Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Lavery/Wilcox is "the Man" and "The Woman" when it comes to TV studies and continuing the serious interest of academics and artists into BtVS and other Whedon projects and numerous Television programs. These essays provide us with the ongoing diversity of thought so fascinating in our perceptions of the Slayer and what it means to us in todays society.

As a collection of critical essays on pop culture, I'd probably only give this 4 stars, but this is head and shoulders above the rest in comparison with the other collections of Buffy academia I've slogged through lately. (Reading the Vampire Slayer and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy - both good in their own right, but rather unpolished).This collection has both the widest number of topics, and some of the best written essays on the show I've read. We get the usual ones like feminism, female representation, and race, as well as some extremely interesting ones on language uses and a nice homage to the creator. Like all collections of this type, there's a nice hefty appendix of sources and references, mostly online due to the relative lack of published work, but a surprising amount of them reference 'ordinary' fans (those of us without a PhD. in media studies). We also get a nice healthy examination of fanfiction and the fan dynamic, unlike one rather anemic essay in another volume. If you're having a hard time deciding how to get into cultural critisism, ignore the rather stuffy cover and check this out.

There is no such thing as a perfect anthology, but by any reasonable standards, this one is first rate. The inherent problem with the anthology is that its contents are comprised by the contributions of a number of individuals. On the one hand, not every reader will find all the essays in any anthology of equal interest, while on the other, not every essay in a collection is going to be on the par of every other selection. In FIGHT THE FORCES, this is as true as well. The volume is edited by Rhonda V. Wilcox and David Lavery, the editors for the online journal SLAYAGE: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BUFFY STUDIES (www.slayage.tv).As both a lover of Buffy and an academic, I have been somewhat surprised and delighted with the embrasure of Buffy/Angel by academics and intellectuals. At the moment, there are three academic anthologies on Buffy currently available, and three more that I know of on their way (Christopher Weimer's forthcoming MONSTERS AND METAPHORS: ESSAYS ON BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, Lisa Parks's RED NOISE: TELEVISION STUDIES AND BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, and Glenn Yeffeth's SEVEN SEASONS OF BUFFY: SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY WRITERS DISCUSS THEIR FAVORITE TELEVISION SHOW, which should be out just a few days from the moment I am writing this review). What is most amazing about all this interest is that none that I have encountered is at all dismissive of television as a medium, as so many who write on TV shows are. All these writers assume that a truly great television show can warrant as much or more attention that a great movie or the body of work of a great film director.As of this moment, I would rate FIGHTING THE FORCES as one of the two finest academic books available on Buffy, along with Roz Kaveney's READING THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, and above James South's BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER AND PHILOSOPHY. Most of the essays in this collection are at least interesting, and several are fascinating. Though at a disadvantage to the South collection by having been written with only knowledge of the fifth season, the essays all have relevance beyond. My favorite essays tended to be in the first section, entitled "Forces of Society and Culture: Gender, Generations, Violence, Class, Race, and Religion." Many of the essays are exceptional. Some are less than gripping, and one, a Jungian analysis of the dreams in Buffy, is one of the hardest-to-ingest essays I have ever read (I have decided that I must be completely immune to the purported charms of Jung).For Buffy fans, I would recommend that only those with some academic proclivities give this book a try. Understanding academic articles doesn't depend on intelligence as much as habit, and if one hasn't worked through a number of academic essays before this, it isn't likely to be much fun or shed any insight on Buffy. On the other hand, academics who remain disdainful of Buffy probably need to go work through at least the first five seasons of Buffy and the first two of Angel before gi

I had to read this book for a Buffy class that I took at my school this past spring. I found it pretty interesting, and a lot of authors are very insightful as to the meaning behind different dialogues, actions, dress, etc. Many authors had differing views on many of the same scenes, but that's what makes each essay unique. Plus, my prof had written one of the essay's in the book, and I would just like to mention that she is THE ABSOLUTE best! :)I would def. recommend this book to most Buffy fans who would like to understand other points of view!

If you watch Buffy because of the great fight scenes and the pretty people, this book is probably not for you.But if you watch this show because you see the amazing depth of the characters, the metaphor and mythology it uses expertly, or if you'd like to understand those things more, this book is amazing.It contains essays on everything from gender and postmodern politics to the uses and purposes of fanfiction and fairy tales. These are the types of topics I discuss after viewing the show, but much more in-depth due to the writers expertise. (Many of them are processors of film, literature, media studies, women's studies, etc.) It's a facinating read for anyone really interested in the show, and for those who don't watch, it will show you that the show is much more than you think.