European Journal of Cultural Studies

The vampire Spike of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the latest in a long line of a mbiguous but sympathetic vampires which have caught the public imagination, stretching back to Polidori’s Byronesque vampire, Lord Ruthven. This article argues that the vampire image that circulates across contemporary vampire fan cultures is one that exceeds any individual depiction of the vampire; the sympathetic vampire operates as a metatext for vampire fans who draw on textual cues to interpret vampires sympathetically, even when the text itself does not. In the case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the text overtly encourages a sympathetic subtextual reading of Spike by linking his glamour, sex appeal and rebellion to a hinted-at unseen suffering, which is easily recognized by fans. Fans read Spike’s bad-boy pose as symbolic of hidden pathos. Indeed, the text adopts conventions associated with fan fiction in order to encourage and sustain a surrounding fan culture.

According to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, queer exists when the constituent elements of anyone’s gender or sexuality are not made (or cannot be made) to signify monolithically. By this definition Spike is the queerest character in the ‘Buffyverse’: both his gender and sexuality are fluid - neither is secure and both are based around excess. His gender switches from male to female and his sexuality from ‘vanilla’ to more varied and non-traditional forms of eroticism. The article argues that the character of Spike opens up opportunities for the resignification of what it means to be male or female, man or monster, dominant or submissive, ‘vanilla’ or an exponent of erotic variation - opportunities we need to seize if we are to challenge the all-pervasive binaries which govern our understanding of sex, gender and sexuality, and the interrelationship between these terms.

Towards the end of Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spike undergoes an identity crisis and leaves Sunnydale in search of a solution. ‘Neither a monster nor a man’, Spike yearns for reconciliation of his divided self. The answer comes in the form of the return of his soul. This article explores how the return of Spike’s soul does not deliver a reconciled Spike but rather one which has been exponentially fragmented. In a show that prides itself on complex character development, Spike undergoes the most dramatic character arc of anyone on the series, taking place in one season in an almost schizophrenic fashion. Through close analysis of mise-en-scène and narrative structure this article demonstrates how each of these personas is presented as distinct and explores how identity in this season is not defined by growth and evolution but rather the recognition that we are each made up of a multitude of selves.

This article considers how fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel interpret the character of Spike through meanings attached to actor James Marsters as a ‘subcultural celebrity’. Work on TV’s celebrity actors has stressed how character and actor can become semiotically blurred. Rather than approaching this blurring of textual and extra-textual connotations as an essential property of television celebrity, we analyse how Marsters displays situated agency by discursively constructing ‘himself’ in publicity materials as ‘like Spike’. We then consider Marsters as a reader of Buffy. As a subcultural celebrity, we argue that Marsters is positioned between media producers and media fans, and therefore is able to offer up privileged interpretations of ‘his’ character, Spike, while simultaneously observing the symbolic power of producers’ preferred readings. Marsters supports certain fan readings of Spike, acting as a textual poacher who nevertheless is ‘inside’ the texts of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

This article explores the way in which the actor, James Marsters, performs the character of Spike. Beginning with the Greek term ekphrasis (the verbal representation of visual representation) this article is an endeavour to describe and recover in language the effect which a particular performance, moment or TV series may have on us. The specific moment of performance that the article addresses is that of Spike’s first appearance on Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the episode ‘School Hard’ (2:3) - a point at which something magical occurs. We breathe in Marsters’ performance and establish an emotional connection with the character. It is this connection, based on Marsters’ embodied performance, which inspires fan investment in the character and influences subsequent conceptions of what the character should or should not do, resulting in a tension between scriptwriters and the fans who know better.

Matt Hills argues that cultural theorists have been unable or unwilling to transcend a dichotomy that places academic discourse and identities in the realm of the rational or passionless, and fan identities in the realm of the immersed or open. As a result, the scholar-fan and the fan-scholar have become liminal and transgressive persona. This article draws on the author’s own experience, and that of 13 other delegates who participated in the Slayage Conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer held in Tennessee in May 2004, as a basis for exploring the way in which the issues of the fan-scholar identity are lived out. Questions addressed include the way in which tensions between fan and academic identities were manifested, and the ways in which individuals managed their fan and academic identities.