Re: Re: :SPOILERS For next week's ep. plus rambling

[Miss Ellie <fanfic@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/2/02 6:48 PM, "Italiangirl" <Italiangirl1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> went above
and beyond their call of duty: >
> The problem with Willow losing Tara and then having a relationship with a man
> is not about bisexuality. It is not about political correctness. It is not
> about money, it is about the hundreds and hundreds of fans that went insane
> when Willow started seeing a woman to begin with. Fans that were vicious,
> ugly and negative about the relationship, about Willow's character, and
> ESPECIALLY about Tara's character, and then finally about Amber Benson
> herself.

There will always be shitty people in every fandom, who will say hateful and
awful things about one character or another. This is no reason to say 'No,
we can't do that storyline, because of this, this and this.' Most of the
true homophobes probably left after Willow and Tara went from subtext to
text anyway.

> And frankly, I'm not going to let the writers have their cake and eat it too.
> I have said this in other posts in other places, but I'll say it again here.
> They don't get to accept a bunch of accolades/awards from the feminist
> community for creating a strong, positive female hero...and then collect a
> bunch of accolades/awards from the GLBT community for portraying a positive,
> loving queer relationship....and then turn around later, when it all goes to
> hell, and say that their show isn't about issues and they don't care what the
> social implications are.

Writers shouldn't care how their show is perceived, from a social justice
organization standpoint. Reading the NOW report on the show earlier this
week made me laugh.

Taking all that into consideration makes for really bad art, as witnessed by
a lot of the shows that got good ratings. As soon as you start caring how
anybody will take your work, it has been compromised and is pretty much
useless.

Political statements can be a great thing, but when they overshadow the
show, they're getting in the way. I guess we will have to agree to disagree
on this, I still don't understand though why the words of insane bigots
should dictate where the writers take the show.

To quote Joss, "Not killing off Tara because she's a lesbian would be
equally homophobic as killing her off because she is a lesbian."

> And like it or not, there are very negative social
> implications for Willow dating a man or not being a lesbian on the show
> anymore.

Could you please explain what those implications would be?

Cheers,
Ellie