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[frelling_tralk]

Eek it’s been quite a few months now since I’ve properly visited LJ, I’ve mostly been on Twitter this year and really lost track of this site I’m afraid, but I came across this article today and thought it was interesting after the many fandom debates there have been on this question

Buffy The Vampire Slayer creator would make Willow bisexual in

Comments

[ragnarok_08]

It's so good to hear from you again :)

I just followed you on Twitter *^^*

Oh wow, there's definitely going to be a lot more debate regarding Willow's sexuality, I bet.

[frelling_tralk]

Thank you :)

And probably! I’m not sure how much there is even left to say at this point though 😂

[mazephoenix]

No reason not to have Willow be bi even then. Homicide had one of its leads be bi and that ruffled a few feathers cause he was a guy. But Tim Bayliss was one of the few tv characters to even say he was bi.
If Willow was allowed to be bi then her love for Oz was more real. She could still be with Tara and then Kennedy. So many people assume being bi is just a phase. Sex and the City did appallingly with this.
Did ship Samantha with her female lover though. Ah well.

[frelling_tralk]

And they did write vampire Willow as bisexual as she was dating Xander while she was flirting with women and expressing interest in them, so if anything that almost says more that the writers were prepared to have the more obviously evil characters be bisexual. Not just Vampire Willow, but I’d also argue that the writing of Faith went beyond just subtext in her Angel episode when she has that flirty moment with Lilah, and yet they somehow couldn’t conceive of society accepting it with regular Willow. It’s funny too that Joss wants to now argue that society wasn’t ready for that when most of the fandom debate was actually because the show didn’t write Willow as bisexual, many viewers got way more upset about feeling like her love for Oz was being invalidated, so I can’t see how bisexual Willow would have been the more controversial choice when it’s what most people were originally assuming that they were portraying with Willow anyway 🤷‍♀️

[orangerful]

As someone who was pretty damn naive back when I was watching Buffy, I'm can believe this. Bisexuality wasn't "mainstream" yet and being gay was definitely "safer" for a show like this, targeted towards a younger audience. I mean, it's kind of like now where you can have bisexual and gay characters but good luck getting a transgender or ace character (the whole Riverdale Jughead debate) in a mainstream show.

That being said, I don't know if I 100% believe this, it might have been more an unconscious bias and not a "I was stopped from doing this".

But who knows, past it past and I honestly can only get so mad about it? LOL

[frelling_tralk]

Joss saying that he was pressured to not make it appear like a phase is slightly confusing wording, because it does read like it was the network/higher-ups stopping him, but I *think* what he meant to say was that he just personally felt pressured to make sure that they got it right and didn’t give anyone any reason to think that they were portraying it as Willow just going through a phase

[hoshi_reed]

Maybe not the network but the gay community itself.
Back then, many were of the mind that Bi was code for non-committal and had the potential to take away a relationship/swing the pendulum back the other way. Because a Bi in a het relationship wasn't noteworthy Bi characters were therefore not noteworthy.
Having a Bi character meant the show could change the lover if the social backlash hit too hard, taking away a ship you could cheer for/felt represented you, and the phobes could ignore the gay relationship and dismiss it.
There is also the whole "passing" issue. And the "idea" that Bi's don't have it as bad in society.
The same problem goes for Asexuals. People can dismiss them because those people can mentally claim the person just hasn't found their one that would "turn" them heterosexual.

[frelling_tralk]

Yes that’s what I assumed he meant, especially as there was the time in the late 90’s where a lot of shows like Ally Mcbeal were having their main characters ‘experiment’ with kissing another woman just to bump the ratings for that week, then went back to dating men

Interestingly in the show itself Tara does seem to suggest that she wouldn’t be thrilled if Willow was still open to dating men, in their big fight from Tough Love Willow is upset and says what does she need to do to establish her lesbian street cred after Tara says something about Willow not having been out all that long, so it did come across like something that would have been quite an issue for Tara if Willow had said that she was bisexual. Tbh I wondered if some of Willow’s comments on being gay now or a breast girl etc were about overcompensating if you like, wanting to make it really clear to everyone that her relationship with Tara was not just a phase

[elisi]

*waves*

Hi, nice to see you! <3

And thank you for that link/information. Good to know. :)

[frelling_tralk]

Thank you :)

[paynesgrey]

Nice to see you here.
I may have to find you on Twitter, even though I only really tweet about books and LivePD, and the occasional Design article.

[frelling_tralk]

I’ve added you back :) I mostly just retweet fandom content on twitter myself, I’m terrible at thinking up what to say for my own tweets. I’ve found it easier to get into than tumblr in a lot of ways though, because it’s been easier to comment on tweets and engage with other people, as opposed to tumblr where everyone has to separately reblog and it’s not a platform build for conversation at all

[paynesgrey]

Thanks! Agreed about Tumblr. Haha, I have such a hard time with it. I feel like an old lady when using it.

[frelling_tralk]

Same! I still use it occasionally to reblog some cool gifs or something but, try as I might, I could not get into the art of conversation on there at all, and it felt like a very isolating fandom experience when it was made that difficult to interact with other people