Speaker 1: I watched Sense and Sensibility last night. I've never seen
Speaker 1: it before. It's the version with Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet,
Speaker 1: Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, and like ten other people who
Speaker 1: were in harry Water. But it was so good and honestly,
Speaker 1: I've never read Sensen Sensibility before, and like Jane Austen
Speaker 1: kind of put her whole pussy into we're talking about
Speaker 1: something that I love so much today, like truly one
Speaker 1: of the foundational pieces of my personality. I was going
Speaker 1: to say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We've already talked about
Speaker 1: so many things that are very formative to you, but
Speaker 1: Buffy really is that thing. It is that thing. It
Speaker 1: has shaped so much of who I am in the world.
Speaker 1: And like, obviously that's complicated now because of the just
Speaker 1: Weeden of it all, but I'm really excited to dig
Speaker 1: into Buffy and why it's so important, and like especially
Speaker 1: the women of Buffy, like why why they're so important.
Speaker 1: And there's no better person to have this conversation with
Speaker 1: us than Evan russ Katz, who is a writer cultural critic.
Speaker 1: Buffy correspond Buffy, Buffy Corresponded his story Buffy um who
Speaker 1: is literally writing the book on Buffy. Um, and we're
Speaker 1: so excited to talk about it with him today because
Speaker 1: this is like a Virgin the show where we give
Speaker 1: yesterday's pop culture today's takes. I'm most damn you and
Speaker 1: I'm Fran Toronto, and I'm feeling a sacred calling to
Speaker 1: talk about what's going on in pop culture today. Um. So,
Speaker 1: I woke up this morning to a cultural rest a shift.
Speaker 1: I felt something in the air, smelled it. I felt
Speaker 1: my breasthts were sore. So that's how I knew even
Speaker 1: before I opened Twitter that Rihanna had done something and
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was not make an album. Correct. Yes, no, Um,
Speaker 1: Rihanna is pregnant with her first child with I mean
Speaker 1: the father I don't believe is like it's it's Rihanna's baby,
Speaker 1: but it is with Asap Rocky who. I guess like
Speaker 1: people thought that they had broken up maybe, but they
Speaker 1: are expecting a child. I think your initial reaction was correct.
Speaker 1: The father doesn't exist, um, and real is Madonna with child.
Speaker 1: This is a sacred baby. The spirit of our Lord
Speaker 1: and Savior has infimated her and betrothed to us, a
Speaker 1: savior I missed the I missed the old days when
Speaker 1: Rihanna used Twitter the way that the rest of us
Speaker 1: used Twitter to like clap back at people, or like,
Speaker 1: you know, the iconic like good luck booking that stage
Speaker 1: you speak of? Yeah, yeah, same, I missed the olden
Speaker 1: days of Rihanna when she was releasing Anti, which is
Speaker 1: the best Rihanna album. Sorry about it? Well, someone did
Speaker 1: tweet this morning. Um how it was very wrong of
Speaker 1: Rihanna to announce this news the week of the Anti
Speaker 1: anniversary because it's just like solidifying the fact that we
Speaker 1: are not getting an album like maybe ever again. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, but we have Maybe the album needed Me
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite Rihanna songs of all time.
Speaker 1: Love on the Brain higher like read. I like that
Speaker 1: you are willfully ignoring Rihanna's baby and instead choosing to
Speaker 1: have a retrospective for Anti. This is the only thing
Speaker 1: I actually really need to must be Love on the Brain.
Speaker 1: Why do I sing so much on this podcast? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I don't know. We're not trying to make because like,
Speaker 1: I don't sing that much in real life. I think
Speaker 1: our producers saying it's because we're musical theater girls. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are recovering, recovering, recovering, musical theater, musical theater girls,
Speaker 1: to the tune of material Girls, I wanted to offer
Speaker 1: you Rose a brief fran cap of Real Housewives of
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City. Go ahead. First of all, there was
Speaker 1: a huge I'm press release that I'm sure you saw
Speaker 1: posted on all Bravo social media accounts about how Jenny,
Speaker 1: the cast member of this franchise, who is maybe the
Speaker 1: most boring housewife we've had in quite some time, was
Speaker 1: fired for posting some really offensive things about black people
Speaker 1: during the Black Lives Matter protests of I did see
Speaker 1: that last week. I just wanted to bring this up
Speaker 1: because obviously Jenny deserved the boot, and like, I am
Speaker 1: glad that Bravo did something about it, But it has
Speaker 1: to be said that Bravo only did this for opportunism
Speaker 1: because they wanted to fire Jenny anyways, and so they
Speaker 1: took this moment to post about why Jenny is a
Speaker 1: bad girl and like dismissing her for her racism and
Speaker 1: like she's no longer part of the show. I just
Speaker 1: don't understand. I guess how the show is kind of
Speaker 1: pulling its like racial politics together when like someone like
Speaker 1: Ramona exists in Housewives like or when someone like Mary
Speaker 1: who isn't going to be in the next season like
Speaker 1: gets to go quietly. What I'm trying to say is,
Speaker 1: like Bravo, not tolerate racism is like completely incoherent when
Speaker 1: you look at the rest of like the House Lives
Speaker 1: Cinematic University. You know what I'm saying, Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: I mean, I think telling that the fall person for
Speaker 1: this bad behavior is someone who isn't white exactly exactly
Speaker 1: say that, not that any of her behavior is excusable,
Speaker 1: but it really is very telling. Um. You know what's
Speaker 1: moderately better background TV Paul's Drag Race, which I am
Speaker 1: continuing to watch. What did you think of this week's episode?
Speaker 1: And like j Lo's cameo quote, I mean, can cameo
Speaker 1: is a generous term. It literally I mean we paid
Speaker 1: her for They paid her for a cameo and set
Speaker 1: her to script lots were I mean, I think it
Speaker 1: says a lot about j Lo as a celebrity that
Speaker 1: like when they have done the other pop girlies, they
Speaker 1: are like a lot of times doing iconic like performance
Speaker 1: looks or like music video looks for j Lo it's
Speaker 1: a lot of like this red carpet that you've never
Speaker 1: seen photos of from like two years ago. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny because j Loo is not necessarily as much
Speaker 1: of a fashion queen as like when they did Night
Speaker 1: of a Thousand Madonnas or Night of a Thousand Shares
Speaker 1: or whatever. It kind of felt a little more lukewarm.
Speaker 1: But I felt Willow Hills look was stunning, and I
Speaker 1: thought that it was cute. She I think got the
Speaker 1: assignment really well and that she found kind of an
Speaker 1: ugo bagugo look that no one would remember and made
Speaker 1: something that was very drag. I have to say, if
Speaker 1: I see that fucking Versace dress one more time, I'm
Speaker 1: going to claw my own eyes out. I don't care
Speaker 1: that Carrie how the actual one that j Lo wore.
Speaker 1: Like also that lip sync double elimination, they were both
Speaker 1: bad and and I and I like, I am happy
Speaker 1: to have Carrie stay, but I don't think she won
Speaker 1: that lip sync. I agree, I don't think she won
Speaker 1: the lip sync. I don't think either of them won.
Speaker 1: But the other queen whose name I've already forgotten and
Speaker 1: will not care to learn, Alissa Hunter. Please don't tell
Speaker 1: me um, she definitely did worse than the challenge, but
Speaker 1: if we're going off the lip sync, like she was
Speaker 1: marginally better. If I were to get nitty gritty, Georgists
Speaker 1: should have been in the bottom. I think she really
Speaker 1: really tanked and Alyssa and Carrie, one of them should
Speaker 1: have been saved from the bottom because I just don't
Speaker 1: think that that was who our bottom two were. I
Speaker 1: think they're both amazing performers in very different ways. I
Speaker 1: think Alyssa is like such a show girl and I
Speaker 1: appreciated her and felt like she should have gone further.
Speaker 1: Carrie maybe giving a very timid performance and drag race
Speaker 1: overall so far, but I do feel like she has
Speaker 1: what it takes to be a much more fierce competitor
Speaker 1: in face and in runway and in other components of
Speaker 1: the show. But like the runways just don't matter in
Speaker 1: the grand scheme of how they eliminate girls. And I
Speaker 1: wish the judges would just say that, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like they are like low key my one
Speaker 1: of my favorite parts of the show to watch. I agree,
Speaker 1: and like you know, I don't really feel like giving
Speaker 1: a ton of credit to someone who can afford an
Speaker 1: archival Jennifer Lopez for Sacchy dress or I guess it's
Speaker 1: not archival nineteen version, but it's like it still was
Speaker 1: a stunning runway, and if you're in the bottom, that's
Speaker 1: like that's gonna that's gonna save you, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like she served and like the runways should
Speaker 1: be factoring into how they evaluate these, which is why
Speaker 1: the bottom two made me so upset. Still, double elimination,
Speaker 1: I just always think it should be a double yeah
Speaker 1: you or quadruple. Honestly, I would like to be eliminated.
Speaker 1: I think before we move on to talking about Buffy,
Speaker 1: like we should briefly touch on and just like that,
Speaker 1: which today the season finale is out, um, but as
Speaker 1: we are, you know, coming to from the past. We
Speaker 1: haven't seen it yet. So based on where this penultimate
Speaker 1: episode ended, Like, what are your predictions for the finale?
Speaker 1: It's Samantha going to show up well, and I don't
Speaker 1: think it's going to happen. I don't think so either.
Speaker 1: I think that is like so far and beyond which
Speaker 1: she's going to show up in a post credit scene
Speaker 1: like Nick Fury at the end of the adventure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I I honestly, i'd be curious to
Speaker 1: hear your predictions briefly on the last episode, I just have,
Speaker 1: honestly one remark this writer's room trying to imagine the
Speaker 1: hottest club in Brooklyn unquote unquote. First of all, Brooklyn
Speaker 1: doesn't have clubs, Like, we don't really do clubs really,
Speaker 1: Like that's not a thing. I mean, there are clubs,
Speaker 1: it's just like we're not going to them. It is.
Speaker 1: It was kind of hard to watch. And also sorry,
Speaker 1: someone who is at this stage in her career like
Speaker 1: Carrie would not be waiting in line at a club,
Speaker 1: like if she went to the front, even if she
Speaker 1: was like kind of can I really like kind of
Speaker 1: choogy internet celebrity that no one likes the way you
Speaker 1: would let a real housewife into a party, no matter
Speaker 1: who she is, you'd be like, oh, but I don't
Speaker 1: think Carrie has that kind of face recognition. You don't
Speaker 1: think No, I think maybe I think she should have
Speaker 1: had her while I was going to say her publicists,
Speaker 1: but she doesn't have on anymore because Samantha, she would
Speaker 1: have had her publicists call ahead and get her on
Speaker 1: the list. Maybe that's no Samantha. So there we go.
Speaker 1: My big question watching the episode was at the end
Speaker 1: of the last episode, Miranda was flying to Ohio to
Speaker 1: see Chay and confess her love, and then in this episode,
Speaker 1: like all they're just all a brunch and like there's
Speaker 1: no mention of what happened, So, like, what what happened?
Speaker 1: That was? So I understand that, like in the o G.
Speaker 1: Sex in the City, like it is truly episodic, and
Speaker 1: so there are huge time jumps between all these episodes,
Speaker 1: and so I don't know why, but it's much more
Speaker 1: jarring and and just like that, I think because they've
Speaker 1: created these hour long stories that, um, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: are pretty serialized, and so I just I don't really
Speaker 1: it is a little jarring. And I think that even
Speaker 1: if they do earn it most of the time, like
Speaker 1: they're good enough writers to like earn it. That I
Speaker 1: totally agree. Was like it was such an explosive moment
Speaker 1: to like take a cab to an airport for it
Speaker 1: to be completely disregarded. Yeah, but I did like that
Speaker 1: Miranda like had that moment where she recognized she was
Speaker 1: being insane and not acting like herself. But like it's
Speaker 1: a little too little, too late, especially after the moment
Speaker 1: between Steve and Carrie where he said he was never
Speaker 1: taking his wedding ring off, but also like that was
Speaker 1: so different than the tune he was singing last week
Speaker 1: where he was saying he was done fighting for their marriage.
Speaker 1: There's no consistency in the characterizations from episode to episode,
Speaker 1: and that makes me wonder, like, Okay, next week is
Speaker 1: like Miranda going to have a come to Jesus moment
Speaker 1: where Chay like disappoints her in some way and she
Speaker 1: goes back to Steve. You know, I agree that there's
Speaker 1: there's an emotion an emotional incontinuity, but I do think
Speaker 1: that there's consistency in saying I'm done fighting for you,
Speaker 1: but also like You're going to break my heart forever.
Speaker 1: Months have passed, I guess since we last saw them,
Speaker 1: so it would make sense that he would come around
Speaker 1: to kind of a new frame of mind. I think
Speaker 1: I bought that. I guess what I'm kind of struggling
Speaker 1: with is Naya's like I vf fully just don't care.
Speaker 1: I think that I don't care. They need they to
Speaker 1: get me to care. She needed to be more part
Speaker 1: of everyone else's stories, Like yes, I can, I can
Speaker 1: recognize that that's a compelling story, even though it's one
Speaker 1: we've already seen before with Charlotte and Trey back in
Speaker 1: the original series. But she's just not a part of
Speaker 1: the rest of the story enough for me to care
Speaker 1: about it. I totally agree, and like, I commend what's
Speaker 1: kind of trying to be done incorporating new kind of
Speaker 1: characters into this universe in in the name of inclusion,
Speaker 1: which I think in a kind of tokenism is like
Speaker 1: really annoying, but I I think they're genuinely trying. I
Speaker 1: think what like I feel both of us are kind
Speaker 1: of annoyed with, is that seeing scenes without any of
Speaker 1: our girls is very jarring. It's a different show. It's
Speaker 1: a show I would want to watch. It's a show
Speaker 1: I would be engaged in, but it's not Sex in
Speaker 1: the City. And so I appreciate the swing of trying
Speaker 1: to incorporate new perspectives and narratives. I just wish it
Speaker 1: was kind of more entwined, and to borrow a take
Speaker 1: from the Every Outfit podcast, like, it's also it sucks
Speaker 1: that like all the people of color in the show,
Speaker 1: like that their plotlines are such bummers, Like Seema is
Speaker 1: like I guess creating a fake marriage to please her
Speaker 1: parents LTW is just kind of like bickering with her
Speaker 1: husband and Naya, you know, and this I V F thing,
Speaker 1: like Bear rely has a single moment of levity. And
Speaker 1: again it's just I think it's a failure of the
Speaker 1: imagination for like rich people of color in this show.
Speaker 1: I think Seema is the best iteration of it, and
Speaker 1: like she is like so faboo and like I'm I'm
Speaker 1: invested in her as a character for season two of
Speaker 1: the show, but it still doesn't They haven't quite smoothed
Speaker 1: over all the layers of it um tonally, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Yeah, I think also one of the
Speaker 1: problems is that, like I get and just like that
Speaker 1: is not Sex in the City. But the thing was
Speaker 1: Sex in the City was that carries friends lives were
Speaker 1: important because not just because we found them compelling as characters,
Speaker 1: but because what they were going through in the episodes
Speaker 1: was thematically linked to what Carrie was talking about in
Speaker 1: her columns. So all the stories have these like larger
Speaker 1: thematic connects exactly, And that's just not happening here. Everything
Speaker 1: is just like here's a bunch of stuff that's happening
Speaker 1: all these people's lives, so that just like feels weird
Speaker 1: to me and just like bad writing. But I guess
Speaker 1: that's my prediction for the finale is like there will
Speaker 1: be more kind of like confusing bad writing stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: we are getting a mitzvah, which is going to be
Speaker 1: a lot. Har enf is playing the trans rabbi. You kidding? Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was in the preview that Okay, that's sick. I'm
Speaker 1: here for Harry as a as a rabbi. I think
Speaker 1: all I'm hoping for is that these women get something
Speaker 1: fun to do next week. I hope so. But we
Speaker 1: will see you up the the mitzvah. Today we're talking
Speaker 1: about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and there is literally no
Speaker 1: one better to do that with them with our guest
Speaker 1: Evan ross Katz, thank you both. And I just gotta say,
Speaker 1: I feel like years ago, when I would see you
Speaker 1: on Twitter, I'd be like, oh my god, she's someone
Speaker 1: who also sees the show like I see the show,
Speaker 1: and like really, I started to realize that there was
Speaker 1: like a fandom that exists twenty plus years later, and
Speaker 1: like we still are out there and it's like you
Speaker 1: see someone that posted about Buffy and it like it
Speaker 1: connects you to that person because you're like, oh, you
Speaker 1: may maybe you see the world how I see the world.
Speaker 1: It is this little insider club and a way to
Speaker 1: just know someone's cool if they like Buffy. AG. So
Speaker 1: you're declaratively saying that I'm not cool. That's not that's
Speaker 1: not actually what I'm saying. If that's what you're inferring,
Speaker 1: then that's up to you. I guess I should clarify
Speaker 1: that I like Buffy, but I personally have not consumed
Speaker 1: Buffy the way y'all have because y'all were from the
Speaker 1: dark question mark from season two. From season two, that's
Speaker 1: that's when I started as well and then went back. Yeah, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: And I personally have only, you know, done a cursory
Speaker 1: watch of the first season. I'm not in the weeds
Speaker 1: of it. But again, like I said that, I'm a
Speaker 1: student today and I'm here to learn what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I was gonna say, like I feel like with
Speaker 1: season like when I first watched it, I look back
Speaker 1: now and I don't know what I was taking away
Speaker 1: from it because I literally was a preteen and so
Speaker 1: so many and as you mentioned yeah, yeah, and like
Speaker 1: I go back now and I'm like, I don't know
Speaker 1: the show that I was watching or what I was
Speaker 1: taking away from it. I'm glad I found it, but
Speaker 1: like so many of the jokes and the references, like
Speaker 1: I had no idea what was going on, and to
Speaker 1: this day I get something new from every every time
Speaker 1: I watched an appo completely there's so many layers of
Speaker 1: references and like little like physical moments of humor that
Speaker 1: I just didn't catch on first watching. There's a line
Speaker 1: in season three I forgot the name of the episode,
Speaker 1: but it's one sentence in Sarah Michelle Geller literally references
Speaker 1: Willie Lohman from Death of a Salesman and then talks
Speaker 1: about the real world. And it's just like the way
Speaker 1: that she just sort of goes in and out of
Speaker 1: something that's like an Arthur Miller play and then like
Speaker 1: an MTV reality show. And I again and both of
Speaker 1: those things over my head at the time, but now
Speaker 1: I go back and watch him, like this show is
Speaker 1: just so smart. Well, for all of our virgins out there,
Speaker 1: which this week includes a friend, Um, Evan, do you
Speaker 1: want to give us like a you know, a brief
Speaker 1: little synopsis of what Buffy is. Yeah, so Buffy was
Speaker 1: based off of a film that was written by Josh Sweden,
Speaker 1: and when we say his name, we're using verbal asterixes
Speaker 1: over the vowels um. But basically the premise of the film,
Speaker 1: which sort of sort of more or less carries over
Speaker 1: into the series, was that there he wanted to subvert
Speaker 1: the idea of the blonde girl in the alley that
Speaker 1: dies in a horror film, and he basically was like,
Speaker 1: I want to have her take back the night. I
Speaker 1: want her to not only survive, but thrive and be
Speaker 1: powerful and actually be able to take out the bad guys.
Speaker 1: And so the character of Buffy was born. In the film,
Speaker 1: she's a little bit more flat, she's more of like
Speaker 1: just sort of a dizzy valley girl who's given this
Speaker 1: identity as the chosen one, the slayer. And then in
Speaker 1: the television series she becomes a lot more nuanced thanks
Speaker 1: to the writing, but mostly thanks to the performance of
Speaker 1: Sarah Michelle Geller. And so the series just basically chronicles
Speaker 1: her battling physical demons and then the demons that live
Speaker 1: with so many of us, and so there's sort of
Speaker 1: this metaphor. Yeah, it was the show that popularized the
Speaker 1: idea of the monster of the Week episode UM, and
Speaker 1: it also was the show that created the idea of
Speaker 1: the big bad UM of having a season of serialized
Speaker 1: television that was like all like thematically linked by one
Speaker 1: story and leading towards one big confrontation. And in so
Speaker 1: many ways, Buffy was the blueprint for like everything that
Speaker 1: exists on TV no completely and also just like treating
Speaker 1: young people. You know, there's this thing right now because
Speaker 1: there's so many shows out there, from sex Education to
Speaker 1: Euphoria that treat teens like teens really are, but that
Speaker 1: wasn't so much. The trend at the time was very
Speaker 1: actually after school special, like everything was like a lesson,
Speaker 1: And I feel like Buffy was one of the first
Speaker 1: shows to really treat teens as young adults, as people
Speaker 1: who have maybe heightened emotions, but those emotions are very
Speaker 1: real when you're living through them. At the time, it
Speaker 1: sort of didn't um look down upon teen aks. It
Speaker 1: actually celebrated teenang totally, and those emotions were so real
Speaker 1: that they became literal monsters because those monsters were reflections
Speaker 1: of what the characters were dealing with. And I think
Speaker 1: in Buffy the slayer, you know, defeating them. They never
Speaker 1: made that like a shorthand for having to deal with
Speaker 1: the actual issues, Like Buffy always had to figure her
Speaker 1: ship out. It wasn't like she just got to slay
Speaker 1: a monster and everything went away. There was so much
Speaker 1: like unpacking of trauma and you know, like dealing with
Speaker 1: you know, romantic relationships and platonic relationships and familial really
Speaker 1: and chips and it's just like the best show ever.
Speaker 1: I watched the first episode with like an O G.
Speaker 1: Buffy stand like someone who watched the movie like when
Speaker 1: it came out, and then we came obsessed with Buffy
Speaker 1: from there, which I think, I don't know, do a
Speaker 1: lot of Buffy stands, like even what like I actually
Speaker 1: didn't even know that there was a movie. Do a
Speaker 1: lot of Buffy stands start with the TV show and
Speaker 1: then go back to the movie, or like, well, I
Speaker 1: would say that the film is like not Cannon, but
Speaker 1: it but it kind of is because they like I
Speaker 1: like that they didn't totally throw it out, because they
Speaker 1: make references to the villain in the movie. And in
Speaker 1: season two, the flashbacks to Buffy at her old school,
Speaker 1: like she does talk about how she burned down the
Speaker 1: gym in her old school. You see like a version
Speaker 1: of her that is closer to what we saw in
Speaker 1: the movie. But you understand in the first season that
Speaker 1: Buffy has gone through a major change after like the
Speaker 1: events of the first movie, and that's what makes it
Speaker 1: okay for her to be this new character played by
Speaker 1: this new actress. And there's one moment in the film
Speaker 1: that I actually think carries through in terms of the
Speaker 1: character of Buffy that's actually like one of my favorite
Speaker 1: moments in the film. Buffy is played by Christy Swanson,
Speaker 1: another actor who are going to use asterixes around the
Speaker 1: vowels in their name. You can google that if you want.
Speaker 1: But so Christie plays Buffy, and then Luke Perry, the
Speaker 1: Great Luke Perry is her love interest Pike, and there's
Speaker 1: a scene in the very end of the film they're
Speaker 1: dancing during the prom and he says to her, Buffy,
Speaker 1: you're not like the other girls, and she says, yeah,
Speaker 1: I am, and I kind of love that. Then you
Speaker 1: get crystallized this idea that like Buffy, all Buffy wants
Speaker 1: to be is like everybody else, and the struggle for
Speaker 1: Buffy is actually like trying to subjugate her greatness, which
Speaker 1: actually comes to a head in season seven of the series,
Speaker 1: you know, which we won't get into deep dive, but
Speaker 1: I think that one of the interesting things that the
Speaker 1: show does that it carried over from the film was
Speaker 1: this idea that like Buffy actually just wants to be
Speaker 1: a normal girl. Um, she doesn't want to have these
Speaker 1: superpowers or be perceived to be like better than others.
Speaker 1: But circumstance does not allow for that, and so much
Speaker 1: of the tension of the show is her trying to
Speaker 1: reckon with that, and then, like you said, in the
Speaker 1: later seasons, she really starts to accept that she's different.
Speaker 1: I would say like season five is probably where that
Speaker 1: happens the most, when she you know, like starting with
Speaker 1: Buffy versus Dracula, that she is realizing that she is
Speaker 1: like not she's not human, She's not a normal girl. Um,
Speaker 1: she never will be. I want to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about like that whole normal girl thing, but I
Speaker 1: want to start with like, um kind of Buffy's place
Speaker 1: like in the cultural context of this kind of heroine,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, because like being like oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the bimbo that dies at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the movie is now going to be the hero of
Speaker 1: the story. Like I actually had no idea that that
Speaker 1: was like Buffy's conceived, But when I watched the first episode,
Speaker 1: I mean, she's not like super like Jugsy, but she
Speaker 1: has like you know, she's got like a mini skirt.
Speaker 1: She has like a valley girl accent. And I think
Speaker 1: that dichotomy of like shrewd smart, like a total killer
Speaker 1: and also like I have a valley girl accent is
Speaker 1: like the beginning of like a lot of things that
Speaker 1: like we consume like right now, you know, um, because
Speaker 1: like I don't know what was the TV like at
Speaker 1: that time, it was probably like what um, like everybody
Speaker 1: loves Raymond and like like this Dawson's Creek. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: you think about what else was on the WB when
Speaker 1: Buffy r Seventh Heaven Charms Dawson's Creek. But I do
Speaker 1: feel like of the because you have to realize at
Speaker 1: the time, the w B was very much like a
Speaker 1: fledgling network. Dawson's Creek came in night so like Buffy
Speaker 1: had just premiered. I would say their tenthole, their tent
Speaker 1: pole series at the time, was Seventh Heaven. Which like
Speaker 1: looking back on it, like was not exactly moving the need.
Speaker 1: It did not age well. However, it was one of
Speaker 1: the few things that my family I was allowed to
Speaker 1: watch in my family because they were like loosely Christians
Speaker 1: somehow or quite I don't even remember. But so it
Speaker 1: was kind of the the one of the first shows
Speaker 1: that was kind of being used to launch the network
Speaker 1: in many senses, but like there wasn't a lot of
Speaker 1: belief in the material. Buffy was passed over by the
Speaker 1: w B originally and actually resurrected, if you will, as
Speaker 1: a midseason replacement. So that's why the first season is
Speaker 1: only twelve episodes, was because they kind of weren't so
Speaker 1: sold on it um, which makes sense. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: you know, Buffy the film is not a failed movie,
Speaker 1: but when it came out at the time, Death Becomes
Speaker 1: Her came out the same weekend as Buffy the Movie,
Speaker 1: and Death Becomes Her was like this huge hit. But
Speaker 1: what's interesting is like the budget of Buffy the Movie
Speaker 1: is quite small. So like Buffy did fine, it's not
Speaker 1: like it did terribly at the box office, but it's
Speaker 1: not the kind of property you would go to and
Speaker 1: be like, yes, let's make this movie. Let's develop this
Speaker 1: five years later into a television series. But Josh had
Speaker 1: won an Oscar in the interim for writing the screenplay
Speaker 1: for Toy Stories, So he was a hot commodity and
Speaker 1: I think that helped kind of landed on the w
Speaker 1: B and they were like, let's take you know, let's
Speaker 1: roll the dice with this, and then it worked out.
Speaker 1: And also he had the backing of Dolly Parton. He did, yes,
Speaker 1: she was like an executive producer. Ye yes, yeah, her
Speaker 1: company sand Dollar Entertainment. Um, yeah, they were backers of
Speaker 1: the show, and they were I believe it was Sandy Gallen.
Speaker 1: I could be wrong about the Sandy Gallen who was
Speaker 1: her partner who actually went to Johnson was like we
Speaker 1: we actually want to do something with this, and jos
Speaker 1: said no way. And it was Josh's ex wife, Kay Cole,
Speaker 1: who actually convinced Joss to be like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: there's something here. Let's let's take a leap. So a
Speaker 1: lot of women behind the scenes in those early days
Speaker 1: were actually the ones to sort of like spearhead this vision.
Speaker 1: I think Joss gets a lot of credit for creating
Speaker 1: Buffy and like he is the creator of course, but
Speaker 1: I think there were a lot of other people, particularly
Speaker 1: women behind the scenes that kind of helped usher it forward.
Speaker 1: Well that's also so true in the writing because writers
Speaker 1: like Marty Knoxon and um Jane Spenson, um, you know,
Speaker 1: have have written what I think are some of the
Speaker 1: best episodes of Buffy ever, um, the ones that really
Speaker 1: like hit you in a in a like really deep way,
Speaker 1: and they have since gone on to I think, make
Speaker 1: works that like I think about something like Sharp Objects,
Speaker 1: UM that Marty Knoxon was, um maybe executive producer creator,
Speaker 1: um and like you know this through line of like
Speaker 1: how women deal with trauma. Um, how like yeah, she
Speaker 1: is kind of over credited with it. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: not to discredit, but I mean I don't want to
Speaker 1: get into the John Sueden of of it all yet,
Speaker 1: but I do feel like the big part of like
Speaker 1: his pr Ston and like what he was talking what
Speaker 1: he talks about in a lot of his like films
Speaker 1: in post is like about him being you know, the
Speaker 1: inventor of the strong female lead and like this kind
Speaker 1: of like this woman with autonomy, but like there was
Speaker 1: I mean, Xena was on TV before that, and like
Speaker 1: Sailor Moon, yes, yeah, like the kind of bimbo heroine
Speaker 1: or like the I'm just a girl, but like I
Speaker 1: also fight crow. Yeah. I think what Buffy subverted from
Speaker 1: something like Zeno, which without a doubt as a precursor,
Speaker 1: was that, like in the case of Zena or Wonder
Speaker 1: Woman or Catwoman, they were all wearing costumes. So it
Speaker 1: was this idea that, like, to be my strong self,
Speaker 1: I somehow have to wear I have to put on
Speaker 1: a different identity, has to become Sailor Moon, exactly right.
Speaker 1: And so with Buffy, it was this idea that, like
Speaker 1: I go to school and then I go out in
Speaker 1: the graveyard at night and fight demons, and I'm still
Speaker 1: wearing the same clothes that I wore from school, my
Speaker 1: high socks, my my Kashmir turtleneck, skin tight. So I
Speaker 1: think like the duality was in her existence but not
Speaker 1: in her presentation. And I think that really was a
Speaker 1: switch up from the female fighters or the female sort
Speaker 1: of action stars that we were seeing at the time,
Speaker 1: when it was not only did they have to change over,
Speaker 1: but like in the case of Sailor Moon or with
Speaker 1: Wonder Woman, it was like a big to do that
Speaker 1: they were changing form like and with Buffy was just
Speaker 1: she's this girl. She walks through high school as the
Speaker 1: slayer and she slays demons as a high school girl.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of the you know, supporting cast,
Speaker 1: because I think that that is what makes the show
Speaker 1: is you know, the Scooby Gang, and I think everyone
Speaker 1: is able to like find themselves in a different Buffy character,
Speaker 1: and that is I think the main difference from the
Speaker 1: in the movie translation to the TV show is like
Speaker 1: in the film, all she has is her watcher and
Speaker 1: a boyfriend, and she is this very lone figure um
Speaker 1: And in the show, I think it was so important
Speaker 1: to give her this cast of characters to work off of.
Speaker 1: So you have Xander played by Nicholas Brendan Asterix is
Speaker 1: again he canceled to oh man, he's just as canceled
Speaker 1: as jobs. Yeah, we don't. You can google it. There's
Speaker 1: a lot to google. We're not going to do that.
Speaker 1: Then there's Willow played by Alison Hannigan, who is this
Speaker 1: like nerdy computer girl when the show starts and eventually
Speaker 1: matures into an extremely powerful witch and a lesbian. You
Speaker 1: also have Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia speak her name. She
Speaker 1: is she She is basically set up as who Buffy
Speaker 1: used to be before she became the Slayer, and she
Speaker 1: is this really interesting foil for her um and is
Speaker 1: honestly I think one of the best characters in the
Speaker 1: entire show, Like she gets the best lines, um. She
Speaker 1: I think she's like one of the most iconic parts
Speaker 1: of the show. And she is clearly it's clearly a
Speaker 1: personality that they felt was necessary to have in the show,
Speaker 1: because when she leaves, she's replaced by Anya, who provides
Speaker 1: sort of the same like space in the show of
Speaker 1: being like the sort of caustic, tactless person who's going
Speaker 1: to just say everything they think with no filter. Um.
Speaker 1: Then you of course have Buffies Watcher Giles played by
Speaker 1: Anthony Stewart Head who's her mentor, and he starts the
Speaker 1: show off as like a very stuffy like British man
Speaker 1: and eventually becomes really a father figure to Buffy, who
Speaker 1: does all these expository scenes in libraries that were really
Speaker 1: helpful for me as a first time watcher. I was
Speaker 1: just like, oh, if I need to know the summary, yeah,
Speaker 1: he'll lay it all out, you know, Like there's that
Speaker 1: sort of if you know, you know caption that we
Speaker 1: put on lots of things on social media. I think
Speaker 1: Buffy is filled with if you know, you know moments
Speaker 1: throughout the show that are sometimes laid out as easter eggs,
Speaker 1: but sometimes there's like a throwaway moment that, for instance,
Speaker 1: I keep thinking about, are we allowed to spoil for you?
Speaker 1: So like Buffy's sister arrives in season five, but in
Speaker 1: seasons three and four, she there are little hints laid
Speaker 1: out that again, if you know, you know, if if
Speaker 1: if your ear is a tune to it, you will
Speaker 1: hear it. And I think that the show is just
Speaker 1: really really great at treating its viewers smart. And I
Speaker 1: know another show I'm obsessed with, which I promise will
Speaker 1: be the one time I mentioned, but Survive Eiver. Survivor
Speaker 1: is not great at respecting the intelligence of its viewers,
Speaker 1: and it's one thing that really frustrates me as a
Speaker 1: view And it's not the only show, but I think
Speaker 1: Buffy just like had a grasp of not only treating
Speaker 1: the teens that it's writing as intelligent people, but also
Speaker 1: treating the teams that are watching the show as intelligent.
Speaker 1: And I really value that. When I was younger. That's
Speaker 1: definitely something that a lot of cult classics have in common,
Speaker 1: is kind of like the world built inside of like
Speaker 1: the inside jokes and the references that you will only
Speaker 1: catch if you've like watched it all the way through.
Speaker 1: Like these are totally separate. But like I'm thinking a
Speaker 1: lot about Arrested Development, and when it first came out,
Speaker 1: it had no commercial success and people didn't get it
Speaker 1: because it like preceded streaming. But when people watched it
Speaker 1: all in a row, they saw all of the Easter
Speaker 1: eggs in like in a line, and we're like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, this thing's happen. That's happening three seasons later,
Speaker 1: as referential of like the funniest joke from season one,
Speaker 1: And like, I think a lot of things that like
Speaker 1: are determined niche or determined like on the margins of
Speaker 1: like pop culture, are often just things that people didn't
Speaker 1: have the stamina to like sit down and understand. But
Speaker 1: but even not sitting down understanding, we still have a
Speaker 1: cultural awareness of them because of what phenomenons they were.
Speaker 1: Like you're only now watching the first season of Buffy,
Speaker 1: but like you still have some kind of literacy and
Speaker 1: what it is and like the impact of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not a ton, but like, of course knowing that Buffy
Speaker 1: is massive and this like cultural entity that has paved
Speaker 1: the way for a lot of other things. And actually
Speaker 1: this is like because my cultural my reference point is
Speaker 1: like very boring. Like my only real knowledge of like
Speaker 1: Buffy growing up was the fact that, like I did
Speaker 1: watch a lot of like after school stuff on UPN,
Speaker 1: and you could not watch a single thing on UPN
Speaker 1: without watching a Buffy commercial. Noting the Buffy commercials were
Speaker 1: um and I think that's what actually might have made
Speaker 1: me watch the first episode of it, was seeing a
Speaker 1: commercial while I was watching something else and it looked
Speaker 1: really spooky and sexy, and I was like, even as
Speaker 1: a little kid, I wanted to watch that. And I
Speaker 1: started watching during season two and then went back and
Speaker 1: there was a set of VHS tapes that had like
Speaker 1: selected episodes from season one, So I bought those and
Speaker 1: watched them because you know, there was no other way
Speaker 1: at that point to go back and watch them. And
Speaker 1: then also Buffy was such a cultural jug or not
Speaker 1: that there were novelizations of the episodes, there were original
Speaker 1: novels set in the universe that were like sanctioned fan fiction.
Speaker 1: I guess um there were you know, action figures like
Speaker 1: Ever's huge the franchise. And I think a huge, huge
Speaker 1: part of the conversation is that is the fandom and
Speaker 1: the world built outside of Buffy, because I think, again,
Speaker 1: many things about the show are quite unprecedented, but like
Speaker 1: that did not exist. This really is like the beginnings
Speaker 1: of the Internet as we know it, and I think
Speaker 1: Buffy fans very quickly discovered one another and the conversations
Speaker 1: that were happening. Sure, they began a sort of being
Speaker 1: like what did you think about this thing that happened,
Speaker 1: but it also led to like connections happening and fan
Speaker 1: meetups happening, and Josh and the writers and the cast
Speaker 1: famously or infamously depending on how you look at it,
Speaker 1: would go on the message boards. And they've even admitted
Speaker 1: that storylines were affected by fan response to the show.
Speaker 1: So it was just very much a fandom that was
Speaker 1: in conversation. And and you know, we have convention culture
Speaker 1: today and and that you can really fandom is so
Speaker 1: ingrained in sort of pop culture, but that wasn't the
Speaker 1: case at the time. And I remember, like it was
Speaker 1: not cool to like Buffy you know, Um No, it
Speaker 1: was something that I definitely did in secret, at least
Speaker 1: for the first couple of years. And you're so right,
Speaker 1: like Buffy was my entrance into fandom. Was the first
Speaker 1: time I ever read and wrote fan fiction was because
Speaker 1: of Buffy. Um. The first time I really found any
Speaker 1: sort of like online community was reading message boards about
Speaker 1: like theories and spoilers. I remember at one point there
Speaker 1: was one website that day before new episodes came out,
Speaker 1: they would have like a full description of what happened
Speaker 1: in the episode because they had somehow gotten it early.
Speaker 1: And I used to read them because I couldn't wait. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's another part, and this is not just Buffy.
Speaker 1: This is one thing that I think is lost on
Speaker 1: a lot of young people today, the waiting process of television. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And like you mentioned those sort of like next Time
Speaker 1: on Buffy or or those commercials that would air on
Speaker 1: U PAN and yes they were ubiquitous. Well upn didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot to sort of um, but those commercials
Speaker 1: having to wait for the next week to see how
Speaker 1: these plots were unfold, And especially when you're talking about
Speaker 1: like season two for instance, and you're getting into like
Speaker 1: seasonal arcs in which you're like, oh my god, having
Speaker 1: to wait seven days between episodes and build anticipation. What
Speaker 1: are you gonna do? You're gonna turn to those online
Speaker 1: forums and the other fans because you want to stay
Speaker 1: engaging on the show and because there's not Twitter, or
Speaker 1: there's not places to sort of, um go and just
Speaker 1: see memes being made or people talking about our podcast
Speaker 1: recap podcast, all of these sort of like ancillary things
Speaker 1: that exist now with media. You go to those message boards,
Speaker 1: or you're writing fan fiction, or you're getting the action figures,
Speaker 1: or you're like me, and I'm like literally handwriting messages
Speaker 1: to Sarah Michelle Geller and sending them in the mail,
Speaker 1: lying to her and saying I had seen cruel intentions
Speaker 1: even though I was gonna allow to. You're finding some
Speaker 1: way to keep engaging with the show because it's it's
Speaker 1: within you and you want to express that somehow. Okay, you,
Speaker 1: you more than me, are Sarah Michelle Geller, Stan and
Speaker 1: her historian. Um I'm I love her, but I think
Speaker 1: your love for her is like so apparent in in
Speaker 1: your it's in the social persona. Um so, like is
Speaker 1: this where you fell in love? With her. No, I
Speaker 1: actually fell in love with her on All my Children, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because my best friend's mom was obsessed with All my children,
Speaker 1: So when we would come home from school, she would
Speaker 1: have them taped on her vhs UM and we would
Speaker 1: watch My Children and Sarah Michelle Geller played Kindall Heart,
Speaker 1: the daughter of Susan Lucci's character her she want an
Speaker 1: Emmy Award. But that's when I first became intrigued by her.
Speaker 1: And then I would be like at the grocery store
Speaker 1: and see like Baby and Bop magazine, and she would
Speaker 1: be featured in it quite a bit, and and I
Speaker 1: just was like, who is this person? And so I
Speaker 1: knew when Buffy happened, I knew who she was. I
Speaker 1: wasn't yet like the super fan by that point, but
Speaker 1: All My Children was really the entry point and to
Speaker 1: be like, there's something about this person that I like
Speaker 1: naturally feel compelled to follow and that has always stuck
Speaker 1: with me. I feel very magnetized to her in a
Speaker 1: very strange way that I knows people like you can
Speaker 1: relate to, but like she's extremely compelling, and I think
Speaker 1: a big part of why Buffy works is because of
Speaker 1: her dent, Like who else. I mean someone else auditioned
Speaker 1: for the role before her, who was Katie Holmes action
Speaker 1: for the role, and several others, and so funny enough,
Speaker 1: Sarah Michell Geller was originally cast as Cordelia on the show,
Speaker 1: and what she would have been so great. She would
Speaker 1: have been great, And basically what happened was they weren't
Speaker 1: to find a Buffy. They called her, and she was
Speaker 1: worried about whether or not to go in for Buffy
Speaker 1: because basically, and she says us in the book, She's like,
Speaker 1: there's a world in which they start to see you
Speaker 1: so much as they're starting to see you as Buffy
Speaker 1: that they no longer see you as Cordelia, And if
Speaker 1: they go with somebody else for Buffy, then they're kind
Speaker 1: of like, well, wait a minute, you're not right for
Speaker 1: Cordelia anymore. And so she was worried. Um, but she
Speaker 1: kept going in and kept going in, and then eventually
Speaker 1: she was cast. But yeah, there's something about her performance.
Speaker 1: I mean I say this in all seriousness and people
Speaker 1: often laugh at it, but I'm not joking. To me,
Speaker 1: there's like Meryl Streep and there's Viola Davis, and they're
Speaker 1: Sarah Michelle like she's in that same pantheon. She just
Speaker 1: haven't hasn't been given the opportunities that those women have
Speaker 1: by way of like role versatility. Well, she did everything
Speaker 1: on Buffy and she she did you know, the like Spunky,
Speaker 1: you know, Valley Girl, teenager, she did the heroine. She
Speaker 1: did like really emotional work, like when you think about
Speaker 1: everything that happened with Angel in season two, when you
Speaker 1: think about the body. Um, she's also really amazing at comedy.
Speaker 1: I think of some of the more like one off
Speaker 1: episodes like things like him in season seven or be
Speaker 1: which Bothered and Bewildered in season two. Um, she has
Speaker 1: an amazed she has amazing comedic timing, and she's like
Speaker 1: just very good at selling the joke. Agreed. And then
Speaker 1: there's also like some other like random things about her
Speaker 1: that are like not often talked about, but like, for instance,
Speaker 1: she looks good kicking, but like there's so many things
Speaker 1: that's like her, Like physical prowess in the role is
Speaker 1: just incredible where it's like it's not funny, it doesn't
Speaker 1: read weird to watch this five foot too blonde woman
Speaker 1: kicking these huge mutants asses it it makes sense because
Speaker 1: of the way she sells it. Yeah, she's so good.
Speaker 1: It frustrates me that I don't care that she didn't
Speaker 1: really get a lot of awards recognition, but it frustrates
Speaker 1: me that she was not given the respect at the
Speaker 1: time for her acting because I look at like someone
Speaker 1: like Zendia winning an Emmy Award for Euphoria now and
Speaker 1: as she completely deserved, and I'm like, I feel like
Speaker 1: if Buffy were on now, we would be looking at
Speaker 1: that performance with a lot more. We'd be celebrating it more.
Speaker 1: Sci Fi fantasy, horror exists in a different cultural context
Speaker 1: now than it did when Buffy was on, Like horror
Speaker 1: is now so elevated. We are much more celebratory to
Speaker 1: things that center teenagers, that center women, that center queer people.
Speaker 1: And also Game of Thrones really changed the way we
Speaker 1: talk about sci fi and fantasy and it being prestige.
Speaker 1: So I do think in a way, Buffy like set
Speaker 1: the culture up to be able to do that. Buffy
Speaker 1: was ahead of its time, for sure, But I think
Speaker 1: that you're so right, Like a big part of like
Speaker 1: kind of Sarah Michelle Geller not getting like her flowers
Speaker 1: at least at that time, was in large part of
Speaker 1: thing because the show was ahead of its time, but
Speaker 1: also because like I would even argue, like even today,
Speaker 1: like we don't respect like genre stuff they like even
Speaker 1: though we have you know, the Jordan's Peels and like
Speaker 1: we have like correct like ariasters and we have that
Speaker 1: kind of like, um, we have the prestige. So I
Speaker 1: find the prestige horror, those things still aren't getting nominated
Speaker 1: for awards like to should have an awesome That's a great,
Speaker 1: great example, and it wasn't even contention because people don't
Speaker 1: view it that way because the genre. I completely agree
Speaker 1: Anya Taylor Joy should have been nominated for The Witch.
Speaker 1: I would love to talk about this because I think
Speaker 1: what happens like within sci find within horror is people
Speaker 1: can't see past sensationalist gore, or they can't see past
Speaker 1: the camp that is intrinsically good, but they think it's
Speaker 1: quote unquote bad or whatever. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't know how to don't understand how to consume camp,
Speaker 1: or don't know how to understand how to consume like
Speaker 1: something that is like so I don't know. Outside of
Speaker 1: the world that we live in, I think we also
Speaker 1: there's a big dissonance and disconnect. Like we celebrate film,
Speaker 1: we don't always celebrate movies. We don't always celebrate things
Speaker 1: that are made for entertainment and cultural consumption. We more
Speaker 1: celebrate things that are made as art, right, which is
Speaker 1: why we're marketed as art. Yeah. And also misogyny is
Speaker 1: a huge part of this conversation because so often, especially
Speaker 1: at the time, when because Buffy was a critical darling
Speaker 1: from the outside, I mean, Buffy, That's the one thing
Speaker 1: Buffy always had going for it was the critics loved it,
Speaker 1: and it always was praise about Joss. Literally, in my
Speaker 1: research for this book, I was really I really wanted
Speaker 1: to go back and read how people were talking about
Speaker 1: the show then versus now, because now I feel there's
Speaker 1: a lot of rose colored spectacles in terms of like,
Speaker 1: if you're talking about it, chances are you're talking about
Speaker 1: it because you love it, right, Why would you be
Speaker 1: talking about it twenty years later. At the time, though,
Speaker 1: when people liked Buffy, it was the genius of Josh,
Speaker 1: always through the frame of Jos, never through the frame
Speaker 1: of Sarah. And I definitely think that is sort of
Speaker 1: the patriarchy at play and its most obvious way. Um,
Speaker 1: and that I think that is not just a Buffy thing.
Speaker 1: I think that happens oftentimes with when powerful women step
Speaker 1: up in these performances in genre. But there's a male director,
Speaker 1: it's like he's the autour. He brought that out. I
Speaker 1: want to I actually want to know a little more
Speaker 1: about like little things that you discovered along your research
Speaker 1: for the book. But before that, I kind of want
Speaker 1: to know a little bit more about like your cultural
Speaker 1: like induction into like Buffy, and like where where you
Speaker 1: are placed in time when you started writing like Sarah
Speaker 1: Michelle Geller fan letters, or like when you started consuming Buffy,
Speaker 1: what was the thing that immediately enraptured you, what kept
Speaker 1: you there? What were like the things that you did
Speaker 1: as a fan? Oh my god, I mean it was
Speaker 1: pretty gross. I mean like I was the dirtiest, nastiest,
Speaker 1: and I think you and I are similar in this way.
Speaker 1: But I think that Okay, obviously, I think as a
Speaker 1: young person figuring out there themselves on a show like Buffy,
Speaker 1: before you know, you get the introduction of Willow and
Speaker 1: she becomes sort of like she is an out lesbian
Speaker 1: by season four, um, but prior to that, the sort
Speaker 1: of queerness of Buffy for me really began in season
Speaker 1: two even before that, which is like, you have this
Speaker 1: character where she has this secret right like she is
Speaker 1: the Slayer, no one can know, she has to hide
Speaker 1: it from her mother very Hannah Montana. Yes, and then
Speaker 1: at the end, yes, very much so. And at the
Speaker 1: end of season two she famously has this coming out
Speaker 1: scene where her and her mom getting this huge fight
Speaker 1: where she's like, you know, she's essentially saying, I am
Speaker 1: the Slayer, but in my mind, I'm hearing I am gay.
Speaker 1: And it's a direct correlation because Joyce even says, have
Speaker 1: you tried not being the Slayer? Which hands up to
Speaker 1: God for Joyce Summers Hello, Hello, But it was it's
Speaker 1: riffing off of queerness completely. And so I think that before,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm watching Buffy before I even knew I
Speaker 1: was gay. But I think I'm sensing something not just
Speaker 1: in this powerful woman who I who I wanted to be,
Speaker 1: but also sort of like in this idea that she's
Speaker 1: walking through the world unable to fully express the wholeness
Speaker 1: of herself. Yeah, And I think that it's funny because
Speaker 1: it's like later on in the show, you know, and
Speaker 1: so much of the show is celebrated for its queerness
Speaker 1: because of the character of Willow, as it should be.
Speaker 1: But I think there's something both implicitly and explicitly queer
Speaker 1: by Buffy, and the implicit parts of it were the
Speaker 1: ones that really resonated me when when I was younger,
Speaker 1: but it became my personality. It Like I remember like
Speaker 1: my rabbi, that was his thing where he was always
Speaker 1: like talking to me about how much I love Buffy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it was just my whole town. It's like
Speaker 1: what define me. I used to be on the playground
Speaker 1: and I would teach the young girls how to be slayer.
Speaker 1: I mean like what did I know? Teach them like
Speaker 1: how to whole old their steaks and like how did
Speaker 1: you know how to get your leg up high? Yeah,
Speaker 1: essentially right, And it's like you got to get the
Speaker 1: demon at the heart or the next So I was like,
Speaker 1: your kick has to go up past your hip because
Speaker 1: it's like you're not You're not gonna go for their
Speaker 1: crotch that they don't care, you know, you know, so
Speaker 1: just you know, training. Um. Obviously writing her letters was
Speaker 1: a big part of it, but I think for how
Speaker 1: many letters, not like a ridiculous amount but like not
Speaker 1: an amount that I'm like proud to mention, but it
Speaker 1: was just like I and I still feel this way
Speaker 1: to this day, but like I loved to love it,
Speaker 1: like the act of loving it felt safe for me,
Speaker 1: and as someone who was like very relentlessly bullied in
Speaker 1: my town. And I know so many people can relate
Speaker 1: to this to have something that was that sacred to
Speaker 1: me that gave me something to look forward to once
Speaker 1: a week, but also to engage with other fans. And
Speaker 1: we're not find people that were like minded, and I
Speaker 1: think in Buffy fans, I then they weren't always lgbt
Speaker 1: Q plus people, but they were people that I think
Speaker 1: the rue line of a Buffy fan, often not always
Speaker 1: is a feeling of being mothered in some in some
Speaker 1: way throughout their life, particularly particularly in their young life.
Speaker 1: And I related to that so so much. And I
Speaker 1: feel like I owe this show a debt in so
Speaker 1: many ways because I don't know how it was a lifeline,
Speaker 1: like in so many ways. You know, Rose and I
Speaker 1: have talked about this before when we talked about Harry Potter,
Speaker 1: But like the archetype of like the chosen one, which
Speaker 1: is like Buffy, which is Harry Potter, which is like
Speaker 1: I guess maybe Luke Skywalker, like these other kinds of
Speaker 1: like you've been kind of almost divinely or mythologically chosen
Speaker 1: to take on this thing. I think a lot about Hercules,
Speaker 1: Like the Disney Hercules was a very formative thing for me.
Speaker 1: And that's also like a chosen one archetype, like I
Speaker 1: am a part of something like divine and bigger than
Speaker 1: me that like all of these normal people don't understand
Speaker 1: that there's something so queer within that that I think
Speaker 1: sounds like what you're talking about, like the kind of
Speaker 1: like cultural objects that like we would latch onto um
Speaker 1: where with protagonists where, and they were like, you know,
Speaker 1: no one really can understand what I'm going through because
Speaker 1: like we're literally a completely different you know, we belong
Speaker 1: to a different classic And the fact that Buffy's journey
Speaker 1: was that early on she wanted to reject that otherness
Speaker 1: and then by the end of the show embraced it
Speaker 1: and shared it. Yes, yes, I mean all of this.
Speaker 1: So again, sometimes it's funny because when people don't watch
Speaker 1: the show, they're like, oh, that's the show about the
Speaker 1: girl like fighting vampires and demons and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot more happening and a lot of that.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if that was like Joss being
Speaker 1: conscious of Like I don't think he was like writing
Speaker 1: with I mean, I don't know. It's hard to say, right,
Speaker 1: but it's like, I don't know if he realized the
Speaker 1: subtext that he was always putting on the paper. I
Speaker 1: think some of that was like stuff that we were
Speaker 1: picking up on. But I just yeah, that for me
Speaker 1: was like the hook and then that aspect of the
Speaker 1: show and then something about being magnetized to her um,
Speaker 1: And I remember, like, so the first time was I
Speaker 1: it was seasoned you episode six, the Halloween episode. Um,
Speaker 1: that was the first time I was hooked from the
Speaker 1: outset and it was just all systems go from there
Speaker 1: and I never turned it off. I don't love the
Speaker 1: later parts of the show. Like, I'm not someone that's
Speaker 1: like Buffy is a perfect show by any measure, but
Speaker 1: I've revisited it throughout so many periods of my life,
Speaker 1: and I think that when Buffy is good, and it
Speaker 1: is good often, it is the greatest. I think it
Speaker 1: is the greatest. I mean, how do you feel about
Speaker 1: the Supernatural elements because I feel like, from knowing you,
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily the kind of media that you gravitate towards.
Speaker 1: UM and Buffy obviously is a genre show of superpowers.
Speaker 1: I didn't completely so the so Slayers have supernatural strength, agility, reflexes, healing, UM,
Speaker 1: she has prophetic dreams. She has like a sense when
Speaker 1: monsters like watching it very stone, and I really could
Speaker 1: not grasp if she had powers or if she's kind
Speaker 1: of had like you know, intrinsic martial arts. They're a
Speaker 1: little they're a little like loosely defined, like the yeah,
Speaker 1: like she's like really really strong when need be, and
Speaker 1: then she's kind of I have to say that is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite and this goes this is bigger
Speaker 1: than Buffy, but one of my great loves in any
Speaker 1: kind of media is when it's like the willingness to
Speaker 1: say fuck it to the rules and just be like
Speaker 1: it is because it is. And I think Buffy was
Speaker 1: really great about being like why would they be doing
Speaker 1: X Y Z thing? It doesn't matter, Like if you're
Speaker 1: thinking that way, you're you're watching the show with the
Speaker 1: wrong lens. So Buffy was really great about like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's totally moments in which it's like I think of
Speaker 1: like season four, episode one, when she's facing off against Sunday,
Speaker 1: which is she's just I love I love that episode.
Speaker 1: It's a vampire and like, all of a sudden, Buffy
Speaker 1: like cannot fight a vampire, and it's like she has
Speaker 1: been up because she's depressed. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: things that there are a lot of things now that
Speaker 1: fall in the legacy of kind of like suck it
Speaker 1: and the linearity of the narratives that you were attached
Speaker 1: to and like thinking about even like something like Riverdale
Speaker 1: that is like so off the rails, or like any
Speaker 1: Ryan Murphy project, or like things where it's just like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, like it's a big fuck you, but
Speaker 1: in order to enjoy the show, you have to buy
Speaker 1: into kind of like the bizarreness. And I prefer that
Speaker 1: I would rather have, like I really like genre stuff,
Speaker 1: and you know, I like sci fi and fantasy, and
Speaker 1: I would rather have, um, you know, someone whose abilities
Speaker 1: are like more undefined than like some Marvel hero where
Speaker 1: you're like, I know that they're this strong and they
Speaker 1: have these powers, and like I just think it like
Speaker 1: gives it gives like better opportunities for storytelling and to
Speaker 1: put the story first before the rules of the universe.
Speaker 1: You know this Macey think a lot too about carry
Speaker 1: on sex in the city and her outfits and you know,
Speaker 1: and everyone. I remember the big thing about the show
Speaker 1: was like how could carry a four this apartment and
Speaker 1: all of these outfits, And it's like, if you're thinking
Speaker 1: about that, then you're watching the wrong show. That's exactly
Speaker 1: right to go to what you were saying. No, I'm
Speaker 1: not really like a genre person by nature. It's something
Speaker 1: that I think that through the show, I definitely like
Speaker 1: got more into it, but it's not the natural genre
Speaker 1: that I go towards. But I think if nothing else,
Speaker 1: I come came away from the show having a lot
Speaker 1: more respect for genre and the ways in which people
Speaker 1: sort of like belittle the merit of of genre, and
Speaker 1: you know, in the sense it's like sort of like
Speaker 1: the supernatural and whatnot. And I mean, I definitely like
Speaker 1: there were shows after the fact, like The Vampire Diaries
Speaker 1: that I watched, like it definitely brought me to other
Speaker 1: media that I wouldn't have come to you. But first
Speaker 1: and foremost, like when it comes to Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.
Speaker 1: I'm here for Sarah Michelle Geller first and foremost. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I love that you watched The Vampire Diaries. I watched,
Speaker 1: I watched, I watched a little bit of it. And
Speaker 1: Buffy really was like a vampire cultural reset because I
Speaker 1: really look at like contemporary vampire media as pre and
Speaker 1: post Buffy, because you know, the context of when Buffy
Speaker 1: came out was like we were riding off of like
Speaker 1: Ann Rice and the Vampire Diaries and this idea of
Speaker 1: the romantic vampire who was like a little like foppish
Speaker 1: and gay and and like this sort of romantic hero
Speaker 1: and Robert Pattinson and um. And then Buffy came in
Speaker 1: really reset that idea and made vampires into monsters again.
Speaker 1: And it was like so important that they, you know,
Speaker 1: changed into like a demon face and that's why you
Speaker 1: had the lore, that's why you had the lower um
Speaker 1: on Buffy that vampires had no soul, and that's why
Speaker 1: it was so like important when Angel lost his soul
Speaker 1: and then got it back and um. And then afterwards
Speaker 1: I think there was a return to the like brooding vampire.
Speaker 1: Vampire Diaries kind of straddles it a little bit. Um
Speaker 1: and I think one of the things that that Vampire
Speaker 1: Diaries like fails that a little bit that Buffy didn't,
Speaker 1: was that they're two into defining things. They really like rules,
Speaker 1: but they will just keep making up new ones even
Speaker 1: though they contradict the previous ones. And that's the thing
Speaker 1: with Buffy. It's like when you only give as much
Speaker 1: as you need, it just gives you so much more
Speaker 1: to play with. Yes, do you know from your research
Speaker 1: did Sarah Michelle Gellar do a lot of her own stunts? Yes.
Speaker 1: I think she did a lot of her sons that
Speaker 1: she was allowed to do because I, um, last week,
Speaker 1: I went to a screening of I Know What You
Speaker 1: Did Last Summer, which I hadn't seen since I was
Speaker 1: I mean since maybe like around the time that Buffy
Speaker 1: was on the air, and I definitely remembered her as
Speaker 1: being more of just like a scream queen in it.
Speaker 1: And I actually found like, it's surprising how how like
Speaker 1: um fiery she is in the movie and how she
Speaker 1: like really fights back against the killer. And I was wondering, like,
Speaker 1: I feel like it came out probably like right around
Speaker 1: season two because she had the Bob kind of famously
Speaker 1: like the Killer cuts off all her hair and she
Speaker 1: has a bob, and I was wondering did the fact
Speaker 1: that she was Buffy impact the way that she was
Speaker 1: depicted in other films that she was in a the time,
Speaker 1: even though she didn't do a lot outside of Buffy
Speaker 1: um well famously, especially in that late nineties early era,
Speaker 1: like women's women actors and their haircuts were like a
Speaker 1: big point of contention on like what roles they could book.
Speaker 1: I have to say that with I Know You Did
Speaker 1: last Summer, they chose the in my opinion, they chose
Speaker 1: the wrong final girl. I really do feel like Julie
Speaker 1: was the mistake. It should have been Sarah Machialgeller and
Speaker 1: Brandy and I still know. But that's uh, that's another conversation.
Speaker 1: But with so I Know You Did les Summer filmed
Speaker 1: between Buffy seasons one and season two, so Buffy season
Speaker 1: one had not heard yet. But I do think that
Speaker 1: it's interesting and looking at I Know and Scream To,
Speaker 1: both of which she filmed, both of which she kind
Speaker 1: of played the blonde girl who gets who kind of
Speaker 1: version well, also the antithesis of Buffy in so many ways,
Speaker 1: that's like kind of like it's kind of like the
Speaker 1: world that would be without a Buffy and in so
Speaker 1: many senses, so I'm curious, like as an actress, if
Speaker 1: she was kind of like I want to like show
Speaker 1: the range of like I can be the one fighting
Speaker 1: evil and I can be the one that's taken out
Speaker 1: by evil Buffy without her powers, then well I guess
Speaker 1: it's yeah, but well there is an episode where Buffy
Speaker 1: has no power. Stay tuned. But it's interesting that you
Speaker 1: mentioned I know, I Know what you did, And I
Speaker 1: had a similar reaction when I rewatched it because I
Speaker 1: remembered her being very damsel in distress in that movie.
Speaker 1: And it's a nine minute death scene. And there's a
Speaker 1: reason why it's nine minutes, because she keeps sort of
Speaker 1: like evading this killer. And I love that deaf scene.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people do. But it's sort
Speaker 1: of like fun because it's like she's not the sharpest
Speaker 1: and she's not the strongest, but she figures her weasels
Speaker 1: her way out of that car. She does she kicks
Speaker 1: the window out, She like tries to tell the cop
Speaker 1: what's going on. He doesn't listen. A cab Also, I
Speaker 1: Know What you did last summer is a movie about
Speaker 1: restorative justice. Obviously we don't want to die. Even maybe
Speaker 1: to like wrap out the conversation, either in the research
Speaker 1: for this book or just like in how you've consumed
Speaker 1: all things related to the creator of the show. Like
Speaker 1: you know, Rose and I we had a conversation about
Speaker 1: Harry Potter and like nuancing are so similar and stand
Speaker 1: um within something that we grew up with that didn't
Speaker 1: have this um like you know, decades later conversation related
Speaker 1: to something that we now have to like reconcile with,
Speaker 1: Like what because for anyone who doesn't know, you know,
Speaker 1: in in the past year or two, um, a lot
Speaker 1: of the cast have of Buffy have come forward and
Speaker 1: talked about what a toxic environment there was on set
Speaker 1: and how abusive Josh Sweden was. It's so interesting that
Speaker 1: you draw the parallel to Harry Potter because I think
Speaker 1: that is extremely apt and also just sort of like
Speaker 1: how we divorce ourselves from a creator of an art
Speaker 1: piece that we really like. Well also acknowledging the fact,
Speaker 1: both in the case of Harry Potter and Buffy, these
Speaker 1: entities do not exist without the genius of these creators, right,
Speaker 1: So to deny that j K. Rowling and John Sweden
Speaker 1: at one time created We're Geniuses, Our Geniuses. That part
Speaker 1: I can unpack, but I think that's really super difficult.
Speaker 1: I think what I learned from this book that was
Speaker 1: the most disheartening outside of the public allegations, and I
Speaker 1: get into this quite a bit in the book, was
Speaker 1: just the ways in which the women on this set
Speaker 1: were systematically pitted against one another. There's a really interesting
Speaker 1: anecdote in the book, UM where basically the as had
Speaker 1: been offered a cover of a magazine and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the magazine was no longer happening, was just
Speaker 1: gonna be Sarah Michelle Geller on the cover, And basically
Speaker 1: a rumor was going around on set that the reason
Speaker 1: why that was was because Sarah Michelle Geller refused to
Speaker 1: do the magazine if it wasn't just her solo. So
Speaker 1: Emma Caulfield, who plays on You you you haven't met her
Speaker 1: quite yet, but you will in season three. UM. But
Speaker 1: Emma Caulfield went around the set and started just telling
Speaker 1: everyone what a nightmare Sarah Michell Geller was, because it's
Speaker 1: like she's literally preventing us the rest of the cast,
Speaker 1: from getting this huge opportunity to be on the cover.
Speaker 1: And so finally Emma went to Sarah Scheller's trailer and
Speaker 1: she knocked on the door and she was just like,
Speaker 1: what's going on here. Sarah explained the fact that that
Speaker 1: was completely not true and told her what actually happened,
Speaker 1: and Emma apologized and she was like, hey, I got
Speaker 1: this misinformation. I was told that you were like this
Speaker 1: huge problem, when in fact it was a man and
Speaker 1: you can guess which man that went and sort of
Speaker 1: led her to believe these things and then in turn
Speaker 1: go around and spread even more rumors. And so Emma
Speaker 1: went to Sarah and like I said, I'm so sorry
Speaker 1: I actively helped spread this rumor about you. Um So,
Speaker 1: I think that level of toxicity is so disappointing, and
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of trauma beyond just the
Speaker 1: women that have come forward and with the stories that
Speaker 1: they've told. I don't know how to do. I don't
Speaker 1: know what to think about it besides to meditate it
Speaker 1: on it quite a bit and think about it and
Speaker 1: how it re contextualizes the show. I think, if nothing else,
Speaker 1: it makes me respect and love these women more. And
Speaker 1: you know, I dedicated the book to the women of Buffy,
Speaker 1: both on camera, behind the scenes, but also just like
Speaker 1: in recognizing that there's a strength both in the characters themselves,
Speaker 1: but in the actresses and and the stunt people, and
Speaker 1: a lack of appreciation and it's disheartening for many reasons.
Speaker 1: And um, I mean I say fun him like I really,
Speaker 1: it's just it's a tough thing and it's tough to that.
Speaker 1: I think these actresses suffer. And Chrisma has said this
Speaker 1: on the record publicly, not outside of my book, you
Speaker 1: know that she thinks her career has suffered as a result.
Speaker 1: And so to think about and I would agree, it's
Speaker 1: like Christmas Carpet is meant to be a very very
Speaker 1: famous person, and so thinking about just the insidious nature
Speaker 1: of what he allegedly did all these many years ago,
Speaker 1: but the impact that it has. Yeah, And I last thing,
Speaker 1: I'll say, sorry real quick, but I just was talking
Speaker 1: to Sarah. So, Sarah Scheller just finished reading the book
Speaker 1: a couple of nights ago, and she sent me like
Speaker 1: a long message about a lot of things, but the
Speaker 1: one thing that she said that I took away from
Speaker 1: it was like, it's really hard for me to read
Speaker 1: this and because I have to it's a very traumatic
Speaker 1: experience as a whole things that I'm sure she witnessed,
Speaker 1: things I'm sure she experienced, and also being the first
Speaker 1: person on the call sheet, you know, being the person
Speaker 1: that they were all the I remember at nine, there
Speaker 1: were all these rumors about how big of a bit
Speaker 1: Sarah Michelle Geller was, how how she would make things
Speaker 1: hell for that this was I remember this so vividly,
Speaker 1: and what I wanted to do with this book more
Speaker 1: than anything, and I hope what I hope I succeeded
Speaker 1: with was like put some respect on the women of
Speaker 1: Buffy and their names, and recognizing the ways in which that,
Speaker 1: like even one woman saying another woman was a bit,
Speaker 1: was because there were other people at play, like telling
Speaker 1: them orchestrating that puppeteering. It's so gross. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's unique to Buffy, but but it is. What I've
Speaker 1: had to reckon with is like, it's so sad for
Speaker 1: me to think about the pain that went into making
Speaker 1: this thing that I love so much, and how I
Speaker 1: can watch it and still like I love it so
Speaker 1: much and know that that was not the experience for
Speaker 1: the people who made it what it is and that
Speaker 1: is really hard to reckon with and there is no
Speaker 1: answer to that. And I think we just have to
Speaker 1: stay critical of the things we love and support the
Speaker 1: people who made them what they are. And that's why
Speaker 1: your book is so important, because we should be looking
Speaker 1: at things like this with a critical lens and be
Speaker 1: talking about the ugly parts of them. And hearing that
Speaker 1: you've dedicated it to the women of Buffy is just
Speaker 1: so beautiful, and I think that kind of work is
Speaker 1: so I think that just like thinking about things like
Speaker 1: Buffy or things like it, is that like our role
Speaker 1: in consuming these is not like, you know, cancel it.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna watch Buffy anymore. We're gonnad Harry Potter anymore.
Speaker 1: It's about that when we consume it, just as you said, Rose,
Speaker 1: like we are making sure that history sticks to it.
Speaker 1: It never let the context disappear, because to erase it
Speaker 1: would be not just a disservice to a content, but
Speaker 1: a disservice to the abuse that happen. Yes, And I
Speaker 1: think like also one of the big things with writing
Speaker 1: this book is like I'm obviously in this book because
Speaker 1: I love the show, but there are so many issues.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's the way the show handles I don't
Speaker 1: even know if that's the right sexual assault. And then
Speaker 1: also a huge part of this book is talking about
Speaker 1: race and ethnicity, both on camera and behind the scenes
Speaker 1: of Buffy, the fact that Buffy does not have a
Speaker 1: single writer of color, And one of my pursuits, in
Speaker 1: addition to speaking to all the women of Buffy, was
Speaker 1: having conversations with as many of the POC casts of
Speaker 1: the show, and I'm so grateful. For instance, I was
Speaker 1: able to track down Bianca Lawson, the famous sister in
Speaker 1: law of excuse me this ye sister in law of
Speaker 1: Beyonce Um who plays Kendra, the vampire slayer on the show,
Speaker 1: and kind of get into like, what's the deal with
Speaker 1: the fact that you were only on two episodes but
Speaker 1: you're so beloved? Why were you killed off? Like? Is
Speaker 1: there more to that story? And there is more to
Speaker 1: that story? And so I think one of the fun
Speaker 1: things about getting this opportunity was being able to talk
Speaker 1: to the people who were ignored or sort of cast
Speaker 1: aside or killed off on the show and be like,
Speaker 1: did you ever have thoughts on that at the time?
Speaker 1: Like what you know? And and I keep you know
Speaker 1: in my research, it's like Kendrick is like one of
Speaker 1: the most such a beloved character, and it's like barely
Speaker 1: on the show and it's iconic, and it's iconic and
Speaker 1: there's a reason why a character like that stays burned
Speaker 1: in your brain. And so and also just like I
Speaker 1: spoke to Sharon Ferguson, she plays the first Slayer who
Speaker 1: only appears in three episodes, and she talked to me
Speaker 1: about like the complexities of like not being given a
Speaker 1: voice on the show her her character is literally a
Speaker 1: white actress. Tara, the character of Tara speaks for her.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, did you have a problem with that?
Speaker 1: And she was like no, She's like, looking back on
Speaker 1: it now, I don't love that. But I also got
Speaker 1: to be on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that complexity
Speaker 1: is like getting that is to me just as important
Speaker 1: as a conversation with Sarah Michelle Geller about the impact
Speaker 1: that she had on you know women, There's there's just
Speaker 1: so much to this show, the gender, sexuality, the race, ethnicity.
Speaker 1: You know. Well, I'm so excited to read your book. Um,
Speaker 1: we thought it might be fun before we let you
Speaker 1: go to imagine if we were casting Buffy in one
Speaker 1: who we would cast in it? Yeah, I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a natural segue from the conversation of
Speaker 1: an iconic cast and like what diversity looks like and
Speaker 1: cast and all that's different, all the different stuff. Obviously
Speaker 1: it's almost a little sacrilege. You're like, how are you
Speaker 1: going to read? Get it all? And I think also
Speaker 1: we can say, you know, the O G cast will
Speaker 1: like have candies. But we're doing this is we're doing
Speaker 1: this is a hard reboot, so it's not like our
Speaker 1: casting agents. Yes we are in this, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: our job. So do you have any first thoughts? I do.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because so you guys told me this
Speaker 1: right before we started recording, and I was like trying
Speaker 1: to stay engage. Will also like make you sure that
Speaker 1: I had an answered. Okay, So this is where I landed.
Speaker 1: I'm landing for Buffy because I think who they are
Speaker 1: as like a pop culture persona is as important as
Speaker 1: like their acting truth, and I feel like it needs
Speaker 1: someone with like gravitas, who like the people are going
Speaker 1: to come for and like want to see what they
Speaker 1: do with the role. So I'm putting Zendia as Buffy. Okay,
Speaker 1: I just feel like it has all the ingredients necessary.
Speaker 1: And I also like I'm imagining like Zendia kN has
Speaker 1: the like the range you know you were talking earlier about,
Speaker 1: Like this role just requires like so much dexterity, and
Speaker 1: I feel like Zendia has that, and I feel like
Speaker 1: important to me, It's like she would serve the looks
Speaker 1: and you see the kind of pizzazzi commerciality of it
Speaker 1: in like her in Spider Man and like her as
Speaker 1: like almost like a I want I don't want to
Speaker 1: say a cartoon because she's acting so well, but like
Speaker 1: it's an archetype. She fits into an archetype as well
Speaker 1: as giving something with a lot of nuance. Totally okay,
Speaker 1: I love okay, So okay a Willow. Willow is so
Speaker 1: tough because I feel like that is as big of
Speaker 1: a role as Buffy and just as many acting chops,
Speaker 1: if not more. Willow more of a serious character or
Speaker 1: she like comedic, She's both, everyone's both. So the thing
Speaker 1: about Buffy, like, is it like a Megan Fox time,
Speaker 1: is it like Aubrey Plaza? I do like an Aubrey Plaza.
Speaker 1: I would like an out actress to occupy the role.
Speaker 1: I thought they were both by Aubrey, and I'm saying,
Speaker 1: so those are good selections. Yeah, um, I definitely it's
Speaker 1: maybe a little old. Yeah yeah, let's think of people's
Speaker 1: about people who could convincingly play teenagers. What about Beanie
Speaker 1: Feldstine as well? Yes, so period Xander. I think also
Speaker 1: in this reboot, Xander needs to be gay. I completely
Speaker 1: hers a Xander for the real It's hard because it's
Speaker 1: like I go to older all the time because what
Speaker 1: about shoot, oh I love, I love. I'm already like
Speaker 1: sold on this reboot because like so anti reboot. But
Speaker 1: now I'm like, as we're casting and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: and then Giles Giles can be maybe like that's can
Speaker 1: have some fun like in terms of like we can
Speaker 1: recruit someone with a little I like to see. I
Speaker 1: want to see someone who's like not like you know
Speaker 1: who's coming to mind for me in that weird way.
Speaker 1: He's a Marvel guy, the hawk Eye. He plays hawk Eye. Oh,
Speaker 1: Jeremy Renner, Jeremy, I don't know about that. I mean, okay, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: what about like um, I would love to see like
Speaker 1: um like Alexandra Billings. Okay, I'm here for that. I
Speaker 1: love Okay, okay, and then who and then okay, let's
Speaker 1: figure out icon. It's so good, right and never have
Speaker 1: I ever so funny like she she she serves, And
Speaker 1: let's figure out a cameo role for someone from the
Speaker 1: original cast, Sarah Michelle Gellar is she's going to be
Speaker 1: the mom We're not We're not gonna We're not going
Speaker 1: to do her dirty. Maybe she should die first in
Speaker 1: the first episode. Oh if that would be fun. It's
Speaker 1: like she's playing a mom in an upcoming Amazon show
Speaker 1: and I'm just like hearing name mom. No, just just
Speaker 1: it's like nothing wrong with playing a mom, notsoever. And
Speaker 1: it's like, not, I'm not trying to be Maybe she's
Speaker 1: like the school principle. Love that and she's evil and
Speaker 1: she dies in the first episode. Yes, I'm down. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm down. Okay, So our Buffy rebook do we have
Speaker 1: a romantic interest? Oh? Angel? I think, um, who can
Speaker 1: who's Angel? Who's Who's like the heart throb right now?
Speaker 1: Like it needs to be someone that's like funnier than
Speaker 1: like Timote or like, yeah, it's like and also I
Speaker 1: need someone with a little bit more It's like one
Speaker 1: of the things that appeals about Angel is sort of
Speaker 1: like the brutishness of him, and it's like someone like
Speaker 1: a tim He's too like life. Um, it's hard because
Speaker 1: the person's coming to mind this is way too obvious,
Speaker 1: is like a Jacob Lordy type. But I don't I
Speaker 1: don't really want I'm not here, but so I'm kind
Speaker 1: of Also, what if it was a woman mauff Is
Speaker 1: in the comic book? I love that, Okay, so let's
Speaker 1: have a like a brooding what about like Jamie Clayton,
Speaker 1: who's gonna Who's going to be the new hell Raiser?
Speaker 1: Oh I, oh yeah, I heard about that. I think
Speaker 1: she could do brooding. I'm very here for that. Sorry.
Speaker 1: We going back though to Giles Lee Pace as Giles.
Speaker 1: I would like to see it. I could see that
Speaker 1: happening as well. But we also Cordelia. I'm thinking I
Speaker 1: really would like to see someone who I haven't seen,
Speaker 1: like play that type before that this is so important, Okay,
Speaker 1: but yes, and but also I think the girl who
Speaker 1: plays the main girl on Gossip Girl would be a
Speaker 1: great Cordelia really yeah yeah, yeah, But also I feel
Speaker 1: like an M. J. Rodriguez as a Cordelia. I think
Speaker 1: it would be really fun because we haven't seen her
Speaker 1: get to occupy like that, kind of like Harry Enough.
Speaker 1: Also the hard Enough as Buffy. Yeah, Harry's for Cordelia
Speaker 1: makes so much sense because Hart is really good at
Speaker 1: unhinged like absurdism, kind of like she loves that. But
Speaker 1: so I would do like a table read where it's
Speaker 1: just Hardy in every role, And I think we could
Speaker 1: make that happen. Thank you, Chosen Ones for coming along
Speaker 1: this vampiric journey with us. Next week we'll be back
Speaker 1: with an episode about Fifty Shades of Gray um, an
Speaker 1: intellectual property of stolen from another vampire franchise, Twilight. Love
Speaker 1: that um. So, if you've never seen any of the
Speaker 1: Fifty Shades movies and you are curious, please check them
Speaker 1: out so you can watch along with us. Also, you know,
Speaker 1: tweet us her takes about this week's episode. Who's your
Speaker 1: favorite Buffy character? Are you you know a slayer of
Speaker 1: vampire Werewolf? How do you identify? Do you think Sarah
Speaker 1: Michelle Geller should have an oscar? Please let us know.
Speaker 1: You can also call to confess and give us inspiration
Speaker 1: for an upcoming episode. With that thing that you love
Speaker 1: so much on pop culture that you have to share
Speaker 1: it with everyone you love. Call to confess at three
Speaker 1: to three pennants. That's three to three seven three six
Speaker 1: two six two three. I'm your co host, Rose damn
Speaker 1: You. You You can find me on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok
Speaker 1: at Rose damn You, and I'm Francrato. You can find
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Speaker 1: leave us a rating on Spotify or review on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: It really helps us out. Un lets us know that
Speaker 1: you love us, um and it tis the season to
Speaker 1: show your love the damn season like a Virginism. I
Speaker 1: heart radio production. Our producer is phoebe Unter, with support
Speaker 1: from Lindsay Hoffman, Julian Weller, Jess Crane Chitch and Nikki
Speaker 1: Tour Until next week. See you later, Virgins. Hey, I
Speaker 1: just want to encourage anyone else there that hasn't seen
Speaker 1: the Show's important that you're gonna get people telling you
Speaker 1: to start season two as like your starter season. I say,
Speaker 1: start from the outset. I think Buffy is good from
Speaker 1: the jump. I think it gets better in season two,
Speaker 1: but I think there's a lot to take away from
Speaker 1: season one. But I really encourage, Like, if you're through
Speaker 1: season one and you're not quite vibing, I say, you've
Speaker 1: got to push into season two before you decide to
Speaker 1: call it quick. You have to give it the old
Speaker 1: Sunnydale hide try. It's a very good prescription doctor. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you Evan, Oh my god, thank you both, Bi,
Speaker 1: everybody