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Rebooting ‘Buffy’ with a Black Female Lead
Although Sarah Michelle Gellar cannot be recast…could we get “Nikki the Vampire Slayer” or “Asha the Vampire Slayer,” instead?
As a member of the “Xennial” microgeneration, one hallmark of my late-adolescence was the WB/UPN’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A multi-genre dramedy/supernatural/horror scripted series, it was based on the 1992 feature film (starring Kristy Swanson) of the same name.
Disclaimer: this article contains spoilers from the actual Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series as well as from its canonical series of graphic novels that followed.
In the 1997–03 WB/UPN series, Sarah Michelle Gellar starred as Buffy Summers, a troubled teenager whose single mother moves her to a strange suburban California city after Buffy gets expelled for burning down her previous high school’s gymnasium.
Viewers would soon discover that Buffy is “The Slayer” — a once-in-a-generation young woman anointed to protect humanity against vampires, demons, and a gaggle of other kooky evil creatures. We are introduced to Buffy at the age of fifteen, where she must hide her identity while trying to balance some semblance of a “normal” life filled with teen angst.
