[1] As a feminist looking back on the last half century, a woman born in 1944, raised in the extraordinary gender and race repressions of the 1950s, awakening to the power of social dialogue and civil disobedience in the 1960s, and one of two of the first Affirmative Action hires at Montana State University, Bozeman, in 1973, I have alternately been awed and inspired by the audacity and social critiques implicit in the writing for Xena and Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.  I am actually amazed to have lived long enough to see such play around the issues of female-female attraction, let alone lesbianism, and the necessity of  communal support in the achievement of  healthy ego relationships, let alone life goals.  I am also struck by the exploration of  doppelgangers, that the evil we see without, is the evil we recognize from within.  That it is who we are with that nurtures different parts of self, and that as there are crucial changes in primary relationships, people change or the relationships die, or become clichés of  themselves, like Anya and Xander, or Angel and Buffy.

 [2] I am very aware after teaching in a university setting for thirty-four years that generational differences can be stark, that the race fears and gender expectations that still haunt my age group often strike young adults as bizarre, if not socially perverse.  The clarity of their insights comes, not from the pessimism born out of the  existentialism and despair of the mid-twentieth century world view,  but from a campy humor that affirms interconnectedness even as it deconstructs various social ideologies and agendas.  What is the monstrous, after all, if “Angel” is a vampire?  And “Buffy,” a petite, attractive Slayer?  What does it mean to be a “sidekick” if that person is Gabrielle, or Xander, or Willow, who ultimately move worlds within and without as they grow in relationship to the heroine, others, and life experiences?  How then do Xena and Buffy change?  The ironic juxtaposition of permeability with strong identity and relationship bonds is one of the most important explorations these series provide their viewers.  Consider when Willow and Tara reunite.  This happens in the context of other relationships falling apart (Xander and Anya), or being obsessive, exploitative, and “unnatural” (Buffy and Spike), so that the lesbian connection becomes the bedrock for assessing the health of the other relationships.  Terminologies fall away like “hetero” or “homo”, and one sees only people one cares about.  This is particularly reinforced when it is Willow and Tara who express internalized homophobic concern to get dressed in order to protect little sister, Dawn, who instead, joyously acknowledges their sexual connection as a righting of her world.  Love can survive and engender. 

[3] My presentation would explore the above issues in greater care, drawing primarily on Buffy for examples, but highlighting passages from Xena that set up strong comparison/contrasts.  I envy the girls and young women of today such extraordinary models of strength, agility, ingenuity, intelligence, courage, social skills, comraderie, character perception, loyalty and political savvy.  Nancy Drew Mysteries Stories were as close as my generation got to such characters, and that was not close at all.  I love Buffy, Willow, Tara, Xena, and Gabrielle, because they are so secure in their feminism, and because Giles and Xander (even with all his hubba hubba mentality) are so profoundly humane.  No wonder the students I teach often amaze and humble me.