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

["Piper Rhiannon" <childeofdarla@xxxxxxx>]

--- In buffywantswillow@y..., danspector@w... wrote:
> Oh, 
> 
> sorry
> 
> to 
> 
> have 
> 
> lost 
> 
> you
> 
> because 
> 
> I 
> 
> was 
> 
> vaguing 
> 
> things 
> 
> up
> 
> and
> 
> didn't
> 
> want 
> 
> to
> 
> bother 
> 
> making 
> 
> Spoiler Space,
> 
> Molly.

LOL. It was 4 am when I replied so that could have helped my 
getting lost. 

> 
> The quote I'm referring to is Joss saying that he couldn't NOT 
kill Tara
> because she was gay, because that would be just as bad as 
killing her
> because she was gay.

But he didn't kill her BECAUSE of her sexuality. He claims that 
Tara was created to die, that she and Willow were never 
supposed to be involved, and that her death was necessary for 
this braindead EvilWillow storyline. It's stupid, but it's not 
homophobic. The man kills everyone for his pet plot bunnies. 
Nobody cried racism when Kendra and Forrest died. Or if they 
did, thank god I missed it. Mothers, lovers, best friends, worst 
enemies, gay men, authority figures...everyone can die on Buffy. 
Not unlike the real world. 

> reducing the gay population of
> the show to Andrew the evil, incompetent, virgin dork 
throwaway

Um, since when is it maintext that Andrew is gay? I remember 
him being very enthusiastic about "bazoomas" but aside from 
that I don't remember his role as having ANY set sexual 
orientation. Shit, I barely remember his character having a NAME 
until midway through the season. 

> I need to have freedom to call blacks 'nigger' (or in Joss's
> case, to kill my gay character and make my Jewish characters 
immoral
> weaklings, while glorifying my steadfast Christian men, 
including Crayon Christ Boy Xander), or else YOU'RE the bigot, 
not me." 

Oh please. The storylines have NOTHING to do with race. 
Willow is Jewish? Do any of the viewers who joined after S3 
even KNOW these peoples' religious orientations? Xander was 
Willow's best friend since PRESCHOOL. Yeah, the crayon thing 
was horribly, horribly stupid and the lamest way ever of stopping 
the world, but unil Tara and Oz, there was nobody Willow loved 
more in the world, and I don't know that she loved him less. Yes, 
these storylines are ridiculous and have destroyed characters 
and have made no sense whatsoever, but Willow didn't "turn evil" 
because she's a gay (or bi, whatever) Jewish female. Faith was 
Christian, and she wasn't any more or less "evil" than Willow. Or 
we can assume she was as fast as we can Xander, since they 
both vaguely celebrated Christmas at one point. And Xander 
was (almost) married in a church. Hell, my family celebrates 
Christmas. I'm not Christian. 
My problem lies not with the people who say that Joss had some 
kind of alternagenda here. It's with people who insist that Tara 
died because lesbians are expendable, that Oz "doesn't count" 
because she's completely GAYGAYGAYGAY! Did Larry die 
because he was a homosexual? Did Kendra die because she 
was black? Did Jenny die because she was Romani? Did 
Maggie Walsh die because she was a woman? Well, that's 
honestly something only the writers will know. We will never truly 
know their motives. But I have seen no evidence to support such 
claims and I think people are being ridiculous in insisting that 
there's an agenda at work. 


> were ME's attempt to get us to invest more in W/T so that we 
would weep
> for Tara and believe that PsychoWillow was somehow in 
character. (Not
> only did this not work for me, it was counterproductive. 

I agree. They were cheap and mindless and I expected better. 
But I chalk it up to bad decisions and lack of thought, not racism, 
xenophobia, homophobia, whatever. 


> That said, I think that having Willow immediately go back to 
Boystown
> and making Tara just an unfortunate lesbian blip on her 
otherwise
> straight life would be grotesquely insulting, **particularly** 
since
> they tried to play our heartstrings by making W/T a thing of 
destiny and
> so on. I think if they ever were to put Willow back with a guy, 
she
> should first have a bad experience with a female (Anya, 
perhaps?) and
> then come to the conclusion that what she loved about Tara 
was the
> person, not the gender. 

I don't know, I always felt that that was always the truth. She 
loved Oz because he was Oz. She loved Tara because she was 
Tara. I do see what you mean about having her immediately fall 
for a boy. It might be nodding to the audience that ran screaming 
when Willow 'turned gay.' But considering that this episode is a 
cheap reproduction of Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, and 
Willow's feelings are born of spell and not anything genuine in 
her emotions, I don't see how it's necessary to transform the 
poor fucker, unless he's going for an elaborate sight gag.

And in the end to me, as much as I love arguing and writing and 
crying with these characters, it's just television and I don't feel 
that it owes me anything but entertainment if it doesn't profess to 
be fact. If I felt that Joss really found "those people" to be inferior 
or more dispensable than others, I'd be royally pissed. But I 
don't feel that way.