New Buffy the Vampire Slayer book delves into the abuse allegations against Joss Whedon with cast and crew

Jezebel

Evan Ross Katz's book Into Every Generation a Slayer Is Born: How Buffy Staked Our Hearts was released Tuesday -- timed with Buffy's recent 25th anniversary --  after he had to make some adjustments following Charisma Carpenter's abuse allegations against Buffy creator Whedon that she revealed in February 2021. The next day, he was scheduled to interview Alyson Hannigan. That interview was canceled. Katz never did get to interview Hannigan, but he did re-interview cast and crew members about Whedon in wake of Carpenter's allegations. They all expressed their support for Carpenter. “I did not know that that would be the longest chapter in the book," Ross Katz says of his lone chapter on Whedon. As Gabrielle Bruney says of the book: "Arriving 25 years after the series’ premiere and hot on the heels of the latest Whedon controversy, it offers an in-depth look at the creation and legacy of one of television’s most beloved shows, through interviews with cast members like Carpenter and Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Buffy experts and fans including Stacey Abrams. It’s a reckoning with a show that changed television, and with its creator, who’s been accused again and again of serious professional misconduct." Ross Katz, who was able to secure many of his interviews thanks to Sarah Michelle Gellar, wanted to approach his analysis through a number of perspectives. “There were aspects of the show that I was keen to look at through the prism of today,” he says. “I write about the ways in which I think the show holds up terrifically and ways it doesn’t. I am someone who loves muddy, muddy feelings—I like the idea that something can be multiple things, two thoughts can occur in tandem. I had a lot of those about Buffy, and I was eager to explore them.”