This paper will investigate from a critical management perspective the "culture of consumption" associated with the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and how this reflects on larger issues of consumption in American and British society. This investigation has multiple layers that interact with each other. We begin by examining how postmodern consumption is portrayed within the television series, starting with images of consumption in BtVS and moving on to portrayals of consumption by Buffy, paying particular attention to consumption and production of consumption by Buffy, and how this links to Ritzer's idea of McDonaldisation. In the second layer, we then consider the "consumption of culture" associated with the television series by consumers / producers of popular culture including Sky Television, the BBC, and mechanisms for re-consumption including websites, audiences, fan magazines, etc. We highlight how this consumption is reflected by the producers of the television series, in a second. In a final layer, we outline and interpret the ["consumption of the culture of the consumption of culture" of the other two layers by academic researchers. Overall, this thesis highlights the way how BtVS both encourages and subverts the "consumption of culture" compared with traditional mass culture vehicles, and how this links to issues of gender, race, and sexuality in modern consumerist society.

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