[1]This essay focuses on
the roles of the fatal and how the traditional view of the fatal is
subverted in the cult television shows Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Btvs) and
Angel The Series (Ats). It also deals with the functions of fatales
in other popular culture mediums including comic books, pulp fiction, and
film noir. Film noir, according to Dale E. Ewing Jr. in his essay Film
Noir: Style and Content, was first coined by French critics in an attempt
to describe the dark nihilistic films coming out of Hollywood in the 1940s
and early ‘50s, which had strong underpinnings in both the literary gothic
tradition and hardboiled mystery novels. (73) While other scholars have
briefly touched on how Btvs (most notably Thomas Hibbs essay Buffy the
Vampire Slayer as Feminist Noir) and Ats (Slain’s essay Are you Noir or
Have you Ever Been ), are influenced by the noir genre, they do not
directly address how the series subverts or expands on noir themes. So I
will only briefly mention them here as additional sources the Buffy
scholar can consult regarding the relationship between Btvs and Ats with
the noir genre but not as support for anything in this essay. Of the two
essays, I highly recommend Slain’s Are you Noir or Have you Ever Been,
which does an in depth analysis on how Angel the Series fits the noir
model.
[2] Introduction: What is the fatal and their overall
function in the narrative?
French critics first coined the term
“fatal” to describe the female antagonist/romantic foil in hardboiled
1930s and 1940s films. Later, this term enveloped the male
antagonist/romantic foil in gothic fiction and fantasy. The fatal is
defined as “an irresistibly attractive character who leads the protagonist
(hero/heroine) into danger”.
(Marling 1, Mills 1) This character
is often the protagonist’s romantic interest or foil. Traditionally
the protagonist’s involvement with the fatale “may range from mild
flirtation to passionate sex, but in the denouement s/he must reject or
leave the fatal, for the revealed plot shows the fatale to be one of the
causes of the crime or horror”. (Marling 1). In very few cases does
the hero end up with the fatale or share the fatale’s fate.
[3] Fatales in popular fiction and cinema have a wide range
of roles - anything from provider of uncomfortable truths, damsels,
romantic foils to unpredictable villains. They can often serve the purpose
of being the hero/heroines one true confidante - the one person the hero
can reveal their sins to without feeling ashamed, because the fatale has
often done something far worse. The fatale may also free the hero/heroine
to express their best or worst qualities and is often sought out
romantically by the hero/heroine when the hero/heroine is at their lowest
emotional point.
[4] Examples of famous fatales include:
Phyllis in Double Indemnity , Brigid O’Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon,
Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, and Rita Hayworth’s characters in Gilda
and The Lady from Shanghai. More recent television fatales, again mostly
female, include: Xena from The Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Juliette
the female vampire and club owner in Forever Knight, and Lilah in Angel
The Series. Recent male fatales in genre television would be Ares in Xena
Warrior Princess, Spike and Angel respectively in Buffy the Vampire
Slayer. Without exception all of these characters had at some point
engaged in romantic flirtation with the hero, some may have even
consummated that in a passionate relationship only to be rejected by the
hero and cast off in some manner towards the end.
[5] Fatal
as Sex Object
The fatal must be sexually attractive to the
hero/heroine and more often than not the writers/filmmaker will focus
attention on the blatant sexuality of the fatale. If female - we’ll see
lots of leg, bust, etc. Example in Double Indemnity - the filmmaker
focused the camera on Phyllis’ ankle bracelet. When she enters the first
frame, we watch the camera slowly pan up from her ankle to her face,
emphasizing that piece of naked flesh which in 1940s cinema was quite
risqué. (Davenport 1: “Dangerous Because of Her Sexuality”) Today it would
be a naked breast or she would be exposing her bare back. In the Robert
Mitchum film classic Out of The Past - the camera spent time focused on
Kathie Moffet’s (played by Jane Green) bust. We the viewers saw her from
the perspective of the hero, in Out of the Past - the private dick,
Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum), in Double Indemnity, the crooked
insurance salesman, Walter Neff ( Fred McMurray). In Ats, the
character of Lilah, a wicked female attorney who continuously is shown
tempting Angel, the show’s anti-hero detective, into doing nasty deeds -
is often seen wearing outfits that emphasize her legs. We see her through
the eyes of the male protagonists - first Angel then his friend and
colleague, Wesley. Lilah usually wears a short skirt, an open shirt, or
tight slacks. The camera will pan her length emphasizing her curves and
physical appeal. In Btvs - Spike, a vampire who has fallen in
love with a vampire slayer and was once amongst the show’s principal
villains, is often seen wearing nothing but a silver necklace around his
neck. His chest is repeatedly and often blatantly emphasized. Adorning
jewelry is often used to heighten the effect or show him as decidedly
wicked, just as it is used on Phyllis, the temptress in Double Indemnity,
as the camera focuses on her ankle bracelet. When Angel, a vampire, was
the fatal in Btvs, he often had his shirt off, an elaborate tattoo
emphasized on his shoulder to demonstrate his wickedness and unsuitability
for the heroine. Like Spike, Angel was bare-chested whenever Buffy came
into his living quarters. In Innocence S2 Btvs, shortly
after Angel has slept with the heroine and lost his soul, we see him with
nothing but a sliver chain and black leather pants. His pants were tight
often leather, and the camera repeatedly emphasized how “hot” he was in
comparison to the other male leads. Buffy’s other male friends, Xander,
OZ, and Giles, humans, seldom if ever had their shirts off or wore jewelry
or tattoos. The rare moments that Xander is shown shirtless are for comic
effect - in Go Fish S2 Btvs, where he wears a speedo, in Nightmares
S1 Btvs, where he finds himself in nothing but boxers in front of his
peers, and in First Date S7 Btvs where he is hanging above the seal to the
Hellmouth. The heroine is not shown lusting after “good” friend Xander,
rather she’s shown lusting after the dark twisted vampire fatales.
[6] The fatale’s dark sexuality psychologically expresses the
protagonist’s own fears of sexuality and their need to control or repress
it. (qtd. in Davenport : “Dangerous Because of Her Sensuality” ) The more
exposed s/he is, the more tempted and repressed the hero. In Season 2,
Btvs - we see this need to control or repress sexuality in how the fatal
literally turns on the heroine after they make love, while in Season 6,
the need for control is shown by the brutal sexual acts between the two
characters culminating in sexual violence by season’s end. In Btvs’ sixth
season viewers noted and often complained that Buffy, the heroine,
remained fully clothed or covered in her scenes with Spike, while Spike is
either nude or bare-chested. The most we saw of Buffy was her bare
shoulders or ankles. Spike, we often saw everything but his rear end and
genitalia, which were cleverly obscured by camera angles. (Smashed,
Wrecked, Gone, Dead Things, and As You Were S6 Btvs) In film, the
femme fatal is often the nude party while the male is fully clothed. An
example is Body Heat, where we glimpse the wicked female, Kathleen
Turner’s, breasts and naked form, but very little of the hero, William
Hurt. The fatal is shown free in their nakedness, unabashed,
seductive, almost as if they are taunting the hero. Asking what the hero
is so afraid of. When the fatal and hero/heroine become sexually
involved - the fatal is often the seducer, the betraying party and the one
who pays for the act. The fatale takes on the sins while the hero remains
pure. (Davenport 1: “The Femme Fatal is Punished”; Blazer 4)
[7]
Subversion of the Fatale’s Role in The Narrative
In Buffy The
Vampire Slayer (Btvs) and Angel The Series (Ats) the writers subvert the
idea of the fatal - they follow it up to a point then do the opposite from
the standard formula. This is in part because Btvs is a satire of
the traditional horror and noir genres. Satires by their very nature
invert and subvert the rules, simultaneously making fun of and honoring
the genre they are based on. Instead of having the fatal die a
villain, the writers of Btvs and Ats often attempt to redeem him or her.
The fatal may even evolve from fatal to being an anti-hero, as is seen by
the character of Angel jumping from fatal status on Btvs to anti-hero
status on Ats, a pattern that was previously set by the pop culture series
Hercules: the Legendary Journeys and Xena Warrior Princess. In those two
cult television dramas, the femme fatale left Hercules and started her own
series as the hero. Buffy the Vampire Slayer has begun this evolution with
another character - Faith and may be doing it with Spike as
well.
[8] Female/Femme Fatal vs. Male/Homme
Fatal
Angel The Series (Ats) in keeping with the classic tradition
in which it is based (film noir) does not always subvert the fatal.
In some ways it has played out both the traditional and subverted
versions, updating the genre that it bases itself upon in the
process. But as I will explore in the sections that follow, the way
it does subvert this classic formula is in the way it rewards the fatal
for keeping her power and punishes her when she lets it go. Flipping
traditional gender themes and roles in noir films on their head as seen
through the development and paths of the following female characters:
Cordelia, Darla, Lilah, Gwen, and Fred.
[9] Buffy The Vampire
Slayer (Btvs) plays out the same formula but in regards to the homme
fatal, which has a somewhat different path in visual narratives than the
femme. In Btvs, after the fatal becomes sexually involved with the
heroine and turns wicked, instead of killing them, the writers start the
process of redeeming the fatale. While the femme fatal is rarely
allowed to live or be redeemed, the homme fatal not only gets to live, he
also gets a second chance with the heroine and the possibility of being
redeemed through her acknowledgment of his good deeds. This appears
on its surface to be a classic subversion of the traditional role of the
fatal - but if you look over the homme’s role as fatal in classic
literature, specifically romantic and gothic works, (Marling 1) you’ll
notice the homme fatal often has a more positive fate than the femme fatal
of noir fiction. Possibly because the fatal role was in a sense created
with the female in mind and as a reaction against female empowerment?
[10] Examples of classic homme fatals include Mr. Rochester
and Heathcliff of the Bronte Sisters novels. Or the fate of poor Mr. De
Winter, the brooding lead and possible murderer, in Daphne DeMaurier’s
classic Rebecca. All three men survive and are at some point reunited with
their ladyloves. The only one that appears to be somewhat doomed is
possibly Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. The film director, Alfred
Hitchcock played around a bit with homme fatales as well - in Spellbound,
we have the amnesia victim, Gregory Peck, who could be a murderer and
leading poor Ingrid Bergman astray. We learn later that he’s just
misunderstood and she helps him get to the root of it, in effect saving
him. Or Cary Grant’s character in Suspicion whom poor Joan Fontaine
becomes convinced is trying to kill her. Both characters are
redeemed in the end by their ladyloves.
[11] This not always the
case of course, there are instances in popular culture and literature,
especially science fiction, neo female noir, and horror, where the male
fatal cannot be redeemed and dooms the female heroine. Some of these
aren’t true fatales so much as villains and include such characters as the
Cardassian villain of Star Trek’s DS9, GulduKat, who seduces the female
heroine Kira as well as the audience, yet remains to his dying day a
sadistic if somewhat seductive villain. Others include Count Dracula, who
seduces the lovely Mina Harker in Bram Stoker’s classic, or David Hanover,
a seductive serial rapist, in Lizzie Borden’s Love Crimes. I will explore
these themes in greater depth through the characters of Spike and Angel in
Part II of this essay. Two characters who are in many ways
subversions of the male fatal noir and gothic character arcs mentioned
above.
[12] Through exploring the paths of the male and female
fatales in Ats and Btvs - I hope to examine how the fatal works in the
overall narrative structure and what if anything the evolution/subversion
of the role implies about our own changing views regarding gender and
gender politics. The last part will be more implicit since my knowledge of
gender politics outside of purely personal experience can be placed in the
space of what amounts to a thimble.
[13] Part
I: The Subverted Role of Femme Fatal in Angel The Series
Darla and
Lilah - The Subversion of the Traditional Femme Fatale
In Angel the
Series , Darla and Lilah follow similar arcs, moving gradually from the
role of antagonist, to sex partner, to informant, to damsel, to
death. Their redemption, if it comes at all, is through their deaths
or damsel status. They end the same way as most of the traditional femme
fatales do -either killed by someone else or by their own hand.
[14] Lilah: Femme Fatal as Working Class Icon or The Girl Can Take
Care of Herself
Lilah’s arc is the same as the femme fatales in the
classics - most notably Jane Greer (Kathie Moffett) in the 1947’s Robert
Mitchum classic Out of the Past - she becomes romantically linked to the
hero, but at the same time kills her opponents and threatens his
life. Both women are smart, savvy, and shown as sexual predators.
They don’t need men to protect them. Actually someone should probably
protect men from these tigers.
[15]Several of Jane Greer’s scenes
from Out of the Past can be paralleled with Lilah’s in Angel the Series.
Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum), the anti-hero, first encounters Kathie in a
café just as Angel first encounters Lilah in a lounge area above a
gladiator pit (The Ring, Ats S1) or Wes encounters her in a bar where she
seductively whispers in his ear (A New World Ats S3). Later in Out
of the Past, Kathie slaughters two men, just as Lilah slaughters Linwood
in the S4 Ats episode Deep Down. (Mills 4) In most of Out of the Past we
remain uncertain about Bailey’s fate as we remain uncertain of Wesley’s in
the beginning of Season 4 Ats. Will they wind up with the fatal, doomed?
Of course not, the femme fatal is doomed to failure. Both Kathie and Lilah
meet nasty ends.
[16]Lilah is introduced in typical femme fatal
fashion, a workingwoman, a high paying job, working for a larger company,
and will literally do anything to get what she wants. She’s the
independent woman with power, which in the 1930s and 1940s was looked at
with fear and disdain. (Cobb 212; Davenport: “Film Noir & Femme
Fatale: Introduction”) Michael Mills in his essay “High Heels on Wet
Pavement”, describes Kathie Moffet from Out of the Past as the “real
deal”, her sexiness is derived from “sheer cunning” (3), not from the mere
presentation of her body, but from her actual attitude and independence.
According to Mills, Kathie was the perfect on-screen persona of the
post-war desolation angle (4), just as Lilah can be seen as the perfect
on-screen persona of the post-modern femme fatal - the female attorney who
kills to get to the top of the corporate ladder. Both are smart, savvy,
independent women, who cunningly use the male anti-hero to further their
own ends. John Blazer echoes this view in “No Place for a Woman: the
Femme Fatale”,
…the dominant image of the fatal is one against the
traditional family and woman’s place in society. Noir films create the
image of the strong, unrepressed woman, then attempt to contain it by
destroying the femme fatale or converting her to traditional womanhood.
(3-4)
In noir, workingwomen do not succeed; their jobs and solo
enterprises are seen as nefarious. For example in James M. Cain’s
Mildred Pierce, the single working woman pushes her way through the
depression, makes a success of herself, only to find herself back-stabbed
by a scheming daughter and ex-lover. Lilah in Ats, is a successful
woman who has literally slaughtered her way to the top of the lawyer food
chain. Her associates, Lindsey and Gavin, are depicted as relatively tame
in comparison, poor deluded saps who either finally see the light and get
the heck out of dodge or end up beheaded zombies. (Dead End S2 Ats and
Habeas Corpses S4 Ats) Lilah ends up joining the good guys, her law
firm slaughtered, her home in ruins, and wounded by the Beast. (Cavalry
Ats S4) A somewhat reluctant helper, providing information and unwanted
advice, she is eventually murdered by the Gal Friday-turned-fatale,
Cordelia. Lilah’s end comes in typical fatale fashion, without fan
fair and without redemption. In noire neither the hero nor the fatal are
redeemed. The most the hero may expect is to get out of the experience
alive. Such is the case for Wes and Lilah’s romance. Lilah is killed. Wes
grieves for her, his grief though appears to be more for his inability to
save her than for any real relationship he had with her. She almost
brought him to ruin, he pulled out of it and hoped he could pull her out
as well. His inability to do so, motivates him to go and try to save
others, leaving Lilah a decapitated corpse. (Salvage S4 Ats) The
girl who could take care of herself - is shown falling victim to that very
conceit. Left alone in the Hyperion with the newly evil Gal Friday and the
newly evil anti-hero, she is quickly and efficiently dispatched by them
both. (Cavalry S4 Ats)
[17] Lilah’s ending is in some ways a
commentary on the typical ending of fatales - in 1940s and ‘30s films they
often met this type of end. Walter Neff, the insurance salesman at the end
of Double Indemnity discovers the calculating Phyllis isn’t the submissive
helpless woman she pretended to be, like in “his pre-war fantasies”,
she is justifiably and rather fatally punished. “Phyllis is put in
her place, although rather fatally, just as men returning home from World
War II may have wished women in the workplace would remain in the home.”
(Davenport: “Reasoning Behind the Femme Fatale”) In Ats, Wesley
discovers that Lilah is not the strong, man-eating, lawyer she pretends to
be and Gal-Friday Cordelia justifiably and rather fatally punishes her.
(Cavalry S4 Ats) It’s Lilah’s momentary weakness and willingness to trust
that proves fatal to her in Ats while it is Phyllis’ calculating
independence that proves fatal in Double Indemnity. One is a commentary on
modern audience’s views regarding successful women and one is a commentary
on the pre-war audience’s fantasies.
[18] Darla: Femme Fatale as
Damsel - Can I Save Her From Herself?
Dashielle Hammett who created
the pulp fiction version of the femme fatale in his works, The Maltese
Falcon and That Dain Curse amongst others, had fatales that
the hero frantically desired to save from their own worst impulses. ‘If I
can just save her, purge her of her demon addiction, perhaps I can save my
own soul.’ This being noir, it never quite works out that way. Usually the
hero ends up on the verge of losing his soul to the fatale and escapes
just in the nick of time. In Ats, the vampire Darla, Angel’s sire and
first lady love, is brought back from the grave as a human being by the
evil lawyers, Wolfram & Hart. (To Shanshue in LA Ats S4) Angel
frantically tries to save the human Darla in the hopes that by doing so,
he may somehow redeem himself or his feelings for her. In Btvs, he had
killed her to save Buffy (Angel, S1 Btvs). In Ats, he is faced with
the prospect of having her die of syphilis, the disease she had as a human
when the Master sired her ages ago. (Darla, Ats S2) Darla, fearing death,
requests that Angel turn her into a vampire and even goes hunting for
another vampire to sire her when he refuses. Angel kidnaps her, trying to
keep her from giving up her soul for eternal life a second time. (The
Trial, Ats S2) In That Dain Curse, Gabrielle Dain belongs to a cult, uses
drugs, and has small, pointed ears and teeth. In one scene she actually
drinks blood from one of her victims and in another is shown addicted to
morphine.(Marling 1) The hero kidnaps and imprisons her to cure her of
delirium tremens and lust, just like Angel kidnaps and attempts to
imprison Darla. Gabrielle Dain has killed numerous people and the hero is
desperately attempting to save her from her own worst impulses.
Raymond Chandler creates a similar fatale in The Big Sleep, Carmen
Sternwood - who almost fatally distracts his hero Philip Marlow. In
Ats, Darla poses a similar threat to Angel’s well being.
[19]After
under-going a series of dangerous trials, Angel succeeds in convincing
Darla to not become a vampire and this time just die a normal death, her
soul intact. Just as Darla decides to do this, Angel’s worst crime comes
back to haunt him, his immortal daughter Drusilla is brought by Wolfram
and Hart to sire Darla in front of Angel’s eyes. (The Trial, Ats S2)
He can do nothing but watch. Crushed by his failure to save Darla, he
spins out of control and in a sense briefly succumbs to Darla and
Drusilla’s will. He assists them in their revenge on the lawyers that used
them. Locking them in a room with their human prey. (Reunion -
Redefinition Ats S2) He also half-rapes, half-seduces a sex-obsessed
vampire Darla. Knocking her through a window and engaging her in violent
sex, which they both assume will cause him to lose his soul, instead he
ends up impregnating her with one. (Reprise Ats S2) This horrible act
ironically frees them both. Unlike Gabrielle Dain or Carmen Sternwood,
Darla is in a sense redeemed through her sexual relations with the
anti-hero. By succumbing to her charms - Angel hits rock bottom, takes
Darla with him, and they both eventually break free of their addictive
cycle. If Philip Marlow had succumbed to Carmen, he’d have been shot and
killed by the end of The Big Sleep. (Marling 1) Angel succumbs to Darla
and ends up rejoining the world and his friends. Angel leaves Darla,
saves his friend Kate from suicide, rejoins his friends, and works to do
good again. (Reprise- Epiphany S2 Ats) Darla, several episodes
later, discovers herself impossibly pregnant with a human child.
(Offspring, Ats S3). Re-ensouled by the child, Darla finds
herself back on the path of redemption, slowly breaking her dependency on
human blood and showing her remorse for past sins. She
eventually stakes herself so that her child can live in the episode
Lullaby Ats S3. Her death or sacrifice unlike Gabrielle Dain
or Carmen Sternwood’s signifies her redemption. Yet it is not through her
love of the anti-hero that she is redeemed so much as it is through the
love of her child. She does not sacrifice herself for Angel
nor does she declare her love for him. No, the only thing she admits to
ever loving is the unborn child she carries. She sacrifices her life for
his and by doing so, is redeemed. This is another clever yet subtle
inversion of the theme, the femme fatale is not saved by the hero, nor is
she punished for her addictions and sexual perversions, instead she is
saved by her love of her child.
[20] In classic noir films -
the good mother was often the redemptive choice for the anti-hero. At the
end of the film, the hero would leave the fatale behind and fall into the
arms of the good mother. For example in Fritz Lange’s Metropolis, workers
are seduced by the fatale robot Maria into destroying their city, yet
eventually fall back into the arms of the pure good mother Maria, who
reunites them with their boss. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde, the Frederic March 1931 version, Muriel the pure “good mother” is
contrasted with the evil Ivy who unleashes Hyde with her poison ring.
(Ursini 224-225, 228). The good mother is in short the sunlit maiden that
the anti-hero contrasts with his evil dark seducer, the fatale. In
contrast, the sexual relationship between the fatale and the hero, which
is an impossibility at the beginning of the film, turns into a possibility
at the end and the means to mutual destruction. (Davenport - “Film Noir
and Femme Fatal: Introduction”) The hero is only saved by the fatale’s
death and the good mother’s acceptance.
[21] In Angel the Series -
the sexual interaction between Darla and Angel ironically leads to both
characters salvation - with Angel breaking his dark cycle and Darla
regaining a soul. The fatal, Darla, literally becomes the good mother, who
kills herself in front of Angel’s eyes to save their child, handing him a
purpose to continue his good works as well as an example on how to pursue
them.(Lullaby Ats S3) Love = Sacrifice = Redemption, she seems to say.
This is a subversion of the classic noir view, where the fatale views
family, children and husbands as a cage, an anathema. She rebels
against the concept of the family and remains independent of it, accepting
death over that alternative. Darla similarly accepts death over family,
but not as a means of remaining independent of it nor as a negative view
of it - but rather as a means of ensuring it, honoring it. If she lived,
her child would die. By dying, she honors the families she once devoured
as a vampire. In a sense she does the opposite of the classic fatale, she
sacrifices her life to ensure children and family. Ironic, since her
existence as a vampire was the antithesis of that - as a soulless vampire,
Darla despised family and marriage and sought to destroy it. Ensouled she
chooses the reverse. Or rather her son’s soul enables her to choose the
reverse.
[22] Cordelia: Flipping Fatal and Gal Friday
The
character of Cordelia starts out her role on Angel the Series as the gal
Friday, the charming secretary who keeps the anti-hero in line. Thelma in
The Philip Marlow novels. She never sleeps with the hero. He barely
acknowledges her existence sexually, way too enthralled with the sexy
femme fatales wandering about. She acts in some ways like a perky
sidekick. Offering advice, keeping him focused on the mission and saving
him from his darker impulses whenever necessary.
[23]Cordelia is a
major subversion of the femme fatal concept in that she started out as the
innocent good girl Friday, whom until fairly recently the hero would never
think of sleeping with, and over time slowly became the “femme fatale”,
evil and wicked, pushing a male hero towards a dark path. It is
interesting to note by the way, that it wasn’t until Cordy began to move
towards this path, that she became sexually alluring to the male
characters. Prior to S4 Ats, Cordelia really isn’t shown as a sexual
entity, oh we have the bikini scene at the start of the Pylea Arc in
Season 2 (Belonging S2 Ats) and the relationship with the
Grooslauge. (Couplet, The Price, A New World S3 Ats) But we don’t see her
having sex with anyone or wearing sexual outfits until she has turned to
the dark side. It’s not until Apocalypse Nowish S4 Ats that Cordy is seen
having sex with another character - in this case the hero’s son, a virgin
lad, who appears to be seducing her when it is actually the other way
around. Also in Awakenings S4 Ats, we get the first scene of Cordelia and
Angel truly making love - an act while pure fantasy causes the loss of
Angel’s soul. Just as her act with Angel’s son causes a sizable rift to
occur between father and son.
Throughout the first three seasons,
Cordelia is compared to the fatales Lilah and Darla.
[24] Lilah
and Cordelia : The Independent Woman and Gal Friday
Cordy - who
wishes to be her own independent woman, a working gal, is seen at first
envying Lilah then grateful she didn’t go down Lilah’s path. As she states
to Lilah in Billy S3 Ats: “I used to be you, but with better shoes.” Lilah
is everything that Cordelia could have become - self-absorbed, financially
successful, anything for fame, fortune and the almighty dollar. Lilah in
some ways is Cordelia, Btvs Season 1, and completely and utterly alone.
Lilah exudes sex appeal while Cordelia seems almost awkward with it in
Ats, a major change from Btvs where Cordy flaunted it. Lilah is
Cordelia’s foil, her dark side.
[25]By season 4, the dynamic begins
to shift slightly, Lilah becomes more and more dependent on the Angel
Investigations team to save her and Cordelia becomes more and more adrift
from them. (Habeas Corpses, Cavalry S4 Ats) Cordy no longer wants saving,
if anything she is starting to take over Lilah’s manipulative role. It is
now Cordelia who is manipulating the gang and Lilah who is running from
the Beast and vampires. The final shift occurs when Cordelia literally
murders Lilah and metaphorically takes Lilah’s former place in the story.
Lilah must die in order for Cordelia to take over her role as the femme
fatale - the seductive dark female - complete in her dark gown and sexual
damnation. (Cavalry S4 Ats)
[26] By having the Gal Friday
take over the Sexy Independent Femme Fatale role, the writers have
effectively inverted the classic noir formula. Cordelia is punished not by
being the independent, resourceful woman, but by buying the hero’s mission
hook line and sinker. Classic noir - the woman is punished for being
independent and resourceful and rewarded for following the hero. (Covey
319; Davenport - “Reasoning Behind the Femme Fatal”) Here it is the
reverse, by giving up her own life to be part of his. In Season 2 and 3
Ats, Cordelia is given two chances to pursue a life separate from Gal
Friday and the Visions. The first is in Pylea where Groo offers to remove
her visions and take them on himself. (There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb,
S2 Ats) She turns him down, not wishing to give up her role at Angel
Investigations. The second is in Birthday S3 Ats, where Cordelia, dying of
visions, is given a choice to either pursue her own career path as an
actress or become half-demon and keep the visions. She sacrifices herself
to the second path as all good Gal Fridays should. In return for this
sacrifice - she is shaded in white light, glows, elevates and appears to
ascend to a higher place. (Birthday - Tomorrow Ats S4) But the audience
and the character are misled. The writers have not rewarded her, they’ve
punished her for choosing to kow-tow to the hero. By choosing to kow-tow
to the hero’s mission, giving up her own hopes and dreams - Cordelia ends
up becoming the very thing she hated, the fatale and her fate is to be
engulfed by her own child, all semblance of her former self twisted and
gone due to her faithful following of the mission. (Inside Out Ats
S4)
The Ats writers don’t stop with the independent woman
archetype, they continue this theme with the good mother.
[27]
Darla and Cordelia: The Good Mother - Flipping Fatal and The Good
Mother (Genteel)
Cordelia is shown early on in Season 3 as a better
mother than Darla. When she attempts to help Darla, comforts her, Darla
goes for Cordy’s jugular. (Offspring, Ats S3). After Darla dies for her
child, it is Cordelia who changes the child, Connor’s, diapers and holds
him and rocks him. Cordelia becomes his surrogate mother. (Dad - Couplet
S3 Ats) Connor is kidnapped when Cordelia is away on vacation. (Loyalty -
Sleep Tight S3 Ats) And when Connor returns, it is Cordelia who wipes his
pain away. She is dressed in white robes and literally glows when he sees
her - the good mother personified, holy and nourishing. (A New World S3
Ats.) Darla by contrast is a vampire, dressed in dark clothes, seen in S3
drinking the blood of innocent children, violent. (Offspring-Quickening S3
Ats) Her child eventually changes her into a better person, one willing to
stake herself to save his life. (Lullaby S3 Ats.) Cordelia starts out
wonderful, but once impregnated, becomes the embodiment of evil.
Cordelia’s motherhood changes her into a blood drinking, evil monster, who
kisses the Beast and desires an innocent girl’s blood in order to have her
child. (Apocalypse Nowish - Inside Out S4 Ats.) Unlike Darla, Cordy
doesn’t sacrifice herself to have her child - she sacrifices someone
else.
[28]The irony is that Cordy requests the blood of an innocent
to have her child while Darla, a vampire, takes her own life to have hers.
The two archetypes, gentile good mother and fatal are flipped. Cordelia
seduces the virginal son, Connor, in order to give birth to a child or
god. (Apocalypse Nowish Ats S4) Angel pseudo-rapes Darla, and accidentally
impregnates her - to give birth to Connor. (Reprise Ats S2) Cordelia
and Connor’s sex is shown as almost romantic, under the sheets, not rough,
soft, passionate, while Darla and Angel’s sex is rough and violent. Both
Darla and Cordelia technically sleep with their surrogate children. Angel
is Darla’s vampire child - the one she gave birth too ages ago with her
blood. (Becoming Part I, Btvs S2, The Prodigal Ats S1, & Darla Ats S2)
Connor is Cordelia’s surrogate child, the one she adopted from Darla’s
ashes. (Lullaby Ats S3) By sleeping with their sons, they become
impossibly and mystically pregnant. And their pregnancies change them to
reflect the souls of their children. Darla becomes the good mother,
Cordelia the femme fatale. Cordelia is in a sense punished for wanting to
protect her family at all costs while Darla is redeemed for it.
[29] In case the audience doesn’t catch the significance of
this comparison, the writers bring Darla back to attempt to convince her
son Connor to go against Cordelia’s wishes and not sacrifice an innocent
life. In Inside Out Ats S4, Darla, the evil vampire who had eaten millions
of innocent lives, resurfaces in an attempt to tell her son not to spill
innocent blood for his unborn child. His soul ironically made it possible
for her to attempt to convey this message to him, just as it is his
child’s soul that makes it possible for Cordelia to kill the innocent girl
when he refuses to do so himself. Cordelia tells him Darla is lying to him
and he believes her, he allows himself to succumb to the fatale and by
doing so, is punished in classic noir fashion. But the twist is that the
fatale was the gal Friday, the good mother…while his vampire mother is the
one attempting to save him and in classic good mother/Gal Friday fashion -
fails.
[30] Flipping Damsel/Gal Friday and The Fatal: Fred and
Gwen
Winifred (Fred) is introduced as a fairly self-sufficient
heroine in the Pylea arc, quirkily brilliant, she successfully aids Angel
in escaping from the Pylean world. (Over The Rainbow, Through The Looking
Glass, There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb, S2 Ats) She’s not so much a
damsel in that three-episode arc and as a fellow comrades in arms. Fred
risks her life attempting to save Cordy from demon slaveholders and Angel
risks his in saving Fred. Fred in typical Gal Friday fashion returns the
favor by saving Angel. She also forms an odd attachment to him, which
starts out as a romantic infatuation and gradually becomes
friendship. Her arc with Gunn is quite different, they grow from
friends to lovers - Gunn sees Fred as the Innocent Girl, the Gal Friday,
and the sidekick, who can kick ass by his side. He, also in typical hero
fashion, swears to protect her no matter what - to the extent of breaking
up with her in Double or Nothing Ats S3 to prevent the soul-collector from
taking her soul instead of his. Up until Season 4 Ats, Fred like Cordelia
fits the typical Gal Friday role model - she sneers at the fatal Gwen, who
unlike Fred wears spandex and slinks across the screen cat-like in hot red
skin-tight clothes. (Ground State S4 Ats, Long Day’s Journey, S4 Ats) Fred
wears far less form fitting outfits and her hair is less free-flowing and
wild, brown and straight down her back. Gwen’s is a dark unruly mass of
curls highlighted with neon red.
[31]Gwen in looks and deeds
practically screams the fatale archetype. Get too close to me and, zap,
you are dead. She’s a bit like the comic book fatales Catwoman and
Electra, lady thieves, who threaten to take the male hero down with them.
Catwoman threatens on numerous occasions to bewitch and destroy the
besotted Batman. A lady thief with devilish ways and a black spandex
costume, Catwoman slinks across the Gotham city rooftops in Frank Miller’s
nourish Batman Year One. Or the lady Electra described in Frank Miller’s
Daredevil comics as an assassin who shadows her lover, the anti-hero
vigilante, Daredevil, believing wrongly that he killed her industrialist
father. Gwen equally has a tragic past, cursed with a talent that makes it
impossible for her to touch people without killing them, she lives in an
isolated cavernous compound with luxurious works of art that she has
stolen. (Ground State S4 Ats and Long Day’s Journey, S4 Ats) She wears
long gloves and engages in witty repartee. But one touch of her hand and
she stops your heart.
[32] Gunn learns this the hard way in
Ground State S4 Ats - where Gwen’s touch literally kills him for ten
minutes. It also inevitably brings him back to life. She can stop and
jump-start his heart as if it were no more than an electrical battery.
Fred holds the same power, but in a far more metaphorical sense. Gunn’s
love for Fred, leads him to stop his heart and kill Professor Seidel - an
act he comments on several episodes later in Sacrifice S4 Ats- about
having to turn off his emotions in order to kill for her and how she so
easily did it before he even gave thought to it. It is Fred who leads Gunn
to commit murder in Supersymmetry S4 Ats. Just as it is Fred who almost
leads Gunn to attack and kill his best friend Wes in Soulless S4 Ats.
Fred, the gal Friday, has in effect become the traitorous fatale leading
Gunn to commit acts he’d prefer not to. Like Walter Neff of Double
Indemnity, once he does commit the murder, he becomes persona non-gratis
with his ladylove, she stops being the submissive Gal Friday he thought he
loved.
[33] Gwen in contrast appears on the surface to be
leading Gunn astray, but isn’t. In the episode Players S4 Ats, we believe
Gwen has an ulterior motive regarding Gunn, one that will lead to his
downfall. The opposite of what we believed about Fred. But, in fact, Gwen
merely wishes to find a way to connect to others. She does set Gunn up in
the episode - using him as a distraction to steal a valuable electronic
device. When he catches her - she tells him it is a type of covert
mechanism, designed to monitor skin temperature and body waves and being
developed by arms dealers to sell to the highest bidder. The owner is
using it for evil ends. Her client’s ends, she claims, aren’t so evil.
Gunn, purely by accident, discovers that she’s not stealing the device,
called LISA, for another client but for herself. It’s not for money or as
a weapon, but as a means to short-circuit and monitor her own powers. To
make it possible for her to connect with another human being without
killing them. Gwen’s nefarious purpose is to keep herself from taking
lives - Gunn by helping her, inadvertently saves lives as well. Instead of
taking the hero down with her, Gwen uplifts him. After the episode, Gunn
returns to AI reinvigorated, appreciative of life, no longer feeling lost.
While after Supersymmetry S4 Ats, when he killed Seidel for Fred, he is
anything but invigorated. He’s lost and feels disconnected from
everything.
[34] Fred becomes the fatale leading Gunn to do
horrible acts while Gwen becomes the redemptive damsel leading Gunn to
re-connect with his humanity. Gwen is the self-sufficient, independent
woman with her own gig and own place. Fred is the sidekick who must be
part of the group and whose mission is in effect someone else’s. It’s
really not until Fred is forced to break away from AI and set her own
course - that Gunn and Fred end up re-bonding on some level. Their best
and most insightful talk may actually be in Sacrifice S4 Ats, where Fred
informs Gunn that it is better to feel pain than to be an empty shell and
admits to feeling pain with him for killing Seidel. “It eats at me inside,
too,” she declares. “We killed Seidel,” not just you, she tells him.
(Sacrifice S4 Ats) Fred has not taken the path of other fatales
completely, she takes responsibility for the crime; she doesn’t shirk it
off or the pain of remorse that comes with it. She is punished for the
crime but not in typical fatale fashion, her fate is not her death, but
rather the loss of the love she once had with Gunn. Fred’s mistake may in
a sense have been the lack of independence in dealing with Seidel - the
lack of caring for others, instead she uses them and their mission to
suite her desires for vengeance - an act she pays dearly for with the
dissolution of relationships dear to her. (Supersymmetry - Sacrifice S4
Ats) Gwen in contrast is rewarded for her actions and her fierce
independence, her fate a night of love with Gunn. (Players S4
Ats)
[35] Angel The Series Subverts the Noir Structure to
Empower the Femme Fatal
In Angel the Series, like most noir series,
the femme fatale (always female since the male is the hero) is initially
set up as sexually alluring, aggressive, manipulative, anti-family, and
her goal appears to drag the male hero into her dark orbit much like a
spider. If this were the typical noir film or series, the fatale would be
killed after she got the male and her death would free him from his own
darkness. She would be punished for her power and the hero would be left
atoning for his sin of being with her. (Davenport “The Femme Fatal
is Punished”) But as explored above, Ats cleverly subverts this formula so
that it is when the fatal either gives up her independent life and the
power of that life, as seen with Lilah in Calvary S4 Ats or when the fatal
decides to embrace motherhood as seen with Darla in Lullaby S4 Ats, that
she dies. In the case of Lilah, she dies when she loses her power; in the
case of Darla, she chooses her own fate, staking herself, because of her
power.
[36]The writers further subvert the fatale’s role with the
female characterizations of Fred, Cordelia, Lilah, and Gwen. As described
in the sections above, Cordelia and Fred start out as “girl Fridays” or
“innocent” characters - representing all that is wholesome about
womanhood. They are in essence sidekicks. Lilah and Gwen start out as
fatales, the alluring wicked female who if the guy isn’t careful could led
him to his doom. By mid-season, Fred is depicted as the female who leads
the character Gunn into committing murder to save/preserve her innocence.
And in fact causes a potentially violent love triangle to erupt between
herself, Wes, and Gunn. Cordelia is an even better example - she comes
back from a mystical realm plotting and planning the hero’s downfall.
Previously the hero’s confidante and virtuous love, she manipulates him
into losing his soul and sleeps with his son. Meanwhile, we discover
the sexy Gwen, the red-spandexed thief in Ats, is just misunderstood - all
she wants is some sort of connection. She appears to lead Gunn to do a
nefarious deed, but in a classic twist merely seduces him into connecting
with her and stealing the means to do so. Gunn’s actions with Gwen,
which entail stealing a potential weapon from nefarious arms dealers and
helping a woman whose never been able to connect to actually connect, are
far more positive than his actions regarding Fred, which entailed murder
and violence. (Supersymmetry S4 Ats and Players S4 Ats.) Same with Lilah,
Lilah wishes to let Angelus out of his cage in order to kill the Beast and
save the world, Cordelia wishes to let Angelus out of his cage so he
will join her in plotting the world’s destruction. When Angelus does
get out - Lilah fears he will kill them all. Cordelia applauds the idea
and kills Lilah, taking her place.(Calvary, Ats S4)
[37] Ats
successfully subverts the traditional view of the fatale by turning the
fatale into a heroine and the heroine into a fatal. The female empowerment
theme gains new life by the subversion, because the fatal survives when
she has power, it’s when she gives up her power that she is doomed. The
reverse of the themes in classic noir films where the fatal is punished
because of her power or in spite of it, only being redeemed when she
allows herself to either be domesticated by the hero or gives herself up
to his power. Impulse, a Neo Noir Film starring Theresa Russell, is an
example of the traditional view of the femme fatale’s redemption. In this
film, the working girl steals money for a better life but because of the
love of a good man, returns it, joins his mission, and allows him to
domesticate her, in effect giving up her power to him. (Covey 319)
In Ats, it’s when the fatal embraces her own power - as Darla does when
she stakes herself to save her child (Lullaby S3 Ats) or Gwen does when
she lives her own independent life and takes action to find a way to
connect to others within the structures that she created, that she is
redeemed. (Players S4 Ats)
[38] Part II. The Role of Male/Homme
Fatal in Buffy The Vampire Slayer
In the world of neo-female noire
and gothic fiction, the male becomes the fatal and the female the hero.
The difference between Buffy The Vampire Slayer and most neo-female noire
is Buffy is not doomed when she falls into the male fatale’s embrace
instead she somehow helps him redeem himself. This in some ways is in
keeping with classic gothic formulas, where the heroine’s main task is to
somehow redeem the dark misunderstood brooding male. That, in a way, is
the Btvs inversion the female heroine empowers the male fatale to seek his
own redemption.
[39] Neo-Female Noire Homme Fatal vs. Gothic Homme
Fatal
“Neo-female noire” is somewhat new to film audiences, not
really making its debut until the films of the late 1980s and early 90s
with Love Crimes, Siesta, Betrayed, The Morning After, Blue Steel, Black
Widow, and Lady Beware. In these films the hero is female, she is usually
a detective or hard-boiled investigator who comes close to falling for a
male fatale that could and occasionally does destroy her. The trajectory
of these films is similar to the 1940s and 1930s films with the male lead,
except that the roles are reversed. (Covey 311-312) Prior to these
films, homme fatales usually just existed in gothic romance fiction and
suspense. Alfred Hitchcock did flirt with them a bit in his films
Suspicion, Rebecca, Psycho, and Spellbound, but in most cases, the homme
fatales we saw were in stories such as Rebecca, Wuthering Heights and Jane
Eyre. They were either the villain seducing the poor innocent unknowing
female as seen in Psycho, Dracula and Wuthering Heights or a misunderstood
brooding male with a dark past as seen in Rebecca, Spellbound, Suspicion
and Jane Eyre. If sex occurred between the heroine and the gothic fatale,
it was dewy-eyed, often chastely depicted, and highly romanticized.
[40] The neo-noire fatal in comparison is usually depicted in a
far more naked and realistic manner. No brooding dark hero who
mysteriously helps the heroine from the sidelines or hides his own dark
past, the neo-noire comes right out and tells her who and what he is. He
doesn’t brood and he usually isn’t hiding behind a fairy tale curse. He
may hide his villainy, but she’s more or less aware of its existence and
what he is. Unlike the gothic, his redemption is less certain, less of a
guarantee. He’s also much darker than the femme fatal in standard noir
fiction, less appealing. Their romance is usually more sexual than
romantic, raw and far darker. In Neo Noire - the sex falls into what
Sharon Y. Cobb defines as noire sex in male film noirs:
“The
protagonist falls in lust with the femme fatale and becomes obsessed with
her. The femme fatale turns up the heat by flirting and luring the
protagonist into a sexual relationship. Many New Noir films feature highly
erotic ‘love scenes’ which leave the main character [and sometimes the
audience] wanting more. His professional objectivity becomes increasingly
compromised by obsessive thought of what his next sexual encounter will be
with the woman of his fantasies.” (212).
In Female Neo Noir, the
roles have flipped and we can have one of three scenarios: the homme
fatale becomes obsessed with the heroine or the heroine becomes sexually
obsessed with the fatal or a combination of both. Btvs in Season 6 went
for a combination of both. The similarity between the gothic and neo noir
fatales is that if she gives into him, she could and possibly does lose
everything. But while one reveals her idealized views of herself and the
world, her fantasies, the other reveals her repressed desires. One is the
teenage girl’s fatale that we often find in gothic romance novels, the
misunderstood hero who has a curse that causes him to turn wicked on her
otherwise he’d always be at her side, the other is the woman’s fatale -
the wicked romantic foil who she can never quite predict or trust and that
she is allured by.
[41] In order to make the homme fatal work in
genre fiction - the female hero must be more powerful than the male or at
least equal to him. Buffy is clearly Spike and Angel’s match and they are
hers. Being on a level playing field appears to be prerequisite. They are
also on opposite sides of the law. Angel and Spike are vampires; Buffy is
a vampire slayer. The conflict is obvious at the start. Both sides are
caught between the love you or kill you dilemma. Both are in effect
sleeping with the enemy. In this case, mortal enemy, since one wrong step
and bam, you’re dead. This is a prime ingredient of noire, the possibility
of the flip. As Cobb states in “Writing the New Noir Film”, “not only will
the [male or female] protagonist be beguiled and betrayed by the [male or
female] character, but violence, in one form or another will be the result
of the two characters alliance….Sex and violence collide in the symbiotic
co-dependence between [hero] and [homme] fatale.”(212) The violence must
be in some way evident at the start. The risk she takes in engaging the
fatale as well as the risk he takes in engaging her.
[42] The
following two sections will explore the roles/functions Angel and Spike
perform as fatales in Btvs. The classic gothic male fatale and the
subverted neo-female noire male fatal. When watching Btvs, it is
best to remember that it is a female coming of age story. Unlike Angel the
Series, which, keeping with the themes and attitudes of classic noir,
focuses on the existentialist path of a dark anti-hero and his experiences
in the world, Btvs focuses on the coming of age of a girl. As a result,
the fatales in Btvs, must reflect that journey. Angel as a fatal is
introduced and developed during Buffy’s adolescence, her teen years where
she deals with teenage hopes and dreams. Spike as a fatal is introduced
during that difficult post-teen period when Buffy becomes an adult and
deals with the ambiguity of post-teen twenty-something hopes and dreams.
The contrast between the two is reflective of the difference between those
two stages in psychological development and growing up. It is also
reflective of how society views women and male/female roles during those
stages.
[43] A. Angel: Subverting The Traditional Role of
the Gothic Homme Fatale
Angel in Btvs fits the classic definition
of the homme fatale in gothic fiction and film. Misunderstood, brooding,
potentially evil but usually due to a curse, and redeemed through the
unconditional love of the heroine. The gothic male fatale populates fairy
tales, fantasy and gothic fiction dating as far back as the Bronte Sisters
and the Grimm Fairy Tales of early Germany. We also get him in several
Alfred Hitchcock films, ranging from Daphne De Maurier’s Rebecca to
Suspicion. Max De Winter in Rebecca is portrayed as the potential
murderer of his wife, his new wife must uncover whether he is a
remorseless killer or a repentant lost soul cursed by an evil dead wife.
Jane Eyre follows a similar pattern, the heroine must determine if her
boss, Mr. Rochester, is truly an ogre or just misunderstood. In both
cases, the men are redeemed by the unfailing love of the
heroine/protagonist. Same thing occurs in the fairy tale Beauty and The
Beast where Beauty breaks the Beast’s curse by loving him. Angel in some
ways is a subversion of this theme, unlike most gothic heroes, his curse
is the soul; freed from the curse he’s an evil unrepentant monster. Buffy
can’t save him by loving him that only unleashes the monster within, but
her love can empower him to set off on a journey to find his own
redemption even if that journey means leaving her forever behind. Unlike
the gothic romances and fairy tales, Btvs does not necessarily supply us
with a happy ending and that’s where it crosses over from gothic romance
to noir.
[44] When Angel is first introduced in Season 1, he
is introduced in the role of mysterious informant and unreliable
protector: the man lurking in the shadows, disappearing when it becomes
light. Occasionally coming to the rescue. Usually just providing
information but in a sketchy suspicious manner. Buffy is not sure
what to think of him, they engage in banter, flirt, and he disappears
romantically into the night. Occasionally he’ll even come to her rescue
only to disappear at the last minute. In Welcome to The Hellmouth S1 Btvs,
Buffy catches him following her. He gives her a cross, informing her
she’ll need it, then disappears again. His appearance is partly to remind
her of her mission, a mission she’s attempting to forget, it’s also partly
to reemphasize her own fantasies and the negative side of
them.
[45] In the episode Angel S1 Btvs, Buffy learns that Angel
isn’t what he appears to be. Up until this episode, she believed he was a
demon hunter like herself, human. When she moves to kiss him, after he
warns her not to, he shows her his real face, that of a vampire. In
classic gothic fashion, the veil is lifted and a monster is shown beneath
the surface. And it happens with a kiss. Instead of the kiss turning the
monster into a prince, it turns the prince into a monster, another
subversion of the gothic form.
[46] Later in the episode, Buffy
sees Angel leaning over her mother, Joyce’s, limp form. She believes that
he tried to kill her mother. It’s the traditional mislead - in gothic
fiction the heroine will often catch the fatal in a horrible act and
misinterpret it to mean he is a remorseless villain she should never have
trusted. Instead, he’s trying to save her mother and has been set up.
Buffy in true gothic fashion discovers this when she confronts Angel and
he offers her the choice. Explaining the curse to her. Telling her how he
hasn’t been able to kill a human since gypsies cursed him ninety years
earlier. Cursed with a soul. Soulless, he felt no pain in killing, now he
does. No he didn’t hurt Joyce, that was someone else. But he doesn’t
expect her to believe him. Kill me or trust me. Up to you. She stares up
into the dreamy dark eyes and lean handsome face and drops her weapon,
exposing her neck, placing herself, consciously in his power. And the true
villain, Darla reveals herself. Angel proves Buffy is right in trusting
him when he stakes Darla to save her life then disappears into the
shadows. Later, Angel proves himself again by providing information on the
Master in the episode Out of Mind, Out of Sight S1 Btvs - an act
echoed by Spike in The Weight of The World four seasons later in Season 5
Btvs.
[47] Betrayal of Romantic Love: The Subversion of the Fairy
Tale Curse
By the time we reach Season 2, Buffy fully trusts Angel
and has metaphorically given him her heart. She believes he could never
hurt her or anyone she loves. And continuously finds herself risking
everything to save him. He plays the damsel in the first part of the
season. As a fatal, he is an interesting damsel since the question keeps
arising whether she should save him. Whether he is salvageable. As Kendra
states in What’s My Line Part II S2 Btvs, “he’s a vampire, he should die.”
Ironically it’s not outsiders who kill Angel, but Buffy herself. She
dreams in Surprise S2 Btvs that Drusilla slays him and is terrified
of losing him. Yet, it is in a purely nourish twist Buffy who does so and
the way she does it is a subversion of the gothic fairy tale, that
subversion, as well as what follows, is when Btvs crosses the line from
“gothic romance” to science-fantasy noir. It also pinpoints the loss
of Buffy’s innocence - something female noir films often focus on - the
heroine’s realization that the world is not what they wish it to be.
[48] In Surprise S2 Btvs, Buffy and Angel make love,
unbeknownst to them, this very act, making love, is enough to cure Angelus
of the soul. In the classic gothic motif, the act of making love would
cure Angel of his evil ways, he would become good. In Btvs, the act of
making love turns Angel into an evil monster incapable of feeling love or
compassion. So pure of human feeling that the evil Judge can’t burn him.
As the Judge states - he is clean, there is no humanity in him. Cured.
(Innocence S2 Btvs) The twist is - in a fairy tale or gothic romance- it
would be the reverse. A “judge” would state that fatale is now cured of
his evil ways, the spell has been broken, and he has returned to his
natural state, a man no longer an evil beast. This is after all what
happens in fairy tales such as Beauty and The Beast, The Frog Prince, and
Rose White and Rose Red. But in the world of gothic noir - kissing Angel
turns him evil. Foreshadowed in Angel Btvs S1, where he literally goes
into vamp face after their first kiss. And again in a future episode,
where Buffy tells him when she kisses him she wants to die. By giving into
her desires for Angel, Buffy feels she has doomed herself and her friends.
In her head she believes she has literally slain him and given rise to a
demon in his place, that by making love to him - she sired the soulless
vampire that now walks in his place. She says as much in I Only Have Eyes
For You S2 Btvs when her friend Willow suggests she try being impulsive
and ask a guy to dance; Willow’s last advice to Buffy was to seize the day
and sleep with Angel. “Impulsive? Do you remember my ex-boyfriend,
the vampire? I slept with him, he lost his soul, now my boyfriend's gone
forever, and the demon that wears his face is killing my friends.” (I Only
Have Eyes For You S2 Btvs)
[49] In Buffy’s head, when a person
becomes a vampire and loses their soul - that demon is no longer the
person. They walk, talk, act and look like the person but it’s not them.
(Lie to Me S2 Btvs) As a result, she believes that by sleeping with Angel
she killed the man she loved. In a way this is a twist on the classic noir
motif, the hero wishes to save the femme fatale but by succumbing to her,
he destroys them both. This theme is echoed years later in Ats with the
Wesley/Lilah relationship, when Wes feels he killed Lilah by bringing her
into the Hyperion, instead of saving her as intended, he got her killed.
(Cavalry - Salvage Ats S4) Her feelings and trust in him were what killed
her. The hero in noir takes the blame upon themselves. It’s not Angel’s
fault that he is soulless; it is Buffy’s. She broke the curse. Instead of
saving him her love turned him into a soulless beast. (I Only Have Eyes
For You and Innocence S2 Btvs)
[50] The finale of season 2,
Becoming Part I & II, continues to play off of these noir
themes, here Buffy is faced with yet another decision, do I attempt to
save the fatal who has turned all evil on me by re-ensouling him or do I
kill him before he destroys the world? This decision in a way is the
culmination of the season, where she has either risked everything to save
Angel or risked everything to avoid killing him. The desire to save the
fatal is present in most classic film noir. The hero/heroine believes if
they can save the fatal and live happily ever after with them it will in
some way redeem them, empower them, provide meaning in their lives.
Unfortunately this is impossible, the only choice is to reject the fatale
completely, because any other option leads to the heroine/hero’s doom.(
Marling 1-2; Davenport - “Film Noir and the Femme Fatale: Introduction”)
Philip Marlow in The Big Sleep is faced with a similar choice concerning
the fatal, Carmen Sternwood, if he’d given into her at the end, he would
be dead. Same with Debra Winger’s character in Betrayed, she falls in love
with a white supremacist leader but must betray him to the Feds or risk
losing her own soul and life. Buffy goes down the same road, she attempts
to delay killing Angel until he gets re-ensouled only to risk Giles,
Willow and Xander’s lives - critically injuring Willow, breaking Xander’s
arm and placing Giles in danger. (Becoming Part I S2 Btvs) Learning
from her mistake, the next time she confronts Angel she decides to kill
him. Unfortunately on this occasion, her friends do succeed in cursing him
with a soul and Buffy is faced with a dilemma that will continue to haunt
her throughout the rest of the series - should she kill her lover to save
the world? He stands between her and eternal damnation. If she lets him
live, everyone is doomed. If she rejects him and stabs him through the
heart, the world is saved. She slays him. (Becoming Part II S2 Btvs) The
fatal dies like he does in all noir films. Except for one thing and here’s
where Whedon’s inversion comes into play - before he is sucked into hell,
he becomes cursed with a soul, he wakes up, and embraces his lover. He is
also not killed, just sucked out of this dimension into another one ready
to return in the next season.
[51] Alter Egos &
The Fatal: Fatal Solving The Heroine’s Dilemma
In Season 3 Btvs,
Angel does literally come back from hell and his trajectory changes
slightly. This time around, the heroine is uncertain whether she can
trust him. Before she trusted him implicitly. Now he’s an unknown entity.
But her need to save him remains intact. He’s still the gothic fatale.
We’ve also added another element to the mix, Faith, who in many ways
represents the side of Buffy she represses. While it is tempting to
see Faith as a fatal, she is really an alter ego or shadow self to the
heroine. Carl G. Jung defines the shadow as someone or something
symbolizing the negative side of an individual’s personality. Jungian M.
L. Von Franz clarifies the function of the shadow in her essay “The
Process of Individuation”:“ …whatever form it takes, the function of the
shadow is to represent the opposite side of the ego and to embody
just those qualities that one dislikes most in other people.”
(182) In this case “ the dark-haired, violent, promiscuous
Slayer Faith is Buffy’s Shadow figure. In Faith, Buffy has battled the
dark side of herself…” (Wilcox 2). The concept of a shadow or alter
ego is a common motif in female neo noir. In the film Black Widow, a
female detective, Debra Winger, goes undercover to trap a serial killer
played by Theresa Russell. Debra is brunette and Theresa is blond,
throughout the film the two characters are compared and contrasted and at
one point Debra Winger’s character is faced with the fact that she is not
all that different from her alter ego. All her pain, regrets, passions,
and fantasies in some ways are acted out by the alter ego. This
general theme of alter egos is also set up in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis
where the spiritual leader’s likeness is placed on an evil robot
doppelganger. The robot often doing the acts that the heroine resists or
cautions against. A similar motif is used in the science fiction
television dramas Smallville with Lex Luther and Clark Kent and Star
Trek’s DS9 with GulDukat and Sisko, where GulDukat went from being a fatal
to the heroine Kira to an alter ego for the hero Sisko.
[52] All the emotions, feelings, desires Buffy can’t express
are expressed by Faith. Faith’s relationship to Angel, the fatal, is
representative of the emotions Buffy feels uncomfortable expressing - her
guilt, anger, desire, fantasies. In Beauty and The Beasts S3 Btvs when
Buffy discovers a wild Angel in the woods, it is Faith who tells her all
men are beasts who need to be tamed. Earlier in Faith, Hope and Trick S3
Btvs, it is Faith who hangs all over Scott Hope, the boy who is pursuing
and eventually dates Buffy. Faith openly flirts with Scott, while Buffy
hangs back uncertain. It is also Faith in Homecoming S3 Btvs, who seeks
vengeance against Scott for dumping Buffy and bringing another girl to the
dance. And it is Faith in Enemies S3 Btvs who expresses Buffy’s own hidden
desires for Angelus - what with the bondage and the torture. She
even asks Buffy in an earlier episode, Bad Girls S3 Btvs, if she hadn’t
been just a little turned on by big bad Angelus. Faith acknowledges
that part of the turn on is the mixture of darkness and light. Buffy can’t
quite give voice to this.
[53] Angel likewise can reveal his dark
side with Faith. With Faith, he admits that he enjoyed being soulless,
that killing without remorse makes one feel like a god. (Consequences S3
Btvs) He admits that before he met Buffy, humans seemed to just exist to
hurt each other. In true fatal fashion, he bonds with Buffy’s
doppelganger. Faith can see the part of him, the dark half, that Buffy
refuses to look at it. The fatal in the gothic tradition often poses this
problem for the heroine, she stubbornly refuses to see anything but the
good in him and he attempts to comply. Through Buffy, he has realized
there is a better way. It is Buffy’s unconditional love for him that
pushes him to seek out a path towards redemption.
Angel:
(smiles) You and me, Faith, (straightens up) we're a lot alike.
Time
was, I thought humans existed just to hurt each other. (sits next
to
her) But then I came here. And I found out that there are other
types
of people. People who genuinely wanted to do right. (looks at
her) And
they make mistakes. And they fall down. You know, but they
keep caring.
Keep trying. If you can trust us, Faith, this can all
change. You don't have
to disappear into the darkness. (Consequences,
Btvs S3)
This speech is a projection of the fatale’s feelings.
Angel wants to believe that by striving to do good, he won’t have to
disappear into the darkness. That he can eventually step into the light.
This is yet another subversion of the form. The fatal in both gothic and
noir traditions seldom desires to venture into the light, rather he wishes
to drag the heroine into the darkness with him. He doesn’t believe he can
step into the light, so being a self-centered bastard, attempts to pull
her back into the darkness with him. Angel in a way is a subversion of
this, in that he both attempts to step into the light and when he
discovers he can’t do it, decides to leave the heroine for her own good.
(Graduation Day Part II S3 Btvs)
[54] Buffy throughout Season
3 struggles with this dilemma. Should she succumb to Angel again, just
love him, be in the darkness with him? Or should they break up entirely?
Can’t they just co-exist as friends? Can she trust him? He’s no longer
evil, she tells herself; he has a soul. That evil demon that killed Jenny
and hurt her friends wasn’t him. (Passion S2 Btvs) Yet, Angel says a few
things that make her wonder. In Doppelgangland S3 Btvs, when Buffy tells
Willow not to worry VampWillow isn’t her, Angel attempts to correct her,
stating actually it sort of is. And in Enemies S3 Btvs, Buffy sees first
hand how adept Angel is at playing Angelus. So adept that in some ways
he’s almost worse than Angelus was. Noticing this causes her to ask him
for a break. He asks if she is still his girl to which she replies after a
slight hesitation, always. Eventually, it is Angel who must make the break
for them both and he waits until the end of the season to do so.
[55] Angel’s decision is another subversion of the classic gothic
fatal arc. Instead of the heroine succumbing to the fatal or the fatal
being redeemed at the end by her love and living happily ever after at her
side, Angel disappears in the mist, not even waving goodbye. (Graduation
Day Part II, Btvs S3) He makes his decision to go after she sacrifices
herself to save his life. By sacrificing herself, Buffy decides to succumb
to Angel; she gives up the world to save him. Angel realizing what she has
done decides he must leave since he can’t bear to have her join him in
darkness any more even if this is what she herself wants.
[56] The episode arc is an odd one because of how it both
subverts and emphasizes gothic and noir themes. At the beginning of the
arc, it is Faith who poisons Angel, again acting as Buffy’s dark id. When
Faith’s arrow pierces Angel, Buffy is asking Angel to either leave or
stay, telling him that she can’t have him in her life while trying to move
on at the same time. (Graduation Day Part I S3 Btvs) She desperately needs
him to stay, even though she realizes they must part. The dilemma is
tearing her apart. Faith’s arrow punctuates it. So Buffy goes after the
side of herself, the dark slayer, who tried to take Angel out of her life.
She metaphorically kills that side of herself, when she stabs Faith.
Ironically it’s not the dark id she kills, it’s the rational, slayer
portion, the part that has realized Angel must leave her and she must move
on. The dark id, the part that loves Angel desperately, more than the
world, rushes back to him and forces him to drink from her - almost
killing herself in the process. (Graduation Day Part II S3 Btvs) This act
horrifies Angel even as it saves him. It is this act that Angel sees
foreshadowed in his dream where he marries Buffy only to watch her burn in
front of his eyes when they walk into the sunlight. (The Prom, Btvs S3) He
realizes that by attempting to kill Faith and allowing him to bite her,
Buffy has given into her own desires to be with him no matter what. If he
stays with her, he’ll destroy her and himself. (Graduation Day Part II S3
Btvs)
[57] The twist is that it’s not the fatale who sacrifices
himself and is redeemed here, it’s the heroine who sacrifices herself for
the fatal and is almost damned in the process. Almost. Angel saves Buffy
and himself when he rushes her to the hospital as opposed to siring her,
and makes the decision to leave Sunnydale for good after they defeat that
season’s big bad. (Graduation Day Part II, Btvs S3) He actually begins his
journey towards redemption the very moment he decides he must leave.
Instead of the heroine rejecting the fatale, the fatal rejects the
heroine. Empowered by the heroine’s example, the fatal goes off to seek
his fate, alone, and in doing so, develops from a fatal into an anti-hero.
Meanwhile, the heroine in classic noir fashion graduates from idealistic
teen romantic to cynical adult, realizing that love does not last forever
or make everything all right.
[58] B. Spike - A Subversion of The
Neo-Female Noir Homme Fatal
Spike represents the neo-noir fatal in
the Btvs. Unlike the romantic gothic male fatal, who is mysterious and may
or may not try to harm the heroine, the neo-noir fatal has every intent on
harming the heroine when he’s initially introduced. The ironic twist is
not that he appears to be good on the surface but will go for your jugular
if crossed, but actually the reverse. Oh he’ll go for your jugular but
underneath it all, when push comes to shove…he might be the one who helps
you save the world when it matters. This a perversion of the standard
formula, which is no matter how good you think he is - he will kill you if
given half the chance.
[59] The interesting thing about Spike, as
neo-noir fatal, is as you rip off the layers you discover that underneath
it all lies a man who just wants to be loved and accepted. Who would
rather love than kill. Another example of homme fatales in the neo female
noir tradition is like their counterparts, femme fatales, they are lonely
souls who ache for companionship but are unable to reconcile their own
darkness to achieve it. As a result they act as wonderful romantic foils
to the heroine/hero. Showing the hero/heroine the dark side of love and
passion, or their own dark hidden desires.
[60] The Sexual Predator
- Villain Into Fatale
Spike is introduced in the episode School
Hard S2 Btvs where his motivations are quickly revealed to both heroine
and audience as nefarious. He’s the new big bad, a remorseless killer who
preys on women to feed his sick girlfriend, Drusilla. Within the first
half of the episode, he stops bad girl Sheila in the alley, kills off her
two male companions, and seduces her into following him back to his abode,
where he subsequently ties her up, gags her and feeds her to Dru, his
lady-love. The scene is reminiscent of scenes in neo-female noir films and
gothic films, where the male villain stalks the heroine, takes one of her
acquaintances or friends, rapes and/or murders them and taunts the heroine
with it. Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Dracula does it with Mina Harker’s best
friend Lucy. Spike is also revealed as a legendary killer of vampire
slayers. A perfect foil for Buffy in Season 2 Btvs, who is a legendary
slayer of vampires - the “chosen one”.
[61]When Angel is
introduced he appears to helping the heroine, he is a mystery. We don’t
know what or who Angel is. (Welcome to The Hellmouth S1 Btvs) There
appears to be no mystery about Spike, he shows up in vamp face. He
states very clearly that he wants to kill Buffy and slayers in general.
The mystery oddly enough shows up when his vamp face melts away and he is
shown to be a handsome man in love with a pretty child-like somewhat
sickly woman. (School Hard S2 Btvs) The audience is faced with a classic
noir quandary, everything isn’t quite as clear as it appears. Spike has
what amounts to an Achilles heel in Drusilla, one that Buffy uses against
him repeatedly. Because of this niche in his armor, over time he develops
from villain into fatal.
[62] In Female Noir Film, fatales may
develop from villains, they may even start out or be the principal villain
of the piece - not unlike their counter-parts, femme fatales. One of the
best examples of the homme fatale in neo-female noir is David Hanover in
Love Crimes, a 1992 film that stars Sean Young (Dana) and Patrick Bergen
(David) and was directed by Lizzie Borden. Love Crimes is about a
assistant district attorney (Dana) investigating a man (David Hanover) who
poses as a fashion photographer to seduce women. When David Hanover, takes
photos of these women, he makes them feel sexy and good about themselves.
David persuades them into taking off more and more of their clothes, often
leading to some sort of physical assault and usually culminating in
consensual sex. Dana, the protagonist and ADA, is caught in a legal
loophole. She can’t prosecute him for his crimes, because even though his
victims feel violated, he comforted them and made them feel good at the
same time. In Love Crimes, Hanover is clearly the antagonist, the
villain, there is no one else. But the heroine through her involvement
with him discovers he’s not completely the villain she anticipated. He’s
the fatal that develops from a villain as do most of the fatales in the
neo-female noir films. (Covey 321-322)
[63] Unlike the gothic
homme fatal, the noir homme fatal is not seeking salvation from the
heroine when they get involved. The previously mentioned film Love Crimes
deals with this type of fatale. When Dana first encounters Hanover - she
is seeking him out to either imprison him or kill him. When Buffy first
encounters Spike - she wants to kill him. In fact she wants to kill Spike
pretty much up to and including the moment he loses his ability to
physically kill living things. Metaphorically in Btvs Seasons 2 through
part of 4, Spike represents what Buffy fears most in sexual relationships,
both from herself and men. His comments are often projections of these
fears as seen in Harsh Light of Day S4, where he crudely asks her if she’s
just easy, did it only take a few kind words to pry apart her dimpled
knees. Earlier in School Hard S2, he teases that weapons make him feel all
manly, and he’ll make sure it’s not painful. Like the female noir
films, Lady Beware (where a lady window-dresser gets involved with her
stalker and destroys him), Love Crimes (a lady district attorney deals
with a seductive fashion photographer and rapist), Blue Steel (a lady cop
deals with a sleazy businessman’s obsession with her and her gun)- Spike
is the sexual predator stalking the heroine, taunting her with her own
sexual fears and anxieties. Eventually the heroines in these films turn
the tables on the fatales and stalk and destroy them. Just as Buffy
eventually turns things around in Btvs, resulting in Spike being in a
wheelchair (Surprise S2 Btvs) or neutralized by a behavioral modification
chip. (Wild at Heart - The Initiative S4 Btvs)
[64] Foil, Provider
of Uncomfortable Truths
Spike graduates from villain by the end of
Season 2, when he surprises everyone and offers to help Buffy save the
world from the evil Angelus. The writers have literally flipped the gothic
fatal and the villain. In previous episodes, Angel was the one who came
through at the last minute, who offered to save the world and usually from
Spike. Now, it is Spike, Buffy’s nemesis, who steps forward offering to
help. And he does so in typical noir fashion, beating up a cop, sitting on
the hood of the cop’s car smoking, giving a nifty speech about saving the
world, then reaching over to kill the cop. (Becoming Part II, Btvs S2) He
unflinchingly lets her know - still evil, but it’s in my best interest to
help you right now, so take it or leave it, because neither of us can do
this alone. This is very typical of the Humphrey Bogart noir films of the
1940s. In The Maltese Falcon Bogart sort of teams up with the evil Brigid
O’Shaunessy to find the Falcon. Or in Casablanca, Bogart teams up with the
local magistrate to help a friend escape from the Nazis. This theme also
occurs in comic books, where the villain and the hero discover there’s
something worse out there than the two of them put together and they
declare a truce to take care of it.
[65] Later, Spike falls into
the role of informant, providing uncomfortable truths to the heroine about
herself. Most of these truths, in true fatal fashion, are projections of
the fatale’s own feelings regarding his own situation. In neo noir film,
what the fatal teases the heroine with is often just a projection of his
twisted psyche, but it also serves as a reflection of hers. It is in this
manner that he becomes her foil or the psychological representation of her
worst fantasies. (Covey 323-324) Everything she represses reveals itself
through his actions and taunts. In Lover’s Walk, midway through Season 3 -
it is Spike who points out to the heroine that she and Angel can’t just be
friends. In reality, he is probably talking about himself and Dru, who had
just told him they can still be friends but the romance is over. But
ironically, he has also hit on the problem between Buffy and Angel. He
hits on it, because he has been from the get go, Buffy’s foil. Her
counter.
[66] In School Hard S2 Btvs through What’s My Line
Part I & II S2 Btvs, Spike’s actions regarding Drusilla show the dark
edge of Buffy’s feelings for Angel. Spike clearly will drop everything for
Dru, just as Buffy is shown repeatedly dropping everything for Angel.
Buffy even states in What’s My Line Part II S2 Btvs - ‘you may go after
me, but go after my boyfriend and you’re dead’. The audience cheers her
on. Meanwhile Spike goes after Angel to save Drusilla. Angel is Dru’s cure
and he is willing to risk everything to cure her. Just as in Lie to Me S2
Btvs, he gives up a room full of humans and gets locked in a cellar,
because Buffy threatened Dru’s life. He probably would have won the fight
against Buffy if he’d been willing to sacrifice Drusilla. Buffy ends up
falling somewhat into the same trap with Angel, her love for Angel turns
him evil and against her. Spike’s love for Dru makes her powerful yet ends
up crippling him. In Becoming Parts I & II S2 Btvs, both Spike and
Buffy want their lovers back. Spike gives voice to the desires Buffy is
suppressing in Becoming Part II S2 Btvs, when he states he wants his
girlfriend back, he wants to go back to the way things were before
Angelus. So does Buffy. And she hits him when he states it. Because
it gives voice to a desire that she can’t express. Also it is Spike in
Becoming Part II S2 Btvs who appears to get what he wants - he gets
Dru back and takes off with her. We are lead to believe that Dru and Spike
are back together again. Just as we are lead to believe in the beginning
of Season 3 Btvs, that when Angel returns, he and Buffy will be together
again. But, as is revealed by Spike in both Lover’s Walk S3 Btvs and later
Harsh Light of Day S4 Btvs, this is not the case. There is no going back.
[67] Spike’s ability to force Buffy to face things about
herself and others she does not wish to face is used in Season 3, Lover’s
Walk, and throughout Season 4 and Season 5 Btvs. He is constantly giving
voice to things the characters would rather not state either hidden
desires or fears. In Yoko Factor S4 Btvs, he manages to instill discontent
with a few cleverly placed phrases and words. It is not Spike who breaks
them up though that is all their own doing. All Spike has done is aired
their grievances aloud. He states their worst fears, gives life to them.
This is in keeping with fatales in noir cinema. The fatal in Love Crimes
forces Dana through words and deeds to re-experience a blocked memory from
her childhood. In Blue Steele, the successful business man Eugene forces
blue-collar cop Megan to confront her own insecurities about class and
gender. (Covey 319-320) Spike in Yoko Factor S4 Btvs forces Buffy to
confront her insecurities about being alone in the fight and the fear that
she is drifting away from her friends. Just as he forces her in The I in
Team S4 Btvs to confront the possibility that every man she dates is
evil or will betray her - “Got to hand it to you goldilocks - you do have
bleeding tragic taste in men.” Or in Harsh Light of Day S4 Btvs, gives
voice to her own fears about the one-night stand with Parker. In each
situation the comments work both ways - because they also say something
about the fatal, about Spike. That’s why they have power. It’s not so much
that he has insight into her, as that he shares some of her insecurities
and is projecting them on to her. If anything - what he says, says
as much if not more about his insecurities and fears as it does about
hers.
[68] In Yoko Factor S4 Btvs - Spike’s comments about
how friends always drift apart is in a way a statement about his own
condition, he has lived over a hundred years and he is at that point in
time adrift, friendless. The villain, Adam, is able to seduce him a bit
with this perception. (New Moon Rising S4 Btvs) Spike can’t fit in the
human world and with the chip he can’t fit in the demon world either. He
used to be part of a gang, the leader of a gang, but that’s gone now. He
once had a girlfriend, but she left him. Like most homme fatales he has no
one. He is alone, outside society. Harsh Light of Day S4 Btvs also
comments on this condition - while he teases Buffy, he is also talking
about himself, how easy am I? He wonders. I let Drusilla walk all over me.
Cheat on me. Buffy’s relationships with Parker and Angel, may in some ways
reflect his own with Drusilla and Harmony. Except in contrast to Buffy, he
takes out his pain with Dru onto Harmony, Buffy attempts to use Parker to
assuage hers.
[69] In Season 5, Spike works partly as a foil for
Buffy’s inner issues - her relationship with Riley, her fears about her
mother, and her uncertainty about her own path. Spike in Into The
Woods S5 Btvs - is the one who reveals literally by pulling back a door
the truth behind Buffy’s relationship with Riley to both Riley and Buffy.
Their relationship was falling apart regardless of Spike’s involvement,
all Spike does is pull back the curtain and show them. In Fool For Love S5
Btvs, interestingly enough, it is Spike who sits and comforts Buffy about
her mother. We believe he’s going to kill her at the time. She’s just
rejected him and he shows up at her house with a rifle. But in a classic
reversal, he sees her crying and asks what’s wrong instead. The next
morning, he’s the one who tells Riley that she’s at the hospital and her
mother’s sick. (Shadow S5 Btvs) Also in Fool for Love S5 Btvs - it is
Spike who reveals to Buffy the similarities between vampires and slayers.
This speech is largely a projection of Spike’s own desires, which is the
death wish. It’s not the slayers who have a death wish so much as it is
Spike. And oddly enough, Mr. Big Bad can’t take full credit for killing
them - instead of telling Buffy that he out-fought them or was a better
fighter, he tells her that it was luck. One dropped her weapon and one
hesitated. They had a death wish, he states. And you’ll be fine because at
this point in time you don’t. But watch out, because the moment you do,
I’ll be there just like that vamp last night was there. This speech
functions on two levels - it gives voice to the heroine’s fears while at
the same time voicing the insecurities and desires of the fatal. Buffy
does fear these things. She fears that she is both just a killer and has a
death wish. But what about Spike, the fatale?
[70] It’s an
incredibly odd speech considering that Spike is painted as a bit of a
braggart and is so proud of his slayer killings. (School Hard S2 Btvs)
This is a subversion of the noir fatal formula. In neo female noir - the
male fatal never gives the lady the credit, he might blame her for his
failings, but not for his successes. She grabs empowerment by
showing him how wrong he is. Here, in Spike’s head, he may very well be
telling the truth, or it may be a projection - the death wish may be his.
His desire to fight slayers is shown in the series to be an odd one, most
vampires avoid them like the plague or if they do fight them, do it when
the odds are completely in their favor. (School Hard S2 Btvs, Fool For
Love S5 Btvs) Spike seeks them out and fights them with one-to-one combat.
In a way this desire is a perfect foil for Buffy, who also goes out and
fights vampires with one-to-one combat and not with the odds perfectly in
her favor. She stalks and hunts them. (Buffy vs. Dracula S5 Btvs) Just as
Spike stalks and hunts her. Both tend to be impatient and impulsive and it
leads both of them to failure. It’s only when they take the time to plan
that they succeed, like they do when they decide to team up in Becoming
Part II S2 Btvs. Or like Buffy does in Innocence S2 Btvs when she plots to
take down the Judge or Spike prevails in curing Dru in What’s My Line Part
II S2. They reflect each other’s foibles. Thus Spike acts as a perfect
foil to Buffy’s heroine, often revealing to Buffy her worst fears about
herself.
[71] The Neo Noir Fatal as Romantic Foil - Noir Sex and
The Male Fatal
From Sharon Y. Cobb’s essay, “Writing the New Noir
Film”:
“Not only will the protagonist be beguiled and betrayed by
the female [homme fatal]character but violence, in one form or another,
will be a result of the two characters alliance. …Basic Instinct and Body
Heat demonstrate the juxtaposition of high sexuality and potential or
acted out violence. Sex and violence collide in this symbiotic
co-dependence between the …hero and the femme [homme]
fatale.”(212)
“ Tension in Noir stories is generated as much by
plot twists as it is from anticipated violence. The Usual Suspects is rich
with unexpected twists and reversals of expectation. When we think we know
what’s really going on, we are deceived again.”(213)
From William
Covey’s essay, “Girl Power: Female-Centered Neo-Noir” (“Girl
Power”)
First excerpt deals with the previously mentioned film Blue
Steele where Jamie Lee Curtis plays a cop to Ron Silver, Eugene,
villain/fatale.
“Because traditional noir criticism privileges
men, the use of male/female role reversals place women within general
neo-noir discourse. In other words, Blue Steel illustrates that when a
woman is the hero of the film and the man is evil, the assumptions that we
normally make about detectives and dangerous adversaries no longer match
traditional gender assumptions.” (321)
Lizzie Borden, original
director of Love Crimes, statement regarding the sex in her
films:
“ I’m not a separatist. I hope that men can see my films
through eyes colored by female characters they have to identify with -
just as women have to do in watching film with male characters.”
(qtd. in Covey 321)
[72] I emphasize Love Crimes
because in some ways this movie reminds me of the controversial sexual
scenes between Spike and Buffy in Dead Things and Seeing Red (Season 6
Btvs). Like Dead Things and Seeing Red, Love Crimes was
controversial. It pissed people off. I have an odd perspective on
Love Crimes since my kid brother acted as an Assistant Director on the
studio re-filming of it, which was headed by Kit Carson, the director of
Paris Texas. As previously mentioned Lizzie Borden’s Love Crimes is about
a district attorney investigating a man who poses as a fashion
photographer to seduce women. According to my brother the original
unedited version of the film was hard-core pornography with some
incredibly graphic and violent sexual acts. Lizzie Borden states in her
interview the scenes just made some male executives uncomfortable and they
couldn’t handle it, so the scenes were re-shot. (Covey 321) My brother
tells me that even his girlfriend found these scenes to be incredibly
disturbing and anti-female. My brother and his girlfriend are in no way
squeamish about film, they’ve watched things that would make most people
leave a theatre. On the other hand, they did not like the Buffy/Spike sex
and found it a bit too risqué for their taste. As a result of the
disturbing sexual content in Love Crimes, the new director Kit Carson
redirected some segments, it got sent back to the studio, Lizzie, the old
director, was then allowed to re-cut and re-edit her film, and the final
result was a hodge-podge of both directors’ visions. Due to the multiple
edit jobs the final version of the film appears to be somewhat choppy in
places but the sex was no more explicit than the sex in Basic Instinct or
Body Heat, if anything it was more understated. Part of the
controversy over Love Crimes lay in how Dana is portrayed and how she
reacts to the fatal, David, just as part of the controversy in the
Buffy/Spike relationship lay in how Buffy was portrayed and how she
related to the fatal, Spike. In Love Crimes - Dana is portrayed as almost
androgynous, having no romantic relationships, no close friendships, a
loner, who feels cut off and repressed, (Covey 323) Buffy is similarly
portrayed in Season 6 Btvs as cut off from her friends and somewhat
repressed emotionally. (Afterlife - As You Were S6 Btvs) The homme fatal,
David Hanover kidnaps Dana and through her captivity forces her to deal
with her repressed sexual fantasies. In one scene of Love Crimes, we see
Hanover with scissors cutting off Dana’s clothes. Later she begins
fantasizing about him. In Btvs, after years of fighting and beating on
Spike, her mortal enemy, Buffy is seen lusting after Spike. In one scene,
he enters her from behind while she watches her friends dance. Later we
see her go to his crypt and press her hand against the door, drawn to him.
(Dead Things. Btvs S6).
[73] In his essay “Girl Power”, William
Covey comments that Lizzie Borden’s intention behind Love Crimes had been
to “show someone who’s so unconscious about herself that she puts herself
in a dangerous situation.” (323) In film noir this is a classic trick -
having the hero unconsciously place themselves in a dangerous situation,
often one due to sexual repression or sexual desire. (Davenport :
“Dangerous Because of Her Sensuality”; Cobb 212) Just as Buffy does
repeatedly with Spike in Season 6 culminating in the infamous bathroom
scene in Seeing Red, where Spike attempts to force her into having sex
with him again. Oddly enough, as Mr. Covey comments, “many female critics
feel that when a male jeopardizes a strong female, the resulting film
sends out anti-feminist messages.”(Covey 324) Lizzie Borden attempted to
avoid this pitfall in her film just as the writers of Btvs attempted to
avoid it. Unfortunately when Love Crimes was shown to audiences, the
feminist crowd could not quite handle the fact that Dana, the heroine,
starts to fantasize about David, the fatale/villain who is violating her,
this offended them. As a result the film got dismissed.( Covey 324)
Just as many viewers could not handle the idea that Buffy, the heroine,
would enjoy the Bronze Balcony scene with Spike, where he takes from
behind or would place herself in a scenario where he could rape her. Other
scenes that raised objections amongst critics and fans of the show
included Buffy’s sexual seduction of Spike while she was invisible in the
Season 6 episode Gone S6 Btvs and the implication that they took turns
hand-cuffing each other in a sort of S&M bondage game (Dead Things
S6). Would they have been as offended if the roles were flipped? The
inherent problem of flipping the noir formula to fit the female lead is
seen here - while we can have the femme fatale attack the male lead,
either sexually or physically without being overtly alarmed, to have the
homme fatale do so, horrifies us. Just as it is acceptable, oddly enough
to have the male anti-hero attack the femme fatal as Angel does in Reprise
S2 Ats with Darla - engaging her in violent sex, it is less acceptable to
have the female hero/anti-hero attack the homme fatal as Buffy does with
Spike in Gone S6 Btvs. Love Crimes reception by both my brother, who
had little problems with neo-noire femme fatale films such as Body Heat or
even Basic Instinct, and the audience at large demonstrates how this is a
problem in how neo-female noir is viewed. Another film, Blue Steel by
Kathryn Bigelow, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Ron Silver, also deals with
this female fantasy but in a far less oft-putting way. Jamie Lee’s
character, a female cop is romanced by the fatale Eugene who has found her
gun and stalks her. Unlike Love Crimes, Curtis remains in a place of power
throughout the movie and we never really see her victimized or completely
seduced by Eugene. He never compromises her in quite the same way as David
compromises Dana in Love Crimes or Spike comes close to compromising Buffy
in Seeing Red S6 Btvs and Dead Things S6 Btvs. Nor does Ms. Curtis
character go after him with quite the same abandon as Buffy does Spike in
Gone S6 Btvs.
[74] Btvs like Lizzie Borden’s Love Crimes and
Kathryn Bigelow’s Blue Steel does in a sense attempt to stretch the
envelope on noire. Actually it may stretch it further than the films
actually do. Even the Angel/Buffy relationship, more a
representative of the gothic fatal than the neo-noire fatal, pushed at the
envelope. Angel in Season 2 Btvs turns evil upon sleeping with innocent
virginal Buffy and is later seen in flashback sequences lusting after
prepubescent Buffy in her pigtails, sucking on a lollipop. (Innocence and
Becoming Part I, Btvs 2). The push at the envelope is the
prepubescent Buffy sucking on the lollipop. When we see a reversal of this
gender role in HIM Btvs S7 where Buffy seduces a seventeen-year old boy,
the audience was offended, same thing with Cordelia’s seduction of Angel’s
son Connor in Apocalypse Nowish Ats S4. Audiences can deal with the older
guy seducing the young sixteen-year old girl, the Angel/Buffy romance, but
not the older gal seducing the young sixteen/seventeen year old boy,
Buffy/R.J or Cordelia/Connor. We see the opposite response from
viewers, in Season 6 Btvs, when the neo-female noire fatal, Spike, is
shown taking Buffy from behind in the Bronze and later in the infamous
bathroom scene attempting to rape her. ( Dead Things S6 Btvs and Seeing
Red S6 Btvs) Both of Spike’s acts are classic noir and if the gender roles
had been reversed, the audience may have laughed or not been nearly as
horrified. They were certainly far less horrified when Buffy molested
Spike while she was invisible in Gone S6 Btvs or when Faith attempted to
strangle and rape Xander in Consequences S3 Btvs. But as seen from both
the audience and critical responses to these episodes and to the films
Love Crimes and Blue Steel - the reverse, male on female, does not play
nearly as well, if anything it is far harder to maneuver around. As Covey
states in “Girl Power”: “ Though lack of self-knowledge has been used many
times in many classic and neo-noirs about males, many female critics feel
that when a male jeopardizes a strong female, the resulting film sends out
anti-female messages.” (323) Some may even believe the homme fatale is
doomed after such an act, while the femme may not be. Odd, when you
consider these same commentators had no problems with a much earlier scene
from the same series, where it was a woman attempting to rape a man. Faith
in Consequences S3Btvs attempts to rape and kill Xander and is only
prevented by the intervention of Angel. This scene was far worse in
reality than the infamous bathroom scene where Spike does not intend to
hurt Buffy so much as to re-initiate their intimacy and loses control, she
throws him off of her and he leaves horror-struck at what he’s done.
(Seeing Red, Btvs S6) Faith is furious at Angel for throwing her off
Xander and barely seems repentant. Note Xander was not able to stop Faith
and would have died if Angel had not rescued him. Faith had intended
to hurt him and demonstrates in later scenes that love was never at issue,
she wanted to hurt Xander for caring about her, a classic femme fatale
response. (Consequences S3 Btvs). But if you ask the viewer which
scene was worse - they would point to the bathroom scene in Seeing Red S6
Btvs. Some may not even recall the Faith scene (Consequences S3 Btvs) and
recently on one of the fan boards, the scene was listed as one of the top
“hot sex” scenes in the series. The male viewers cannot conceive of a
female attacking them in such a matter, regardless of how often you insist
this is possible and as a result are incredibly turned on by the concept.
But the male attack is all too real to both female and male viewers and
therefore less acceptable.
[75] The homme fatal in female
neo noir sort of muddies the waters as does the sex. While audiences
appear to have no problems with noir sex in the male noir films, most
notably Body Heat, Fatal Attraction, and Basic Instinct, which literally
made stars out of the femme fatales, they do have difficulty with it in
female noir. Buffy and Spike’s dark sexual relationship in Season 6
Btvs inspired some of the same reactions in its viewers as did the film
Love Crimes. Male viewers were, to put it mildly, a tad put-off by their
relationship. Female viewers mostly turned on by it. The relationship was
portrayed in the classic noir style as dark, abusive, gritty - a
repulsion/attraction type of deal. It explored the female heroine’s own
dark desires, her inner psyche. The homme fatal as romantic foil often is
used for this purpose just as the femme fatal is used in the male centric
noir films.
[76] The writers in Btvs did not play it safe in
Season 6 with Buffy/Spike as they did with the Buffy/Angel relationship
nor did they romanticize it. They showed it in real ugly tones as if they
were filming a noir film a la Basic Instinct, Body Heat, or even
Love Crimes. The relationship fits the criteria expressed in the quotes
above by Sharon Y. Cobb - it contains violence, there are unexpected
twists and turns, and it culminates with the heroine unconsciously placing
herself in a dangerous situation. But the fatal is also used as a
means of externalizing the heroine’s own dark fantasies and sexual fears.
In Btvs, the writers emphasize Buffy’s fear is she is drifting into the
darkness, that her desires separate her from everyone while simultaneously
placing emphasis on the fact that part of her desires that separation,
part of her wants to be taken over by the darkness, to be free to inflict
pain, to even feel pleasure from that infliction. The desire to let loose
and be wicked. As Xander, Buffy’s friend states in Smashed S6 Btvs,
‘there’s a time when you just want to let loose, let everything go. It can
be incredibly seductive, just to give into it. To go wild.’ It’s also a
stage or issue that most young women face when they’ve left the innocent
romance of their teens and entered the cold hard reality of their
twenties. Freedom. Yet also the overwhelming feeling that comes with it of
being cut off, adrift, with no clear guideposts. I’m not saying that all
young women go through this stage, but in the noir and horror genres - it
is the heroine’s predicament. The heroine or hero in film noir will often
find themselves in this situation.
[77] SPIKE: (O.S.)
You see ... you try to be with them... (Spike walks up behind
Buffy.)...but you always end up in the dark ... (whispering in her ear)
...with me.
(He moves up right behind Buffy, looks where she's
looking. Shot of the Scoobies from Buffy's POV. ) What would they think of
you ... if they found out ... all the things you've done? (He puts his
hand on her bare shoulder and strokes slowly down her arm.) If they knew
... who you really were? (Dead Things, Btvs S6)
Compare this to
David Hanover’s seduction of Dana in Love Crimes. While Dana is being held
captive in his cabin, David cuts her clothes away from her with scissors.
She allows him to pose her in a bathtub naked. She begins to fantasize
about what he tells her he’ll do with her. Part of her wants it. The other
part is simultaneously repulsed by it. Buffy in the scene depicted above
allows Spike to lift her skirt, to touch her, to enter her from behind,
and gets pleasure from the act, while at the same time wincing at the fact
she does so. “Why do I let him do these things to me?” She asks her friend
Tara. “He’s everything I’m against, everything I’m supposed to hate?”
(Dead Things S6 Btvs) The ready answer of course is self-hatred or dark
night of the soul. But if we analyze it in terms of noir and the function
of fatals, we’ll note there may be something else going on here. As Joss
Whedon, the creator of Btvs, noted in a interview, “Well, …season [6] was
very much about Buffy doubting herself and the concept of power, sort of
hating herself and fantasizing about relinquishing power and getting into
a really unhealthy relationship because of that..”( qtd. in Topel 1) Part
of the hero- fatal relationship is the tug of war between the two parties.
In the film Blue Steele, the fatale, Eugene fantasizes about Megan (played
by Jamie Lee Curtis) through her gun. He literally masturbates to the gun
she’s lost. He fetishes and fantasizes about phallic women. (Covey
320) Spike similarly fantasizes about phallic women. He wants their power.
His name may be Spike, but from his point of view, the woman has the
power. (Fool For Love S5 Btvs) Like Eugene, he seems to get off on being
beaten up, on fantasizing about female authority. (Crush S5 Btvs, Smashed
S6 Btvs) Megan, Dana, and Buffy - all powerful women in their own right,
all sexually repressed in some way, and all taking on traditional male
roles - want on some level to be dominated, to be seduced, to let go. As
Buffy tells Holden Webster, the vamp psychologist in Conversations With
Dead People, S7Btvs, “The things I did to him…the things I let him do to
me…I behaved like a monster, but at the same time…I almost let him take me
over.”
[78] In noir sex - there is a power play going on
between the two parties. As Sharon Y. Cobb states: “ The protagonist falls
in lust with the …fatale and obsessed with him or her. The fatale turns up
the heat by flirting and luring the protagonist into a sexual
relationship.” (212) Spike turns up the heat with Buffy, by
appearing nude or shirtless, flaunting his assets. He encourages her to
beat him up by teasing her. He comes close to her and pouts his lips, then
pulls away, making her want more. ( Gone S6 Btvs, Dead Things S6 Btvs,
Wrecked S6 Btvs) “Many New Noir films feature highly erotic ‘love scenes’
which leave the main character wanting more. His[Her] professional
objectivity becomes increasingly compromised by obsessive thoughts of when
his next sexual encounter will be with the [man] woman of his [her]
fantasies.” (Cobb 212) Body Heat and Basic Instinct are the prime
examples of this in male noir; Love Crimes and Blue Steel are amongst the
few examples in female noir. In Love Crimes, against her will, Dana begins
to fantasize about Hanover. Her fantasies disturb her, but she can’t quite
shake them. Same with Blue Steel, Megan allows Eugene to romance her.
[79] Btvs does however subvert this formula somewhat, by doing a
double flip. In classic noir, the fatal will turn on the hero/heroine once
they reject them. In Love Crimes, Dana rejects David and he breaks into
her house and tells her: “We were close to something. Don’t let [your] gun
come between us.” (qtd. in Covey 324) And then attempts to engage her in
the act they’d been building towards, using his camera as a weapon. She
ends up ending it by breaking a heavy glass object over his head. Spike
similarly confronts Buffy in her bathroom and tells her that they have
something. He also tries to reinitiate their relationship and she kicks
him across the room. (Seeing Red S6 Btvs) The difference between the two
is that after Buffy kicks Spike across the room, he leaves town in search
of a soul. ( Villains S6 Btvs through Grave S6 Btvs) If this had been a
modern day female noir film, Spike would have gotten his chip removed and
gone on a killing spree until Buffy in the last reel catches up with him
and is forced to stake him. In the subverted form, his violence towards
her wakes him up to the reasons why they can’t be together and who he
truly is, repulsed by this information, he hunts a way to alter it.
[80] Buffy on her part feels betrayed when he attacks her just as
she feels betrayed when he sleeps with her friend Anya and when he
eventually leaves town. (Entropy - Seeing Red S6 Btvs) Like all noir
heroes, she is struggling with the conceit that she could save him and
through his involvement with her, he could somehow be redeemed. The noir
hero never quite expects the betrayal when it comes; they are always taken
by surprise. It’s not quite the same betrayal that Buffy suffered with
Angel. This betrayal is a twist - here Buffy is punished for succumbing to
her own dark desires, to her own ego. This betrayal Buffy should have seen
coming. Angel’s - there was no way she could have predicted it. (Innocence
S2 Btvs) To say Buffy never cared for Spike or loved him, is missing
the point I think, the fatal/hero relationship isn’t really about love so
much as sexual power - who has it and who is willing to use it. Femme
fatales no matter what their feelings for the hero will often use their
sexual power over the hero to further their own agenda. A prime example is
Kathleen Turner’s character in Body Heat, where she seduces William Hurt
to help her kill her husband or in Love Crimes where Hanover seduces women
into letting him off the hook. Spike uses his power over Buffy, to a)
further their relationship and b) do evil on the side, such as selling the
demon eggs in the episode As You Were S6 Btvs. He’s not successful
any more than Hanover is, but the attempt is clear. Same thing with Lilah
and Wes - Lilah uses her relationship with Wes to manipulate Angel
Investigations. (Slouching Toward Bethlehem S4 Ats) The twist in both the
Lilah/Wes and Spike/Buffy relationships - is the heroes use their power
over the fatales as well. Buffy and Wes are shown on both series to have
more power in the relationships, since neither have truly committed their
hearts, while the fatales are leaning in that direction. Often the fatales
Achilles’ heel is they do fall for the hero, but when they do? It’s almost
too late. Buffy realizing Spike’s devotion to her uses that to elicit
information from him, to obtain his help in killing demons and saving the
world, and to have sex. She actually appears to get more out of the
relationship with Spike than he does which is another twist on the form.
It also in some ways empowers the female lead - Buffy never loses the
power in the relationship, not really. She may appear to a few times, but
each time she grabs it back again. In the infamous bathroom scene in
Seeing Red S6 Btvs - Buffy knocks Spike clear across the room, he may have
bruised her, but he was not able to violate her. And it is Spike not Buffy
who is changed by the experience, who gives up their power. Also oddly
enough, by going to get a soul something he would never have
considered when he first met her, Spike has like Angel become empowered by
Buffy to change himself for the better. (Villians - Grave S6 Btvs) He’s
not redeemed by her love, nor is his vampire curse broken by it - the show
does not fall completely into the fairy tale trend - instead he is
empowered by her example, by her strength. That empowerment provides him
with the wherewithal and strength to endure the trials necessary to
receive a soul. ( Grave S6 Btvs)
[81] The Fatal Trajectory -
From Damsel to Saving Oneself
When Spike comes back in Season 7
Btvs, Buffy is faced with a series of tasks revolving around the question:
Should I save Spike? Should I save the fatal? The fatal as damsel poses an
interesting dramatic dilemma - because you truly don’t know if the hero
will do it or if she should. Saving best friends, lovers, and sidekicks?
Not a problem. But saving the fatal - the ex-villain? As Kendra stated
long ago regarding Angel, “he’s a vampire, he should die.” (What’s My Line
Part II, S2 Btvs) Or as Wood and Giles believe - “we need to take out
Spike for Buffy’s own good.” (Lies My Parents Told Me, S7
Btvs)
[82] The first task - should I let him help me after he
betrayed my trust? Spike is right when he states, “We’ve been to the end
of the world and back a few times. I can help. Use me if you want.”
(Beneath You, S7 Btvs) But he attacked her last season and she does not
know what he is now except that he is different. Trusting her gut,
she lets him help, and almost regrets it. The double flip again. He
appears to turn evil on her, turning back into Mr. Big Bad Demon. “Yep,
I’m bad, and I got a thrill watching your face as you tried to figure it
out.”(Beneath You, S7 Btvs) Then in a later scene he breaks down
completely after he’s hurt an innocent human and runs off. Following him -
she discovers that he has not reverted to the demon that tried to kill her
in Season 2, but rather has regained his human soul. This solidifies her
decision to let him help. (Beneath You, Btvs S7)
[83] The next task
is should I help him get out of the basement that’s driving him crazy?
Should I take steps to stop the craziness? It takes her a while to
make this decision but after he proves himself a few times helping her
save Cassie’s life, locating a demon that’s killing people and punishing
himself for hurting her, she asks her friend Xander to take him in. (Same
Time Same Place, Help, Selfless and Him, S7 Btvs). Notice she does
not at this point take him in herself. She hasn’t gotten to that
point yet. She’s still protecting herself and to some extent Dawn from
him. Dawn oddly enough is the one who continues to express Buffy’s own
doubts about the fatal just as it is Dawn in Season 5 and 6 who expressed
Buffy’s hopes about him. In Seeing Red S6 Btvs, it is Dawn who tells Spike
that he hurt Buffy and asks him how he could sleep with Anya when he
supposedly loves her sister, a question Buffy is dying to ask but Dawn
asks for her. And in Villains S6 Btvs Buffy refuses to tell Dawn about
Spike’s attack on her and wants to place Dawn with Spike. Demonstrating on
some level Buffy’s own denial of Spike’s betrayal, her desire to forget
about it. This desire is broken when Xander informs Dawn and wakes her up
to what Spike did. (Two to Go S6 Btvs) Xander in effect wakes both women
up. And now it is Xander that Buffy and Dawn place Spike with. And it is
once again Dawn who questions Buffy as to her true reasons for doing this.
Is it out of pity? Buffy swears it’s not. But she can’t quite give voice
to her feelings just yet. (Him Btvs S7)
[84] The third task
is do I kill him or find a way to stop the trigger that is causing him to
turn people into vampires against his will? Spike believes she
should kill him. He sees himself as a liability. Kill me, he pleads at the
end of Sleeper S7 Btvs and towards the end of Never Leave Me S7 Btvs. He
accuses her of using him to deal with her own self-hatred. She insists
it’s not about that. Here he is acting very much in the role of fatal
meets romantic foil. In the male noir genre, the femme fatal will often
plead with the hero to kill her. Sean Young’s character, Rachel, in the
noir sci-fi classic, Blade Runner, at one-point requests Deckard just kill
her. He refuses. Killing Spike - lets them both off the hook, Buffy
doesn’t have to figure out a way of helping him and Spike doesn’t have to
live with the pain of what he’s done. Or in Blade Runner - Deckard can
write Rachel off as a replicant, non-human artificial life form, something
to kill, and Rachel doesn’t have to worry about living as one. Death
is easy, life is hard - is the message of the noir world.
[85]
After the trigger test - we get three more tests for Buffy and Spike -
will she save him from the First Evil? Even if it means having to fight an
uber-vamp to do so? (Bring on The Night - Showtime S7 Btvs)Will she remove
his chip against her mentor’s advice? Even if it means he can now actively
hurt human beings? (Killer in Me - First Date S7 Btvs) Will she save him
from her boss, Principal Wood, and her mentor, Giles, who have planned to
kill him for her own good? And possibly the world’s, since he still
appears to be triggered by the First? (Lies My Parents Told Me, S7 Btvs)
Of these tasks, the last is the most relevant in the world of film noir,
because it is the most ambiguous. Saving the fatal from your friends is
far more dicey than saving him from your enemies. This is a choice Buffy
never really had to make with Angel, unless you count the time she fought
Faith and Xander, who teamed up to kill Angel for Buffy’s own good, when
the true villain was Faith’s watcher Gwendolyn Post. (Revelations, S3
Btvs). But this task is far murkier than that one was, here Wood has a
reason for wanting Spike dead outside of just jealousy or slayers kill
vampires. Two reasons actually. Spike has a trigger that Wood has seen
activated by a song. Spike killed Wood’s mother. Giles also has a reason
for wanting Spike dead. Spike has a trigger and has been controlled by the
First in the past. Buffy has become way too dependent on Spike for her own
good. Buffy is faced with a question here - a big one - do I let Giles and
Wood kill Spike or do I try to save him? She chooses to save him. And
here’s the twist, it’s unnecessary because Spike saves himself. But the
writer doesn’t stop there, if this had been a noir film, Spike would have
killed Wood and gone off to kill people, horribly betraying the heroine or
Spike would have pretended Wood gave him no choice and convinced the
heroine to take him in again or Spike would have let Wood live and not
told the heroine why - let her believe he did it because he turned good,
while plotting behind her back the whole time. Instead the writer does
something rather interesting.
BUFFY (O.S.)Spike! (Buffy runs into
frame, anxious. She sees his wounds, tries to touch his face, check him
over. ) Are you okay? (He pushes her hands away. Leave me be. ) What
happened? (He turns, pushes open the door behind him. It swings open to
reveal Wood, battered and bloody, slumped against the wall. His head rolls
as he regains consciousness. Though he's seen better days, he's clearly
still alive. )(whispered) Oh my god...
SPIKE:I gave him a pass.
Let him live. On account of the fact that I killed his
mother.
(She looks at him, begins to figure it out.) But that's all he gets.
(He turns, begins to walk away.) He so much as looks at me
funny
again... I'll kill him. (Buffy watches him go, then turns toward
the garage.) (Lies My Parents Told Me, S7, Btvs)
The fact that
Spike says any of this to Buffy is surprising from a noir standpoint. In
gothic noir, he wouldn’t say it. In neo-female noir, he might allude to
it, but it’s unlikely. In the neo female noir - the fatal is irredeemable,
he betrays the heroine at every turn and constantly makes excuses for his
actions, a la Spike in Season 6, who apologizes for sleeping with Anya but
insists he did it to make himself feel better then attempts to rape Buffy.
( Seeing Red Btvs S6) Spike in this scene, does not apologize for beating
up Wood, he does not apologize for himself, he does not tell Buffy that he
was right in doing it or wrong. He does not tell her what to think. He
does not tell her which side to choose. He does not beg for her love or
show jealously regarding her compassion for Wood. He does not make excuses
for his actions or state that Wood pursued him or trapped him or any of
the above. He merely states where he stands on the issue and why he let
Wood live. And he admits to the fact that he let Wood live because Wood
had cause for going after him on account of the fact that he killed Wood’s
mother. He may not tell Wood this. But the fact that he tells Buffy is an
interesting twist. Buffy who until this moment did not know Spike was the
one who killed Wood’s mother. And Spike knows how Buffy felt about losing
her own mother. (Fool for Love - Forever S5 Btvs) It’s an odd thing for a
fatal to do. An odd thing for Spike to do. Something Season 2-Season 6
Spike probably would never have done.
[86] The Redemption of The
Fatal
If the writers intended to stick with the noir formula, Spike
would betray Buffy at some point, either consciously or unconsciously, (
Cobb 212-213) then if the formula is subverted, flip and redeem himself at
the last moment by sacrificing his life, or if not subverted, be killed by
the heroine a la Angel in Becoming Part I & II S2 Btvs. Under the noir
formula, Spike cannot survive. Buffy, like most noir heroines will end up
being alone in the end, staring off into the distance wondering what fate
holds in store. At the end of the film Blue Steele, Megan is found staring
off into space in her squad car after Eugene the fatal has been killed.
She’s empowered but alone. (Covey 321)
[87] The finale of Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, Chosen, completely subverts the noir formula by going with
a third option - where the neo noir fatal transforms into a type of tragic
hero, and while the heroine does stare blankly into the distance, she is
surrounded by friends and family. In this third option, the fatale
does not betray the heroine, there isn’t a double flip, and her trust in
him is rewarded.
[88] At the beginning of Chosen, an episode
written and directed by the series’ creator, Joss Whedon, Buffy gives
Spike a sacred amulet and calls him a champion. “I’ve been called a lot of
things…but never a champion,” Spike responds, a little overwhelmed by the
gesture. Buffy has, in effect, elevated him from the cellar dwelling fatal
to hero. But she does it by descending to her cellar to give him the
amulet and she stays there making his bed her bed as opposed to bringing
him upstairs to her room, which is now conveniently occupied by her alter
ego Faith, whom she has placed in the light. If this were the standard
noir formula - Buffy’s descent to the basement would have symbolized their
mutual doom. The fatal would have inevitably betrayed her and she would
have been forced to kill him to save herself and the world. Whedon
subverts this when he has Buffy descend to the basement, give Spike the
amulet, and not, as the previous episode suggests, let Spike become the
bad guy, while Buffy’s former lover, Angel, saves the day. (End of Days -
Chosen S7 Btvs) If this were the classic Female Neo-Noir or even Male
Noir, that would have been the case. By descending to her basement and
sending her former lover Angel away, choosing Spike instead Buffy
acknowledges and sheds light on her darker impulses and gives them value.
When she gives Spike, the fatale, the champion’s amulet, she brings him
into the light with her, granting him the choice to redeem himself.
It’s important that what she grants him is a choice - she doesn’t give him
redemption nor does she redeem him herself - what she does is she empowers
him to make that choice. If this were a fairy tale or a gothic romance -
Buffy’s love would redeem Spike, but instead all it does is provide him
with the power to redeem himself. The mislead in the series or the
classic noir view is that Spike will at one point betray Buffy, that like
most neo-noir heroines, Buffy’s trust in the fatal will eventually doom
her. The subversion is that her trust in his ability to choose to redeem
himself is rewarded by his ultimate sacrifice.
[89] Chosen also
melds the two versions of Btvs’ fatals, the gothic and the noir -
Angel and Spike. For it is Angel, the gothic fatal, that arrives with the
amulet, given to him in the season four finale of Ats, Home, by his femme
fatal, Lilah. The amulet represents in Angel’s mind at least - the fairy
tale lifting of the curse - “It cleanses, purifies and has scrubbing
bubbles…it’s for a champion to wear. Someone like me,” he proudly tells
Buffy.(Chosen, S7 Btvs) Lilah in keeping with the classic femme
fatal motif does not tell Angel what the amulet does - she merely tempts
him with it. “Buffy can handle herself,” Angel tells Lilah when she gives
him the amulet. Lilah responds, “Yes, but you enjoy being the one to
handle her.” (Home Ats S4) Angel, he anti-hero, crosses over to Btvs and
appears to regress to Season 3 Angel, the gothic fatal, which makes
perfect sense, since in Btvs that had always been Angel’s role. It’s only
within the boundaries of his own series that he is elevated to the role of
anti-hero. Since he clearly can’t stay regressed in the role of fatal for
long, Buffy wisely tells him to go back to LA and lead the second front.
She acknowledges that he has moved on, that the amulet isn’t his to bear
and he no longer occupies the role in her story as the fatal or champion.
Angel grudgingly agrees and hands over the amulet that Lilah gave him. The
amulet is similar to other noir tokens with mystical or unknown properties
such as the briefcase in Kiss Me Deadly that explodes when the femme
fatale opens it, engulfing her with otherworldly light, or the bronze
falcon in The Maltese Falcon that seems to curse whomever comes in
possession of it. Because the token is provided by a fatale, in this
case Angel, who in turn got it from his own fatal Lilah, the audience is
conditioned to mistrust it. Another mislead, the writer cleverly uses the
audience’s own conditioned response to the imagery to mislead them,
subverting the genre and making the token a source of positive energy as
opposed to negative energy. Like the box in Kiss Me Deadly, the amulet
does appear to destroy the world - but only the world of the Hellmouth, it
preserves the rest - the heroine and her friends escape intact with few
casualties. Another subversion, unlike the femme fatal in Kiss Me
Deadly who sets off an atomic explosion by opening Pandora’s box, the male
fatal in Btvs heroically uses the amulet to sacrifice himself for the
world - he doesn’t do so out of greed or hubris, his sacrifice appears to
be a willing, redemptive one as opposed to an accident as it would be in
the classic noir film. In fact it is clear from Chosen that the fatal is
powering the amulet with his soul. Without his willing participation, the
amulet would not have worked and he could have stopped at any time merely
by removing it. In keeping with the title of the episode, Spike chooses
not to stop, even though Buffy advises him to stop and even offers him her
love as a sort of endorsement. He rejects both and continues,
determined to finish what he describes as “cleaning things
up.”
[90] Is this the end of Whedon’s subversion of the noir motif
or will he go further with the planned crossover of the character of Spike
on to the more nourish Ats? If this is to be a true subversion of
“the fatal is redeemed by self-sacrifice”, somehow the sacrifice will
either not completely work or by the very act Spike will break the vampire
curse and in true Pinocchio fashion become human, except he won’t get the
heroine or be reunited with his family. If this were a fairy tale, he
would. If this is a noir gothic fairy tale, he won’t, he’ll live but he
won’t be with the one he loves. Instead, like Angel before him, he’ll have
to use the heroine’s example to find his own way in the universe with few
if any guideposts to lead him. If Whedon chooses this path for Spike - it
would in a sense be a re-telling of the Pinocchio story where the toy-boy
becomes real by sacrificing himself to save his loved ones. By drowning,
Pinocchio lives. By burning himself inside out, Spike transforms. There
are certainly enough hints in the episode to suggest this - everything
from Spike’s odd dream of “drowning in footwear”(Chosen S7 Btvs) to
the fact that he is finally at the end bathed in sunlight not unlike
Pinocchio in the Disney Film of the same name, where the wooden boy
emerges from the dark cavern of the whale, is drowned saving his family,
and transforms.
[ 91] Even though Buffy doesn’t directly save the
world in Chosen, she indirectly empowers the fatal to do so. Spike’s
choice at the end reflects Buffy’s choices throughout the season to save
and protect him. Her decision to trust in him is rewarded by his decision
to save the world. A decision that oddly echoes her own in the Season 5
finale, The Gift, where Buffy gives her life to ensure the universe stays
intact. Spike, likewise, gives his life to preserve the human world - a
world, that as a vampire, he hasn’t really been a part of for a hundred
plus years. But he doesn’t do it purely out of love or need of love from
her - that in of itself is not only a subversion of the noir/gothic themes
but also an empowerment of the heroine.
[92] Buffy (to Spike):
I love you
Spike : No you don’t. But thanks for saying it.
Now go…(Chosen, S7 Btvs)
With those words, Spike lets Buffy go. He
gives her permission to leave him. And Buffy by going, allows him to
fulfill his destiny, to shine, to redeem himself and not fall into the
cliché of only being redeemed through her love of him. Those words free
them both. So that the end is Spike laughing as he watches the dark
underground world he’s inhabited become consumed by the flames burning
inside his own heart and soul. Buffy, meanwhile, like the heroine, Megan,
in Blue Steel, looks back over the devastation - the great glaring pit
that was once Sunnydale.
Giles: Who did this?
Buffy: Spike
(Chosen S7 Btvs)
That is the only word she utters. Others speak,
but Buffy doesn’t say anything. Speechless she stares out at the crater
and then, slowly smiles. Because unlike Megan, Buffy’s fatale saved the
world, she empowered him to choose his own path and destiny, just as she
empowered those who stand behind her to battle their way out of the last
of many apocalypses. She’s not alone in the finale frame; her family and
friends stand directly beside and behind her with her future spread out in
the great expanse before her. This ending in a way is similar to Angel’s
leaving in Graduation Day Part II S3 Btvs, where Buffy watches him
disappear into the mist, between two fire-trucks, and once again is backed
by family and friends, staring at the bombed out pit of the
high-school. The heroine can never quite be with the fatale, in that
way the story stays true to the genre, but she does empower the fatale to
attempt to redeem himself and in that way Btvs subverts and expands the
genre.
[93] Conclusion
Spike and Angel tend to fall in the
redeemable category of male fatal and as such have followed similar arcs
in Btvs. They both start out in opposition to the heroine, act as
unpredictable informants and helpers, act as providers of uncomfortable
truths, become sexual partners/love interests that the heroine is either
ashamed of or uncomfortable sharing with others, turn on the heroine in
some way, come back different after turning on her, become the damsel,
eventually save themselves, and become equals in the heroine’s mind,
worthy of her respect. Through the fatals, the heroine is able to face her
fears and anxieties. Coming to terms with who and what she is and letting
go of any and all attachments that could hold her back.
[94]
In this manner, Btvs and Ats subvert the classic noir formula to
demonstrate female empowerment, both sexually and spiritually. The power
of the female is no longer something that should be punished, instead it
should be appreciated and celebrated. It’s when the female gives up her
power and her independence that she is doomed. When she shares that power,
appreciates it, that she is rewarded. This is a subversion of the formula;
in the old noir films, the female was punished for her power and only
rewarded when she willingly handed it over to the male. In the new noir as
seen in Love Crimes, Blue Steele, Btvs and Ats as well as many other newer
noir films and series, the woman is rewarded for sharing and keeping her
power.
Works Cited
Angel The Series, Mutant Enemy and 20th
Century Fox. 2003
Blazer, John, “The Femme Fatal”, No Place for a
Woman: The Family in Film Noir,
1994-1999,
<http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/np05ff.html>
Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox. 2003
Cobb, Sharon
Y, “Writing the New Noir Film.” Silver
207-213
Covey, William, “Girl Power:
Female-Centered Neo-Noir.” Silver 311-327
-----qtd. in Covey, from
Cineaste Interview, Redefining Female Sexuality in
Cinema: An
Interview with Lizzie Borden, Cineaste, 19.2-3 (1992), p.7
Davenport,
Lara, “Film Noir and The Femme Fatale: Introduction”, “The Femme
Fatal
is Punished”, “Reasoning Behind the Femme Fatal” and “Dangerous Through
Her Sensuality,” Male Insecurity Expressed Through the Femme Fatal, Spring
2002 MIT Comparative Media Studies Paper,
<http://web.mit.edu/ldaven/www/noir.html>
-----qtd. in Davenport,
from “Woman in Noir” by Jane Place, Ed. E. Ann Kaplan,
Women in Film
Noir. London: British Film Institute. 1978
Ewing, Dale, “Film Noire:
Style and Content.” Silver 73-85
Hibbs, Thomas, “Buffy the Vampire
Slayer as Feminist Noir”, Buffy the Vampire
Slayer: Fear and Trembling
in Sunnydale, Ed. James B. South. New York: 2003. 49-60.
Marling,
William, “The Femme Fatal” Hard-Boiled Fiction. Case Western Reserve
University. Updated 2 August 2001.
<http//:www.cwru.edu/artsic/engl/marling/hardboiled/FemmeFatale.HTM>
Mills,
Michael, High Heels on Wet Pavement: film noir and the femme fatale, 1999
at
<http://www.moderntimes.com/palace/film_noir/>
Slain, “Are
You Noir or Have you Ever Been” Slain by Buffy , Updated 2002.
<http://www.daydreamnation.co.uk/buffy/noir.html>
Silver,
Alain and James Ursini, eds., The Film Noir Reader 2, New York:
Limelight
Editions,. 1999.
Topel, Fred, “Joss Whedon Interview:
Ending Buffy”, Action-Adventure Movies at
About.com, April 2003,
<http://actionadventure.about.com/cs/weeklystories/a/aa041903.htm>
Ursini,
James, “Noir Science.” Silver 223-241
Von Franz, M.L, “Process of
Individuation”, Man and His Symbols, Ed. Carl S. Jung.
157- 254 New
York: Dell 1964
Wilcox, Rhonda, “Every Night I Save You: Buffy,
Spike, Sex and Redemption,”
Slayage #5, Ed. David Lavery and Rhonda
Wilcox. http://www.slayage.tv
Films Cited
Basic
Instinct (1992) Paul Verhoeven
Betrayed (1988) Constantin Costa-
Gavras
The Big Sleep (1946) Howard Hawks
Black Widow (1987) Bob
Rafelson
Blade Runner (1982) Ridely Scott
Blue Steel (1990) Kathryn
Bigelow
Double Indemnity (1944) Billy Wilder
Impulse (1990) Sondra
Locke,
Kiss Me Deadly (1955) Robert Aldrich
Love Crimes (1992)
Lizzie Borden
The Maltese Falcon (1941) John Huston
Metropolis
(1926) Fritz Lang
Out of the Past (1947) Jacques Tourneur
Pinocchio
(1940) Hamilton Luske & Ben Sharpsteen
The Strange Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) Rouben Mamoulian