Character Analysis: Buffy The Vampire Slayer

The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer can claim many achievements. Most importantly, it’s a show that showcases that women can be everything that men are, and sometimes more. It cherishes long lasting relationships between a cohort of friends. It also paved the way for teen-centered fantasy and horror entertainment, like Twilight and The Vampire Diaries. However, one thing Buffy can’t mark as an achievement is the way it deals with race. The show could be a product of its time, but from the first episode, the main cast and surrounding cast are filled with mostly white characters. When the show tried to include racial diversity, it’d fail. Characters like Mr. Trick and Forrest were two Black men who were Buffy’s enemies. A character like Kendra, a Black vampire slayer, was classified as a “frenemy”, someone who Buffy didn’t hate but didn’t like either. One of the biggest disappointments was Sineya, who was more commonly known as the The First Slayer. The First Slayer’s initially appears in the season four finale, “Restless” and her character is immediately pigeonholed. The character was used as a prop to add racial diversity to the show, and doesn’t add substance to the show, although she could have.

The episode exists mostly as a dream …show more content…
Would Buffy have been rude and dismissive of the First Slayer had she been a white woman? The show’s history seems to suggest that she wouldn’t. Adding racial diversity is always welcomed, but if the character is just going to satisfy a quota and adhere to stereotypes then there is no reason for it. The First Slayer, was just that, the first slayer to begin a long lineage of women who fought vampires. But instead of having her live up to this standard that had been set by Buffy in the three previous seasons, she was reduced to a villain who was barbaric and