During the 1980s, popular culture became increasingly commercialised. Music became dominated by pop superstars, synthpop groups and glam metal bands, slickly produced for the MTV generation, valuing style over substance and image over actualité. In this manner popular culture drove a parallel path to the prevailing political culture, which valued commercial success and majority appeal over social welfare and minority concerns.

At the same time, cultural and political resistance began to develop. College/alternative rock, indie, hardcore punk, thrash metal and hardcore hip hop all catered to audiences who valued ‘authenticity’ over mainstream blandness. At the beginning of the 1990s, these underground movements exploded into the mainstream. Grunge and Britpop were, for me, two sides of the same coin, each expressions of alternative or indie music gaining a foothold in mainstream culture. Both had their faults, as I’ve discussed previously, and both were eventually recuperated into the mainstream, but both were welcome shocks to a mainstream culture which was becoming increasingly stagnant.

In American culture, the 1990s began on 10th September 1991, with the release of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. It’s subsequent popularity and meteoric rise up the charts opened the door to mainstream acceptance of grunge and other ‘alternative’ forms of pop music. The explosion of pent up creativity which came in the aftermath of Nirvana’s success is comparable in quantity and quality to that which came in the wake of the Sex Pistols in the late seventies, or the Beatles in the sixties. This surely stakes out Nirvana’s claim as one of the greatest bands ever to exist; like the Pistols and the Beatles, not only did they bring their design for life to the world, they cemented it firmly into popular conciousness, with reverberations which were felt for the rest of the decade and beyond. The simple assertion that alternative was good opened door for many different alternative lifestyles to be accepted, from third wave feminism to teenage nihilism to uninhibited sexuality (and ambiguous sexuality) to drug-fuelled debauchery. And, of course, goth.

Culturally, this bubble was burst on 20th April 1999, when two students into alternative culture opened fire on those they considered representative of mainstream ‘jock’ culture in Columbine High School. Suddenly, being goth was no longer cute, but was instead something to be feared- a new enemy within. Politically, it would be another two and a half years before an enemy within emerged that made goths seem sweet by comparison, and the social liberalism of the nineties gave way to rabid neo-conservatism.

But for a brief period, being uncool was cool, and being dark and gothic was a big plus. During this period emerged Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a programme whose original air dates mirrored my own time at high school but which I never felt compelled to watch, seeing it as just another stereotypical sickly high school teen drama with added vampires. How wrong I was. Madam Miaow’s scathing review of the Torchwood season two finale prompted me to check out James Marsters before he was John Barrowman’s fuck buddy, and having worked my way through season one and half of season two, I have to say that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is some of the best TV I have ever seen. The script is immensely well written, the acting flawless (particularly from the instantly likeable Alyson Hannigan as Willow) and the shamelessly cheesy monsters and special effects rival anything from Russell T Grant’s tribute show.

Much has already been written about the way Buffy deals with the problems facing teenagers at high school, and there is little I can add. For example, in the introduction to Fighting the Forces, Rhonda V. Wilcox and David Lavery illustrate how real life concerns are represented occult and supernatural forces.

“In the world of Buffy the problems that teenagers face become literal monsters. A mother can take over her daughter’s life (”Witch”); a strict stepfather-to-be really is a heartless machine (”Ted”); a young lesbian fears that her nature is demonic (”Goodbye Iowa” and “Family”); a girl who has sex with even the nicest-seeming guy may discover that he afterwards becomes a monster (”Innocence”)”

This brings to mind Roobin’s take on the X-Files (part 1, part 2) where it is argued that the fictional monsters and conspiracies in the programme are projections of a critique of neo-liberalism and an attempt to escape from alienation. Buffy the Vampire Slayer borrows heavily from the X-Files, using the ‘monster of the week theme’ and even has the FBI using an invisible girl as a military asset during the episode “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”.

Another aspect of Buffy oft subject to academic discussion is the music used in the show. An essay by Janet K. Halfyard discusses the significance of the opening theme music.

“Firstly, there is the instrument itself: we have the sound of an organ, accompanied by a wolf’s howl, with a visual image of a flickering night sky overlaid with unintelligible archaic script: the associations with both the silent era and films such as Nosferatu and with the conventions of the Hammer House of Horror and horror in general are unmistakable. [...] The theme of BtVS starts with this organ horror signifier but then instantly changes its message. It removes itself from the sphere of 1960s and 70s horror by replaying the same motif, the organ now supplanted by an aggressively strummed electric guitar, relocating itself in modern youth culture, relocating the series in an altogether different arena than that of both Hammer and its spoofs.”

The Hammer Horror movies of the sixties and seventies were a direct influence on early heavy metal- in fact, it can be argued that metal was born when the members of Black Sabbath noticed how people would go to the cinema and pay good money to be frightened, and decided to make their music as scary as possible. Early heavy metal (and Black Sabbath in particular) was a big influence on the grunge bands of the early nineties, who updated the sound with the influence of American alternative rock. Thus Buffy the Vampire Slayer represents an update of the horror genre for the late nineties, just as grunge represented an update of hard rock for the early nineties.

The grunge influence is made explicit in Buffy from the first episode, when Buffy goes to the Bronze (’the only club worth going to around here’) and sees grunge band Sprung Monkey playing onstage. Throughout the series alternative rock bands are regularly seen playing at the venue, and even feature in the storyline. Most are unsigned, but apparently Third Eye Blind, The Dandy Warhols and Blink 182 crop up in later episodes.

But what really interests me about the programme is the attempt it makes to subvert the usual societal norms of a dominant, mainstream culture which marginalises those who don’t conform to it. This, as I’m sure we all remember, is something particularly true of the social order at high school. The first episode of Buffy starts with the eponymous vampire slayer moving to a new school and trying to make new friends. We are introduced to Cordelia, whose primary activities are looking good and achieving upward social mobility. We are also introduced to Willow, a computer geek who Cordelia defines as one of the ‘losers’, a distinct social strata below herself and her hangers on.

Cordelia: Well, you’ll be okay here. If you hang with me and mine, you’ll be accepted in no time. Of course, we do have to test your coolness factor. You’re from L.A., so you can skip the written, but let’s see. Vamp nail polish.

Buffy: Um, over?

Cordelia: So over. James Spader.

Buffy: He needs to call me!

Cordelia: Frappaccinos.

Buffy: Trendy, but tasty.

Cordelia: John Tesh.

Buffy: The Devil.

Cordelia: That was pretty much a gimme, but… you passed!

Buffy: Oh, goody!

They turn toward a drinking fountain. Willow is there. She straightens up and sees them coming.

Cordelia: Willow! Nice dress! Good to know you’ve seen the softer side of Sears.

Willow: Uh, oh, well, my mom picked it out.

Cordelia: No wonder you’re such a guy magnet. Are you done?

Willow looks at the fountain, then back at Cordelia.

Willow: Oh!

She turns and leaves. Buffy watches her go for a moment, then looks back at Cordelia after she starts talking again.

Cordelia: You wanna fit in here, the first rule is: know your losers. Once you can identify them all by sight (glances after Willow) they’re a lot easier to avoid.

Buffy later seeks out Willow.

The quad at school. Willow is sitting on a bench in front of a wall taking out her lunch. Buffy approaches her.

Buffy: Uh, Hi! Willow, right?

Willow: (looks up) Why? I-I mean, hi! Uh, did you want me to move?

Buffy: Why don’t we start with, ‘Hi, I’m Buffy,’ and, uh, then let’s segue directly into me asking you for a favor. (sits next to her) It doesn’t involve moving, but it does involve hanging out with me for a while.

Willow: But aren’t you hanging out with Cordelia?

Buffy: I can’t do both?

Willow: Not legally.

We know from “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” that Buffy was a popular girl at her old school, and could easily fit into the highest social rank at Sunnydale. But she chooses not to. Willow and a similar character called Xander become her friends, learn of her vampire slaying powers and together form the ‘Scooby Gang’ to research demons and aid Buffy in battle. By contrast Cordelia quickly becomes little more than a figure of fun who features in the storyline only when the writers want to poke fun at the stereotypically shallow American high school girl.

The programme sets its stall firmly on the side of the socially excluded in high school society, and in doing so reflects the prevalence ‘alternative’ culture had by the late nineties, so much so that it had become part of mainstream shows such as Buffy. Whatever politics Buffy the Vampire Slayer may have explored later, this is what defines it as a classic piece of nineties television.