This paper explores Buffy as representative of the construction of whiteness as an ethnic category.

Giles the English librarian, Willow the computer geek, Spike the Aryan superman, and Buffy the blonde girl are analysed as quintessentially white characters. The series’ generic roots in the small town film, supernatural fiction and teenage witch television are deconstructed in racial terms. The Scooby’s strategic combination of archaic scholarship and medieval weaponry, the Masonic overtones of the Watchers Council, the European folk tales and horror fiction, Judo Christian mythology and teen movies which constitute the series’ narratives, themes and iconography complement this Caucasian milieu.

The non-white threats posed by an Inca princess, vengeful Native Americans, African hyenas, the Aboriginal first Slayer and Mr Trick are detailed as supporting readings of Buffy as racist text. However, it is argued these villains are knowingly racialised, emphasising the central protagonists’ ethnicity. Furthermore, the text’s overwhelming whiteness frequently includes villains: the generic vampires, the biker demons, The Master, the Gentlemen, the Mayor, Glory and the Geek Trio.

Finally, Dyer’s work on whiteness will be discussed. Relationships between whiteness and death are highlighted in Buffy’s fascination with, affinity to and increasing embodiment of death. Sexual perversity, regarding relationships between Willow and Tara, Buffy and Angel, Buffy and Spike and recurring sadomasochistic imagery, double entendres, and Buffy’s propensity for queer slash readings are explored as particularly white. Whiteness as a comparatively undefined racial category is examined in relation to recurring themes of guilt, forgetfulness, invisibility and self-destructiveness as characterising a troubled ethnic identity.