Have Faith in Leather

Leather Pants as a Signifier of Evil on
Buffy the Vampire Slayer

“Clothes are inevitable. They are nothing less than the furniture of the mind made visible.” -- James Laver, Style in Costume

Clothing has power. We seldom acknowledge it, but choice of clothing goes further than anything else in determining our instant reaction to someone. We form opinions of people’s class, gender, sexuality, and interests on the basis of the way they dress. Costumers study this symbolic meaning in order to better define the characters they must dress. Color and fabric play a large role in this process. We will read someone in pastels and flower prints as less worldly than someone in bright silks.

The main goal of a costumer is to set up contrasts. The villain and the hero are set up in clothes that clearly point them out as opposites, even if we are not aware of them. Buffy has been very consistent over the seasons with it’s characters and their choices of clothes, but unlike a play or a film, the characters on a long-running television show evolve and so do their wardrobes. Giles was seen in tweed almost exclusively until his mid-life crisis in season four. As he began to loosen up and become less stereotypically English, he shed his tweed suits and adopted a more casual look, although not as casual as most Americans. During the first and second seasons, Willow was the nerd. She dressed in jumpers and tights and managed to look asexual. Cordelia called her “the softer side of Sears” (“Welcome to the Hellmouth.). As she began to date, she changed into more stylish clothing, but retained a funky look that blends well with her status as a witch. Xander’s role as wisecracking sidekick has not changed much, and therefore, he still wears strange Hawaiian shirts that proclaim “I’m different from all of you, I’m not afraid to draw attention . . .” (“Leather Pants!”). Buffy wears pastels which set her up as a traditional girl and bring the show’s central conceit into sharper focus. She is “that blonde girl” in horror movies “who would always get herself killed.” But when Buffy “walks into an alley, a monster attacks her, and she’s not only ready for him, she trounces him.” (Whedon).

Leather, especially in jackets, has a history as a badge of male rebellion. Brando in The Wild Ones, James Dean, the boys in Grease, and JD in Heathers all wear leather jackets to symbolize their masculinity and distaste for authority. The black leather look is associated with motorcycle gangs and the sense of danger they bring with them when they ride into town. A woman in a black leather jacket, like Sandra Dee from Grease, is declaring her ownership by a male. She is under his protection. When women assume these symbols without male protection and permission, they do so at their own risk, as we shall see with Faith.

Black leather pants are a remarkably consistent as a signifier of evil in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Beginning in season one with the Master, the costumers set up a pattern that continues with Angelus, vampire Willow, vampire Xander, and reaches its ultimate expression in Faith. When Spike first appears in season two, it looks like he is going to be the major evil of the season. But he wears black jeans instead of black leather pants, and Angelus turns out to be the big bad. In season five, Harmony tries to set herself up as Buffy’s archnemesis, but she wears gold lame pants, reinforcing her portrayal as an idiot.

Why black leather pants specifically? Black is a very loaded color. “For thousands of years it has stood for sorrow, sin, and death” (Lurie, 187). While the children of Buffy are dressed in bright or pale colors, the arrival of a character in black has a tremendous dramatic impact. Angel is constantly in black, even when he is fighting on the side of good. Black shows that he is a serious character. He is in mourning for the people he killed when he was evil. Drusilla wore a white dress in season two until she was restored to full health by Spike. She appears in a black dress after she regains her powers and becomes dangerous once again. Leather has appeared in various other colors on the show, but true evil is clad in black. “Other colors of leather are not evil. However the darker the color, the darker the character’s psyche” (“Leather Pants!”). As black has become fashionable though, it has lost some of it’s symbolic intention. If you want to be evil, it is not enough to just appear in black.

Leather is sexy. It “suggests the idea of sensual contact with the skin of the wearer” (Lurie 232). In ancient times, wearing animal skins was considered magical. Hunters wore the skins of animals they stalked to absorb their nature. People in animal skins are subconsciously presenting themselves as animals (Lurie 232). The clash of these two symbolic references turns leather into an expression of a dangerous sexuality.

The message that sex is hazardous is prevalent in our culture, especially in the horror genre. The rules to surviving a horror movie include you can never have sex (Scream). But it’s clear that this rule applies more to females than males. Jamie Lee Curtis is the Scream Queen, but she’s only able to defeat the monster through her virginity, invoking images of Joan of Arc and other untouched female saints. So all sex is bad, but the sex represented by black leather pants is deviant and paints the wearer as possibly crazy. Leather jackets have been accepted into the mainstream to the point that their original message is often muted or lost, but leather pants continue to make strong statements about their wearers, not the least of which is the implication that they are into sadomasochism and/or fetishism (Lurie, 232). The vampire itself is an image that mixes the Romantic notion of sex and death. The act of drinking from a victim is portrayed as an act of rape, and only the Slayers have the strength to fight off an attempted violation. Faith abuses her power and turns herself into a rapist when she tries to force Xander into sex in “Consequences”.

Vampire Willow is turned out fully in black leather, pants and bustier, and she is clearly insane. In the alternate universe of “The Wish”, we see that she has chained Angel to a wall and tortures him for pleasure while vampire Xander watches. She calls him her “Puppy” and has made him into her sexual slave. The implication is made clearer when she reappears in “Doppelgangland”. Buffy refers to her outfit as “extreme” and calls her a “dominatrix”. Vampire Willow says about the alternate dimension she comes from, “In my world, there are people in chains, and we can ride them like ponies.” A correlation is also made between her and homosexuality. “I think I’m kinda gay,” Willow says about her double.

Faith is the second Slayer. She works with Buffy until she accidentally kills a human. Then she switches sides and works for the major villain of the third season, the Mayor. She first appears in the episode “Faith, Hope, and Trick” where we see her dancing. She is wearing black and gold vinyl pants, and Cordelia immediately refers to her as “Slut-o-Rama”. Immediately we are set up with a huge contrast between Buffy and Faith. Faith says, “Isn’t it crazy how slayin' just always makes you hungry and horny?” and Buffy replies, “Well, sometimes I crave a nonfat yogurt afterwards.” We see that Buffy is firmly on the side of good girls, in pink, and Faith is a bad girl, in tight fitting vinyl. The word faith is defined as “confident belief or trust in a person, idea or thing”. Her name is ironic commentary in light of what happens to her. Also, the phrase ought to be “faith, hope, and love” but love is replaced with “trick”, foreshadowing her fate.

Faith only appears briefly in “The Zeppo”, long enough to sleep with Xander and then kick him out of her room. She’s wearing jeans at this point. Her casual attitude towards sex can be contrasted with Buffy and Angel’s relationship. After the pain and soul searching of Buffy’s loss of her virginity in season two, and the horrible fallout it caused, Faith’s attitude seems abnormal in the extreme. She is portrayed as a predator robbing Xander of his virginity, but she isn’t evil yet. On the other hand, Xander is a guy and therefore obviously cannot help himself.

“Bad Girls” is one of the more telling episodes concerning Faith and Buffy. In the opening, Faith is dressed in a jean jacket, black top, and leopard print pants. Buffy wears a pink dress, pastel purple sweater, and a flower in her hair. Nowhere is the contrast between the two so blatant. Faith spends the episode trying to win Buffy over to her philosophy of Slaying: “Want, Take, Have”. She convinces Buffy to blow off an important chemistry test. This puts Buffy’s future in the normal world is in jeopardy. The two go on a vampire killing rampage through town. During this part, Buffy is wearing a black leather jacket and dark pants, and Faith is in black leather pants and a black tank top. They go dancing at the Bronze, and the lesbian subtext oozes off the screen. They dance facing each other in the center of a group of men who get close but never touch them. A cut can be seen on Buffy’s arm in the exact same place as Faith’s tattoo, possibly symbolizing the blood relationship the girls have as sister Slayers, “the Chosen Two”. But this kind of attitude cannot be allowed to continue, and Faith’s accidental killing of Alan serves to shock Buffy back into her old self. The Slayers’ power must not be allowed to go uncontrolled. They must buckle under to the patriarchy of the Watcher’s Council.

In “Consequences”, Faith again asserts that might makes right. When Buffy states that their purpose is to help people, Faith responds that they are better because other people need them to survive. This is the episode where Faith officially turns to evil, when she goes to work for the Mayor. After this, she slides further and further into corruption and she is rarely seen without black leather pants from this point forward.

In “Enemies”, Mayor Wilkins comes up with a scheme to rob Angel of his soul. Angel plays along so they can learn what his plans are. Angel (posing as Angelus) and Faith kidnap Buffy and chain her to a wall. In this episode, the S&M subtext becomes text. Faith tells Buffy, “Bondage looks good on you, B. The outfit’s all wrong . . .” She sexualizes her desire to torture Buffy and turns it into a sexual power struggle. “If you’re a screamer, feel free,” she tells Buffy as she prepares to cut into her. Faith is wearing all black and black leather pants and extremely dark lipstick. This is the first time we see Faith begin to lose control.

When Faith kills Professor Worth in “Graduation Day, Part 1”, she is once again in all black and leather. This is a point of no return for Faith. All of her other killings were either accidental (Allan in “Bad Girls”) or demons (“Enemies” and “Choices”). The professor is shown as completely harmless, and Faith is cold as ice when she kills him. She destroys her own worth. Then the Mayor presents her with a pink dress, the only time we see Faith in pink and only the second time she has been in a dress. He provides her with the sense of belonging she could not achieve in the Scooby Gang. She can be the Buffy in his world and takes on her clothing. Another contrast is achieved when we see Wesley in pink and Giles in grey. Since Wesley has been shown to be ineffectual and girly in the worst sense of the word, this contrast works beautifully.

In this episode, Faith poisons Angel, and the only cure is the blood of a Slayer. Buffy becomes very angry and decides to kill Faith and take her to Angel to cure him. When Buffy shows up at Faith’s apartment, she is wearing a black shirt, black leather jacket, and red leather pants. Faith says, “All dressed up in big sister’s clothes.” They fight, and Faith throws herself off the roof. Faith said in “Enemies”, “You kill me, you become me. You’re not ready for that.” But now Buffy is ready and willing. Buffy is skirting the edge of darkness. Her outfit includes black, but the red leather shows that she is not lost to evil.

In “This Year’s Girl”, Faith wakes from the coma Buffy put her into in “Graduation Day Part 1”. She suffered severe head trauma during that episode and this may account for a portion of her irrational behavior. She has several dreams before she wakes up. In the first one (not the first dream, because this is obviously Buffy’s), she is wearing a light blue blouse and a pink skirt as she picnics with the Mayor. Buffy shows up in grey and black and brutally slaughters him. Faith does not see herself as evil. In her mind, Buffy is the aggressor, the one in the wrong. Buffy killed the only person who ever cared for her, even though he turned out to be evil. In her second dream, she is back in black leather pants. This time, when Buffy attacks her, she defends herself, killing Buffy. This allows her to wake up. When she leaves the hospital, she is wearing a pink shirt and grey pants, but these clothes were stolen from a girl she beat up. When she is able to choose her clothes, she returns to black leather pants. At the end of the episode, she uses a device the Mayor gave her to switch her body with Buffy’s.

In “Who are You?”, Faith takes Buffy’s body upstairs and immediately puts it in black leather pants. (This raises an interesting question. If black leather pants are evil, why would Buffy have a pair of them just lying around? For that matter, why would Angel? Just in case they accidentally go evil?) Buffy doesn’t have any chance to change. When they fight in the church, Faith attacks her own body in a fit of self-loathing.

In “Five by Five” on Angel, Faith displays the link between sex and hostility for her. She goes to a club where she wears a backless black vinyl shirt, black leather pants, black eyeshadow, red lipstick, and a black collar around her neck. She dances sexily while beating up patrons on the club. “Living Dead Girl” by White Zombie plays in the background during this scene, describing her pretty well at this point in her life. The collar is an S&M symbol of slavery. In any case, Faith is out of control in a major way at this point. She tortures her former Watcher, Wesley, in an attack on one of her major male authority figures and tries to kill Angel, her other father figure. Giles describes her state of mind as “borderline psychotic” and Cordelia says, “That explains her outfit.” She ends this episode by begging Angel to kill her.

In “Sanctuary”, Faith changes into black jeans, a brown leather jacket, and a pale pink lipstick. She has made a commitment to change, and this is seen when she gives up her black leather pants. She decides to go to jail. A Slayer could not be kept in jail if she didn’t want to be there. We’ve seen Faith escape in the past, so we know that incarceration is voluntary for her. In “Judgment”, we see her in prison in light blue denim with number stenciled across the front. Prisoners are required to wear uniforms, a symbol of the fact that they are no longer allowed to speak for themselves.

Faith serves as Buffy’s dark side. “You can't handle watching me living my own way, having a blast, because it tempts you! You know it could be you!” ("Consequences"). Her choice of dark colors and leather counterpoint this alongside Buffy’s pastels. She is also a more voluptuous body type than Buffy, and her clothes are tighter. She wears her sexuality as casually as she kicks Xander out of her room. Buffy even realizes this when she says, “She had it rough. Different circumstances, that could be me,” (“Doppelgangland”). She is also a brunette, and Buffy is a blonde, giving a visual clue that Faith is the doppelganger of Buffy.

Faith also sports other visual clues that mark her as a bad girl. She has a tattoo. The only other people with tattoos on the show are Angel and Giles. Angel’s tattoo marks him as the demon Angelus, “a vicious, violent animal” (“Angel”). Giles’ tattoo allows possession by the demon Eyghon, which “imbues the host with a euphoric feeling of power.” (“The Dark Age”). Marking one’s body is asking for trouble, specifically possession by evil. Buffy is tattooed in “The Dark Age” in an attempt to direct the demon her way, but she had to be tied up for it to be accomplished.

Faith wears ‘vamp’ makeup-- pale face, dark eyeshadow, and blood red lipstick. When added to her dark hair, her image is complete. “So archetypically terrifying and thrilling are these figures that any black-haired, pale complexioned man or woman who appears in all black . . . clothes projects a dangerous eroticism . . .” (Lurie, 258). When Faith is at her most evil, she not only wears all black and leather, but her makeup gets darker while her face gets paler. In “This Year’s Girl”, she applies a lipstick called “Harlot” and says, “Good thing pale is in this year.” At this point, people begin to describe her as psychotic. When she switches bodies with Buffy in “Who Are You?” the first thing she does is put on black leather pants and blood red lipstick. This should have tipped her friends off because, while Buffy does occasionally wear leather, she is always seen in pink lipsticks. In Faith’s body, even though Buffy has no chance to change out of the black leather pants Faith was already wearing, she does manage to put on some paler lipstick.

No only does leather mark Faith as evil, but it makes her sexually ambiguous. She proves herself to be familiar with sadomachoistic jargon after she tries to strangle Xander during sex in “Consequences”. She says, “That thing with Xander; I know what it looked like, but we were just playing.” Angel replies, “And he forgot the safety word. Is that it?”, and Faith says, “Safety words are for wusses.”

Many fans have chosen to view Buffy’s relationship with Faith as a romantic one, painting Faith’s turn to darkness as a result of thwarted desire. It’s even been suggested that perhaps Faith first turned to the Mayor with the intention of serving as a double agent, although the is no evidence for this on the show. Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy, has not stated that this is an incorrect interpretation, saying “BYO subtext” (“Leather Pants!”). If one wants to buy into this theory, it puts Faith even further outside the mainstream. “She is the only person who recognizes lesbianism . . . She’s the only person who’s seen being sexual with her gender . . . Faith is the only one who’s been seen dancing with a girl or discussing the possibility of being picked up by one,” (Ulrich). Because, while Tara and Willow are engaged in a lesbian relationship beginning in season four, Faith represents a less photogenic lesbianism. She is butch, and her clothes and attitude reflect that.

The other character most associated with black leather pants is Angelus. In “Surprise” Buffy sleeps with Angel for the first time. But a heretofore unknown “happiness clause” causes him to lose his soul and allows his demon to take over. (For clarity, I will refer to souled Angel as Angel and evil Angel as Angelus.) Immediately after this, Angelus dons leather pants and stalks and torments Buffy until she is forced to kill him to prevent the demon Acathla from sucking the world into hell (Becoming Part 2). Angelus returns for a brief period during the Angel episode “Eternity”, where Cordelia comments, “Evil Angel would never have worn those pants.”

The differences between Angelus and Faith are interesting. When Angel comes back from Hell, Buffy helps him. She repeatedly states that what he did was not his fault. He was possessed by a demon and could not help it. (“Amends”). While some of the others, mostly Xander, have issues with Angel, they grudgingly accept him back into their group. On the other hand, the reaction to Faith is much different. While Buffy is willing to go the extra mile to reintegrate Faith back into the gang, Willow refuses to accept her. “It's way too late. You know, it didn't have to be this way. But you made your choice. I know you had a tough life. I know that some people think you had a lot of bad breaks. Well, boo hoo! Poor you. You know, you had a lot more in your life than some people. I mean, you had friends in your life like Buffy. Now you have no one. You were a Slayer and now you're nothing. You're just a big selfish, worthless waste.” (“Choices”). Willow is generally portrayed as the nicest of the characters, making her rejection of Faith even more harsh. Faith was not controlled by any type of demon, so therefore her conduct is inexcusable. She is not given the benefit of the doubt, despite evidence that she had a much harder life than any of the Scooby Gang. “Mom was so busy, you know, enjoying the drinking and passing out parts of life, that I never really got what I wanted . . .” (“Enemies”). “My dead mother hits harder than that!” (“Faith, Hope, and Trick”).

Black leather pants serve to set Faith off from the rest of the kids on Buffy. She is more worldly than they are, and while this intrigues them at first, it eventually distances her from the group. Her knowledge has come at a high price, and the price she pays for violating the boundaries of Slayerhood is even higher.

“Amends.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

“Angel.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

“Bad Girls.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

“Choices.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

“Consequences.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

“The Dark Age.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

“Doppelgangland.” Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

“Enemies.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

“Eternity.” Angel. The WB. Transcript

“Faith.” The American Heritage Dictionary. 3rd ed. 1994.

“Faith, Hope, and Trick.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

“Five by Five.” Angel. The WB. Transcript

“Graduation Day Part 1.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

“Judgment” Angel. The WB Transcript

“Leather Pants!” The 11th Hour Message Board. 19 Oct 2000 Link

Lurie, Allison. The Language of Clothes. New York: Random House, 1981.

“Sanctuary.” Angel. The WB. Transcript

Scream. Screenplay by Kevin Williamson. Dir Wes Craven. Dimenson Films, 1997.

“Surprise.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

“This Year’s Girl.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

Ulrich, Selena. The Dyker Side of Faith. 19 Oct. 2000 Link

“Welcome to the Hellmouth.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

Whedon, Joss. Interview. “Welcome to the Hellmouth” and “The Harvest”. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Twentieth Century Fox, 1998.

“Who Are You?” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

“The Wish.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB Transcript

“The Zeppo.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The WB. Transcript

Copyright Alicia Thompson, 2000. Contents may not be reproduced for any reason without the express permission of the author. Feedback can be mailed to akthomps@olemiss.edu