Buffy the Vampire Slayer is more than just Joss Whedon

It’s been clear for some time that Joss Whedon may not be the acclaimed filmmaker many held him up to be. Which leaves one question for fans.

OPINION

Perhaps the most valuable lesson we can take from Buffy is in its final episode, when the Chosen One decided the best way to fight off unspeakable evil was to share her power.

In that moment, Buffy Summers was no longer the Chosen One, she was merely one of many gifted with the power to fight the undead, a metaphor for life’s challenges.

Her strength became their strength, and in turn, it became our strength, a strength to be shared among the legion of fans for whom Buffy wasn’t just a TV show.

When Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered in 1997 it became a phenomenon because it spoke to millions of people who were emotionally nourished and saved by its themes of empowerment, focused on a teenage girl who fought off literal and metaphorical monsters.

She was special in a way that we all wished we could be, but by the time it reached its end after 144 episodes across seven seasons, it was clear that in the world of Buffy, power wasn’t something to be hoarded and being special wasn’t the aspiration.

It was about the collective; it was about community.

Buffy was always the strongest when she was with her Scooby Gang.

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That shared experience is what the fan community are holding onto in the wake of continued allegations against Joss Whedon, the once-revered creator of a teenage vampire slayer who quipped as well as she kicked.

Whedon inspired not just admiration but adoration for a series whose devoted fandom have spent the past two decades and change engrossed in the world he created. From the time I was 12 years old until about five years ago, I thought he was a god among men.

So how do I, we, reckon with a man whose personal behaviour appears to be the antithesis of what he preached? What happens when the man we idolised manifests as the monster our hero slayed week in, week out?

A man who allegedly bullied a female actor because of her pregnancy, a man who it is claimed delighted in making female writers cry, a man who reportedly created a toxic work environment, issued unreasonable ultimatums against his stuntspeople and played colleagues against each other.

It might be tempting to cancel the series completely and to disavow all of Whedon’s work. It would be a fitting punishment for the legacy of someone whose legend is rooted in their creative greatness.

Charisma Carpenter levelled allegations of ‘abusive’ behaviour against Joss Whedon.

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But it was never only Whedon’s greatness.

Buffy and Angel are the achievements of hundreds of people, from writers such as Marti Noxon, Jane Espenson, David Fury, Tim Minear, Mere Smith and Drew Goddard to the actors who brought those characters to life, including Charisma Carpenter, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Amber Benson and James Marsters.

Plus, the craftspeople who actualised the world that may have started on a page.

If we were to cast off Buffy completely, don’t we risk marginalising the hard work of the very people who were victimised by Whedon’s alleged behaviour?

Then there are the fans who helped make it not just an easily forgotten ’90s TV show, but a movement. Fans who discovered in the series the queer representation, found family and emotional resonance that helped them become stronger.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer became a phenomenon like few other TV shows.

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Of course, the debate over separating the art from the artist is a sticky, evolving conversation as more and more of those we once held up as creative geniuses prove to be all too human and unforgivably flawed. On this issue, minds will change, positions will shift.

But in this moment of reckoning for Buffy fans, there’s solace in remembering that Buffy stood for defiance against powerful and repressive men and institutions who belittled those who were different to them and who sought to withhold power from the collective.

If Buffy taught us anything, it’s that it’s never about one person. If we let that happen, then the monsters win.

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