Ah, Willow. Well, to start with, I love Willow. I think she's awesome. I love how she blossoms from the painfully shy geek girl to the outgoing, awesome geek woman, and I love how she does it through her relationships with other people - she sacrifices so much for Buffy, and her friendship with Giles (with whom she has a lot in common) is so nicely done, and the way her love for Xander matures over time. And then there's Oz. Oz is great. Her relationship with Oz is great, because you see how that contributes to her growth, too.
And then comes Tara, and even that's awesome - "New Moon Rising", where she picks Tara over him, is also nuanced and nice. But after that? This lovely complex character is just squished under magic, and "gay now!". The way she denies everything that came before Tara and her magic - well, not her, exactly, but the way she's written, makes her a completely different person from what she was. And maybe it's my personal bias, but I can't help but feel they could have done it much better by acknowledging that Willow is queer, but also acknowledging that she did love Xander and Oz. I mean, why the fear of casting Willow as bisexual? Her queerness didn't have to deny her history, and her magic use didn't have to obliterate all her other features. I just feel we were short-changed with her.
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ninetydegrees
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on 2009-04-06 04:24 pm (UTC)And then comes Tara, and even that's awesome - "New Moon Rising", where she picks Tara over him, is also nuanced and nice. But after that? This lovely complex character is just squished under magic, and "gay now!". The way she denies everything that came before Tara and her magic - well, not her, exactly, but the way she's written, makes her a completely different person from what she was. And maybe it's my personal bias, but I can't help but feel they could have done it much better by acknowledging that Willow is queer, but also acknowledging that she did love Xander and Oz. I mean, why the fear of casting Willow as bisexual? Her queerness didn't have to deny her history, and her magic use didn't have to obliterate all her other features. I just feel we were short-changed with her.