Popular Culture Review Vol. 13, No. 2, Summer 2002 | Page 91

Buffy The Disciplinarian 87 a system that efficiently employs surveillance and discipline in a new economy of power. Although on the surface Buffy might appear to be a figure of feminist resistance, and BtVS might be interpreted as politically progressive, a closer look at the show’s representation of power relations reveals that the figure of the young woman is merely being employed to signal the fact that modem stmctures of discipline and punishment are so thorough and diffuse that they can be embodied in even the most unlikely agents. Rather than simply relying on formal analysis, then, an argument for the show’s potential for effecting positive political change would be better served by examining its reception among fans and audiences. University of Iowa Martin Buinicki and Anthony Enns Works Cited Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth o f the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. NY: Vintage, 1979. Harts, Kate. “Deconstructing Buffy: B u ^ the Vampire's Contribution to the Discourse on Gender Construction.” Popular Culture Review 12.1 (2001): 79-98. McMillan, Trade, and Oscar Owen. “The Buffy Files.” The Activist Winter/Spring 1999. Rpt. in “Teen Socialist Idols.” Harper’s July 1999: 35-6. Ono, Kent A. ‘T o Be a Vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Race and ( ‘Other’) Socially Marginalized Positions on Horror TV.” Fantasy Girls: Gender in the New Universe o f Science Fiction and Fantasy Television. Ed. Elyce Rae Helford. NY: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. 163-86. Owen, A. Susan. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Vampires, Postmodemity, and Postfeminism.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 27.2 (Summer 1999): 24-31. W ilcox, Rhonda V. “There Will Never Be a ‘Very Special’ Buffy: Buffy and the Monsters of Teen Life.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 27.2 (Summer 1999): 16-23.