Character A-Z: B is for Buffy

It's a little while since I posted the first of these, but despite appearances I hadn't forgotten! 

I thought this would be a nice, easy thing to work on with Ziggy still so young, but between him and the Cat this isn't going smoothly at all! I don't know what it is about typing, but Kitty will happily ignore me all day if I'm doing anything else yet feels shemust sit on the keyboard if I'm using it.gfff

Buffy Anne Summers, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I know the show is problematic in many ways, that Joss Whedon's feminism isn't all it's cracked up to be, that the few non-white characters are treated all that well, that Willow is treated as flipping from straight to gay instead of having her bisexuality accepted, and Spike in general... I know there're more issues, yet I cannot help loving this show (so expect more characters to make the list).
 

I was hooked on the show from the first trailer. As we watched her backflip over a sarcophagus, my younger sister and I knew we had to watch the show. We're a similar age to Buffy, both also slim and blonde. We'd never before seen someone who looked so like us leading a show and getting to be kickass in the process. 

Representation matters. And even more so, a range of representation matters. Skinny blonde white girls aren't exactly in short supply on our screens, but skinny blonde white girls with agency are rarer, and skinny blonde white girls with agency and the ability to best bad guys in hand to hand combat were pretty much unheard of.

I loved her for it. She showed the anger I felt as a teenager and was forbidden as a girl. She was confident and a leader and she screwed up and she tried again. She was flawed and she was powerful and she was real. She arrived at a time in my life when I needed her and so will always matter to me.