Leading up to the 20th anniversary of the March 10, 1997 premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Yahoo TV is celebrating “Why Genre Shows Matter” and the history of how these shows have tackled universal themes (i.e. how much high school sucks) and broader social issues.

“In every generation, there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer.”

Those are the first words viewers heard when they tuned in to the March 10, 1997 premiere of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which introduced them to Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a 16-year-old who would go on to save the world, a lot, while reminding us that high school is hell.

Related: ‘Battlestar Galactica’ EP David Eick on 5 Episodes That Remain Relevant

Of course, there were obstacles: drowning on spring fling night was bad; sacrificing herself years later only to be pulled out of heaven by her well-meaning friends was worse. But she persisted. And in the 2003 series finale, she rewrote the rules: “From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer. Every girl who could have the power, will have the power, can stand up, will stand up. Slayers, every one of us.”

To kick off our week-long celebration of “Why Genre Shows Matter,” Yahoo TV spoke with Whedon to discuss the show’s legacy.

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy (Credit: Everett Collection) More

You’ve had 20 years of Buffy fans telling you how much the show resonated with them. What are you most proud of?

It’s happened lately. They say they grew up with it, which always makes me feel old. I’m most proud of people coming up and saying, “That’s the girl I think about when I think about strength.” Strength as in leadership and the ability to deal with a crisis and the decisions they make going forward. When I was still making the show, I had a woman come up to me in the commissary of Fox who was in her late 30s, and she was like, “I was able to move cities and get this particular job that I was after because of her. Because I could use her power as mine.” I thought I was, at that time, still just talking to young people, and that was an amazing moment.

What issue were you personally most invested in while making the show?

The issue is always gonna be women’s rights and feminism and the basic respect that we all need to pay to each other. It turns out that there were other things. Obviously the Willow/Tara romance was very important for a lot of people. But I did not set out to do that. I did not think of the world and everything I did that carefully. Obviously we were careful about what we said about people, but I only had a gay romance in it because it was college and I thought, “This is a good way to follow up Oz. It’s a tough act.” And then later on, I was like, “Oh. Representation matters. I’m a white guy.”

Amber Benson as Tara, Alyson Hannigan as Willow (Credit: Everett Collection) More

Why do you think genre shows continue to matter today, especially with the climate we have in the country right now?

The climate we are at right now, I just want, like, isolation baths that play Barney. The idea of getting as far away from this world as possible would be amazingly good. Genre shows matter and have always mattered (he yelled at the ghost of his stepfather) because they give you a chance to examine your world very carefully, a chance to step outside of it just enough to really look at it. You can lecture somebody about feminism or gay rights or whatever, or you can create a story that even people who disagree with you enjoy, and then they have that respect incorporated into them. It allows people to accept and enjoy things that they might not necessarily approach or want to hear about, without having to be didactic or divisive. You can reframe the argument. The morality plays of Everyman from the Middle Ages, and the Greek myths, and Hamlet, and all these things — they work the way they do because they give themselves license to embrace the strange and therein lies the humanity.