David Graeber on Buffy
If nothing else, Buffy reminds us how much ’60-style youth rebellion was premised on an assumption of security and prosperity: Why put up with all this stodginess when life could be so good? Today’s rebellious youth, rather, are reduced to struggling desperately to keep hell from entirely engulfing the earth. Such, I suppose, is the fate of a generation that has been robbed of its fundamental right to dream of a better world. The very notion of being able to take part in a relatively democratically organized group of comrades, engaged in a struggle to save humanity from its authoritarian monsters, is now itself a wild utopian fantasy–not just a means to one. But cynics take note: If the mushrooming success of Buffy means anything, it’s that this is one fantasy which surprising numbers of the Slacker Generation do have.
From the archives: ‘Rebel without a God.’
Gerry Canavan 
this WOULD be convincing if the show didn’t refigure class conflict as a genocidal race war fought by an elite local militia…
traxus4420
August 31, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Hey, quit preempting my dissertation…
gerrycanavan
August 31, 2011 at 6:09 pm
you’re really going after buffy in your dissertation?
traxus4420
August 31, 2011 at 11:46 pm
No, though it’s in a footnote, and I talk about Firefly and Dollhouse is probably even worse. Zombie chapter.
gerrycanavan
August 31, 2011 at 11:50 pm
The “refigure class conflict as a genocidal race war” thing is pretty close to my line on zombies.
gerrycanavan
August 31, 2011 at 11:51 pm
What’s most impressive is how *early* the article is: still halfway through Season Three…
Stepehn Frug
August 31, 2011 at 10:53 pm