HA -- actually, Buffy does show a lot of "masculinized" hero behavior -- automatically assuming protection of the people around her, cutting herself off emotionally, having that inferiority complex about being superior or whatever -- it always really struck me about the Reilly relationship that she was being punished for emotionally withholding, not needing him or seeking him out, and he (the Great Big Marine) was in the "female" role of wanting to talk to her, see more of her feelings, &c. And if you reverse the gender in the Buffy/Spike dynamic it gets unsettling in S5 and downright creepy in S6, esp the scene where she beats him in the alley....
In Season 6, I thought they were trying to make a deliberate point of the gender reversals - we have Willow playing a fairly male role in her relationship with Tara (and some obvious parallels between her use of magic to control Tara, and Warren's use of technology to control his ex-girlfriend), Buffy playing the stereotypical macho guy in her relationship with Spike (something which, as you note, began with Riley), and then in the finale the two of them stand there slugging it out like Captain America, boasting about how they're "getting wood" and calling each other bitches in standard misogynist fashion. Meet the new boss, indeed.
Which was all perverse and interesting, and it's a shame they didn't follow it up. Instead, from the very first episode of Season 7, we reverted to this image of women as victims, of girls being chased and butchered by knife-wielding men, and the gender roles abruptly switched back to their classic alignments. Some day I'll have to write up my theory about how this echoed the American national consciousness of that era - the post-September 11, pre-Iraq war sense of victimization, vulnerability, and vengeance... (wonks out)
Belated followup...
In Season 6, I thought they were trying to make a deliberate point of the gender reversals - we have Willow playing a fairly male role in her relationship with Tara (and some obvious parallels between her use of magic to control Tara, and Warren's use of technology to control his ex-girlfriend), Buffy playing the stereotypical macho guy in her relationship with Spike (something which, as you note, began with Riley), and then in the finale the two of them stand there slugging it out like Captain America, boasting about how they're "getting wood" and calling each other bitches in standard misogynist fashion. Meet the new boss, indeed.
Which was all perverse and interesting, and it's a shame they didn't follow it up. Instead, from the very first episode of Season 7, we reverted to this image of women as victims, of girls being chased and butchered by knife-wielding men, and the gender roles abruptly switched back to their classic alignments. Some day I'll have to write up my theory about how this echoed the American national consciousness of that era - the post-September 11, pre-Iraq war sense of victimization, vulnerability, and vengeance... (wonks out)