The Cult of Buffy
It's not the vampire battles that inspire millions of fans to sink their teeth into the show ‚ it's the smart take on life.

Lily Rothman, 15, goes to Hunter College High School, one of New York City's most competitive schools. Besides her academic load, she's on the debate team and studies clarinet and piano. She reads a lot and plays an hour of Snood, a tetris-like computer game, every day.

But her most enduring passion is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the popular WB show now revving up for its fifth-season finale this May. As soon as she finishes watching, Lily gets on the phone or the Internet to analyze the episode with other fans. Her fellow Buffy fans are far-flung; she's met many of them through one of the thousands of Web sites devoted to the show. She learned HTML to contribute to the Buffy sites, and she has lately begun writing online fan fiction.

"I have so much in common with the people I meet through Buffy," Lily says. "I can't pinpoint why, exactly, but we tend to like the same music and the same books and the same movies."

The evolution of Sarah Michelle Gellar's show has generated a devoted legion of Biffy Watchers. When Buffy first appeared quietly, as a midseason show in March 1997, a reviewer for The New York Times was amused but dismissive of this supernatural fantasy set in a California town that happens to sit on the mouth of hell. "Nobody is like to take the oddball camp exercise seriously," he wrote.

Beyond Vamp Camp

But younger viewers took Buffy very seriously. It has a powerful cult following, with a steady 4.7 million viewers each week. Adults began analyzing Buffy, finding the metaphoric implications that were particularly appealing to teens. While a typical episode might on one level be about the heroine's latest battle with a demonic force, it could also be seen as dealing with demons that teens confront every day: fears about sex, feeling too smart or not smart enough, alienation from the grown-up world, wanting independence but also fearing it.

Henry Jenkins, the director of comparative media studies at the Massaparative media studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently exchanged notes on Buffy with his 19-year-old son. "For him it connected with very real issues he's going through as he goes through school," Jenkins says. "Fights within the family, dealing with teachers and principals. For him, it's anchored to reality."

Like the best fantasy fiction and movies, Buffy offers a stylized and often witty expression of the grandiose emotions that can plague teenagers as they make the often-troubling passage from childhood to adulthood ‚ without being as painfully earnest as Dawson's Creek. Fans appreciate the serious acting of Gellar and her gang, and the careful plotting overseen by Buffy's creator, Joss Whedon, which regards longtime viewers by referring to episodes from years ago.

The show survived and prospered after Buffy's graduation from high school two years ago. It has spawned a hit spinoff about Buffy's ex, Angel, as well as abooks, comics, and merchandise, while critically outshining rivals like Dark Angel. The show might also become the object of a bidding war between Fox and ABC, bigger networks interested in buying it away from the WB, which now pays $1 million per episode.

Buffy Not Immortal

But this may be as good as it gets. Aside from vampires, nothing, not even Buffy, lives forever. After five seasons, there's less to say and slay. Even Buffy buff Lily has curbed her habit ‚ a little. Two years ago, she was insulted when her father suggested she tape an episode so the family could go out to dinner. Now she'll use the VCR if she has to. She preferred the show when Buffy was a Sunnydale High, and reads the novels still set in high school.

She's happy with being admiring but balanced. "Everyone associated me with Buffy, and that wasn't good," Lily says. "It got in the way of having regular conversations. I didn't think about anything else but Buffy." Spoken like a recovering Buffy Watcher.

(Below that, there is a little interview with Michelle TrachtenburgÖ)

Blood Sisters
Turns out Michelle Trachtenburg, 15, a new addition to the Buffy family this season as Dawn, is part of the cult. Here's what she told us.

What was it like joining Buffy?
It was just so funny coming into my favorite show and seeing all of it, where [Buffy] and Angel first met, and all that kind of stuff.

Do you still collect Buffy stuff?
I still do here and there. I write down all of my homework assignments in the Buffy planner and then I'm like, "Oh, hey, Sarah, how are you?" Being on your favorite show is just wonderful: to be able to see all the behind-the-scenes stuff, to actually be with the people everyday.

Have you collected anything from the set?
No, not yet. My goal is to have a stake by the end of the season.

Can you describe the mystery behind your character, Dawn, introduced as Buffy's sister?
She's this portal that, if it is opened, mankind will be destroyed.

What's Buffy's nemesis, Spike (played by James Marsten), really like?
You might think that Spike is mysterious and evil, but he's not ‚ he's really funny. We all get together on Sundays, and we go and read Shakespeare at [creator Joss Wheadon's] house.