Hot Topic: Did Angel have too many male cast members and did Buffy have too many females?

[Buffy Summers]

Did Angel have too many male cast members and did Buffy have too many females?

 

[VisionBoy]

I thought Angel was okay until season 5. Then I thought they were lacking some strong female energy (Harmony and Eve don't really cut it for me). In seasons 1 and 2, the cast was a lot smaller, but even then we had Lilah, Kate and Darla who were all pretty prominent recurring characters.

With Buffy I never really thought about it to be honest. Just going through the main cast in each season-
Season 1: 3 female, 2 male.
Season 2: 3 female, 3 male.
Season 3: 3 female, 4 male.
Season 4: 2 female, 4 male.
Season 5: 4 female, 4 male.
Season 6: 4 female, 2 male (5 female if you count Tara)
Season 7: 4 female, 2 male.

So for the most part BTVS seemed pretty well balanced, but it's definitely more female heavy once Giles is no longer a regular. That's not including mostly recurring characters like Tara, Joyce, Wood, The Potentials, Andrew... I reckon it'd be more balanced if you took them into account.

 

[Fuffy Baith]

I don't have a problem with how gender was divided on either show. The Core Four is 2 and 2 but then there's the additional scoobies and reccuring characters. As for Angel, Cordy was the only female on the AI team. This could be because in the first season Angel had a lot of damsels in distress that he had to help out. But we still had Kate and then Lilah and Darla, then eventually Fred in season 3. If we're only going off of title credits, then Angel has more male characters than female.

From Buffy season 2 through season 5 there were at least 3 male characters in the credits and at least 3 female characters, so it's a bit more balanced. If we expand beyond the credits then I still think that the shows are fairly balanced, maybe not well balanced. I think Buffy focuses more on the female characters even though there are several male characters. Similarly Angel focuses more on the male characters. That might be why it feels like Buffy has more females than males and that Angel is more males than females.

 

[Riderofapocalypse]

Yes
- Angel, to me, is more male oriented. So yes i think there are to many male cast members to appeal to different sides of a typical male. And vise versa for Buffy and the females.

but it worked. I didn't need nor want to see more males in Buffy. Just one badass so i can point at him and be like, 'that's my boy'. Unfortunately, I didn't get the female character i wanted in Angel, past Faith and Ilyria. But i understand that most males wouldn't feel drawn to or relate to strong women, so I'm ok with few powerful women in Angel.

 

[white avenger]

I guess it comes down to your definition of "too many." Frankly, I never divided either show into two columns marked "girl" and "boy." The characters were in my opinion, for the most part, well written, and the actors did a great job of portraying them. As far as I am concerned, the only gender specific people on the show were the various Slayers and Potentials, and only them because of the definition of the character. I think that the actors were chosen more because of their skill than any conscious desire to have any sort of real or imagined balance

 

[Blaze]

For Buffy to work as a show, there's a need to emphasize the female perspective of storytelling, so I don't think there could ever be too many female on the show. That's part of what the show is about, showing how female can lead and make just as good of a superhero as a male. It's all about subverting the female/male tropes. The funny thing too is thinking of Buffy, a cast composed mainly of women is what comes to mind, yet in most seasons half of the main cast is still male. I think that has a little bit to do with being used to seeing more guys on TV in this specific genre of shows, or like Fuffy said there's more of a focus on female characters making it seem like they have more of an importance.

Angel was very male focused, which was okay in the sense that the show did not try to portray the same thing as Buffy. However, I did find the show lacked a bit in female presence in the later seasons. That is probably because of the poor treatment Cordy received. Than Kate, Darla and Lilah were written out of the show/died. And even Fred dies. Even Buffy offered better treatment of their male characters, who still got to shine and be heroes at one time or another. I think the first 3 seasons of Angel succeeds at having a male focus show, but while still having good female characters. Which still made it very enjoyable for me.

I guess in the end it comes more to personal preference. I have a hard time watching shows that are very male focused, being a gay woman, there's not much there for me to identify with. So unless the storyline is really, really good (Angel's storyline was clearly enough to keep me watching), I'm usually more interested in watching shows with good female rep. Part of it is media is also just so over saturated with male dominated movies (less so on TV, which is much more balance when it comes to representation), especially in the sci-fi/fantasy genre which I'm more interested in (I don't like rom coms which are often told from the woman's perspective, so that doesn't interest me much). So whenever there's a show with strong female characters, it tends to pop out to me a bit, and that attracts me as a viewer.

 

[brinkster130]

I honestly never thought about the gender balance on the shows; so I guess that means I never thought either was dominated by one gender.

I do think s5 of Angel was the weakest, but not because there were so many males. I thought it had more to do with the show losing several strong characters and replacing them with so-so characters.

 

[The Bronze]

No they were fine. I enjoyed both and didn't feel either needed changing to make sure they had the right numbers.

 

[Guy]

The idea that Angel had more male characters because it was appealing to the male audience is kinda weird to me. I think that "hot chicks with superpowers" is more appealing to the average male (for shallow reasons) than "broody guys trying to atone for their sins". If you're talking ratings and marketability, I think 'Angel' had more appeal to the female audience, with its handsome leading man and Anne-Rice-inspired stories.

And in many ways, I think 'Angel' is the more "feminine" show, while 'Buffy' is the more "masculine" show. Think of the theme songs - 'Buffy' has a punk-rock-y, adrenaline-pumping song, whereas Angel has a melancholic gothic tune, on a freakin' CELLO. Then think of the tone of the show - 'Buffy' had a more lighthearted tone and lots of jokes and fist-pumping moments of victory, whereas 'Angel' was very slow and quiet and full of sadness. Buffy constantly had moments of reclaiming her power, which is very "masculine", whereas Angel had more moments of admitting his mistakes and giving up his power, which is more "feminine".

Then again, 'Angel' had more emphasis on the fight scenes, which is a "masculine" trait. And 'Angel' also had more blood and gore and general "darkness", which might be considered a more "masculine" trait.

So, in the end, both shows are pretty well-balanced in terms of appealing to men vs women, I think.

'Angel' did lose a lot of its female characters in season 4 (Cordy, Lilah, Faith), though, which was probably because Whedon had little involvement in that season. Season 5 gets a bad rep for having few female characters, but it actually introduced 2 important female characters (Harmony and Eve - love 'em or hate 'em, they were female and they were there), and it upgraded Fred to being a badass goddess (yep, I consider that an upgrade. A heartbreaking upgrade), and I know that Cordy died in that season, but really - Cordy died in season 4. Season 5 just tried to give her a powerful swansong.

 

[ChaseRules]

I think that Buffy did have more women then male on the show but then it was a show about a female so they did need to have more women in it else things wouldn't look like & Angel did have more men in it & a number of women on it seemed to die or just leave so I think toward the end things got confused on Angel.

 

[GwenRaiden]

Would've been great to see Gwen Raiden stick around as a main cast member in the late seasons of AtS (most prominently in s5). I think she'd have been a stronger female character than the likes of Harmony/Eve. But really, I have no issue with either show. I agree with @Guy that Angel seems to be quite popular with females for the reasons stated - I do like that subversion with both shows. I think Wesley actually becomes the most stereotypically "macho" guy on the show, with the strong but silent and the guns and the darkness, but because we know where Wesley began in his arc, it isn't a forced trope.