Michael Levine and Steven Schneider suggest that Buffy "does not challenge sexual and gender stereotypes (except superficially), or those about romance and true love, but instead reinforces them" (2003: 300). I argue here that romance in Buffy and Angel inevitably affects the representation of gender. Romance on either show is never successful and no main character has ever found lasting romantic fulfillment. In serial television there are obvious reasons for the denial of romantic fulfillment - it tends to signal closure, something that seriality denies. Joss Whedon has also described the way such denial makes more interesting stories: "No one's going to see the story of Othello going to get a peaceful divorce. People want the tragedy. They need things to go wrong" (in Nazzaro, 2002: 226). As other serial dramas do, Buffy and Angel valorise heterosocial friendship and an alternative family over the more individualist pleasures of romance. Partly because of its roots in teen drama, Buffy dealt often with romance and sex; Melissa Milavec and Sharon Kaye even suggest that it "owes much of its popularity to making erotic love a dominant theme" (2003: 174). Certainly Buffy's desire to be "a normal girl" seems to include having a "normal" (i.e. heterosexual romance) relationship. Angel focuses less on romance and sex, with obvious exceptions. One of these exceptions is the Angel/DarIa relationship (seasons 1-3). This relationship lacks romantic fulfillment but here I argue that Angei nevertheless gains some of the benefits of romantic fulfillment from it and that the relationship serves to reinforce rather than undercut gender stereotypes.

VCR/monitor and overhead projector