. Many authors had differing views on many of the same scenes, but that's what makes each essay unique. Plus, my prof had written one of the essay's in the book, and I would just like to mention that she is THE ABSOLUTE best! :)

I would def. recommend this book to most Buffy fans who would like to understand other points of view!

Lavery/Wilcox is "the Man" and "The Woman" when it comes to TV studies and continuing the serious interest of academics and artists into BtVS and other Whedon projects and numerous Television programs. These essays provide us with the ongoing diversity of thought so fascinating in our perceptions of the Slayer and what it means to us in todays society.

There is no such thing as a perfect anthology, but by any reasonable standards, this one is first rate. The inherent problem with the anthology is that its contents are comprised by the contributions of a number of individuals. On the one hand, not every reader will find all the essays in any anthology of equal interest, while on the other, not every essay in a collection is going to be on the par of every other selection. In FIGHT THE FORCES, this is as true as well. The volume is edited by Rhonda V. Wilcox and David Lavery, the editors for the online journal SLAYAGE: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BUFFY STUDIES (www.slayage.tv).

As both a lover of Buffy and an academic, I have been somewhat surprised and delighted with the embrasure of Buffy/Angel by academics and intellectuals. At the moment, there are three academic anthologies on Buffy currently available, and three more that I know of on their way (Christopher Weimer's forthcoming MONSTERS AND METAPHORS: ESSAYS ON BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, Lisa Parks's RED NOISE: TELEVISION STUDIES AND BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, and Glenn Yeffeth's SEVEN SEASONS OF BUFFY: SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY WRITERS DISCUSS THEIR FAVORITE TELEVISION SHOW, which should be out just a few days from the moment I am writing this review). What is most amazing about all this interest is that none that I have encountered is at all dismissive of television as a medium, as so many who write on TV shows are. All these writers assume that a truly great television show can warrant as much or more attention that a great movie or the body of work of a great film director.

As of this moment, I would rate FIGHTING THE FORCES as one of the two finest academic books available on Buffy, along with Roz Kaveney's READING THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, and above James South's BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER AND PHILOSOPHY. Most of the essays in this collection are at least interesting, and several are fascinating. Though at a disadvantage to the South collection by having been written with only knowledge of the fifth season, the essays all have relevance beyond. My favorite essays tended to be in the first section, entitled "Forces of Society and Culture: Gender, Generations, Violence, Class, Race, and Religion." Many of the essays are exceptional. Some are less than gripping, and one, a Jungian analysis of the dreams in Buffy, is one of the hardest-to-ingest essays I have ever read (I have decided that I must be completely immune to the purported charms of Jung).

For Buffy fans, I would recommend that only those with some academic proclivities give this book a try. Understanding academic articles doesn't depend on intelligence as much as habit, and if one hasn't worked through a number of academic essays before this, it isn't likely to be much fun or shed any insight on Buffy. On the other hand, academics who remain disdainful of Buffy probably need to go work through at least the first five seasons of Buffy and the first two of Angel before giving this collection a whirl.

Unbelievable, but true. Buffy has become such a cultural icon that college professors and scholars have written critical essays on the teen television series. Buffy as a television series was entertaining, but these scholars have dug deep enough to unearth a smarter Buffy. There is more to Buffy than dressing fashionably, vampires, and Sunnydale. And this book reveals it.

In reading this book, I thought I would get a sense of how scholars veiw the television series as a whole. I got that and a whole lot more. Although I did not agree with everything that was said about the series, I found that people didn't think of it as simply a idiotic show with no moral value. People, experts mainly, dig deeper and see the show from a cultural and social stand point.
So basically they agreed with me, in that, Buffy is a television show that has substance and moral values. Even if many in the population don't agree.

This book is a great read for any fan interested in relating the hit show "Buffy" with academic insight. Some of the essays target the right themes of the show and flesh them out with contemporary insights. Popular Culture has never seen a book like this! Although a gem not to be missed there are some flaws that forced me to not give it a five star rating. ... Despite some pitfalls this book rocks!!!

This book is over-blown, poorly written, and in places utterly nonsensical. I would be hard pressed to say which was worse, the "academics" who are adept at using many words to sat nothing, or the journalists who prove that the use of proper grammar and clear, direct writing are a thing of the past, even among so-called professionals in the field.

For the reader who has not chosen to pursue an advanced degree in Literature, parenthetical remarks such as the Mayor is " . . . incidentally, an avatar of "Richard the Third . . ." or the comment that Buffy inhabits a place that " . . . pretends to be nowhere (which is what "Utopia" originally means) . . ." function as so much verbal filler, as these comments are never expanded upon within, or even tied to, the text.

Many of these essays would fail the "so what" test applied by many graduate professors (anything that could inspire a reader to ask "so what" better supply that answer in short order--and if it doesn't, the remark doesn't add value to the work). I expect better from my undergraduate students.

My initially reaction to the poor editing and grammar use what that it was an impression caused by the use of UK grammar standards, but as I continued to read it became clear that the impression resulted from a general disregard to any grammar standards or word choice logic.

In short, save yourself a few bucks, buy the DVDs, and listen to the writer commentary. Had the authors of the essays in this collection chosen to pay attention to what the Buffy/Angel writers have to say about their work (in the DVDs and in numerous interviews) they wouldn't have had to waste so many trees with these over-analytical studies that do more to impose each essayists aesthetic or political agenda on the subject than to illuminate the deeper themes of the over-all arc of the story line.