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shadowkat[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.
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[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
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[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
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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
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<http://actionadventure.about.com/cs/weeklystories/a/aa041903.htm>
Ursini, James, “Noir Science.” Silver 223-241
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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
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