I am speaking at a wonderful conference where I will argue that the Christian story is so powerful that even very talented people like Joss Whedon cannot borrow from it without being controlled by it.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a deeply Christian show . . . despite vain attempts to hijack the vampire myth from its Christian roots. In any case, I get to define myth using Plato, look a bit at Stoker, and Dante so what is not to like? Here is the punch line of my paper:
The difficulty for Whedon is that the Buffy-verse is not a true myth in the Platonic sense, but uses true myth with tacked on secularism. The secularism frequently peals off and the undergirding myth is revealed.
Buffy is a mythic show, but in a secondary sense.
Whedon has hitched his capable literary wagon to good stories, but he does not expand on them or really improve them. The seminal Christian myth found in the Bible and Dracula is fundamentally more powerful than the Whedon-verse.
If future vampire movies are made, and they will surely be made, Bram Stoker’s influence will out weigh that of Joss Whedon. One is hard pressed to think of any enduring images from Buffy that do not derive from Dante, Stoker, or Jesus. Buffy is not, therefore, a true myth, but an appropriation of a myth with some colorful elements tacked on to it.