When You're Buffed It Means Healthy, Right?

 

America’s health system is pretty regularly scrutinised and criticised - but I think there are plenty of culprits still to be identified...

 

In TV scripting, the groaning edifice of healthcare is often used as a plot device to give the protagonist some hardship to endure. They come up against the hopelessly overcrowded hospital system and we hope they prevail over the stifling corruption and malpractice. But at least these protagonists are in the position to be let down by their heath system.

 

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been exposed to an incredible amount of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. By series three, I’d actually been sucked on (I’m sorry… in).

 

It has occurred to me that Buffy did not help a whole generation of American kids set very high expectations on their healthcare system. She just didn't engage with it.

 

The characters are constantly being bumped, burnt, battered, bludgeoned and blown up; and I don’t think I’ve once seen them go to the hospital. They set no store by it, preferring a mixture of homemade remedies and “don’t worry, I’ll walk it off”. Ok, that smacks of hardy self-reliance but there’s another side to this I don’t like. (Well, actually I don’t really care, but let’s pretend I do.)

 

Buffy kills a lot of vampires – hence the name, I guess. But doing what’s best for your community and helping a victim of a virulent disease doesn't have to be at such lethal odds.

 

First, a question of intent. In most cases, the vampire didn’t ask to be bitten. Given that, what’s the appropriate response to someone who is not behaving rationally and is biting people? It is to attempt treatment and a cure. 

 

They’ve alluded to how we really should perceive the vampire menace in one early episode. In a refreshing improvement to the Mother, Teenage Daughter Relationship, Buffy’s mum goes out on patrol with her. As a fanged monster leaps towards them, mum says, “Oh, that’s Stephen from the bank.”

 

That’s right. That’s Stephen from the bank. Stephen from the bank, first. Suffering a bit of a malady, second. Buffy’s response is to see the illness, not the person - and her cure is on the radical side.

 

I can relate to the bind this must present in the minds of the afflicted. I had to go to a doctor after being bitten by a dog once. I don’t know if I would’ve been so keen if I felt there was a chance of being staked. This show has set an expectation in the back of American minds that they will go to the doctor with a bit of a head cold, and be euthanized.

 

Buffy’s methods are like the war on drugs. They're never going to work. You need to treat vampires with a medical model, not a martial one. The biggest problem that I can see is that Buffy the Vampire Locator, Restrainer and Curer doesn’t have much of a ring to it, but it may help a teensy bit in changing a generational mindset.