Buffy Sleeps With A Slayer...Is she gay?

[WillParkinson]

http://www.afterellen.com/blwe/03-07-08

(Note: It's the comic book version of Buffy, for those interested.)

[Chovexani]

1. I'm going to get my angry nerd on for a minute, bear with me.

The interesting thing about this is that it's canon. Those comics are part of Buffy "Season 8", and are officially canon, unlike all the other Buffy comics.

I can't say I'm terribly impressed with Whedon's handling of this kind of thing, though, despite being a fan of his. I think he only does this shit to mess with shippers, for starters, and bisexuality appears to not exist at all in the Buffyverse. I think I may have been the only LGBT Buffy fan that hated when Willow was made gay, because all of a sudden none of the very meaningful relationships she had with men mattered or were even really spoken of. I understand that sexuality is fluid, and women can be involved with men for years and then come out later in life, but the way the show's writers handled it was terrible; all of a sudden she was retconned into being gay all along. There was literally no clue whatsoever she had any kind of gay inclination until Tara showed up (the evil vampire alternate universe Willow joke does not count, I'm sorry). The show heavily implied Xander was the only person she'd ever really been in love with until Oz turned up. Hell she lost her virginity to him and nearly broke up his relationship with Cordelia. And she was crazy in love with Oz. Then all of a sudden Tara shows up in S4, and she was gay all along? Whatever, Joss. They made a half-assed attempt to deal with the whole Oz question, but even that was stupidly handled. To add insult to injury Whedon just turned it into dead lesbian syndrome and basically uses the relationship as a plot device to make Willow go evil.

I'm not even getting into him coyly outing Angel and Spike on the Angel Season 5 DVDs, he didn't even have the cojones to come right out and say it on the commentary, he just playfully alluded to it. Shit it's not like the show would have been cancelled at that point, it was already off the air, and even JK Rowling had the gumption to out Dumbledore completely after the fact.

Now we've got this thing. Buffy sleeps with a female character of no real consequence who was made up for this medium and has no history on the show, in a comic no one but die-hard fans are reading. And no, she's not bisexual, she's just "experimenting" (god I hate that word)! I would be far more impressed if it had been with Faith, someone she had actual chemistry and a history with (and good lord was there crazy amounts of subtext in Season 3). To me this just smacks of "lesbian kiss" TV sweeps stunts. It's just that Whedon has street cred as a feminist so he can do it and get patted on the back for being progressive.

[gaspee]

6. I love

that you used "retconning" - awesome. And people knew what you were talking about...

[NMMNG]

7. I haven't followed any of the comics so I can't say anything about them

But as to the Willow thing, I actually loved that whole storyline. Yes, she'd been presumably straight up until college. But then came Tara and she found out she was actually bisexual. I wasn't thrilled that they made it seem she "turned gay" rather than she merely realized she was bisexual but I'll deal with it. That they even put the storyline in was pretty cutting-edge for the time and IIRC Whedon got a lot of heat for it.

Tara, for Willow, was the first true love of her life. She was the one. Joss Whedon later explained to fans angry over the way that "the lesbian had to die" that even had Willow still been with Oz, Oz would have been killed. It was a plot theme Whedon had planned to send Willow over the edge, and the only thing he could think of to make her go evil and destroy the world would be to take away her true love.

After Tara's death, it was fiercely debated whether it constituted an example of a cliché in television that lesbian relationships usually turn out badly<1>, often with one partner dying or turning out to be evil. Joss Whedon later explained that Tara's death had nothing to do with her being a lesbian, but it was just another plot twist designed to further Willow's personality; allegedly, if Willow had still been involved with Oz in Season Six, he would've been killed just as Tara was, so Tara was doomed not for being a lesbian but for being Willow's lover. In particular, it had become a well-known cliché that any couples in the series tended to have their relationships brutally interrupted when they're at their closest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_Maclay

[Chovexani]

19. I'm still angry over Tara's death

Largely because Joss has claimed several times since then that he had no idea about the Dead Lesbian Cliche until after he'd written the episode and Tim Minear told him or something. This is a guy who loudly proclaims to be a feminist and is widely considered one of the most clever writers working in the genre? I so totally don't buy that. That whole season sucked ass and was badly written anyway, and the Tara thing was just the cheap capper to it. Coming as it did on the heels of that completely stupid Magic = crack storyline it felt even worse. I don't think I've seen a character dragged through the mud the way Willow was in S6 in a long time.

It pisses me off that Whedon is held up as some bastion of progressive writing. Don't get me wrong, I love his shows and I am still a fan, but there is something troubling about a universe where bisexuals don't exist despite all their behavior showing they are, pretty much any people of color end up dead or worse (Robin Wood is the singular exception to that, and if you love Gunn please, please don't read the Angel "Season 6" comics), and on a show where characters are dropping Mandarin slang left and right there are no Chinese people to be found anywhere. Let's not even get into that embarrassing Thanksgiving episode of Buffy with the American Indian demon.

For such a good writer (and he is, when he's on he's really on), Joss is pretty damn tone deaf when it comes to any kind of minorities, sexual or otherwise.

[LostinVA]

27. Don't EVEN get me started about Tara's murder by a woman-hating psycho

Hey -- PM me what happened to Robin Wood is the "Angel" comic.... please?????

[SNsRstoopid]

32. willow

I think willow was bisexual, even though everyone still thought she was gay, she had the huge thing with oz

[LostinVA]

26. I definitely think Faith is gay -- and that she's always liked Buffy "that way"

Even when she went all psycho and wanted to kill the Buffster. (I see her "promiscuity" with guys as some kind of desperate thing to be "loved" and "normal".) I actually think that THAT would ahve been pretty cool, and an interesting balance to Spike.

Agreed: doing it with such a throwaway character ticks me off, especially since I don't think the Head Slayer is gay at all... or even bi. It's especially annoying since this si canon, not just fan fiction.

[galledgoblin]

2. aah stick a spoiler alert in that title! :P

did you watch Firefly, Chovexani? Wheadon's 90-early 00's buffyverse stuff, I agree, fell behind on sexuality and gender issues (on sexual/feminist issues, I think he was still ahead of the curve, even by today's standards) but on Firefly bisexuality and the sexual spectrum is openly accepted and mundane.

[Chovexani]

20. I loved Firefly.

My issues with Firefly are more around race than orientation (though it wasn't lost on me that the bisexual was a courtesan :eyes:). Largely the shocking lack of Chinese people, despite everyone dropping Mandarin slang around and the way the show tended to dip precariously into Orientalism at times.

I don't want to seem like a bitter fan and bash Joss or anything but I think that he gets a pass on a lot of things from people because he's progressive minded and he claims to be a feminist.

[ThomCat]

3. Can any buffy fans here tell me

are gay men represented anywhere near as often in the Whedon's world as lesbians are?

I have never been much of a tv watcher so my opinions about tv don't count for much. But got the impression he was a straight guy with a thing for lesbians.

[DarkTirade]

4. I think it's just easier to get lesbians on screen than gay men.

At least that's the impression I get from his work.

I agree with Chovexani about the weird retconning of Willow's sexuality, that didn't quite work. Although the Willow/Tara relationship was really cute. :) And the character Jonathan who was only really introduced properly later on had a string of man-crushes, although they never came out and said which way he swung.

I think it was a bit easier for him to be free with that kind of thing in Firefly though, where it's set in the future and you'd expect attitudes to change a bit. In Firefly there was only one lesbian character who showed up in a single episode, whereas in another episode there was an entire brothel full of both boy and girl prostitutes. When one of them tried to flirt with the captain and he didn't respond, she asked if he went the other way and he just said something along the lines of, 'No, I prefer womenfolk. I just like to keep my mind on the job until it's done.' No angry denial, no "Eww gay!". Just statin' the facts and moving on.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

8. there was a gay man in buffy he came out to xander and encouraged xander to come out

he was in the football team and got eaten by the mayor

[DarkTirade]

9. I haven't seen all of Buffy, just most of it.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

10. i have seen all the episodes atleast 3 times

:P

such a dork

[DarkTirade]

11. I've managed to catch every episode of Angel

but there are a few in the last season and around seasons 3-5 that I missed here and there.

I'm fairly certain I've seen all of 1,2 and 6. And I have the CD from the musical episode. :P And it's ripped onto my mp3 player.

[SNsRstoopid]

31. more than three times

I think i have seen a bunch of them way more than three times, like all the finales, seeing red, the wish, surprise, innocence, and others. I am a huge buffy dork

[galledgoblin]

12. Andrew is openly gay and there's some undertext with some of the big main characters

Spike and Angel, for example.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

13. i dont think spike and angel are gay, i do think they have had sex with each other though

[DarkTirade]

14. Or at least have in the past.

They're a little too at odds during the time of the series to have anything other than angry sex. :P

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. that is what i said. they have had sex.

:P

[DarkTirade]

18. ... and after that mental image...

I'll be in my bunk. :P

[galledgoblin]

22. LOL

yeah, neither would ever SAY they're gay/bi...

[DarkTirade]

15. It was never openly said

just very strongly implied.

Although they screwed with it a bit in one of the two episodes of Angel that he showed up in.

[WillParkinson]

24. Andrew? Openly gay?

Dunno. There was an episode in Angel where Buffy was supposed to appear (and don't get me started on Sarah Michelle's failure to do it) where he was comfy with 2 ladies at the end. And I always preferred Johnathan anyway.

[LostinVA]

29. I definitely see him as totally gay and thinking he's hiding it from people

When, he's totally not.

"VamPYRE."

[galledgoblin]

30. was that the end of the episode of in Angel season 5?

I laughed at that, iirc those were both slayers (two women physically much stronger) who were subordinates, and he was just showing off in front of Angel and Spike to bother them.

at least, that's the way I interpreted it.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. in all honesty thought the show was based around women.

the strongest two were buffy and willow. and yes there was a gay boy who came out and was eaten by the mayor.

[WillParkinson]

25. That would be Larry...

Whom they thought was eating people before they found out his real secret. And then he thought Xander was, too, from the way Xander questioned him about it.

[SNsRstoopid]

33. Scott Hope was also gay

remember in the seventh season, that vampire who buffy recognizes from high school tells her that her ex, scott came out in college

[Chovexani]

21. He really is a straight guy with a thing for lesbians.

As far as I can tell.

Angel and Spike are canonically bisexual but they were outed in a very roundabout fashion; Spike made an off-handed joke about it in the last season of Angel, towards the end of the series, and on the DVD commentary for the episode Joss coyly said some shit like "well, they are vampires and they've lived a long time, they are bound to try lots of things". On one hand, I kind of squeed, because I've 'shipped Angel and Spike for a long time, OTOH it was kind of an assy way to out them.

But yeah, lesbians are much more represented on the show. The only openly gay character I can think of offhand is Andrew, and he's an idiot (I say that with love :P). Well and that one kid that was eaten by the Mayor in S3.

[galledgoblin]

23. y'know, sometimes (often) straight guys lusting over lesbians bothers me

but not with Wheadon. he handles the fine lines between societal taboos, his own preferences, and gay rights very well.

any X-Men fans here? I think Chris Claremont also handles the lines well.

...damn, now I'm going to spend the rest of the night rereading Astonishing X-Men to find comparisons on gay rights between Claremont X-Men and Wheadon X-Men...

[LostinVA]

28. The tough football player (his name escapes me!) they went to HS with

He was gay, and his coming out episode was good. He was also a big hero during the graduation massacre.And, let's not forget Andrew -- totally gay.

[DarkTirade]

16. Okay so I finally clicked the link and read those pages...

I bet Xander's not gonna leave his bunk for MONTHS after that image. It was pretty well established that he's been attracted to Buffy since the beginning, and he made a comment or two about Willow and Tara to imply that he thinks lesbians are hot. "Sometimes I think about two girls doing a spell together. Then I have to go do a spell by myself."