{"id":511,"date":"2006-07-19T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-07-19T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str.html"},"modified":"2006-07-19T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-07-19T12:00:00","slug":"the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str.html","title":{"rendered":"The Tao of Buffy (and Other Strong, Spiritual Women)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/media.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/buffy2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer;cursor:hand;width: 100px\" src=\"https:\/\/media.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/buffy2.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/whedonesque.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Joss Whedon<\/a>. I love him. He is one to be loved. If you don\u2019t know who he is, you owe it to yourself to become familiar with one of the most creative, intelligent, and pro-female writer\/directors floating around Hollywood today. Whedon is the genius creator\/writer\/director of such cult TV classics as \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer\" target=\"_blank\">Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/a>\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Firefly_%28television_series%29\" target=\"_blank\">Firefly<\/a>,\u201d as well as the movie \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Serenity_%28film%29\" target=\"_blank\">Serenity<\/a>\u201d and the upcoming, big-budget \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.comingsoon.net\/news.php?id=8802\" target=\"_blank\">Wonder Woman<\/a>.&#8221; I avoided watching \u201cBuffy\u201d for years because the title just seemed so cheesy, so, well, Buffy, but started tuning in during a particularly stressful time in grad school, and my harsh judgments vanished immediately as I found myself enthralled by the metaphysical and spiritual elements layering the smart, self-deprecatingly campy show, the quirky humor and whip-smart cast, and, of course, the young, empowered, kick-ass vampire slayer who struggles relentlessly with her classic personal archetype: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.karmastrology.com\/rek_hero.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">the Hero<\/a> (Joseph Campbell would eat this show up with a chocolate spoon).<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t believe it? Try religious scholar Jana Reiss\u2019 book, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0787969222\/sr=8-1\/qid=1153083508\" target=\"_blank\">What Would Buffy Do: The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide<\/a>\u201d which beautifully details the more spiritual elements of the show. Hey, if you can\u2019t trust a scholar, who can you trust?<\/p>\n<p>But back to my boy Joss. He was just given an award by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.equalitynow.org\/english\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Equality Now<\/a>, honoring \u201cmen on the front lines,\u201d for his contributions to the notion of the empowered female. This link takes to straight to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cYaczoJMRhs\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube video of his speech<\/a> (he\u2019s introduced by none other than she-goddess Meryl Streep). It\u2019s worth every minute. Whedon is humble and funny and deeply articulate, and in the speech he answers the question he is asked in every interview he\u2019s ever given: \u201c Why do you create such strong female characters?\u201d His answers are absolutely priceless.<\/p>\n<p>Do you think Hollywood offers us enough relatable strong female characters?<\/p>\n<p>(posted by <a href=\"http:\/\/serabeak.com\" target=\"_blank\">Sera Beak<\/a>, substituting this week for Amy)<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;padding-bottom:0.25em\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joss Whedon. I love him. He is one to be loved. If you don\u2019t know who he is, you owe it to yourself to become familiar with one of the most creative, intelligent, and pro-female writer\/directors floating around Hollywood today. Whedon is the genius creator\/writer\/director of such cult TV classics as \u201cBuffy the Vampire Slayer\u201d&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":376,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Tao of Buffy (and Other Strong, Spiritual Women) - Chattering Mind<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Tao of Buffy (and Other Strong, Spiritual Women) - Chattering Mind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Joss Whedon. I love him. He is one to be loved. If you don\u2019t know who he is, you owe it to yourself to become familiar with one of the most creative, intelligent, and pro-female writer\/directors floating around Hollywood today. Whedon is the genius creator\/writer\/director of such cult TV classics as \u201cBuffy the Vampire Slayer\u201d&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Chattering Mind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-07-19T12:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/buffy2.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"sera beak\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Tao of Buffy (and Other Strong, Spiritual Women) - Chattering Mind","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Tao of Buffy (and Other Strong, Spiritual Women) - Chattering Mind","og_description":"Joss Whedon. I love him. He is one to be loved. If you don\u2019t know who he is, you owe it to yourself to become familiar with one of the most creative, intelligent, and pro-female writer\/directors floating around Hollywood today. Whedon is the genius creator\/writer\/director of such cult TV classics as \u201cBuffy the Vampire Slayer\u201d&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str.html","og_site_name":"Chattering Mind","article_published_time":"2006-07-19T12:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/buffy2.jpg"}],"author":"sera beak","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str.html","name":"The Tao of Buffy (and Other Strong, Spiritual Women) - Chattering Mind","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/buffy2.jpg","datePublished":"2006-07-19T12:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-07-19T12:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#\/schema\/person\/a0e6373972c6b1759cccf0624fef578f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/buffy2.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/buffy2.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2006\/07\/the-tao-of-buffy-and-other-str.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Tao of Buffy (and Other Strong, Spiritual Women)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/","name":"Chattering Mind","description":"Amy Cunningham, Spirituality blog, Beliefnet Spiritual parenting blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#\/schema\/person\/a0e6373972c6b1759cccf0624fef578f","name":"sera beak","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"sera beak"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/author\/sera-beak"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}