Buffy the Vampire Slayer vs. Dracula: Buffy as Mina

After watching "Buffy vs. Dracula", I was overwhelmed by all of the similarities the episode had with Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula.  The episode seemed to take the novel and turn it into a forty five minute, 21st century film version. Each Buffy character took on a role that mirrored on of the characters in the novel, as well as the gender roles that came with them. Two of the roles that seemed to stand out as most similar were both Dracula's and Buffy to Mina and Lucy. 

In the episode I realized very quickly how seductive Dracula is. When Buffy meets Dracula for the first time in the cemetery, she does not immediately try to attack and slay him. She is actually mesmerized by his good looks and in her words "those dark penetrating eyes". As she converses with him, she openly let's him in and he escapes her attempt at an attack, a leaves her looking forward to seeing him again.

Through the course of the episode we see Dracula's "intimate seduction" and ability to mind control just like the Stoker's character is portrayed. As Buffy tries to get some sleep Dracula comes through the window as a mist. We see Buffy laying in a welcoming position and the camera's zoom in on her lips as Dracula convinces her to let him bite. 

We see the sexual nature of her gestures, as well as the masculine roles Dracula has. Buffy's Dracula also seems to be androgynous like Bram's Dracula. I noticed this because he also seduces the mind of Buffy's friend Xander. Xander plays the part of Renfield in this episode. Xander, after encountering Dracula, begins to call him master, and dark prince, and becomes consumed with the thought that blood is life, and begins to eat flies and spiders just as Stoker's Renfield did. Xander and Buffy yearned for the next time they could be with Dracula, just like Renfield and Mina did in the novel version.

  

The episode portrayed Buffy taking on the same stereotypical feminine roles as  Mina portrayed in the novel. One of the first lines of the episode is Buffy's boyfriend telling her "you throw like a girl!", implying that women are less physically competent than males. This coincidence of old-fashioned gender representation was the first of many throughout the episode. 

Buffy's boyfriend acts like Harker, always feeling as though she needs protected. Along with her protective boyfriend the slayer also has a mentor that stays to protect her. I can't help but think how much this mirrors that of the same gender roles of Mina and how she has a small army of protectors in the novel. 

In the end of the episode Buffy was given more credit as a woman as Mina did in the novel. In the novel, the men recognize that they should have included Mina in trying to find and kill Dracula from the beginning just as the episode finally shows Buffy shedding her stereotypical feminine roles and (temporarily) slaying Dracula. Buffy also shows her intelligence of his myths by telling him she knows he will keep coming back. 

This episode was pretty spot on with the conservative conventions with gender representation that we see in Stoker's novel. I would have hoped that because this version was done at a much later period we would have seen Buffy as more independent and tough, but overall was a good episode.