It's the end of the world as we know it: the last days of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' - Neil Starman (2003)
The last ever episode of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' (2003) might have made me sad but it did not disappoint. Instead it demonstrated why over its seven year arc the programme remained the most interesting thing on television.
Buffy represented a conscious effort to create a female superhero(ine), but it was much more subversive than 'Wonderwoman' with better clothes and a sense of humour. The classic male superheroes have tended to be brooding loners wrestling with their isolation and their egos. The cult of the superman, whether in its Nietzche or Clark Kent form, has always had a fascistic side - the ubermensch flying high above the powerless masses.
Buffy may have been 'the chosen one' with unique abilities, but she always fought as part of a closely knit affinity group to which all members made their own particular contribution: wisdom and experience (Giles); a good heart and personal integrity (Xander); kick-ass lesbian witchiness (Willow).
In the final, seventh series, the tension between Buffy as 'chosen one' and the rest reached crisis point as the core gang was joined by a small army of potential slayers from across the world. At one point they mutinied against her orders before the contradiction was brilliantly resolved in the final episode by Buffy relinquishing her uniqueness, declaring: "In every generation, one slayer is born... because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule... So I say we change the rule. I say my power should be our power". In doing so she empowered all the potential vampire slayers, and by implication young women in general: "From now on, every girl in the world who might be a slayer will be a slayer. Every girl who could have the power will have the power".
Buffy and her pals referred to themselves as the Scooby Gang in self-mocking homage to the 70s cartoon strip. But in Scooby Doo the ending is always the same - once the kids have unmasked the villain they hand him over to the cops and the normal social order is restored. In the Buffyverse the state offered no such protection - police, priests and politicians tended to be either stupid or actively in collusion with demonic forces.
In the final series it was business as usual. The preacher who picked up the girl fleeing from her pursuers turned out to be the most evil of all, while the potential slayers had to beat up a group of cops intent on killing Faith (slayer no.2).
Marx wrote that "Capital is dead labour, which, vampire like, lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks." Buffy might not have been this explicit, but it hinted at it in episodes such as 'Anne' where Buffy runs away from home and finds work as a waitress in a diner. While experiencing the delights of casualised wage slavery she discovers that young homeless people are disappearing, seduced by religious missionaries offering a promise of help. When they reappear they have aged overnight into dying, decrepit old people. Buffy soon finds out the secret: an underground sweatshop run by demons where people are worked until they are exhausted. Naturally Buffy leads a slave revolt.
In the final scene of the last episode, schools, shops and the whole town were consigned to the hellmouth of history, as Sunnydale was swallowed up by the earth. Xander declared: "All those shops gone. The Gap, Starbucks, Toys 'R' Us. Who will remember all those landmarks unless we tell the world about them?". The end of the world as they knew it - but smiling they stood to face a better one.
Postscript: Buffy, Bush and Baghdad Museum
The controversy about what happened at Baghdad museum in the aftermath of the 2003 Anglo-US Invasion continues. There are differing accounts of how many ancient treasures were looted, and by whom, but a strong suggestion that some items were professionally removed rather than randomly picked up in a mass smash and grab. The whole thing reminds me of one of those episodes of Buffy or Angel (or even Indiana Jones) where some archaeological artifact is sought, some forgotten script decoded, in order to confer some evil power or other.
With this in mind, lets invent a conspiracy theory... Perhaps the Baghdad museum affair was not a consequence of the war, but its main cause. The rulers of the world are quite happy for people to moan about a 'war for oil' as a smokescreen for the real object of the conquest - something n the museum whose possession will speed the progress towards global domination. In 'Reptile Boy', one of my favourite episodes of Buffy, an elite fraternity of rich students try and sacrifice Buffy to the giant Snake demon who guarantees their wealth and power. The name of their fraternity, the Zeta Kappas, no doubt delibearately recalls a real life Yale fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, amongst whose members have been counted both George W Bush and his father. Were Bush's henchmen in Iraq really looking for some Mesopotamian snake demon icon to use in their rituals? With Buffy finished, can anything save the planet but an international proletarian uprising? Watch this space..