Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV Series, 1996-2003)
John Elledge muses at The New Statesman:
3. What would happen if a Slayer were to withdraw her labour? Obviously Buffy isn’t going to form a union with herself – I mean, what would be the point – but she doesn’t have to. She can just stop slaying until she is offered better pay and conditions. Clearly this hasn’t happened. Why?
4. Since the Watchers’ Council is based in the UK, is it covered by Ofsted? If so, why has the regulator never intervened to prevent the ritual where the Watchers deliberately poison Slayers on their 18th birthday?Perhaps Buffy can be read as a kind of allegory of the naturalization of socially reproductive labour? One could imagine that were Buffy to withhold her labour, the Watchers would do some frantic searching in those big grimoires of theirs and some alternative systems of vampire control would soon surface.
Some of Elledge's concerns are partly answered in the finale, in which the Slaying labour market is significantly expanded, while there is also reason to anticipate a sharp decline in the supply of infernal horrors.
On another note, is there a bit in the Buffy canon where she stakes a vampire and the necro-ash sprinkles Xander, and Willow goes, 'Hey! Slay it don't spray it?' I really hope so.
See also: Buffy the Anarcho-Syndicalist: Capitalism Bites.
