by Pat Olver
Many "Buffy" fans, like myself, have an agenda of our own with regard to the eponymous heroine and the image of womanhood she represents.
We see the vampire character Spike as the true representative of the female virtues in that series.
This perhaps is the truly subversive element in "Buffy" - not the role reversal of a slight, pretty, blonde young girl taking on the traditional male lead with all its aspects of aggression, single-mindedness, going out into the world, fighting to protect the family and society, and emotional distance/autism; but the character of Spike, supposedly an "evil soulless thing," but representing the sensitive, nurturing, empathetic, supportive partner; caring for the children and weaker members of the family group, remaining for the most part within the home environment, enjoying a close relationship with his mother, a poet, seen watching and enjoying emotional soap operas on TV, experiencing the more complex human emotional interactions, enabling the protagonist to continue in his/her role without needing to "waste" time on building relationships, understanding the needs and motivations of others, coping with moral ambiguity, looking for love rather than sexual release, and sacrificing his own freedom and (way of) life to be the person his partner needs.
And yet Spike remains a man and also a "human" being - complex, passionate, morally grey rather than black-and-white, not always making the right choices but taking responsibility for his actions - whereas Buffy visibly becomes less of a woman, growing emotionally stunted by her forced devotion to the mission and the leadership role she has inherited.
The moral of Buffy, if any, seems
to be that the more polarised any person becomes, the less able they are
to live life to the full. We all need to embrace both our "masculine" and
"feminine" sides, and to do that it is necessary to look beyond the physical,
to the "soul". Any society which measures a person by their appearance,
or demands conformity to sizeist, ageist or sexist standards, is ensuring
the development of similar dysfunction in its members.