Messages About Sex and Violence in the Buffy/Spike Relationship on Buffy the Vampire Slayer
A Fine Line Between Love and Hate
As Buffy recovers her self-worth and desire to live, she realizes that the relationship, and the way she has been using Spike are wrong, and she breaks up with him (Episode 6.15, "As You Were"). Spike is unwilling to accept her rejection, and in Episode 6.19, "Seeing Red," he attempts to "convince" her by trying to rape her on her bathroom floor, growling, "I'm gonna make you feel it." She only escapes the assault by kicking him across the room, and spells out in no uncertain terms that his attack demonstrates why she could never love him - he is a monster with no conscience. Finally realizing that this is true, Spike then goes to Africa and engages in a series of trials to regain his soul. His attempt to rape her is mentioned a few times in passing (Episode 6.20, "Villains," Episode 7.2, "Beneath You," and Episode 7.6, "Him"), and Spike is still never accepted by Buffy's friends, but Buffy herself forgives him and takes him back as her confident in Season 7.Spike and the Spuffy relationship are points of great contention not only in the fan community, but also among the writers. Through the years, writer David Fury, for example, has been quoted a number of times saying that Spike is a villain, and not an acceptable choice as a romantic partner for Buffy. His most infamous comment was posted in 2001 on the largest Buffy fan board, The Bronze (now defunct), in response to a number of fans who were clamoring for a Buffy/Spike relationship. He said, "It is beyond my limited imagination to see a strong, independent, female character end up falling for a murderer who would be killling [sic] innocent people were he not suffering from chip affliction," and compared fans of the Spuffy relationship to women who write love letters to imprisoned serial killers. After the Episode "Seeing Red" appeared, he was asked if Buffy and Spike would ever "reconcile". His response: "Never trust your attempted rapist." (DavidFury.net, 2003). Mr. Fury is renowned in fandom for this dislike of this storyline and its fans.
Writer Jane Espenson, on the other hand, believed differently. When asked in an interview about the Buffy/Spike Relationship, Espenson said that it didn't "work out" not because Spike was evil, had no soul, and tried to rape Buffy, but because Buffy "finds it so hard to love." She goes on to say, "I love Spike. I was very worried about the attempted rape...it's very hard to come back from." (Candy, 2002.) In another interview, Espenson says that the Buffy/Spike relationship was her favorite storyline on the series: "...my number one has got to be the Buffy and Spike love story. I think that is just a gorgeous story. Spike and Buffy have something so much more complicated [than her relationship with her first love, Angel] that it’s got that romance and all this other stuff on top of it which makes it so interesting for me." (DiLullo, 2003.) Does "all this other stuff" refer to the violence and attempted rape?
- The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies - www.slayage.tv
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BangelRstupid
(Guest)
(Guest)
07/29/2009
You're alter-ego being TheAntiJoss you're hatred defines you
http://theducksverse.yuku.com/topic/399/t/My-paper-about-Sex-Violence-amp-Spuffy.html
Lee
(Guest)
(Guest)
07/27/2009
"He was never a believable love interest for Buffy or any other human and was never shown - until the "Damage" episode of AtS - to have any remorse over his murderous past. Where's the romance that others find?!"
Spike began having remorse for his actions, the moment he left the Summers bathroom after he tried to rape Buffy. And when he acquired his soul - instead of being cursed with one against his will - he really began experiencing remorse for his crimes.
And by the way, why aren't you pissed off over Buffy's actions? Isn't she supposed to feel remorseful for her actions against Spike?
And were you too blind by happy visions of Buffy and Angel to forget that Angel had gotten away with committing psychic rape against Buffy in Season One of his series? Or that Buffy and Spike managed to forgive each other by the ninth episode of Season 7?
Sylvia Monaghan
(Guest)
(Guest)
03/26/2008
Spike was and is my favorite character, but I always was very down on Spuffy. He was never a believable love interest for Buffy or any other human and was never shown - until the "Damage" episode of AtS - to have any remorse over his murderous past. Where's the romance that others find?!
Kristen
(Guest)
(Guest)
09/26/2007
(continuied from the prevous entry)
Not the violence part, but the fighting in any way, "opposites attract" kind of stuff. I got involved in that type of relationship, only I had no feelings for him, I just wanted "someone" and it was a danger to me because of who he was and that he totally used me. It was kept under wraps and stopped and started. I think the spuffy relationship contributed. I became bussy and stopped watching my DVDs and one day I popped them In and I relized. Everytime I was with him, I would tell him how much I hated him and no. I mean I am not blaming the show, It is my faorite in the world, but I am just stating the spuffy relationship is not the best one to emmulate.
Kristen
(Guest)
(Guest)
09/26/2007
I am and avid watcher of BTVS and a spuffy fan myself, I started watching the show the begining of season 6. Maybe that is why I love the spuffy dynamic of the show. In a few months after watching I saw all the prevous episodes and now own all of the, so I kno what I am talking about. When I look back on season 6 I do not see the rape, I dont Believe Buffy deserved that, nor she should forgive Spike, I think SPike was hurt, and that in his mind was the only way to get her back, we've seen this thinking "Fool For Love" I believe that is teh episode that Spike tells Buffy about the two slayers he killed, and at the end attempts to shoot Buffy. That kind of rash thinking. Buffy was hurt therefore she hurt Spike, Spike let her hurt him because he wanted any part of Buffy he could in a sexual way. I do agree with the unhealth relationship part of this article. Maybe because I was young at this time, I loved that love hate relationship. Not the violence part, but the fighting in any way, "op
Tom
(Guest)
(Guest)
09/18/2007
This has to be one of the most misguided articles I have ever read. The author either did not watch season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or just wants to ignore everything that happened in season six while preaching her point. Clearly, these narrow-minded tactics are absolutely eaten up by people who ship in other directions. To end this once and for all, the climactic moment in season six cannot be the only thing people observe when they look at the season. That's like just looking at Jews scorning Hitler without knowing what Hitler did to them. Bad analogy, maybe, but Buffy abused Spike repeatedly, both verbally and physically, throughout that season. She punched him almost half to death in "Dead Things" and his face was disconfigured for weeks afterward. Did she say "sorry" to Spike after that? No. She almost raped him in "Gone" when he CLEARLY said no. Did she say sorry then? No, she went back to his crypt and had sex (or raped) him again. She repeatedly told him that he was dirt
Kristen Smirnov
(Guest)
(Guest)
08/03/2007
Domestic Abuse and Gender Role Reversal in Season 6: My Letter to Mutant Enemy by Kristen Smirnov
Since this issue has come up again recently, I thought I'd share the letter I recently sent to Marti and Joss regarding different kinds of sexual abuse as portrayed this season. I'm aware that this might anger some people, and that's truly not my intention. I'll just say that, as a college student on a liberal campus, I've been exposed to a staggering wave of excused or ignored domestic abuse doled out by females that seems to increase with every semester. I'm hyper-sensitive to it, and that's the stance where I'm coming from with this.
I've been letting this letter stew for a while to see if my feelings changed. I knew this would be a long letter, addressing a touchy and uncomfortable issue. But it was one raised by the show throughout the season, and was one approached from increasingly unsettling ways. Thus, I felt compelled to write in the hopes that my viewpoint, even if it'
Anna
(Guest)
(Guest)
05/12/2007
Spike is my most hated fictional character in any medium, including tv, movies and books, and his usefulness was done after season two. The writers, though, needed a toy to play with and it was horrific what the writers did to this character. The neutering of season 4, becomming "one of the gang" in season five, the stalkerness of season six and the Angel soul immitation of season seven. Buffy became involved with Spike in season six to feel something because she was just a shell of a person after comming back from heaven. That's it. Spike took advantage of this and the attempted rape was the climax of his sick obsessivness of Buffy. Season seven did such a horrible job at resolving the rape, pretended that it never happened, and made Buffy and Spike bestest friends. These thing don't happen in real life but because it is Spike and "everyone" loved him it made it okay. The entire Spike Buffy relationships is one of the negative parts of what otherwise is an amazingly wonderful sho
woo
(Guest)
(Guest)
02/27/2007
if anybody want to talk to me about spuffy they can write to me . my mail is blatralala@abv.bg-i`m from bulgaria -europe do you know my country - never mind i`ll be very happy if there are any volunteeres
Rosie Powell
(Guest)
(Guest)
02/22/2007
Ms. Fowler's portrayal of the Buffy/Spike relationship in Season Six was criminally one-sided. She complained of the fans and the writers' disregard of what Buffy had endured at the hands of Spike. Yet, she committed the same crime by disregarding the fact that Spike had been abused and was nearly raped by Buffy in the episode, "Gone". If Buffy was not allowed to forgive Spike for nearly raping her, then Spike was not allowed to forgive Buffy for trying to do the same to him.
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