“Transgressions is the attraction of any dead boy, but as with openness of other more minor characters, this functions both to enlarge and restrict their potential as alternative gender representations. Dead boys exist through binary opposition; they are always already Other”

“The show tries to offer its young female characters postfeminist identities that break down gender boundaries and hybridize gendered characteristics to produce new versions of power and heroism...being a woman involves work, work of constant self-(re)construction. Buffy's female characters are represented as always working in this way, whether to come to terms with power, or to maintain a "successful "good-girl" identity...”

“...Spike may be the most "hybridized" character in terms of gender, within the show he is presented until the last moment as a failure.”

“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.”

“...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.”

“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.”

“...the character's failure to move with the times leads to death, suggesting the anachronistic nature of this [hyper/stereotypical] type of masculinity.”