Janna King

December 2008

“Aren’t We Manly?”

Masculinity, Split Personalities, and the “New Man” in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Many of the male characters in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BTVS) television series are seen as having split personalities: their more feminized, “good” side that is representative of the “new man” and their “bad,” hypermasculine side that they must fight to control. While stereotypically traditional masculine traits are violence, aggression, and anger, in BTVS it also means taking pleasure in these traits. The opposite of this is the model of the “new man,” who is sensitive, emotional, and passive. Men possessing a “wild side” may be read, therefore, as the show promoting an essentialist view of masculinity, the idea that all men have a “beast” in them that they must tame. However, it could also be read as these traits being a result of powerful social conditioning that is so engrained into all men that they must fight to reject it. By portraying men as having split personalities, the show suggests that men must fight hypermasculine tendencies, which are either inherent or constructed, in order to be the new men of postfeminism.

The question of masculinity as biological or constructed has been a subject of interest in recent decades. With the emergence of feminism and the theory of gender as a social construction, “in cultural commentary, Hollywood film, and the academic marketplace, masculinity has become ‘new’—newly marked and newly in crisis” (Wiegman 32). This concept of masculinity in crisis was shown in many films of the 1980s and 90s, in fact, “the 1980s action hero is superficially a sign of masculine power, but on closer examination an anxiety about masculine identity is revealed, an anxiety which has been addressed in many films of the 1990s although in different forms” (Nelmes 269). In the 1990s, the idea of the “new man” was born to describe men who are sympathetic to feminism and are in fact feminized themselves. Whether these cinematic men are actual feminists or not is arguable. The theory of gender studies informs the subject as well, suggesting gender is “a performative accomplishment which the mundane social audience, including the actors themselves, come to believe and to perform in the mode of belief” (Butler 901). Not only is gender a construction, but a (usually unconscious) performance.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is well known for (arguably) being a feminist work; writer/director/producer Joss Whedon is a self-proclaimed feminist. However, in order to determine whether BTVS is truly feminist, it is important to examine masculinity on the show as well. The “good guys” on BTVS are all examples of new men: the feminized, feminist male. In films of the early 1990s, “white males are often presented as domesticated, feminized, or paternal” (Nelmes 270). This is true of all of the men in the Scooby Gang (Buffy’s group of friends who often help her with slaying.) It is notable that every main character is white and almost all are middle-class. As a werewolf three nights of the month, Oz is quite literally domesticated by his girlfriend Willow who makes sure he is locked up in his cage those nights. Buffy’s Watcher, Giles, is shown in a very paternal way, standing in as a father figure for her. Xander is especially seen as the feminized male, using self-deprecating humor about being “less than a man” (“The Harvest” 1.2). Buffy’s vampire-with-a-soul boyfriend, Angel, is even feminized to an extent, playing the traditionally feminine role of the hero’s lover. Riley, another one of Buffy’s boyfriends, is constructively made into a “man” by the military. Spike, a vampire who is at first a villain before becoming one of the Scoobies, is in fact the most transgressively gendered male character on the show. Yet all of these men (with one possible exception) have their own demons, metaphorically or more often literally.

The character of Oz demonstrates the tension of having split personalities. In season two, Oz discovers that he is now a werewolf because his baby cousin (who for some reason is a werewolf) bites him. Giles explains that the werewolf “acts on pure instinct. No conscience, predatory and aggressive” to which Buffy replies, “In other words, your typical male” (“Phases” 2.15). What is ironic is that Oz is very much not your typical male. He is quiet, passive, sensitive, and at ease with his masculinity. His purpose in the show is mainly as a love interest for Willow, a traditionally female role. Even his body type is more feminine; he is short and slim. Furthermore, his becoming a werewolf during a full moon is compared to women’s PMS and menstrual cycles in “Phases.” In his relationship with Willow, he is often passive and supportive: when she wants to kiss him for the first time, he turns her down because he thinks she is trying to make Xander jealous (“Innocence” 2.14), and when she wants to lose her virginity to him, again he turns her down because at that moment she just wants to have sex to prove that she loves him (“Amends” 3.10). In both of these instances, he is looking out for his partner’s feelings as much as his own.

However, Oz’s laconism can be read as a traditionally masculine trait as much as it can be read as passive. He is also a guitarist in a band, a typically “cool” masculine identity. Unlike Xander (who, in early seasons at least, is uneasy around the topic of male homosexuality), Oz appears comfortable with his sexuality and masculinity. However, he is very anxious about his werewolf side, which “is his anxiety about his masculinity” (Jowett 125). When he turns into a werewolf, he is literally a wild, uncontrollable beast. In the second and third seasons, although he feels extremely guilty for possessing this side of himself, the characters make it clear that the werewolf is something completely separate from Oz as a man, something he has no control over and should not be blamed for. However, by the fourth season, he is starting to doubt that.

In “Wild at Heart” (4.6), he meets Veruca, a fellow musician and werewolf. Unlike Oz, she embraces her wild side, seen through her overt sexuality and love of the hunt. She tries to convince Oz to embrace his, too:

VERUCA: God. Somebody's domesticated the hell out of you.
OZ: It's my choice. I don't want to hurt anybody.
VERUCA: Maybe … Maybe you just want to pretend like you're a regular guy.
OZ: Well, I am. I'm only a wolf three nights a month.
VERUCA: Or you're a wolf all the time and this human face is just your disguise. You ever think about that?

Although Oz does not agree with Veruca that they should find pleasure in violence, Oz decides he must leave Sunnydale because “Veruca was right about something. The wolf is inside me all the time and I don't know where that line is anymore between me and it.” By leaving Willow with the excuse that he doing it for her own safety, he is removing her agency; there is a pattern here with the men on BTVS. He later returns for one episode, thinking he has found a way to cure his werewolf symptoms, only to discover that now his sexual jealousy about Willow dating someone new causes him to change, regardless of whether there is a full moon or not. It seems that for Oz, controlling his violent, aggressive side will be a lifelong struggle, which could be implied as applying universally to all men.

Rupert Giles is another supportive character; as Watcher, he is there as a mentor for Buffy, to teach her about her power and how to use it, although he actually probably learns more from her. Traditionally, the Watcher’s Council has supreme authority over the Slayer and her Watcher is supposed to reflect that. From day one, Giles realizes he will not be able to act authoritatively with Buffy. In order for her to listen to him, he must gain her respect and trust by treating her as the strong, independent woman that she is and by allowing her agency. When Buffy joins the cheerleading squad in “The Witch” (1.3), Giles does not approve and tries to exercise his authority over her, saying “You have a sacred birthright, Buffy. You were chosen to destroy vampires, not to... wave pompoms at people. And as the Watcher I forbid it.” Buffy rebels and simply replies, “And you'll be stopping me how?” They both know that she has the greatest power. Rather than Giles being her superior, they end up treating each other more as equals, an example of his being a new man. In season three Giles is fired from the Watcher’s Council for having “a father’s love” (“Helpless” 3.12) for his slayer, which would supposedly cloud his judgment.

Another trait of good guys on BTVS is being able to work as a team as well as independently, but not being an individualist. Giles excels as a librarian and researcher, but he is also often seen doing magic or even slaying, despite the fact that he often ends up getting knocked unconscious more times than not. This shows his willingness to work cooperatively in a heterosocial setting, as well as with people much younger. As a result, he is one of the only adults considered an acceptable authority to be trusted and consulted.

On the surface, Giles is the quintessential British “fuddy duddy” (“The Dark Age” 2.8). He is depicted as the stereotypical book-loving high school librarian who always wears tweed and cleans his glasses when in contemplation. In the early seasons especially, he stammers nervously when he talks. However, we learn in “The Dark Age” that while in college at Oxford, Giles joined a bad crowd and dabbled in dark magic, and acquired the nickname “Ripper.” When a spell causes all the adults in Sunnydale to act like teenagers (“Band Candy” 3.6), we get to see Ripper himself. He takes off his glasses and dons the style of a 1950’s rebel, which does not actually make factual sense considering Giles must have been in college in the 1970s, but “it does draw on intertexts that are classic representations of masculinity and a period of American culture history much concerned with asserting masculinity in the face of feminization” (Jowett 131). Giles, as a teenage Ripper, smokes cigarettes, steals from a store, beats up a cop, and proceeds to have sex on the hood of a police car with Buffy’s mom (also under the spell and acting as a teenager). This opposite side of Giles demonstrates “the binary nature of masculinity” (Jowett 129). Giles feels extremely guilty about his past wild side, but in later seasons his character toughens up a little and gains a “cool” factor, in part by showing scenes of Giles singing and playing guitar, in the same way that being in a band contributes to Oz being cool.

In season six, Giles decides it is best if he goes back to England because, as he sings to Buffy in the musical episode, “The cries around you, you don't hear at all/ 'Cause you know I'm here to take that call/ So you just lie there when you should be standing tall … Wish I could stay … But I've been standing in the way” (“Once More, With Feeling” 6.7). Again, this is an example of another male character who is leaving in what they feel is the best interest of the woman, but not actually giving the woman a choice in the matter. When he tells her that it is the right thing to do, she says, “You’re wrong” (“Tabula Rasa” 6.8). Buffy feels abandoned and insecure as a result of his leaving. Giles does come back later, though, at the end of season six and stays on until the end of the series.

Xander is the only “good guy” without a split personality. Although we see his vampire self in an alternate world in “The Wish” (3.9), this side of him never appears again and is not seen as being particularly important to his character. The only argument for a split personality would be in “Halloween” (2.6), when there is a magic spell that turns everyone into the character indicated by their costumes and Xander becomes a soldier. This would not be a split personality in itself, since Willow also becomes a ghost and Buffy turns into an eighteenth century noblewoman, except that unlike Willow and Buffy, Xander retains his military knowledge for the rest of the series, which often comes in handy. Still, it is only the knowledge which he applies; his personality does not change because he knows how to use a rocket launcher. As a result of Xander being the only male Scooby not to have a split personality, the show suggests that he is the only true new man.

Indeed, Xander does fit the criteria. He is passive, emotional, heterosocial, a team player, and more or less skilled at relationship management (despite his claims otherwise). He is white, but interestingly not quite middle class. His father, though rarely seen on the show, is an abusive alcoholic. Xander sleeps outside every Christmas to avoid his family’s drunken arguments. He does not get into college like his friends, and instead works low-wage jobs until he works his way up to managerial status at a construction company. Xander rejects a masculine, tough guy persona because it is associated with the working class, and he wants to move up in the world. So although he may not be middle class yet, he aspires to be. He is the character that the show wants boys or men watching to want to emulate. He is very loyal and honest. Most of all, Xander is funny, often cracking jokes to lighten the mood, ease tensions or fears and provide greater perspective and balance. As Fran Rubel Kuzui, one of the executive producers of the show, said, “You can educate your daughters to be Slayers, but you have to educate your sons to be Xanders” (Golden and Holder 248).

However, despite Xander’s usually good behavior with women, supporting them and their strength, his one fault is sexual jealousy, a traditionally acceptable outlet of masculinity. In early seasons, Xander has crush on Buffy and therefore is not very accepting of Angel. He takes his dislike too far, though, when he decides not to tell Buffy that Willow is attempting to return Angel’s soul, and as a result, Buffy will have to kill him (“Becoming, Part 2” 2.22). By doing this, he removes Buffy’s agency and ability to choose. He also tends to idealize Buffy as a strong, beautiful woman who can do no wrong. He admits, “When … I'm scared or freaked out or whatever, I always think, 'What would Buffy do?'  You're my hero” (“The Freshman” 4.1). This is putting her on a pedestal, even the language is referring to the popular slogan “What would Jesus do?” which compares her to a religious savior. Although this line is meant with a good heart, idealizing women is not feminism; it is just another type of dangerous stereotyping.

Xander strips a woman of her agency again when he leaves his fiancée Anya (a former vengeance demon) at the wedding altar, supposedly protecting her because he is afraid that he will become an abusive drunk like his father (“Hell’s Bells” 6.16). After this, Anya is upset and has sex with Spike. When Xander finds out, in a jealous rage he attempts to hit Spike with an ax, violently beats him, and then would have staked him except that Buffy stops him. He yells at Anya, saying that she did it as an act of vengeance to hurt him, which she disputes later by telling him it was “solace” (“Two to Go” 6.21). He asks her if that is the mature thing to do, and she sarcastically replies, “No, the mature solution is to spend your whole life telling stupid, pointless jokes so no one will notice you're just a scared, insecure little boy!” (“Entropy” 6.18). Anya speaks the truth about Xander’s faults at this moment.

Despite his traditionally male fault of sexual jealousy, Xander is the emotional heart of the group, which would normally be considered feminine. He saves the world twice, by giving CPR to Buffy to revive her from being dead for a few minutes (“Prophecy Girl” 1.12), and stopping Willow (who has turned evil) from destroying the world by movingly telling her how much he loves her as a friend (“Grave” 6.22). In both of these instances, he saves them through deep love and friendship. His attachments and commitments to his friends him strength of character. By the end of the series, Xander has earned and secured his mature role as a genuine provider and protector of his loved ones, which is what he had always longed for but until now was too poor and weak to achieve.

Angel, the vampire with a soul, is at first glance an example of “old masculinity”; he is the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. He is strong, mysterious, and a little bit dangerous. However, “excessive masculinity turns into a parody or exposure of the norm. Because masculinity tends to manifest as natural gender itself, the action flick … actually undermines the heterosexuality of the hero even as it extends his masculinity” (Halberstam 937). While typically vampires on the show have no conscience (as opposed to Anne Rice’s vampires), Angel is an exception. At the end of the nineteenth century he killed a Gypsy girl, whose family put a curse on him that restored his soul (and thus, a conscience) so that he would spend the rest of his existence in misery. What Angel does not realize is that the curse also states that if he experiences even one moment of true happiness, he will revert back to his evil self, which is what happens when he has sex with Buffy (“Surprise” 2.13).

Angel is the best example of a split personality because he varies between such extremes. Without a soul, he is Angelus, one of the worst vampires ever because not only does he kill to feed, but he loves to terrorize his victims long before he kills them. He speaks philosophically about passion and tells Spike in a flashback: “A good kill takes pure artistry. Without that, we're just animals” (“Fool for Love” 5.7). He ruined Drusilla, a young Catholic woman who wanted to be a nun, by torturing and killing her family and then on the day she was to take her holy vows, making her watch as he killed everyone in the convent. Reducing her to insanity, he then made her into a vampire to show off his talent. When he loses his soul after having sex with Buffy, he becomes the typical bastard boyfriend, leaving her after she loses her virginity to him. He tells her, “You got a lot to learn about men, kiddo. Although I guess you proved that last night.” Shocked and hurt because she does not yet realize that he has lost his soul, she asks, “I don’t understand. Was it me? Was I not good?” to which he replies sarcastically, “You were great. Really. I thought you were a pro.” Later, after he kills a gypsy man, he writes on the wall “Was it good for you, too?” in his blood (“Innocence” 2.14). Angel the heroic boyfriend is now Angelus the evil villain.

Although the character went on to star in his own spin-off show, on BTVS he is mainly a love interest, relegated to a feminine role, and his body is often the subject of the “female gaze” (the opposite of the classic cinematic “male gaze”). Despite having the appearance of a “bad boy” with his muscular body and occasional wearing of leather (which is more a staple of Angelus), “any potentially threatening hypermasculinity is replaced by a male body that is not merely an object of female desire, but is continually and aggressively … beaten, stabbed, burned, staked, and shot with arrows” (McCracken 117). Angel (the male) is tortured more often than Buffy (the female), a subversion in the horror genre. In fact, the fear and suffering of Buffy is often displaced onto Angel. His guilt and suffering for the atrocities he committed mean that:

Buffy’s narrative historically justifies (even revels in) Angel’s suffering, providing a stark contrast to the more familiar presentation of the masochistic white male in popular culture, which emphasizes his suffering while erasing historical and continued social dominance. Film versions of this narrative … serve a masculinist narrative, where the hero reasserts and affirms his manhood… (McCracken 125)

Unlike other narratives, not only does Angel not assert his masculinity, but he believes that he will never be finished with his atonement.

Ultimately, Angel realizes that is it unfair of him to stay with Buffy because he can never give her a healthy relationship: as a couple, they are incapable of having sexual relations, reproducing, growing old together, or even going out during the day. Since he is older and should know better, Buffy’s mother tells him, “I think we both know that there are some hard choices ahead. If she can't make them, you're going to have to” (“The Prom” 3.20). When Angel breaks up with Buffy , he takes away her agency, her own power and authority:

ANGEL: I'm sorry. Buffy, you know how much I love you. It kills me to say this.
BUFFY: Then don't. Who are you to tell me what's right for me? You think I haven't thought about this?
ANGEL: Have you, rationally?
BUFFY: (sarcastic) No. No, of course not. I'm just some swoony little schoolgirl, right?

Angel insists that he is just trying to do the right thing to allow her to have a normal life, but Buffy is right to question why he believes he has the authority to decide that for her rather than letting her make her own decision about her future. Furthermore, when he does leave, he warns her, “I'm not going to say goodbye… I'm just going to go” (“Graduation, Part 2” 3.22). He will not let himself give into his emotions and instead stays strong and masculine. This is unusual because we have seen Angel cry before, but in this final scene, he preserves his masculinity.

Buffy’s next boyfriend is Riley. At first, he is seems like the perfect “normal” boy to help her move on from Angel. He is a grad student and the teacher’s assistant in her freshmen psychology class. At first, he thinks she’s “peculiar” (“The Initiative” 4.7), but then he realizes that is why is likes her. When Riley hears Parker (a jerk who used Buffy for a one-night stand) talking crudely about her, he punches him—and this is before he realizes he likes her. From the beginning, Riley is a more traditional type of chivalrous man, protecting a lady’s honor. Before he knows she’s the Slayer, when he finds her out walking at night (patrolling for vampires) he offers to take her home and she asks, “What? You think that boys can take care of themselves and girls need help?” When he replies yes, she comments, “That is so Teutonic” (4.7). However, Riley is actually a commando for the Initiative, a secret government military organization that captures demons and other supernatural creatures and performs scientific tests on them, and of which the psychology professor runs. When Buffy finds out, she does not want to date him anymore because he is not the “Joe Normal” she was hoping for, although of course she changes her mind (“Doomed” 4.11).

After a while, though, the Scooby Gang realizes the Initiative is not very ethical. It is one thing for Buffy to slay demons, but it is another to keep them locked up, perform brutal tests on them, and treat them in otherwise cruel ways. The situation becomes worse when Professor Walsh tries to kill Buffy to cover up the secret that she is creating a Frankenstein-like monster (“The I in Team” 4.13). It turns out that Professor Maggie Walsh is also experimenting on Riley and the other soldiers without their knowledge, enhancing their performance through methods that threaten their lives, which functions as a metaphor for steroid use. At first Riley is in denial about the Initiative being evil. As Buffy says, “Everything he's ever believed in has been taken away” (“Goodbye Iowa” 4.14). Riley is confused about the world now, saying, “I don't know which team I'm on. Who the bad guys are. Maybe I'm the bad guy.” He is used to looking at the world in simplistic moral terms of black and white and does not understand Buffy’s more complex morals. When Oz returns after his break-up with Willow (“New Moon Rising” 4.19), Buffy explains the situation to Riley, who is shocked to learn Willow would date a werewolf:

RILEY: Gotta say I'm surprised. I didn't think Willow was that kind of girl.
BUFFY: What kind of girl?
RILEY: Into dangerous guys. She seems smarter than that.
BUFFY: Oz is not dangerous. Something happened to him that wasn't his fault. God, I never knew you were such a bigot.

Riley has been trained to believe that all demons are bad, which is not the case. Buffy’s strong reaction to his sentiment is partly due to the fact that she has loved a vampire so by criticizing Willow he is also unknowingly insulting Buffy. However, by the end of the episode, he says he is sorry and that Buffy was right, he was being a bigot, “I was in a totally black and white space, people versus monsters, and it ain't like that... especially when it comes to love.” Part of being a new man is being able to realize that binaries are only constructions, and Riley starts to slowly realize this, although he never really succeeds in completely leaving behind his black and white moral views.

Riley is always competing with Buffy. Although is he attracted to and impressed by her physical strength, he is also jealous and insecure. Riley is literally “made a man” by the military. The performance enhancing chemicals Professor Walsh put in him give him super strength so that he is almost Buffy’s match. After a while, he gets hyperadrenal overload, meaning he is stronger than he ought to be, feeling no pain, and his heart is beating way too fast. Despite the fact that he could die from a heart attack, Riley does not want to go to the doctor because he is afraid to lose his strength. He thinks Buffy will not like him anymore if he does not have super strength because it will mean he is just an ordinary guy, but really he is also afraid to lose his power and masculinity. Unlike Oz or Angel, who try to fight their natural demons, Riley’s hypermasculinity is unnatural, and therefore could be changed. However, Riley does not want to give it up because he is afraid he will be emasculated and weakened. When he tells Buffy he is afraid he will not be good enough for her anymore because Angel had super strength too, she says, “So that's what this is about? You're going to die, all over some macho pissing contest.” Riley explains, “It's not about him. It's about us. You're getting stronger every day, more powerful. I can't touch you. Every day, you're just... a little further out of my reach.” What this implies, but what Riley would never say because is tries to be politically correct, is that he feels threatened by his girlfriend’s strength being much greater than his. Eventually Buffy and his friend Graham persuade him to get fixed by the doctor. Graham, who is still in the military, wants Riley to join again: “You used to have a mission, and now you're what? The mission's boyfriend? Mission's true love? You belong with us” (“Out of My Mind” 5.4). Riley, unlike the “new man,” has been primarily homosocial. The Initiative, with the exception of its female leader, is all male. Riley gets along fine with the Scooby Gang, but he is never really part of the group in the same way. Graham is pointing out Riley’s conventionally feminine role and ridiculing him for it.

Eventually Riley feels that Buffy does not really love him or need him. He starts going to a vampire whorehouse where female vampires suck his blood (a metaphor for both sex and drugs). When Buffy finds out, he tells her, “It wasn't real. I know it was just physical. But the fact that I craved it… even if it was fleeting, they made me feel like they had such hunger for me” (“Into the Woods” 5.10), implying that Buffy does not make him feel that way. He rants:

RILEY: You keep me at a distance, Buffy. You didn't even call me when your mom went into the hospital.
BUFFY: (incredulous) Oh, I'm sorry. You know, um, I'm sorry that I couldn't take care of you when I thought that my mother was dying.
RILEY: It's about me taking care of you! It's about letting me in. So you don't have to be on top of everything all the time.
BUFFY: But I do. That's part of what being a slayer is. And that's what this is really about, isn't it? You can't handle the fact that I'm stronger than you.

Riley insists that while her being stronger than he is difficult sometimes, that is not the problem; he simply feels unloved. Actually, the problem in their relationship is that they have different ideas of gender roles. Riley feels that since Buffy will not let him take care of her, she does not love him. However, Buffy does love him, saying, “How dare you tell me what I feel.” This is reminiscent of her comment to Angel when he breaks up with her. Later that day, Riley gives her an ultimatum, saying if she does not give him a reason to stay, he is leaving at midnight to join a covert military operation. She is so furious that he is giving her an ultimatum (a very masculine tactic) that she decides to let him go. Xander convinces her to reconsider: “He's never held back with you. He's risked everything. And you're about to let him fly because you don't like ultimatums?” Buffy realizes she is willing to beg Riley not to leave, but she is too late: Riley has left in a helicopter. When Riley returns a year later in “As You Were” (6.15), he is mocked affectionately for his static identity as man and soldier. Buffy also is more aware of the dynamics of their relationship, warning him not to “patronize” her. Riley has remained unchanged over the past year which “only emphasizes how Buffy and the others have developed” (Jowett 108). His split personality between “Joe Normal” and “commando guy” makes him unable to be a new man.

Finally there is Spike, one of the most ambiguous and complicated characters in terms of morals and gender. Part of what makes him such a popular character is that he “blurs the boundaries between good and bad, ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine,’ hetero- and homosexual, man and monster, comic and tragic, villain and hero” (Jowett 158). The character started off as a guest starring role, a vampire created to be an enemy for Buffy. When Spike first appears in “School Hard” (2.3), he is wearing his trademark leather duster, red shirt, black jeans, black combat boots, and black nail polish. To contrast him with Angel, he has slicked back platinum blonde hair. He and his girlfriend Drusilla are modeled after punk rocker Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. Spike’s “bad boy” version of masculinity is so over the top that, to describe it using Butler’s queer studies term, he is performing gender. As with Angel, his hyper masculinity is almost a parody. He is aggressive, rebellious, and sexual. Even his name is phallic. With Spike, he makes “the notion of masculinity as play, as performance and masquerade” (Nelms 266).

Spike is self-aware in regards to his gender identity. In the show, the word “manly” is spoken about twenty times, and three of those times are by Spike. He also speaks about being a “man” often. During their first fight, Buffy asks him if they really need weapons, and he boyishly replies, “I just like them. They make me feel all manly” (“School Hard” 2.3). However, he then drops his weapon, which suggests “either that his confidence in his masculinity is not, in fact, linked to this traditional symbol of manliness or that he does not have a strong investment in defining himself in ‘manly’ terms” (Spicer 4). He is aware of playing the part of the “bad boy.”

However, he also is very nurturing and protective towards Drusilla. A demon called The Judge, who can burn and kill people who have humanity but not creatures that are purely evil, said of Spike and Drusilla: “You two stink of humanity. You share affection and jealousy” (“Surprise” 2.13). Ultimately, Dru leaves him because, as Spike says, he “wasn’t demon enough for the likes of her,” which of course is to be read that he is not masculine enough for her.

When flashbacks of Spike as a human in 1880 are finally are shown in “Fool for Love” (5.7), he is amusingly portrayed as having once been a sensitive, effeminate wannabe-poet: a loser. Spike’s other vampire nickname was William the Bloody, which was assumed to have come from his violence, but which we now learn was actually a nickname given to him as a human because he was a “bloody awful poet.” Even then, he was a romantic. His love poems are all written to a woman named Cecily, but when he reveals his love to her, she is disgusted:

WILLIAM: Oh, I know it's sudden and please, if they're no good, they're only words, but the feeling behind them... I love you, Cecily … I know I'm a bad poet but I'm a good man and all I ask is that, that you try to see me—
CECILY: I do see you. That's the problem. You're nothing to me, William. You're beneath me.

Heartbroken, Spike is met by the vampire Drusilla, who seduces him by appealing to his vulnerable romantic, poetic side before turning him into a vampire. When Spike develops a crush on Buffy, she utters the same word back to him: “You're beneath me,” which at first causes him to cry as he did with Cecily, but then, being a vampire, he becomes filled with rage and decides to kill Buffy with a shotgun. However, when he goes to kill her, she is sitting on her porch steps crying because she found out her mother might have cancer. After consideration, he asks “Is there something I can do?” and sits next to her and pats her back. Spike’s capacity for love is so strong in him that even not having a soul does not stop him from caring about people, at least some of the time. As the title of this episode states, he is a “fool for love.” Spike has even admitted this to Buffy and Angel earlier, when he tells them, “I may be love’s bitch, but at least I’m man enough to admit it” (“Lover’s Walk” 3.8).

Spike is further feminized by being metaphorically “castrated” when the Initiative puts a microchip in his head that causes him to feel unbearable pain whenever he tries to hurt or kill a human. This is discovered when Spike tries to bite Willow, which at first is played like a disturbing rape scene, with him throwing her onto the bed and turning up the radio so no one can hear. A second later, the scene cuts to the two of them sitting on the bed, Spike saying, “I don't understand. This sort of thing's never happened to me before.” Willow suggests, “Maybe you were nervous … Maybe you're trying too hard. Doesn't this happen to every vampire?” (“The Initiative” 4.7). The scene is then played out as a comedy about impotence, Spike saying, “I'm only 126!” From then on, he often complains about being neutered and how the chip is holding him back from being a real demon (i.e. man). Actually it is just a good excuse because Spike, for all his bragging and bravado, was never very traditionally masculine except as a performance. When he discovers he can still fight demons, he is excited that he can still use violence, trying to rile the Scoobies to action, he says, “Come on! Vampires! Grrr! Nasty! Let's annihilate them. For justice… and for… the safety of puppies… and Christmas, right? Let's fight that evil!” (“Doomed” 4.11). For Spike, it is not important who he is fighting. He does not have any loyalty towards the “dark side,” he just wants to be in on the action. Later he proves himself to be a valuable member of the Scooby Gang, fighting on their behalf.

In season five, Spike realizes he has a crush on the Slayer. At first, Buffy is disgusted that an “evil” vampire “loves” her and tries arguing with Spike, saying “Whatever you think you're feeling, it’s not love. You can't love without a soul.” Drusilla, who is back in town to try to get Spike to join their vampire family again, interrupts with “Oh, we can, you know. We can love quite well. If not wisely” (“Crush” 5.14). Buffy’s disgust is replaced with appreciation when Spike fiercely helps fight the hell-god, Glory, who is trying to kill the Slayer’s younger sister, Dawn, who is actually a “key” to opening a portal to other dimensions, which would cause an apocalypse. Buffy is so impressed by Spike’s devotion that she puts him in charge of protecting Dawn when she is unable to, telling him, “I'm counting on you.” Having earned her trust, Spike is moved, and says, “I know you'll never love me. I know that I'm a monster. But you treat me like a man” (“The Gift” 5.22). Despite his trying, he is unable to save Dawn, and it is Buffy who heroically sacrifices her life at the end so that her sister may live.

When Buffy is resurrected from the dead by Willow, she is torn from a heavenly place, and as a result, is depressed for much of the sixth season. She turns to Spike because he is as dead as she feels. He offers her the support she needs: she tells him long before she tells anyone else her secret that she had been in heaven, not the hell dimension her friends had assumed they were rescuing her from (“After Life” 6.3). Spike continues to pursue her. However, Buffy now suffers from self-hatred and she takes it out on Spike, no longer treating him “like a man.” When he suggests, “A man can change,” she replies, “You're not a man. You're a thing … An evil, disgusting, thing” (“Smashed” 6.9). Later in the same episode, she has sex with him for the first time, even though she knows he can hurt her again (when she was resurrected, the molecules in her body changed so that his brain chip no longer registers her as human). They continue a long, unhealthy affair that is abusive on both sides. However, Spike asserts that because he is a vampire, he is supposed to be evil, while Buffy should know better. This is perhaps a commentary on the frequent excuse “that is just how men are” while placing the blame on women for staying in the relationship. All along, Buffy has been telling him “no,” but she obviously has not meant it.

In “Seeing Red” (6.19), Spike walks in on Buffy in the bathroom, who is wearing a robe and getting ready to take a bath after injuring her back while slaying. Concerned at first, he asks if she is hurt. She tells him to get out and he says they have to talk. They go back and forth, Spike insisting that she loves him, Buffy denying it, saying, “I have feelings for you. I do. But it's not love. I could never trust you enough for it to be love.” Spike’s anger escalates until he is forcing himself on her, trying to get her to say she loves him while she pleads for him to stop. The usually strong, in-control Buffy is now terrifyingly weak and victimized. Finally, she gathers her strength and shoves him off her, sending him flying. “Ask me again why I could never love you!” she says and Spike’s face is full of shock at what he has done. “Buffy, my god, I didn't—” he starts, but she knows the only reason he did not rape her is because she stopped him. This is an important moment in Spike’s evolution from villain to hero. After the attempted rape, he wonders, “What have I done? Why didn't I do it? What has she done to me?” His conflicting status as somewhere between an out of control monster and a man has now become a huge problem.

Unable to love or kill the Slayer, he is left to make a choice. His friend Clem tries to cheer him up by telling him things change. “They do. If you make them,” Spike replies. The audience is led to believe he is determined to get the chip out of his head so that he can become evil again. When he goes to Africa where he has to endure many painful trials, a magical being mocks him saying, “You were a legendary dark warrior— and you let yourself be castrated” (“Villains” 6.20), implying Buffy’s feminizing effect on men by virtue of she herself being “masculine.” However, at the end of the season (“Grave” 6.22), Spike is rewarded his soul.

When he returns, Buffy asks why he wanted to get his soul, and the vampire, who has gone crazy from guilt and is speaking as he did as William, tells her painfully, “Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev—to be a kind of man. She shall look on him with forgiveness, and everybody will forgive and love. He will be loved” (“Beneath You” 7.2). Spike thinks that having a soul will make Buffy love him; of course, it is not that easy. Again, Buffy’s civilizing effect on men is indicated when he says: “This chip, they did to me. I couldn't help it. But the soul, I got on my own... for you” (“Sleeper” 7.8). As also seen with Angel, Buffy is the moral guide that calms the beast in men. She brings both “souled” vampires closer to redemption. Spike is further rewarded by receiving the one thing he has always wanted from Buffy: for her to believe in him. She tells him,

You're alive because I saw you change. Because I saw your penance … Be easier, wouldn't it, it if were an act, but it's not. You faced the monster inside of you and you fought back. You risked everything to be a better man … And you can be. You are. You may not see it, but I do. I do. I believe in you, Spike. (“Never Leave Me” 7.9)

In the series finale, it is Spike who ultimately saves the world and heroically sacrifices his life. In a tearful goodbye, Buffy finally tells him she loves him, only to have him reply, “No, you don’t. But thanks for saying it” (“Chosen” 7.22). He has matured to the point where he does not need a woman to love him in order to be a real man. Spike finally achieves his true “manhood” after a long journey.

Spike can be seen as having multiple personalities. He is a transgressive character because he performs his gender in different fashions depending on the time period or how he happens to feel. His most obvious split personality is between William and Spike. This is played out on the show by having characters call him “William” when the writers want to emphasize his humanity. There are basically three different vampire versions of Spike: regular evil vampire (although, relatively, he is not very evil), castrated vampire with a chip, and vampire with a soul. He plays the villain, hero, sex object, and romantic. By “simultaneously replicating and mocking conventions of masculinity” (Masson and Stanley 3), Spike is also a comedic camp figure, particularly in season four. In flashbacks, we see the way he uses trends to fit different ideas of masculinity. In the 1970’s, he dresses like a wannabe Billy Idol, spiking his blonde hair, wearing eyeliner, clothes decorated with safety pins, and studded jewelry. This is also when he kills his second slayer and takes her leather jacket to wear himself. Even though there is nothing particularly feminine in the style of the jacket, the fact that he takes pride in wearing a woman’s article of clothing shows that Spike does not subscribe to conventional masculinity. It is “his very liminality—the impossibility of consigning him to a predetermined gender category—that empowers him in the Buffyverse” (Spicer 1).

As opposed to the “new man” qualities of the “good guys” on the show, male villains are more often portrayed as either hyper masculine and/or stiflingly paternal and controling. In the first season, The Master is a centuries old vampire who epitomizes the old patriarch; in season two, Angelus is the main villain; season three, the Mayor, a “father knows best” type of family man who actually wants to become a huge snake and feed on the high school students; in season four, Adam, the Frankenstein-like creature created by the Imitative. It is not until the fifth season that the villain is a woman (Glory), but despite her Barbie-like appearance, she is a god (and is never referred to as a goddess), exceedingly masculine in her aggression, violence, and strength. In season six, the main villain is Warren, a human, but a disgustingly sexist nerd who tries to kill Buffy but ends up killing Willow’s girlfriend Tara. In the last season, the Scoobies must fight the First Evil, which is evil itself. However, it is also revealed in season seven that Slayers were created thousands of years ago in Africa by men who forced a woman to become infused with the essence of the demon that give all Slayers their strength, signifying a symbolic rape. When Buffy has the idea that Willow (who is now an extremely powerful witch) should execute a magic spell that will make all potential Slayers in the world actual Slayers, she is defeating the patriarchy by sharing her power, as well as unburdening herself from all her responsibility.

Postfeminists have argued that men should support feminism because our patriarchal society’s notion of a traditional hegemonic masculinity harms men; it “narrowed their options, forced them into confining roles, dampened their emotions … imposed sexual and gender conformity” (Gardiner 5). Doing his part, BTVS creator Joss Whedon has worked to redefine the way people think about gender:

While I spend my entire career trying to subvert our notions of masculinity and femininity, I also have to have some grounding in the fact that some of them are based in [biology]—but some of them are also based in sociology, and those are the ones that have to be done away with, because they are nonsense … I think a great deal of work has to be done until there is enough equality that we can actually start to define our roles as either men or women, without the baggage of either oppression or misogyny, confusion or enforced masculinity. (Whedon)

The term “enforced masculinity” aptly describes the way men are subjugated into defined roles, sometimes through threat or violence. Whedon’s suggestion that gender is partly based in biology, but is mostly constructed through sociology, puts him somewhere between an essentialist and constructivist feminist. This could explain why sometimes the split personalities on the show are seen as being natural (as with Oz, Angel, Spike) while sometimes they are more likely socially constructed (Riley, Giles). All of the “good guys” have elements of being new men, although some fit the criteria better than others. Despite the show involving fantasy and the supernatural, the characters are not fully removed from our patriarchal world. The men and women’s roles are not merely subverted. Buffy is a type of “masculine” superhero: strong, assertive, and violent when she has to be. She is also very feminine in appearance and personality. She valorizes community and emotions (as does the show), traditionally feminine values. The same gender complexity is seen in the “good” male characters, but not in the villains. Buffy the Vampire Slayer explores and reinterprets gender through the use of split personalities and the promotion of a new man. Whedon draws attention to the sociological “nonsense” of our concepts of gender and endorses a new kind of masculinity that is rooted in feminism.

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