Buffy rant: Andrew is gay.

[laserboy]

I'd always been a big fan of Andrew in Buffy and have argued over and over about how pathetic and insulting it was that his motivation in later series 6 and 7 was ignored or treated as a joke

Comments

[laserboy]

Yeah, that's him.

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

http://www.happycow.net/images/famous/tom_lenk.jpg

[laserboy]

Ohhh you will see with fresh eyes! :-) I loved the Trio.

[lizzie_and_ari]

What was the girl in question?

[laserboy]

Series 5 episode of Angel where Spike and Angel go to Italy to try to find Buffy. They meet Andrew, who is at one point surrounded by pretty women. It is usually used to argue that he's straight and NOT GAY AT ALL.

Giles had supposedly been training him to redeem him and it could be read through this scene, fairly overtly, that this was also in heterosexuality. Therefore giving the slightly uncomfortable suggestion that being a gay man was wrong/evil (albeit "mushroomy evil") and made Andrew less worthy as a man.

However, Whedon explains that's not the case at all.

[johnbobshaun]

You see, even at the time I didn't read the scene like that. I though he had just become suave and debonair and had hangers-on.

But yeah, the scene was badly judged. Understandbly so, due to the amount of rewrites involved after SMG dropped out and then Michelle Trachtenberg.

[laserboy]

Yeah, patchy episode definitely and the writing was inconsistent that season.

(Without checking imdb, I think MT was possibly skanking up Six Feet Under at the time).

It's interesting that we've read the scene differently.

[johnbobshaun]

Hmm.

I agree to a certain extent. Gay guys did kind of get overlooked in the show, but, heck, it's primarily a feminist text. *Men* get a fairly short shrift. Xander's deeply flawed, Giles isn't much better and Angel, well...

It's sympathies are primarily with Buffy and Willow. I don't really have a problem with that.

I did read something recently that was interesting: Joss Whedon was 50/50 on placing Xander or Willow in a same sex relationship. It ended up being Willow primarily because Seth Green left the show.

[laserboy]

Oh I'm not being anti-women or decrying the very positive portrayal of lesbians on the show (I loved Tara's introduction and think that particular story was really nicely done), but I just found the blindness towards gay men and how gay men were treated on the show very depressing in contrast.

I don't buy that rumour, heh. Wasn't there already a Willow / Xander / Oz / Cordelia thing in... season 2 or 3? When would this have happened? Just seems messy in terms of writing.

[johnbobshaun]

That was season three. Presumably Xander would have met someone in season 4,
instead of Willow meeting Tara.

I do pretty much agree though. The season 8 comics haven't explored it either. I always thought the implied relationship between Angel and Spike was kind of interesting.

[laserboy]

Oh, sorry.. thought you meant him getting together with Oz!

Bit of a shame they didn't give Xander much to do after 3. He barely met anyone at all in that 4th year.

Heh. Well I suppose if someone was just hanging around for years in your face it's likely that something of some definition is going to happen at some point...

[khbrown]

My worry here is that you're maybe granting the author too much importance: What does it matter if his understanding here confirms yours (this character is gay) rather than another fan's (this character isn't gay)? Isn't part of the fun of engaging with a series like Buffy forming your own ideas about the characters and what they are 'really' like, especially in relation to queer readings.

[laserboy]

To an extent perhaps and certainly in the case of a show like Smallville, for example.

But here the creator of the character and chief head of the show is saying that HIS character is gay. That makes it more valid than fan speculation. It's canon.

[khbrown]

So the same would apply, in reverse, to a situation where the fans have speculated a character in a show is gay and its creator has denied that? Because then I think that's going to limit any search for gay characters in older media.

For example - and I don't know if this is the case - suppose George Takei says his portrayal of Sulu was influenced by his sexuality, that the crew of the Enterprise might have been multi-ethnic but it was otherwise heterosexual, but Gene Roddenberry were to have made no mention of Sulu's gayness?

[laserboy]

No, I think that's the divide between fan fun and fact. I think ultimately the buck stops with the creator.

I can appreciate what you're driving at though, but I don't think it necessarily fits here.

On a slight tangent, have you seen The Celluloid Closet? I'd definitely recommend the documentary over the book for the value of seeing the clips yourself. Very interesting stuff.
http://www.theskinny.co.uk/article/45701-the-celluloid-closet

[erindubitably]

Ed is looking very Russian nowadays...

[laserboy]

Hello. :-)

I haven't seen Ed in ages, so we (all) must catch up soon before his paymasters pack him off to (spy in) Brighton.