Ph.D. Candidate
English
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L9
Canada
Spike the Vampire, the Vampire Slayer or Buffy's Preoccupation with "New" Masculinity
[Click on the link above to see this paper's placement in the SCBtVS Program.]
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This paper examines the ways in which focus
on Spike in the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in recent Buffy
scholarship, and in the current season of Angel threatens to undermine
Buffy’s initial subversive reconfigurations of gender identities. Spike’s
character develops alongside Buffy’s from Season Two to the final
episode of Season Seven. In fact, in many ways Buffy’s fight against The
First Evil in the final season parallels Spike’s struggle to replace
Buffy’s first (Evil) Lover in Buffy’s heart. As the
"Champion" Buffy ultimately chooses to fight beside her in the
final battle, Spike is just as instrumental in saving the world as the
army of slayers and Scoobies Buffy leads into this battle.
The question I address in this paper is thus whether Buffy’s character and the feminist politics inevitably attached to such a powerful female heroine are "strong" enough, or developed enough, to withstand this foregrounding of masculine romantic sacrifice. In other words, I ask whether Spike-as-sacrificial-saviour ultimately supports the renegotiation of stereotyped gender roles that Buffy spends seven seasons developing, or whether this spectacular final act instead reinscribes the archetypal masculine Romantic hero. Given that Spike’s sacrifice both recalls and reconfigures Buffy’s sacrifice of Angel at the end of Season Two (to save the world again) even as Buffy simultaneously "changes the world" this time, it is arguable that the show’s feminist politics remain unquestioned in this final scene. However, with the reappearance of Spike on Angel this season, the question arises again. As Spike and Angel work and bicker together in L.A., perhaps both Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s and Angel’s preoccupation with revisioning masculinity is finally exposed. A/V Requirements: TV and VCR or DVD player
Sponsoring Faculty Member: Dr. Lorraine York |