{"id":2217,"date":"2008-08-28T11:06:34","date_gmt":"2008-08-28T11:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/08\/is-buffy-turning-girls-into-wi.html"},"modified":"2008-08-28T11:06:34","modified_gmt":"2008-08-28T11:06:34","slug":"is-buffy-turning-girls-into-wi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/08\/is-buffy-turning-girls-into-wi.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Buffy Turning Girls into Witches?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"buffypicforic.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/import\/imgs\/buffypicforic.jpg\" width=\"175\" height=\"215\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0 0 20px 20px\" \/><\/span>We heard about it with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/story\/91\/story_9170_1.html\" target=\"_blank\">Harry Potter in spades:<\/a> that J.K. Rowling&#8217;s beloved series about witches and wizards would somehow corrupt the minds and religious practices of youth all over the world. We heard about it with Philip Pullman, too, that somehow his magnificent trilogy &#8220;His Dark Materials&#8221; was going to <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/exclusive-video-philip-pulman.html\" target=\"_blank\">turn kids into atheists.<\/a><br \/>\nBut apparently Buffy the Vampire Slayer (three cheers for Buffy!) <em>really is<\/em> turning women and girls toward Wicca&#8211;and a recent British study called, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ashgate.com\/default.aspx?page=637&amp;calcTitle=1&amp;pageSubject=412&amp;title_id=9295&amp;edition_id=9945\" target=\"_blank\">Women and Religion in the West: Challenging Secularization<\/a>&#8221; by scholars Kristin Aune and Giselle Vincett, proves it.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.starpulse.com\/news\/index.php\/2008\/08\/26\/buffy_blamed_for_the_rise_in_paganism\" target=\"_blank\">A new entertainment blog picked up the story:<\/a><br \/>\n&#8220;Hollywood actress Sarah Michelle Gellar&#8217;s hit show &#8216;Buffy The Vampire Slayer&#8217; has been blamed for 50,000 women abandoning traditional Western religion to study paganism. According to the recent British study published in Women and Religion in the West, young women have taken an increased interest in practicing witchcraft after Gellar&#8217;s hit TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit the mainstream.&#8221;<br \/>\nApparently, the entire Church of England &#8220;declined to comment.&#8221;<br \/>\nLong live Buffy! (And Spike! Sigh.)<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/sarah-michelle-gellar\/1226\" target=\"_top\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/sarah-michelle-gellar\/1226\/351x85_belief.gif\" alt=\"Sarah-Michelle-Gellar at LocateTV.com\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We heard about it with Harry Potter in spades: that J.K. Rowling&#8217;s beloved series about witches and wizards would somehow corrupt the minds and religious practices of youth all over the world. We heard about it with Philip Pullman, too, that somehow his magnificent trilogy &#8220;His Dark Materials&#8221; was going to turn kids into atheists.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,7,1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-entertainment","category-television","category-trends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is Buffy Turning Girls into Witches?<\/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\/idolchatter\/2008\/08\/is-buffy-turning-girls-into-wi.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Buffy Turning Girls into Witches?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We heard about it with Harry Potter in spades: that J.K. Rowling&#8217;s beloved series about witches and wizards would somehow corrupt the minds and religious practices of youth all over the world. We heard about it with Philip Pullman, too, that somehow his magnificent trilogy &#8220;His Dark Materials&#8221; was going to turn kids into atheists.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/08\/is-buffy-turning-girls-into-wi.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-08-28T11:06:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/buffypicforic.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Donna Freitas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is Buffy Turning Girls into Witches?","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\/idolchatter\/2008\/08\/is-buffy-turning-girls-into-wi.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is Buffy Turning Girls into Witches?","og_description":"We heard about it with Harry Potter in spades: that J.K. 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