Into Every Generation a Slayer Is Born: How Buffy Staked Our Hearts

by Evan Ross Katz

Overview

Explore the history and cultural impact of a groundbreaking television show adored by old and new fans alike: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Over the course of its seven-year run, Buffy the Vampire Slayer cultivated a loyal fandom and featured a strong, complex female lead, at a time when such a character was a rarity. Evan Ross Katz explores the show’s cultural relevance through a book that is part oral history, part celebration, and part memoir of a personal fandom that has universal resonance still, decades later.

Katz—with the help of the show’s cast, creators, and crew—reveals that although Buffy contributed to important conversations about gender, sexuality, and feminism, it was not free of internal strife, controversy, and shortcomings. Men—both on screen and off—would taint the show’s reputation as a feminist masterpiece, and changing networks, amongst other factors, would drastically alter the show’s tone.

Katz addresses these issues and more, including interviews with stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, Charisma Carpenter, Emma Caulfield, Amber Benson, James Marsters, Anthony Stewart Head, Seth Green, Marc Blucas, Nicholas Brendon, Danny Strong, Tom Lenk, Bianca Lawson, Julie Benz, Clare Kramer, K. Todd Freeman, Sharon Ferguson; and writers Douglas Petrie, Jane Espenson, and Drew Z. Greenberg; as well as conversations with Buffy fanatics and friends of the cast including Stacey Abrams, Cynthia Erivo, Lee Pace, Claire Saffitz, Tavi Gevinson, and Selma Blair.

Into Every Generation a Slayer Is Born engages with the very notion of fandom, and the ways a show like Buffy can influence not only how we see the world but how we exist within it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306826689
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	03/15/2022
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	673,115
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 5.90(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Evan Ross Katz is a writer, podcast host, and high-pitched loudmouth whose work has appeared in the pages of GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, Interview Magazine, Rolling Stone, Oprah Magazine, Teen Vogue, Town & Country and more. He is a fashion columnist at Paper Magazine, a contributor at The Cut, and host of the podcasts Shut Up Evan and Drop Your Buffs. He is best known as the world’s preeminent Sarah Michelle Gellar historian and a “die-hard Buffy aficionado,” according to Vogue, and for being blocked on Twitter by Kim Cattrall in 2017 (she has since unblocked). He was selected as one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business 2021.

Table of Contents

Pre-Prologue xi

Prologue xv

Chapter 1 A Conversation with Stacey Abrams 1

Chapter 2 The Slayer in Me 10

Chapter 3 Rhonda the Immortal Waitress 13

Chapter 4 Buffy Will Patrol Now 22

Chapter 5 Beep Her 39

Chapter 6 You're 16 Years Old. I'm 241. 60

Chapter 7 Will You Be Slaying? Only If They Give Me Lip. 87

Chapter 8 Well, You Were Myth-Taken 105

Chapter 9 Who's Going to Take Care of Us? 131

Chapter 10 Ask Me Again Why I Could Never Love You 149

Chapter 11 It's About Power 179

Chapter 12 The Joss of It All 202

Chapter 13 Thank God We're Hot Chicks with Superpowers 231

Chapter 14 Gay Now, Gay Then 239

Chapter 15 The Caucasian Persuasion 255

Chapter 16 Stylish, Yet Affordable Boots 267

Chapter 17 You Talk Funny 278

Chapter 18 Close Your Eyes 283

Chapter 19 Class Protector 289

Chapter 20 Popular Culture Reference, Sorry 293

Chapter 21 Love Is Forever 297

Chapter 22 SMG, and the Weight of the World Her Shoulders 315

Chapter 23 Where Do We Go from Here? 330

Acknowledgments 355

Notes 357

Index 369

Editorial Reviews

01/10/2022

In this entertaining debut, pop culture critic Katz makes a convincing case for why 25 years on, Buffy the Vampire Slayer “remains one of the best television series of all time.” Self-annointed as the “world’s preeminent Sarah Michelle Gellar historian,” Katz asserts that, in addition to indelibly shaping the landscape of modern-day television, the seven-year series “changed lives”—and also ruined a few. As he writes, “to love Buffy is to both contextualize and reexamine it.” Delivering on that, he explores the show’s enduring feminist narrative and the impact it had on other die-hard fans—such as Stacey Abrams, who, in an interview with Katz, praises Buffy for “grappl with the contours of power.” Meanwhile, another fan highlights how Buffy’s “experience of otherness” and ability to flourish and find community helped many embrace their own stories; echoing this, Katz movingly reflects how the show gave him “a sense of strength... throughout a youth in which I often felt powerless; it even helped me come to terms with my sexuality.” Still, he doesn’t shy away from problematic issues with the show, sharply critiquing its lack of racial diversity as well as abuse allegations about its writer Joss Whedon (“It’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it?”). Mixing keen cultural analysis, wit, and an obsessive’s zeal, this will have fans riveted. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Evan has produced the definitive feast for Buffy Buffs!"—Andy Cohen

From the Publisher