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Post by williamtheb on Mar 8, 2011 22:44:33 GMT -5
Baunger: That was a really great post! And it's true that the chip starts its work on Spike immediately. It's as if all that it requires is one failure for William to start peeking out.
Spring: On the question of Willow's gayness.... I think I buy her sexuality. I’ll start off that I do think Willow’s sexuality is fluid, and she can be attracted to men; I know some people who were in many relationships with one gender before realizing that they strongly preferred another gender. And I think a lot of Willow’s “gay now!” declarations aren’t so much about saying that she can never be attracted to men, but a) reassuring people that she’s not going to go after Xander again, and b) reveling in a new identity. So I don’t think that Willow was ever…completely not attracted to Xander, or Oz. But I think the show does, at least in retrospect, make sense of her preferring women later in the series. One of the big things that I realized on a rewatch is how…tactile her first connection with Tara was, in Hush, when they locked hands to move the vending machine. It’s so very physical. In I Robot, You Jane, Willow falls for Malcolm via the computer. It’s a spell, yes. But she also really does believe you can fall in love with someone without seeing them…her initial view of romance is very…divorced from physicality. Willow seems like the type who mostly read about relationships rather than having any models of them (and her parents didn't seem to be very involved in her upbringing).
And I think to a degree that’s what’s going on with Xander, and then with Oz. It’s not that the physical passion is absent. She enjoys sex with Oz in early season four, and she enjoys kissing Xander, in these episodes. But it comes much later with Xander and Oz. With Xander, she has been fantasizing about their life together for years at the beginning of the show—and in some ways, because he doesn’t show interest in her, he’s almost a…a “safe” option for her. And with Oz, their initial connection is intellectual. And she’s very concerned with the…rules, for lack of a better term, when it comes to dating Oz. She wants a boyfriend; he not only asks her out but tells her he’s going to ask her out; she keeps going to Buffy to find out what’s expected of her at different stages in the relationship; the first time she tries to sleep with him, it’s to try to prove to him that she loves him, more so than that she actually knows that she wants to. She does love Oz and she wants to be with him, but I think she also goes out with him in part because it’s something she’s expected to do. Willow is obsessed with the rules—she either needs to follow them, or gets a thrill from subverting them, but she is always very concerned with them. And with Oz, I think she was very concerned with appropriate high school behaviour, which included dating. With Tara, their connection springs up without any expectation, initially, that they will date, or even that it’s a possibility, and the passion comes without any effort. It’s not that I think Willow/Oz is not believable as a heterosexual relationship, or that it was unhealthy, because (for the most part) it was healthy, and they did love each other. But Willow/Tara plays differently than Willow/Oz, with more physicality right from their first encounter, that it’s believable to me that Willow prefers women, and more organically relates to women romantically. And it's believable that Willow-in-general would be self-deceived about her sexuality, because she's often self-deceived.
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Post by SpringSummers on Mar 9, 2011 21:19:35 GMT -5
Baunger: That was a really great post! And it's true that the chip starts its work on Spike immediately. It's as if all that it requires is one failure for William to start peeking out. Spring: On the question of Willow's gayness.... I think I buy her sexuality. I’ll start off that I do think Willow’s sexuality is fluid, and she can be attracted to men; I know some people who were in many relationships with one gender before realizing that they strongly preferred another gender. And I think a lot of Willow’s “gay now!” declarations aren’t so much about saying that she can never be attracted to men, but a) reassuring people that she’s not going to go after Xander again, and b) reveling in a new identity. So I don’t think that Willow was ever…completely not attracted to Xander, or Oz. But I think the show does, at least in retrospect, make sense of her preferring women later in the series. One of the big things that I realized on a rewatch is how…tactile her first connection with Tara was, in Hush, when they locked hands to move the vending machine. It’s so very physical. In I Robot, You Jane, Willow falls for Malcolm via the computer. It’s a spell, yes. But she also really does believe you can fall in love with someone without seeing them…her initial view of romance is very…divorced from physicality. Willow seems like the type who mostly read about relationships rather than having any models of them (and her parents didn't seem to be very involved in her upbringing). And I think to a degree that’s what’s going on with Xander, and then with Oz. It’s not that the physical passion is absent. She enjoys sex with Oz in early season four, and she enjoys kissing Xander, in these episodes. But it comes much later with Xander and Oz. With Xander, she has been fantasizing about their life together for years at the beginning of the show—and in some ways, because he doesn’t show interest in her, he’s almost a…a “safe” option for her. And with Oz, their initial connection is intellectual. And she’s very concerned with the…rules, for lack of a better term, when it comes to dating Oz. She wants a boyfriend; he not only asks her out but tells her he’s going to ask her out; she keeps going to Buffy to find out what’s expected of her at different stages in the relationship; the first time she tries to sleep with him, it’s to try to prove to him that she loves him, more so than that she actually knows that she wants to. She does love Oz and she wants to be with him, but I think she also goes out with him in part because it’s something she’s expected to do. Willow is obsessed with the rules—she either needs to follow them, or gets a thrill from subverting them, but she is always very concerned with them. And with Oz, I think she was very concerned with appropriate high school behaviour, which included dating. With Tara, their connection springs up without any expectation, initially, that they will date, or even that it’s a possibility, and the passion comes without any effort. It’s not that I think Willow/Oz is not believable as a heterosexual relationship, or that it was unhealthy, because (for the most part) it was healthy, and they did love each other. But Willow/Tara plays differently than Willow/Oz, with more physicality right from their first encounter, that it’s believable to me that Willow prefers women, and more organically relates to women romantically. And it's believable that Willow-in-general would be self-deceived about her sexuality, because she's often self-deceived. I had no problem "buying" Willow and Tara. Tara was well written and well cast. Willow was hurting from her experience with Oz - and there was Tara . . . beautiful, warm, and loving. And I had no trouble believing that Willow felt a sexual attraction to her to the extent that she indulged that attraction, and fell in love with Tara. We had gotten some indications in Doppelganger that Willow's sexuality may include lesbianism. She was very young, so it's not unusual for such a young person not to be sure of her sexuality and as you say, Willow just generally came off as someone who worried about rules and what others thought of her, and who didn't know herself very well - or allow herself to "be herself." But Willow's sexual attraction to Xander and Oz just came off as very real and natural to me. Yes, she had layered "the usual" HS insecurities on top of it all, but still . . . she was crushing on Xander, not Buffy or Cordy. She fell for Oz, not Veruca. And I remember that we were clearly to believe Willow was GAY, not BI . . . so that's where I had a little trouble. I didn't get that feeling of artificiality that I remember from HS friends who later came out as gay (happened with both a male and female classmate). Having said all that - it isn't a huge deal to me. I mean, I was willing to suspend disbelief and buy-in. But with "character issues" like that, "suspending disbelief" wasn't something I ever before had to do with Joss. |
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Post by baunger1 on Mar 10, 2011 11:06:06 GMT -5
For me, Willow's being gay seems very natural, for all the reasons discussed by williamtheb. Willow's attraction to men in the past was legitimate; she may have had a perfectly satisfying sexual relationship with Oz; and she may still find men sexually attractive. But she prefers women, and after her first experience with a woman, wants to be with women exclusively. I don't think it's unusual that a person who feels this way chooses to identify as gay rather than bi.
I agree about the immediate physicality of Willow and Tara's relationship, as distinguished from her relationship with Oz. There aren't a lot of scenes depicting the sexual relationship between Oz and Willow, and when we see them behaving sexually with eachother, I don't feel a ton of heat. (This may just be me). I think they have a wonderful relationship, and really love eachother, but the foundation is more about intellectual compatibility, mutual support, and appreciation of eachother's quirky personalities. With Tara, the relationship generates much more heat, even when their sex is only depicted metaphorically. And, in addition to the immediate physical connection between Willow and Tara, there is also an immediate spiritual connection; two bodies and two souls coming together in a very powerful way.
The foreshadowing of Willow's sexuality in Dopplegangland is also pretty significant, since I think that episode very explicitly tells us a great deal about future Willow, beyond her sexual preference.
Also, I've been thinking about the previous comments regarding the Xander/Willow relationship arising out of a fear of where their "adult" relationships are leading. I hadn't thought about this before, but I really like this idea and it makes a lot of sense to me. Xander's primary example of an adult relationship is his parents -- a pretty horrific spectre -- and his fear that that's what an adult relationship means clearly is the root of his relationship-sabotaging behavior later. So it makes sense that he might be engaging in the same kind of behavior here. And for Willow, it makes sense that her nervousness about what the "werewolf" wants from her causes her turn instead to "the wacky cartoon dog."
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Post by williamtheb on Mar 10, 2011 18:43:40 GMT -5
Baunger: That was a really great post! And it's true that the chip starts its work on Spike immediately. It's as if all that it requires is one failure for William to start peeking out. Spring: On the question of Willow's gayness.... I think I buy her sexuality. I’ll start off that I do think Willow’s sexuality is fluid, and she can be attracted to men; I know some people who were in many relationships with one gender before realizing that they strongly preferred another gender. And I think a lot of Willow’s “gay now!” declarations aren’t so much about saying that she can never be attracted to men, but a) reassuring people that she’s not going to go after Xander again, and b) reveling in a new identity. So I don’t think that Willow was ever…completely not attracted to Xander, or Oz. But I think the show does, at least in retrospect, make sense of her preferring women later in the series. One of the big things that I realized on a rewatch is how…tactile her first connection with Tara was, in Hush, when they locked hands to move the vending machine. It’s so very physical. In I Robot, You Jane, Willow falls for Malcolm via the computer. It’s a spell, yes. But she also really does believe you can fall in love with someone without seeing them…her initial view of romance is very…divorced from physicality. Willow seems like the type who mostly read about relationships rather than having any models of them (and her parents didn't seem to be very involved in her upbringing). And I think to a degree that’s what’s going on with Xander, and then with Oz. It’s not that the physical passion is absent. She enjoys sex with Oz in early season four, and she enjoys kissing Xander, in these episodes. But it comes much later with Xander and Oz. With Xander, she has been fantasizing about their life together for years at the beginning of the show—and in some ways, because he doesn’t show interest in her, he’s almost a…a “safe” option for her. And with Oz, their initial connection is intellectual. And she’s very concerned with the…rules, for lack of a better term, when it comes to dating Oz. She wants a boyfriend; he not only asks her out but tells her he’s going to ask her out; she keeps going to Buffy to find out what’s expected of her at different stages in the relationship; the first time she tries to sleep with him, it’s to try to prove to him that she loves him, more so than that she actually knows that she wants to. She does love Oz and she wants to be with him, but I think she also goes out with him in part because it’s something she’s expected to do. Willow is obsessed with the rules—she either needs to follow them, or gets a thrill from subverting them, but she is always very concerned with them. And with Oz, I think she was very concerned with appropriate high school behaviour, which included dating. With Tara, their connection springs up without any expectation, initially, that they will date, or even that it’s a possibility, and the passion comes without any effort. It’s not that I think Willow/Oz is not believable as a heterosexual relationship, or that it was unhealthy, because (for the most part) it was healthy, and they did love each other. But Willow/Tara plays differently than Willow/Oz, with more physicality right from their first encounter, that it’s believable to me that Willow prefers women, and more organically relates to women romantically. And it's believable that Willow-in-general would be self-deceived about her sexuality, because she's often self-deceived. I had no problem "buying" Willow and Tara. Tara was well written and well cast. Willow was hurting from her experience with Oz - and there was Tara . . . beautiful, warm, and loving. And I had no trouble believing that Willow felt a sexual attraction to her to the extent that she indulged that attraction, and fell in love with Tara. We had gotten some indications in Doppelganger that Willow's sexuality may include lesbianism. She was very young, so it's not unusual for such a young person not to be sure of her sexuality and as you say, Willow just generally came off as someone who worried about rules and what others thought of her, and who didn't know herself very well - or allow herself to "be herself." But Willow's sexual attraction to Xander and Oz just came off as very real and natural to me. Yes, she had layered "the usual" HS insecurities on top of it all, but still . . . she was crushing on Xander, not Buffy or Cordy. She fell for Oz, not Veruca. And I remember that we were clearly to believe Willow was GAY, not BI . . . so that's where I had a little trouble. I didn't get that feeling of artificiality that I remember from HS friends who later came out as gay (happened with both a male and female classmate). Having said all that - it isn't a huge deal to me. I mean, I was willing to suspend disbelief and buy-in. But with "character issues" like that, "suspending disbelief" wasn't something I ever before had to do with Joss. Yeah, I do understand what you mean. To be honest though the only time where I'm actually skeptical is in Him, where Willow et al. act as if it's impossible for her to be attracted to a man. I have a hard time taking that episode seriously to begin with though, so I largely ignore it. The other times Willow emphasizes her being exclusively attracted to women are usually in context of interactions with/around Xander--she does it in Triangle to reassure Anya that she won't go after Xander, and in Hell's Bells as a joke. I think Willow does, once iwth Tara, decide that she does genuinely prefer women, and it's who she's more attracted to, and so the "gay" label she takes on fits. But I think she probably has bisexual leanings. Willow in general works actively at constructing her identity, though, and I think her discovery that she is attracted to women makes her want, particularly, to empashize that, to distinguish herself from the nerdy, loser who couldn't get a (male) date for so many years. So really I don't think I'm so far from your position. To a degree, I think there is something a *bit* more artificial about her sexual attraction to Xander and Oz than to Tara...but only a bit. And Willow is so self-deceived that I don't think she would really know it, if she did have a crush on Buffy or Cordelia or Veruca. Also, what baunger1 said!  I agree that that there is a bit of an absence of heat with Willow and Oz. They have real chemistry as a couple, don't get me wrong, but I can't think of any scenes that had the same charge as the various Willow & Tara scenes in season four, and (more problematically, given Tara's lack of consent) in season six. To some extent, this is related to what was shown on screen, so it's hard to really say definitively--Willow and Tara had many more "love" scenes than Willow and Oz did. It's not like Willow and Oz were a...deliberately unsexy couple, like (say) Buffy and Riley were. |
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Post by SpringSummers on Mar 10, 2011 20:53:19 GMT -5
For me, Willow's being gay seems very natural, for all the reasons discussed by williamtheb. Willow's attraction to men in the past was legitimate; she may have had a perfectly satisfying sexual relationship with Oz; and she may still find men sexually attractive. But she prefers women, and after her first experience with a woman, wants to be with women exclusively. I don't think it's unusual that a person who feels this way chooses to identify as gay rather than bi. I agree with all you say here. Maybe it is more Willow's approach than anything else, that rings false - there are a couple of times where she acts like "Hey, GAY!!!" as if it were some kind of impossibility that she could be legitimately attracted to men. I can't buy that, and I thought I was supposed to. But maybe I wasn't? I guess I can buy Willow insisting on a sort of "pure Gayness" even if it isn't true. I mean, the girl does NOT like ambiguity. Agree that Tara was Willow's most smokin' relationship. Very true. Wacky cartoon dog . . . hello to the imagery!  |
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Post by SpringSummers on Mar 10, 2011 21:12:43 GMT -5
I had no problem "buying" Willow and Tara. Tara was well written and well cast. Willow was hurting from her experience with Oz - and there was Tara . . . beautiful, warm, and loving. And I had no trouble believing that Willow felt a sexual attraction to her to the extent that she indulged that attraction, and fell in love with Tara. We had gotten some indications in Doppelganger that Willow's sexuality may include lesbianism. She was very young, so it's not unusual for such a young person not to be sure of her sexuality and as you say, Willow just generally came off as someone who worried about rules and what others thought of her, and who didn't know herself very well - or allow herself to "be herself." But Willow's sexual attraction to Xander and Oz just came off as very real and natural to me. Yes, she had layered "the usual" HS insecurities on top of it all, but still . . . she was crushing on Xander, not Buffy or Cordy. She fell for Oz, not Veruca. And I remember that we were clearly to believe Willow was GAY, not BI . . . so that's where I had a little trouble. I didn't get that feeling of artificiality that I remember from HS friends who later came out as gay (happened with both a male and female classmate). Having said all that - it isn't a huge deal to me. I mean, I was willing to suspend disbelief and buy-in. But with "character issues" like that, "suspending disbelief" wasn't something I ever before had to do with Joss. Yeah, I do understand what you mean. To be honest though the only time where I'm actually skeptical is in Him, where Willow et al. act as if it's impossible for her to be attracted to a man. Yep. I can buy that she is "more attracted to women," so gay fits as a label. But I have to say . . . the way it played for me, and I can't completely say why, Willow's attraction to Tara seemed to be so much about TARA. Talk about lack of sizzle: I got zero genuine sizzle between Willow and Kennedy. That is part of what added to my discomfort with the idea of thinking of Willow as believably gay . . . I believed Willow was attracted to Xander and to Oz and to Tara. . . but Kennedy? Yes, well put. This is what I was getting at above in my response to baunger, when I said that I could see Willow having to decide she's either homo or hetero . . . and nothing inbetween. Her indentity is too fragile to handle ambiguity, I think. You know, Spike really wasn't 100% wrong, when he deliberately suggested, in The Yoko Factor, that Willow was "just being trendy." He was playing on everyone's insecurities that day. Yes, Willow could have an attraction to Buffy, etc., and not been able to realize it. When you talk artificial though - Kennedy tops 'em all. Maybe Willow and Kennedy were . . . deliberately unsexy? Was it supposed to be sexy, but failed to be? Or was it more like Buffy and Riley - never supposed to be sizzlin' . . . in fact, the lack of sizzle and the artificial feel was sort of what B/R was all about. I don't know. I haven't seen S7 in so long, I barely remember Kennedy. I just remember how hard it was to buy Willow and Kennedy. |
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Post by baunger1 on Mar 11, 2011 14:20:42 GMT -5
As you both point out, Willow has very deliberately created a specific and powerful identity in an attempt to eradicate her past self; as a result, any sense of ambiguity about "who she is" may feel very threatening to her. So I agree that this may be, in part, why she feels the need to make declarations about how she defines herself.
And Spring, I love your observation about Spike exploiting this in the Yoko Factor. Of course Spike would pick up on this -- not only because he's so perceptive about human frailty, but because he's done the exact same thing for the exact same reasons, and often feels and behaves the exact same way.
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Post by williamtheb on Mar 11, 2011 21:28:24 GMT -5
Yep. I can buy that she is "more attracted to women," so gay fits as a label. But I have to say . . . the way it played for me, and I can't completely say why, Willow's attraction to Tara seemed to be so much about TARA. I think that's very true--and Willow even says as much, in The Killer in Me, that she didn't decide she liked women so much as woman. Which brings us to: I think that there is a bit of a lack of sizzle there, yeah. Somehow it doesn't bother me much, though I can't justify it fully. That said, Kennedy really was meant to be a very different kind of relationship. More on this in a sec. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I don't think Willow feel for Tara out of trendiness. But it doesn't hurt, does it, that this helps further rewrite her identity? And that she gets to show everyone how much she's changed. I think Willow can handle ambiguity better in season seven in general--she is more able to accept that there is dark in her, less harsh and judgmental of Anya and Faith etc. But considering how much she had to reevaluate about herself after the end of season six, it makes sense that deciding whether she's actually bi would take a back seat. To a degree, I'd say yes. I don't think that it was supposed to be "unsexy" in the same way as B/R was. But I think it was supposed to be...low key, in comparison to Tara. Maybe it's more that I think it was supposed to be emotionally not as overwhelming. Xander was a bit of a fantasy, Oz was a loving boyfriend, Tara a great, love-of-her-life type deal (from her perspective). I think Kennedy was meant to be someone Willow could date and lean on and support and have sex with, without any real expectation of forever. Which is a little like what B/R was for Buffy: fun, but not a "long haul" deal. Nothing in the portrayal of W/K suggested Kennedy was supposed to be the "long haul" girl, and Kennedy, for her part, told Willow pretty quickly that she had dated lots of women before, so this wasn't (necessarily) a big huge deal for her either. That said--I do think that a lack of...emotional chemistry...may have been intentional, but a lack of physical chemistry wasn't. So I don't have much defense as far as the lack of physical sizzle goes! |
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Post by dianthus on Oct 27, 2013 13:07:21 GMT -5
In rereading your analysis of Lovers Walk, I'm surprised there's something you didn't mention, given that you see so much.
Spike, hunched over in pain with his hand pressed to his forehead (a pose that will become very familiar), delivering the line:
"Oi, my head. Think I'm soberin' up."
Holy Foreshadowing, Batman!
The chip has its role to play, but I'm really starting to think "It was that truce with Buffy that did it."
It's the beginning of the end for Spike and Dru, his Dark Princess. The darkness is lifting, allowing some light to creep in.
In The Harsh Light of Day, Spike is looking for the Gem of Amara, something Giles refers to as a sort of 'Holy Grail' for vampires. Spike is on a Grail Quest for the Gem that will allow him to walk in the (sun)light. He wants the light.
Buffy takes it from him, and gives it to Angel, who ends up rejecting it (choosing to stay in the shadows). Spike then fastens on Buffy's Light. She'll take that away from him too. Finally, he decides he needs to go get his own Light, one that no one can take from him.
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I agree that that there is a bit of an absence of heat with Willow and Oz. They have real chemistry as a couple, don't get me wrong, but I can't think of any scenes that had the same charge as the various Willow & Tara scenes in season four, and (more problematically, given Tara's lack of consent) in season six. To some extent, this is related to what was shown on screen, so it's hard to really say definitively--Willow and Tara had many more "love" scenes than Willow and Oz did. It's not like Willow and Oz were a...deliberately unsexy couple, like (say) Buffy and Riley were.
