By
Jose Ceja
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Magic, fantasy help young girls cope with transition to adulthood
In addition to saving mankind from vampires, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" may be useful in understanding the role of fantasy and magic in adolescent development, a speaker said yesterday.
Gerry Bloustein, a senior lecturer at the University of Southern Australia in Adelaide, has been using the popular television show- which puts a gothic twist on contemporary teenage dilemmas - to study how adolescent girls live vicariously through Buffy's adventures.
The show has developed a trend in places such as Israel, the United Kingdom and Australia - something Bloustein said is indicative of the universal nature of the program's themes.
"In 'Buffy,' even vampires and demons have love problems," she said.
Bloustein said that in one of the classes she teaches, a student praised "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" for its realism while criticizing a police drama for being too "fake," illustrating the ease with which many girls identify with the program.
Bloustein combined her research on "Buffy" with research involving young women called "Striking Poses: The Constitution of Identity as Process in the Worlds of Australian Teenage Girls."
For this project, Bloustein had several teenage girls use a camcorder to record hours of their lives, and then compress it into one minute - something Bloustein believed would yield insight into their world.
Many of the girls Bloustein worked with developed a minute of video strongly influenced by magic and fantasy, she said.
For many of the girls, magic was an opportunity to mature and confront problems associated with adolescence, she said.
"(Magic is) also a way of dealing with the everyday," she said. "Magic and fantasy are there, I believe, as ways of dealing with uncertainty."
Holly Dorushka, a media arts senior, said she was impressed that a medium such as television could be so useful in understanding young girls.
"It's always nice to understand people better," she said.
John Murphy, a media arts senior, said a show such as "Buffy" - as presented in Bloustein's lecture - can help connect people in a time when they are becoming more alienated.
"It's good to let people know they are not alone," he said.
