Johnny Depp looks great. The costume designers and make-up artist working on that movie must be pysched.

There are many great quotes from the legislator
"Why have meals at home with your loved ones if you can go to the government soup kitchen and get one for free? This could have the effect of breaking apart more families."

Sorry, Honey the food at the soup kitchen is simply too good, I'm leaving you, Really.

Can I smack that Missouri chick? Advocating that teens eat at McDonald's -- and you know she's talking to a certain class and ethnicity which she figures eats there already -- Ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Not that there's an obesity problem in America or anything, spurred on by the poor eating crap food. Hey, maybe next she can suggest that the poor be motivated to eat their babies. After all, it worked for the Irish, right?

This hits me especially hard because my Mom directs a non-profit early childhood education center at a church, and she's seen the kids who need the food. In this financial climate, she's being asked to cut their summer lunches. Bad, bad, bad news.

/rant

I agree that Lauren Miller missed the details in her piece, it IS the Scoobys, and those friendships are what make the show such wistful viewing. We all wish we could all be close with our best buds and just kick butt and right injustice all day. Imagine some of our Secret Society together in person. We'd be wicked cool.

Anne Hathaway is smart to stick with the weird Tim Burton films. With Depp, they'll always have the draw of the name and the looks; more importantly, it looks like they have FUN, and create their own Hollywood, which is good for us -- they will always make a different brand of film.

I actually really like Laura Miller's piece and think she nails the connection between much of the urban fantasy milieu and Buffy. Every single editor I talked to for my UF/paranormal romance piece in PW mentioned Buffy as the progenitor of the trend's rise in books, and as one reason so many of the readers are younger than the usual romance readers. The main difference, to me, is the connection to the noir PI voice that many of the books have. And it's undeniable that Buffy has and continues to influence a great many writers (including me) working with contemporary fantasy.

And Miller's also dead on in terms of the focus on working class heroines. That's one of the things I find so interesting about UF right now. It's one of the only places where I see blue collar workers, and yet these books are viewed as entirely escapist. V. interesting. Someone could get a grad thesis out of this stuff.

Anyway, I have a real soft spot for the best of these books, and Miller namechecks a few of my faves--maybe that's why I like the piece so much. :)

Oh I liked her piece Gwenda - but what I noticed is that having read some of those other books as well is that no one else has the Scoobys like Whedon did. So do they share elements of Buffy? Sure - and they do a good job on their own as well. But I don't think Miller addresses how big a deal the friendships were in the series and what a missing element they would be in other titles. (Ironically I think Anita Blake had a good group in the beginning until she jumped that big old sex shark... :)

And yes Tanita - I get you on that MacDonald's bit as well. You could practically hear her saying "fast food is good enough for you people.

I hope this woman does not get re-elected.

I don't know--I think the spirit of the friendships in Buffy is caught in some of the more ensemble books (which are my faves, actually) she mentions. And even within those secondary characters in Buffy--some of whom you rightly point out were just as important as Buffy for a lot of us--I do think the angst they went through was part of the allure.

But, for instance, the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews absolutely has incredibly compelling recurring characters that are a major part of the series. Likewise with Briggs' Mercy Thompson series.

So, sure, we also watched Buffy for other reasons, but I just think I see the "new" urban fantasy books getting beaten up on all the time because of the way they are packaged, instead of the contents. It was nice to see Laura Miller engage with some of the reasons why they are so popular without taking a condescending tone--and I do think there's a connection with Buffy, in that it was so influential and so many people still miss it greatly. We could probably make a whole different list of YA books that show the influence in the same way; the main difference I see between adult UF and YA UF these days is less influence of the procedural noir on the YA side. It will be v. interesting to see if that holds up as more authors from the adult UF side cross over to YA. We might have a whole generation of bad-ass Nancy Drews ahead of us (which sounds pretty awesome, actually).

Hmmm - maybe i just struck a nerve with you on this quick mention? I just didn't see Miller pointing out the buddy nature of Buffy, and thus the buddy nature of the other books as much as I think she could have (compared to mentioning so many of the fantasy type elements). I do enjoy a lot of these books...I just didn't think the article gave that component of the Buffyverse the attention I think it deserves (even more than other elements).

Does that make any sense?

And I do like the bad ass ND idea and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens to the YA mystery/urban fantasy field in coming years...which ties in perfectly to our What a Girl Wants question for tomorrow!