How Is Buffy The Vampire Slayer Has Seen As A Form Of Female Empowerment

Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s main character Buffy Summers is seen as a form of female empowerment. Sue Short wrote “Jenny Bavidge argues that the strongest theme in the series is ‘the insistent protest against the violence done to real girls and women’, going on to claim that Buffy’s trials show ‘that to be just a girl is often an epic task in itself’ ”(113). Short notes that the Buffy The Vampire Slayer series “avoids the standard ‘female in peril’ trope”. The creator, Joss Whedon, created the show in response to horror movies always killing off the pretty blond female who had sex. Buffy defies the typical movie female relationship; she has multiple relationships and has sex with those partners. Short wrote, “By using their abilities to empower

The main character, Samantha Stephens, is a witch who is more powerful than her husband Darrin. In order to please her mortal husband she chooses to give up her powers and becomes subservient and your typical housewife. Samantha’s life is not magic free, despite what Darrin wants; she manages to sneak magic into her life. By sneaking the magic it becomes a form of rebellion. Her inability to live without using magic is a form of her possibly “unconsciously, rejecting the life of a submissive woman dependent on her husband”(3). Bewitched “dispels the notion of the husband as all knowing and always right than to promote the image of the wife as fully equal and autonomous” (Keng, 3). The show is “about the growing power of women in both home and society at large in the 1960s. It’s a show about how men weren’t sure how to deal with that” (Keng 4). Keng also mentioned that Samantha can be seen as an oppressed housewife, but since she chooses to stop using her powers her ability to make that decision/choice is “the very essence of feminism” (4). The show has an “underlying message that the passive housewife in reality possesses an undeniable power, though society insists on concealing both that power and her right to harness it” (Keng 4). Keng claims that Bewitched “brought to light the itch that America still refused to scratch: the harsh reality of its enforcement of a strict us versus them mindset that repeatedly and ceaselessly manifested itself in society”