........She is not your mother's idea of a role model--after all, she wears short skirts, is no A student, and has had sex with her boyfriend--but Buffy the Vampire Slayer, played with uncommon vitality by Sarah Michelle Gellar, represents real girl power, the kind that can kung-fu the undead back into oblivion.
........Now heading into her second hit season on the WB network, Buffy appeared on the scene just as psychologists were reporting that during adolescence, many girls mutate from self-confident, assertive little brats into self- hating, anorexic little women. In Revivinq Ophelia, for example, Dr. Mary Pipher laid the blame for girls' plummeting self-esteem firmly at the feet of a girl-hostile culture. Seen in this light, Gellar, who also fought good fights in horror flicks like Scream 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer, might be just what the doctor ordered. She's a heroine who's tough as nails--sparkly blue ones at that.
........Unbeknownst to its residents, Buffy's California hometown sits atop a mouth of hell, and it is Buffy's destiny to beat the living daylights out of the sunlight- fearing crowd. But what she's really taking on is the regular assortment of challenges that threaten to suck the lifeblood out of teenage girls, like a suffocating high school hierarchy and a sexual double standard. When her boyfriend suddenly goes cold shoulder on her after they've finally slept together, Buffy doesn't just get mad--she gets even. Granted, her excuse is that he's turned out to be a vamp, but it's refreshing to see a teenage girl avenge her pain so directly. Twenty years ago, Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie suggested that if the little lady at home were allowed to unleash her powers, all hell would break loose. Buffy the Vampire Slayer suggests that girls have the power to save the world.