THE SCRIBES
Sitting around the room with Buffy's writers feels an awful lot like sitting around a room with the show's preternaturally witty characters: Creator Joss Whedon is a big-screen writer who's worked on scripts spanning Toy Story to Speed; executive producer David Greenwalt wrote for The Wonder Years and created the TV cult classic Profit; executive story editor Jane Espenson is a sitcom vet who survived Ellen; former story editor Dan Vebber was a founding editor of the Wisconsin-based satirical mag The Onion; story editor Doug Petrie is a Nickelodeon alum who penned episodes of Clarissa Explains It All and the feature film Harriet the Spy; and coproducer Marti Noxon's sole pre-Buffy credit was one episode of the ABC weeper Life Goes On. They've come a long way with this show, which has gone from industry joke to cult phenomenon. As Noxon recalls, ''When I told my mother I got a job on Buffy, she said, 'I'm sorry, honey, I'm sure you'll get on something better next year.'''
EW: Do you identify with specific characters?
WHEDON: I identify with Giles a great deal. Because dealing with this world and these actors, every now and then I feel terribly British slightly appalled by everything I see. I can't believe I've been put in charge of these people, none of whom pay any attention to me.
GREENWALT: Cordelia. She speaks her mind. There's a certain blunt aspect to her character.
WHEDON: David is what we like to call ''a bitch.''
ESPENSON: Willow, because I'm shy and earnest and I say, ''Oh!'' when I'm startled.
VEBBER: A combination of Xander and Willow. I was brainy in high school like Willow, but also obnoxious and stupid, much like Xander.
PETRIE: Faith, which is really scary. She acts tough, but everything she does is because she's in all this pain.
NOXON: Buffy, because she has such bad luck with men. Until very recently, I dated guys who turned into demons after the first date.
EW: Do you think of Buffy as a feminist role model?
WHEDON: Absolutely. The idea was, let's have a feminist role model for kids. What's interesting is you end up subverting that. If she's just an ironclad hero ''I am woman, hear me constantly roar'' it gets dull. Finding the weakness and the vanity and the foibles makes it fun.
ESPENSON: Buffy's heroism has two aspects, the fighting aspect and when she gets to be a general you guys go here, you guys go there.
WHEDON: From the beginning, I was interested in showing a woman who was [take-charge] and men who not only didn't have a problem with that but were kind of attracted to it.
EW: How much attention do you pay to feedback on the Internet?
WHEDON: A lot. The episodes people like best are those that advance the soap opera elements. It's fascinating to see what upsets them. When Faith went to work for The Mayor, there was a huge debate.
NOXON: I used to go on the Internet, but then the first episode I wrote [''What's My Line?''] aired, and the first posting I saw was ''This is the worst-written episode of Buffy ever!''


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