Surely the point that life went on as usual was because they were planning on preventing the "impending doom"? It's a bit hard to fight to save the world if you're thinking that the world's ending so why not just stay home.

But then, what would I know, eh sancho? I only watch Buffy so I don't have to be a well-rounded woman/person in real life.

"I only watch Buffy so I don't have to be a well-rounded woman/person in real life."

Not necessarily, but a lot of women take that option.

spendocrat,

True, it is an obvious given, but that not always the message you get from programs/ articles/ books coming from a feminist perspective. That's why I found Buffy so refreshing.

By the way, are you suggesting Buffy took a positive approach of Christianity? Not that it bothered me, but I always thought it held a rather dim view of Christianity.

Mmm... I'm with Dozer on the Christianity section.

Yes, the Vampires are representative of the ultimate anti-christian. (No crosses, no soul etc).
As I understand it, the reason why they were represented in European lore as being so fearful was not because they could kill you (heck, lots of things can kill you) it was their ability to render you soulless and damned to hell.

In Buffy however, it wasn't this simple. Two of the central heroes were vampires themselves. In one of the series, she fought a god.
She lashes out against the men who created the first slayer, and rebels against the priest-like figures of the watcher council. All of this is somewhat anti-authority and somehow feels almost anti-church.
None of the characters were regular church-goers, when logically, if they believe in the power of christian relics to defeat vampires, then they would normally be christians - but they aren't.

TRTL, my post on yesterday's article "Promoting innovation in education" relates. In Buffy, it's the attitudes and volition of the individuals that matters, not adherence to a dogma or institution. Perhaps the Scoobies values are inherently Christian, I never thought about it and don't intend to, they're on the side of "good", which is non-sectarian, and work it out as best they can, warts and all. That's life.

dozer - although I wouldn't say the approach to christianity was entirely positive, most of the characters were christians (not churchgoing, but christian nonetheless)...a faith that, realistically, would have been revised a little when fighting vampires/zombies/demigods. It seemed more like a reluctance to take any clear stance, for risk of alienating a section of the target audience...which seemed like a bit of a copout to me.

Back to the feminism thing - while it did have a number of good messages, there was still some certain shallow hollywoodish values...surely just one unattractive female would add some realism. Not to mention there was a different thousand dollar outfit per female character per scene. Plus I don't think being heroic for 10 minutes per show and then whining for the other 35 minutes really qualifies as being a strong female role model.

Nitpicky, I know, but we are talking about subtle messages within the show. To me the value wasn't really in the messages anyway (as they tended to somewhat mixed..at least from my perspective), it was more just pure enjoyment for the hell of it.