Part II of Fatal Essay - Role of Male/Homme Fatal in BTVS - (ANGEL)

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[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.