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This Is What Would Happen If Ayn Rand Wrote Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Colleen Barrett
September 28, 2014, 5:15 PM
buffy embedPhoto: Courtesy of Fox.
Why would anyone just battle evil forces for free? Because it's good and right and they were chosen by fate itself? No, no, no. That's what Ayn Rand, author of The Fountainhead (a capitalist manifesto disguised as a novel), would say if she came back from the dead, kidnapped Joss Whedon, and rewrote Buffy The Vampire Slayer from inside his body. We can't even imagine what she'd charge for that.
Good thing Mallory Ortberg at The Toast is actually the one doing the writing. She's been giving some of the most important work of our time (The Devil Wears Prada, The Breakfast Club) Rand's objectivist treatment, and now she's taken on Buffy. The result goes something like this:

GILES: In every generation there is a Slayer. She is the Chosen One. She alone will stand against the forces of darkness –

BUFFY: What does it pay?

GILES: What do you mean?

BUFFY: I’m being expected to risk my personal health and well-being on behalf of those too weak to fend for themselves, yes?

GILES: I wouldn’t put it exactly like that.

BUFFY: Surely this kind of specialized labor merits compensation, if my skills are so highly valued on the free market.

GILES: Well, we can’t really offer the Slayer money, if that’s what you mean.

BUFFY: Then I will find someone who can, and work only for the highest bidder.

[a group of vampires bash their way into the library and begin chewing on Giles]

GILES: Buffy, help –

BUFFY: If you really valued my services, you would pay me.

GILES: I’m dying –

BUFFY: This is emotional extortion and I won’t respond to it.

All of the scenes are like this. Tedious little arguments that would've prevented the show's original storyline from moving forward, but make for delightful pieces of commentary. Capitalism, man — it may be bad for plot, but it's great for spoofs. (The Toast )

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