“...the character's failure to move with the times leads to death, suggesting the anachronistic nature of this [hyper/stereotypical] type of masculinity.”
“The display of Angel's body and the sexual reaction it provokes lead to the revelation of his vampire nature: as he kisses Buffy, he shows his vamp face (a displaced manifestation of male desire?). The tension inherent in this display of the masculine body is that it actually has the effect of feminizing the character by positioning the male as sexual object to be looked at.”
“I suggest that across the seasons of Buffy there has been an increasing exaggeration of bad girls...In some ways, instead of challenging these stereotypes of bad girls, the show has emphasized them. This matches the development of the show's good girls.”
“...Spike may be the most "hybridized" character in terms of gender, within the show he is presented until the last moment as a failure.”
“...the new man cannot exist without the old monster masculinity. All the new men are aware of how masculinity is constructed and therefore how they differ from its traditional form...new men do not have to "lack" the attributes of real men, and therefore make them more appealing to viewers, but it also closes down some of their potential for a revisioning of masculinity.”
“Thus angel embodies neatly the idea that "the muscular body functions as a powerful symbol of desire and lack." Angel is manly but not a man, and his display of masculinity points to the ambivalences that surround gender.”
“That both Riley and Warren are attracted to independent young women is an interesting contradiction that serves to valorize the agency of the "girls" and to underline the static macho masculinity of those guys- they cannot or will not change, therefore they cannot keep the girl.”