Willow snapping wasn't automatically homophobic because she happened to be gay. It was the specific way the writers did it. I think "Dead/Evil Lesbian Cliché" is the term. Steven D Knight (writer, "Seeing Red") even went onto a Willow and Tara fan board and apologised.
Link to the apology, please? I bet he wasn't actually saying 'sorry for being homophobic.'
You know, Evil Lesbian does exist as a cliche. But was she evil because she was a lesbian? Er, no.
No. But if Mr Racist Badguy was combined with a stack of racial and Uncle Tom clichés, it could have unfortunate implications. Context is everything. When Mal from Firefly rolled into Buffy season seven as part of the Whedon welfare check service, the women-hating nut of a preacher gave no unfortunate implications, because the context was different.
No. Several episodes into the next
season after he'd gone and got his sould back so was a different person.
I'm sure they critics have watched a few episodes. I think they're exaggerating their love for the show, based on the fact that their write-ups tend to be formulaic and stacked with clichés. The cheerleader comment was de rigueur in the Grauniad's "G2" TV pages during later seasons, along with mentioning that the show was set in a high school years after the Buffster had left for (and then dropped out of) college. Don't know if these are online. Will look, later.
You know, I don't think the TV listings in G2 were written by TV critics.
They are, sadly, appropriate for the setting, and an intrinsic part of the story, just as a drama set in the antebellum South is going to feature some less than enlightened attitudes to black Americans. Warren was not an intrinsic part of Buffy, and neither was the nasty relationship they forced on Buffy in season six, which was played variously for laughs, kinks, and drama. I don't for a minute think the Buffy writers intended any of the implications we got. That's what makes them unfortunate.
Put it like this: no one complains that Mississippi Burning features racist characters. But some do complain that it has a bunch of heroic white g-men ride in from up North to save the day. Not because the writers are evil racists, but because it has unfortunate implications.
Thanks for making my point for me. Having women and lesbians mistreated was appropriate for the setting of OANTOF. Having everyone treated terribly was appropriate for the setting of Buffy. It's stupid to complain about characters being hurt and killed in a TV series which is about fighting vampires and other evil beings.
Imagine an alternative universe where all the genders in Buffy were reversed. We'd have a strong young man destined to save the world, a young man who's hot and witty as well as practically invincible. Every generation has a man like who saves the world.
He's guided by a stereotypical mother figure who gets knocked out almost every episode and has to be rescued several times. This woman is part of a group that's almost all female and matriarchal. When the male star is no longer as dependent on this mother character she loses her identity and turns to drink. Her BF is killed in a very sexual way. She only becomes strong again once the male character needs her again.
His male best friend is a boy who's nerdy but brilliantly clever, especially at science and maths, and adept at magic - so good that he becomes one of the most powerful magicians in the world. He comes out as gay, which is a huge deal for the type of show, and his relationship is one of the most loving in the show with his BF being a major character too. When his boyfriend gets killed, by a woman who hates men, he turns bad for a single episode. He then controls his magic and stays strong and capable and finishes the season happily in love with another man.
His other best friend is a girl who's nerdy, not good at school stuff, gets hurt a lot, and is so helpless that there's a whole episode about him being the weakest one of the group and that fact is brought up several times in the series. Every time she thinks about kissing a boy, that boy turns out to be bad and tries to kill her. She heartlessly dumps her husband to be and is later blinded. She finises the series weakened, blind, single and depending on her 'heart' for her role in the group.
Then there's the main character's vampire GF. In her human life, she was a drunken slut who lost her soul when she went off to have sex with a stranger. Now, if she has sex, she turns evil. If she stays away from sex, she's a really good person, one of the greatest heroes in the world. The main male star kills her by sticking his big sword in her.
And so on. Sounds a bit misogynistic, doesn't it?
Buffy was the opposite of misogynistic and homophobic.
I was referring to Dark Willow, afterwards. Sorry for any confusion.
There's not much of a similarity. Willow goes bad. Jean Grey has an alternative bad persona. Their hair colour changes. That's about it. Note that the TV series didn't call her DarkWillow - that was the fans. And it's still not homophobic.
