“How Do You Like My Darkness Now?”: Women, Violence, and the Good “Bad Girl” in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Abstract

The representations of violent women in Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and the development of this trope compare intriguingly with Charlotte Dacre’s early nineteenth-century protagonist in Zofloya; or, The Moor (1806). Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt and Jean Elshtain, the chapter argues that Whedon’s exploration of the relationship between women and violence suggests ways in which to reconsider the consequences and responsibilities—as well as potentials—for women’s use of violent means to oppose systemic oppression.