Editing Buffy Summers (section)

== Legacy and cultural Impact ==
Thanks to her groundbreaking role as Buffy, Sarah Michelle Gellar, by the late 1990s, had become a household name, as well as one of Hollywood's "It Girls".<ref>http://www.people.com/people/sarah_michelle_gellar/biography</ref> In 1998, she appeared on Entertainment Weekly's Top 12 Entertainers of the Year and the "Most Beautiful" list by People magazine. In 1999, she signed on to be the face of Maybelline —becoming the company's first celebrity spokeswoman since Lynda Carter in the late 1970s—<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.tv.com/people/sarah-michelle-gellar/ | title=Sarah Michelle Gellar }}</ref> and was voted number one in FHM's "100 Sexiest Women" of the year.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20150111001316/http://www.fhm.com/girls/covergirls/sarah-michelle-gellar</ref> She was featured in the magazine's German, Dutch, South African, Danish and Romanian editions of the list since 1998.<ref>http://www.amiannoying.com/(S(14c0ob45otihfn45itcmlrbm))/view.aspx?ID=576</ref> Topsocialite.com listed her as the 8th Sexiest woman of the 1990s.<ref>http://www.whedon.info/Sarah-Michelle-Gellar-is-one-of.html</ref> 
[[File:Dragon Con 2014 - Original Buffy (15610757336).jpg|thumb|Fan [[cosplay]]ing as Buffy Summers]]
The character of Buffy became a cultural icon, inspiring plenty of others female characters. Marie- Claire Chappet wrote in her article published for [[Harper's Bazaar]] "Her witty comebacks, her high-kicks, her strength. Everything about her was mesmerising. I had seen female warriors before – in superhero cartoons or even Star Wars – but something about the way the show was otherwise grounded in a rather mundane high-school reality, made this startlingly affective.", quoting Buffy as a feminine icon. [[CBS News]] developped a theory called the "Buffy Effect", analyzing the impact of the character on strong woman on television. <ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/tvs-buffy-effect-impacts-views-on-women/ | title=TV's "Buffy Effect" Impacts Views on Women - CBS Texas | website=[[CBS News]] | date=September 3, 2012 }}</ref> Theory followed by Lindsay Abrams writing for [[The Atlantic]] "The "Buffy effect" posits that strong characters can combat the negative effects of sexual violence in media."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/08/study-we-benefit-from-seeing-strong-women-on-tv/261790/ | title=Study: We Benefit from Seeing Strong Women on TV | website=[[The Atlantic]] | date=August 31, 2012 }}</ref>

Buffy has been acclaimed by viewers and critique for being badass while still being "girly" and relatable. [[The Hollywood Reporter]] placed Buffy Summers at No.3 in the top " Hollywood's Favorite Female Characters".<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/50-best-female-characters-entertainment-industry-survey-results-951483/miranda-priestley-the-devil-wears-prada/ | title=Hollywood's 50 Favorite Female Characters | website=[[The Hollywood Reporter]] | date=December 9, 2016 }}</ref> and placed No.1 for the website [[Digital Spy]] quoting "But Buffy Summers was the hero in her own story. And if she could be, then I could be too. Throughout its seven-season run, audiences grew along with Buffy and many of its most impactful moments can apply to all sorts of things that real life might throw at you – whatever your age, or your struggle."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a39556965/greatest-female-tv-characters-21st-century/ | title=The Top 50 greatest female TV characters of the 21st century | website=[[Digital Spy]] | date=March 8, 2025 }}</ref> [[Vox (website)|Vox]] stated that Buffy "subverts one of pop culture’s most famous tropes." following this statement by "As comics and YA fans will be quick to attest, Buffy wasn’t pop culture’s first female superhero, not by a long shot. But she was the first to anchor her own TV series, and her success paved the way for others like her."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/10/14857542/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-explained-tv-influence | title=How Buffy the Vampire Slayer transformed TV as we know it | date=March 10, 2017 }}</ref> [[X-Men: Evolution]]'s producer/writer [[Boyd Kirkland]] admit that they replicated the dance scene from the episode "[[Bad Girls (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)|Bad Girls]]" for the episode 5 from season 1 of the show named "Speed and Spyke" letting know that " Buffy had become an influential figure in television in her own right -- even impacting the way characters like X-Men: Evolution's teenagers like [[Kitty Pryde]] were portrayed on screen.".<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.cbr.com/x-men-evolution-buffy-the-vampire-slayer/ | title=X-Men Evolution Has a Connection to Buffy the Vampire Slayer | date=July 30, 2022 }}</ref> [[Julie Plec]], co-creator of the show [[The Vampire Diaries]], cite Buffy as an inspiration for the character of [[Damon Salvatore]] calling him "our Buffy". <ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.bustle.com/p/buffy-summers-is-responsible-for-everything-you-like-on-tv-9651649 | title=Buffy Summers is Responsible for Everything You Like on TV | date=July 24, 2018 }}</ref>

Kadeen Griffiths of ''[[Bustle (magazine)|Bustle]]'' insists on how Gellar's Buffy Summers influenced quippy, strong female characters such as [[Veronica Mars (character)|Veronica Mars]] from ''[[Veronica Mars]]'', [[Rory Gilmore]] from ''[[Gilmore Girls]]'', [[Elena Gilbert]] from ''[[The Vampire Diaries]]'', Hope Mikaelson from ''[[The Originals (TV series)|The Originals]]'' and its spin-off ''[[Legacies (TV series)|Legacies]]'' etc. Kadeen Griffiths wrote : "And San Diego Comic-Con 2015 had an entire panel called "The Buffy Effect: Teen Heroines Then and Now," in which authors like Kiersten White (And I Darken) and Rae Carson (Walk The Earth a Stranger) cited the show as a key inspiration in how they wrote their female characters."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.bustle.com/p/buffy-summers-is-responsible-for-everything-you-like-on-tv-9651649 | title=Buffy Summers is Responsible for Everything You Like on TV | date=July 24, 2018 }}</ref> [[Bob Schooley]] called Buffy Summers a huge influence on the creation of the character [[Kim Possible]]. <ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.polygon.com/23681047/female-james-bond-alias-kim-possible-perfect-dark | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240609205302/https://www.polygon.com/23681047/female-james-bond-alias-kim-possible-perfect-dark | archive-date=June 9, 2024 | title=In the year 2000, everyone wanted a female James Bond | website=[[Polygon (website)|Polygon]] | date=April 17, 2023 }}</ref> [[Kristen Bell]]'s work is often compared to Sarah Michelle Gellar's portrayal of the title character on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, [[The Hollywood Reporter]] writing " arguably the television successor to Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy the Vampire Slayer when it comes to fighting bad guys."<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002985784 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012113515/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002985784 | archive-date=October 12, 2007 | title=Pulse | website=[[The Hollywood Reporter]] }}</ref> [[The Guardian]] wrote "Lately though, for teenage girls, we have had Twilight's mopey and passive [[Bella Swan]]. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is long gone, so to see Katniss (more akin to Neo in The Matrix) as resilient and smart and reluctantly becoming a symbol of a revolution is quite something." putting [[Katniss Everdeen]] as an descendant of the character Buffy.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/27/why-hunger-games-katniss-everdeen-role-model-jennifer-lawrence | title=Why the Hunger Games' Katniss Everdeen is a role model for our times | work=The Guardian | date=November 27, 2013 | last1=Moore | first1=Suzanne }}</ref>

Buffy's name became a synonym for strong women, as we can see in fiction when characters refer to women trying to fight or having a physical fight (Heroes: "Strange Attractors" (2010)—Becky tells Claire: "You don't have to go all 'Buffy' on us."). The romance of the protagonist with the two vampires [[Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)|Angel]] and [[Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)|Spike]] have been known to have redefined the supernatural romance, inspiring romances in ''[[The Twilight Saga (film series)|Twilight]]'', ''[[The Vampire Diaries]]'', ''[[Teen Wolf]]'', ''[[True Blood]]'', etc.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/how-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-defined-teen-vampire-romance-genre-iconic-tv-legacy-90s-twilight-the-vampire-diaries | title=How 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' Defined the Teen Vampire Romance — Vampire Diaries Twilight }}</ref>