Buffy also has sex with a girl in the comics. Twice. She continues to identify as straight and the word "bisexual" is not even so much as mentioned. I love Buffy, but goddamn.
Victoria Rodríguez I'm not saying that it's bad that she continues to identify as straight, I'm saying it's bad that she has sex with a girl twice and the term "bisexual" never comes up in discussion. Even individuals I know that have had experiences with the same sex/opposite sex still know what bisexual means and consider it valid, even if they don't identify with it. But neither Buffy or Willow so much as bring it up in conversation, even when questioning their sexualities. If they had, I would be okay with it, even if they still wound up being straight or gay. The fact that thy didn't leads me to believe that the writers know much about bisexuality, don't think it exists, or don't consider it a valid identity. Again, I'm not asking for representation, just acknowledgement.
Thank you for this! I never finished Buffy (I'm working on it!), but it really bothered me that Willow wasn't shown as bi/pan instead of gay. Her relationship with Oz was strong and it was interrupted by her INTENSE SEXUAL ATTRACTION to Xander..... I look forward to meeting Tara in the show and watching their relationship, but I'm glad that you addressed this.
To those who don't know that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is still being continued in graphic novel format. Officially the show is up to Season 10 now. I bring that fact up because, once again, bi erasure's happened again. During Season 8 in issue #12, Buffy sleeps with a fellow female slayer called Satsu. That incident really got a lot of people to believe, with good reason, Buffy was officially bisexual. Bi erasure mode was initiated starting in the issues that followed. The whole incident's practically been waved off as Buffy just experimenting and nothing more serious than that.
I would really love if you would do a second Buffy Needs More Gay, this time focusing on Faith and Buffy's relationship and characters. It's clear that they have an attraction, especially on Faith's side, that was heavily hinted out and almost canon (The First telling Faith she loves Buffy and so many, many other things that happened) but the writers never fully committed like they should have. And then in the comics Buffy sleeps with Satsu, and because all of her friends brush it off, she dumps her without considering if she could be anything other than straight. I think the way the show and comics handled Faith and Buffy is also an example of bisexual erasure (although I personally headcanon Faith as a lesbian). Joss Whedon and co. seems to have a hard time understanding that bisexuality is a thing imo.
I dont mean yo ruin your headcanom completely but Faith is at least also sexually attracted to men. (Poor Xander [one of the few times that phrase will ever pass my lips]) But there is definitely a sexual attraction subtext to Faith's interactions with buffy especially earlier on.
I recall reading an interview with the show's producers with them saying they intended Willow to be bisexual, but were not allowed to use that word by the studio. So they took their gay consolation prize and counted their blessings they could get away with that.
When I watched Buffy at the time I dident think about willow being bi but when I went through it my self that was one of the things I struggled with because I thought I had to be gay or straight.
In one of the episodes with the Buffy Bot, she looks at Willow and her stats show up. It mentions that Willow has been "gay since 1999." This is odd because Hush was the last episode to air in 1999 and it's the first episode where she met Tara. So Willow instantly turned gay in the same episode where everybody lost their voices, at the latest. Why they didn't just make her bisexual or leave it up to the audience to infer she is bi is strange.
Thank you! I can't tell you how many times I have had a discussion about Buffy which turned into me ranting about the way they handled the whole Willow situation. I love Buffy and I own all the seasons, but my favorite character was Willow. My favorite romance was the Willow and Oz romance. They were so good together. And, they really went out of their way to make Willow and Oz have that totally perfect, all consuming love vibe. So, even if they broke up and Willow fell in love with a girl next, to try and say she is a lesbian is ridiculous. You don't fake that kind of love. As a woman who identified as bi for a long time, this really really upset me and I felt like they were completely erasing Willow's history with stupid off the cuff remarks like that "gay now" bs. The reason it's a big deal is that they turned it into a black and white scenario. You're either gay or not. It made me feel unimportant and invisible. I would have preferred them to just not touch it at all and left her straight if they couldn't do it right. If they had plans to have a character question their sexuality and then come out, it should have been someone who had only superficial romances with the opposite sex at best.
I hate the notion that, as a bisexual, the gender of your current/long term relationship means you're suddenly gay or straight. Thanks for this video. :)
I mainly agree with you here. I always considered Tara, Willow's 'true love' if you like. She was someone who was beyond gender, because she and Willow clicked spiritually as well as physically. She fell in love with Tara the person, not Tara the girl. So I always considered Willow someone who fell in love with 'people' - which yeah, when they started really hammering it home that Willow was 'gay now' it was a bit of a narrowed thing to say, I thought. And then when she simply HAD to get with another woman after Tara that threw me a little - because it seemed then that Willow completely identified herself as gay, full-stop. But then, saying that, though I believe that people fall in love with people and that's how I view love myself, I would most definitely identify myself as gay rather than bi. Perhaps Willow just found it easier. "I'm with a girl now, therefore I shall identify as gay." Either way, the Willlow/Tara relationship was ballsy for the time and you have to give Joss credit for getting around those 'BAHGAYTOUCHINGBADDDDD' censor people by using metaphors to illustrate certain things in the first season of their onscreen romance... i:e: doing 'spells' uh huh
I can actually sort of relate to Willow (besides the fact that I am Wiccan and therefore a witch). I was raised around a moderate amount of homophobia, so I didn't even begin to accept that I might not be completely straight until I was almost 30 and had been married for several years. Now at 45 I am not 100% sure how to label myself. Calling myself a lesbian seems disrespectful to my ex-husband, and although he was very emotionally abusive during the time we were married, our post-divorce relationship has been reasonably pleasant. On the other hand, I'm not completely comfortable calling myself bisexual either, since I would be completely opposed to ever dating a man again, ever. So the idea that Willow might not have accepted her sexuality until she fell in love with Tara is something I can relate to.
it's not given much visibility, but you can kinda tell a few times that willow definitely still likes dudes, but because of tara, who's shy, insecure, and worried about losing willow, she really doesn't give that part of herself much room to breathe. I can fully believe willow would oversimplify it and just claim to gay, but she definitely also did it for tara's state of mind
I can't thank you enough for these vids on the subject of bisexuality- too often I feel that bisexuals are either ignored in favor of dichotomy or, if acknowledged at all, exploited for cheap fanservice. My sad deels aside, looking forward to more of your videos!
I know this post is late as hell, but I was an admin for a Willow/Tara fansite back in the day. Based on some (long lost) interviews and forum comments from the writers at the time, the writers wrote Willow as gay, and not bisexual, simply because at the time there was an _enormously ugly_ backlash against Willow/Tara from people who either just hated the idea of gay characters or specifically Willow/Oz fans who refused to accept that Seth Green had left the show to pursue a movie career. The barest hint of a whisper of an idea that Willow was bisexual caused huge flareups of "Yay, so Willow being with Tara is a temporary fling (or the result of an evil lesbian love spell cast on her by Tara, yes, this was a pretty prevalent theory at the time) and Willow will go back to Oz/boys in general!" on the forums and other social media that existed at the time, and that made the network execs that were already nervous about queer Willow (see also the huge fight Joss had abou twhen Willow and Tara could kiss) even more nervous. So the writers said "Fuck it...Willow is just gay. And she's gonna stay gay. The gay ain't going away. No more boys. Bite us.". I think bisexual erasure is a real problem, but the environment at the time was just so much cruder and more difficult to navigate for the writers, and they tried to make the best of a handful of flawed choices.
i feel you! i never really got into buffy but i watch glee (a horrible yet addicting show) and there was a character named brittany who identified as bisexual but her girlfriend santana completely dismissed the fact and now that santana has a new girlfriend in the sow she said that now she wouldn't have o worry about her girlfriend "straying for penis" as a bisexual it saddens me how poor our representation in populat media is, even in shows that are "progressive"
I have heard so much from those two communities about how the directors pull #nohomo games all the time over the community by purposely releasing content or (in supernatural's case) enacting scenes with a specific homoerotic twist, and then PROMOTING IT AS SUCH, only to pull the rug out from under you when the episode airs. As someone who has had that happen, that sucks, and I'm and steven moffat's kind of an ass. Sidenote: do you ever get squicked out by how many straight women fetishize fictional m/m relationships to almost grotesque amounts? I've noticed that what straight men do to Wlw in porn or other communities happens to Mlm from women in fanfiction or other categories, where they're reduced to sexualized fantasies, or the token 'Gay best friend' or otherwise made less than human, and its just.... Does that ever get to you? I mean, The few circles I visit, it feels like the topic isn't addressed as often as it should be, that women sometimes sexualize as much as men, and while women have resources for alternatives, (in porn, in fiction mediums) it makes me wonder if men have any alternatives or 'safe spaces' from places like that in fandom, away from the leagues of fetishizing sexism. Or are those just the loudest ones, and the ones who arn't like that arn't actually in such a small community?
leticia coogle I totally get what you're saying. There's so little queer representation in the media, directors doing things like this is just infuriating.
I think Willow referring to herself as 'gay now' is a bit of a simplification, but it makes sense if that was the best way for her to explain that for the moment, she would be looking exclusively for lady friends. I'm bisexual but will normally tell people that I'm a lesbian because I have a greater preference for women, and I don't like being viewed as a 'challenge' by the guys.
+Emily's Adventures In Horrorland The problem is that in that scene, willow is responding to anya who is affraid that willow will steal her boyfriend, xander, willow by responding that she is "gay now", its pretending she could never had an attraction to men again. DESPITE having genuine affection and attraction for 2 men before. And especially xander, a man she was attracted too while being in a couple with an other person (oz) and kissing xander while she was not supposed to. That's why the scene makes no sense, following your description you are a bissexual with preference for women. It's like if a girl told you that she is affraid that you will steal her boyfriend, if you want to reassure her, your arguments should not be that you are gay, because that would be responding "I cannot be attracted to your boyfriend because of my sexual orientation and therefore you should not be scared of me", especially if you have kissed the guy in question before and have been attracted to him for a long time. That's the very reason why that scene is an exemple of bissexual erasure.
joss made 4 TV shows and 6 movies and his only canon bi character is a sex worker, so I think that says all that needs to be said about his opinion of bisexuality. Also there is a rumor that Willow being gay and not bi was Joss trying to keep his lesbian audience after killing Tara, but that's just a rumor
amazingdrewH Assuming you're talking about Inara, was she even canonically bi? I haven't read the comics, so I don't know if it was addressed there. As far as the show is concerned, she sleeps with men and women because it's her job, but the only character we know she is personally attached to is a man. Someone needs to sit down with Joss and have a chat with him about bisexuality, y'know, existing.
I have a headcanon that Willow was in fact Bi, but had some trouble coming to terms with it for awhile. Being gay or lesbian is hard enough, but being an orientation that even gays and lesbians along with straight people can be not so kind to can be even harder, so she may have wanted to simplify things for a little while after she realized she did like women. So when she was with Tara and for awhile afterwards dismissed her feelings for Oz and Xander as comp het. Maybe even fearing her attraction to men made her relationship with Tara disingenuous. This would explain her kinda forced relationship with Kennedy, and needing to be reminded she was lesbian when she started to fall for a guy again, albeit because of a spell but still. However by the time she's in her 30s and LGBT people have more awareness and rights, Willow has come more to terms with who she is in and found a better label for herself. I could even see her and Oz finding their way back to each other, though Tara will always be her great love. But again it's only a headcanon so what do I know?
I definitely love this video and completely agree with the point you were making. But they did make a point to imply she might be gay or bisexual in season three before Tara ever was introduced. In the episode where her Doppleganger comes and makes a weirdly sexual pass on her, Willow mutters "I think I'm kinda gay" and Buffy tries to assure her that the alternate Willow's personality is nothing like her and Angel tries to step in and disagree. The writers definitely didn't execute her sexuality correctly and more than likely didn't go in thinking she'd become gay, but it's kinda nice that there was a hint of foreshadowing long before Tara came into the picture and stole our hearts.
Yes, I totally agree. It's really a shame too because a major theme of the show is how the good vs. evil dichotomy is a vast oversimplification, and in fact morality is much more complex and contains a lot of grey area. Really too bad the writers didn't think to show that sexuality is much the same way. But yeah, Buffy is the best and is damn near perfect and shall be treasured forever and ever.
Thank you for doing this! I use this as both examples of bisexual erasure and a positive lesbian romance when I do my "Safe Zone" training for my school.
also especially since they were gonna write for xander to be gay in season and guess they made several subtle references to it in the early seasons, but whedon decided to have Willow have a same sex partner out of nowhere I definitely see Willow as bi.
While I agree with most of what you are saying (changing Willow from implied bisexual to gay felt like a missed opportunity) the creators did say that from the very beginning either willow or Xander.was going to come out as gay, and there were hints both ways. Also, there are people that come out later in life even after dating an opposite gendered partner. All that said, how Willow was handled was annoying, and I hope more people become aware that bisexuality is a real thing
I just wanted you to know that I have been watching your videos for years (since back in ye olde Blip days), making you a very unusual exception in my homophobic upbringing. I always liked the way you broke down media and enjoyed learning more about the LGTBQ community, even though I was told to believe that being gay was wrong. This video in particular is one I kept coming back to. I never really knew why; I'd get a hankering to watch it again every now and then. A few days ago, I came out as bisexual, and this makes a whole lot more sense to me now. Thanks for all the work you've done over the years, and for introducing me to these topics. Escaping from indoctrination *is* possible, folks!
They do hint at Willow being attracted to women in the earlier seasons, in the episode where you see Willow as a vampire in an alternate reality. Willow even says at the episode something like 'I think I was kinda gay'. Also, Joss Whedon said that he did plan to make either Willow or Xander gay at some point. You're still completely right though, the completely miss the concept of bisexuality.
I see your point for sure. I think you're right that it mostly came down to the writers not fully understanding sexuality. But I still give them major points for pulling it off as well as they did.
I'm bisexual and only two of my closest friends (who are men, and that I was in relationships with in the past) know. My own family doesn't even know. When I think about it, I wonder if they even need to know. Personally I thin the only person that needs to know is whomever I'm in a relationship with. My fiance knows, so that's all that matters to me. I'm just the kind of person who doesn't like to put my personal business in my family's face and vice versa.
There’s also the fact that retconning straight characters as gay is a touchy issue in general. Take for example Renée Montoya who is awesome in general ,but in the original bible for Batman the Animated Series it said that she joined the police force to avenge her dead husband although its never mentioned on the show proper. It wasn’t until 10 years later that she cane out/was retconned as gay in the comics and it’s stuck since
In a society which does ignore bisexual people, it is bi erasure not to find reason to promote positive bisexual narratives. That said, some people do transition on the rare occasion. I've known gay guys who swore up and down that they were straight when they were teenagers but something in them changed. That said, to explore this idea over that of bisexuality which is less rare than these spontaneous transitions is bi erasure.
never really thought of it that way. very good point . side note, apparently its rumored that joss whedon made that choice as a response to male fans saying they liked willow especially cause she seemed like the girl you could actually get. further side note ive always thought buffy seemed so feminist it was almost sexist towards men . as to whether thats a good or a bad thing...
You are right, I love the show so much but there are still flaws I can´t overlook. Willow magically "turned gay" without considering her as bisexual is one of them. I don´t know what lead to this development. My suspision is that it was simply caused by lack of knowledge at the screenwriters side, I don´t think they made any huge discussion about it. It is as you said - either straight or gay. On the other hand, I think there might be some points if you want to prove that this is different case. Just to quickly name a few (Sorry, I just run to your video and had to reply, but I am not native speaker and in my country, there are 4 o´clocks at the mornig, so I will try to make it short:) ): - If Willow was a real person, it would be easy, she reffered to herself as being gay, so no discussion needed. But I agree that fictional characters are more complicated with this, especially when it looks like real "magicall" transition. - But maybe her, calling herself gay, is important from different perspective - as you mentioned - Buffy was show about characters, their actions and lives and so on and not so much about names and labels, it could be that Willow simply used this term, because she herself wasn´t "educated" enough. Bad word maybe, but just bear in mind, that she had her great first love with another women and it is not impossible that she simply consider herself to be gay, because in her perspective, she must be gay, if she loves a woman and there is no other way... Remember when she met her "vampire twin"? Vampire Willow was looking quite bisexual, well, actually she was looking "sexual", but the point is real Willlow was tallking about her with saying something about "her vampire double being kinda gay". So maybe she was - ehem, ehem - very wiselly and realistically written as bisexual character, who just don´t know yet that there is something like bisexual orientation. Or not. :) - Also, even when I wholeheartly agree with criticism of not even considering in the show bisexual orientation of Willow and I think I can understand how hard it must be to be bisexual (lot of "famous" sexuologist in my country claim there is no such thing and so on...), isn´t after all, this black and white use of sexuality in this concrete Tv show good thing? You see, as I said, there are real troubles that bisexual people had to face but ironically at the same time, I know quite a lot of people who are more willing to accept bisexuality ("at least for some time they are dating the right ones" and similar bulls***s) than person being gay. So I am thinking - maybe it is good thing, that they didn´t went this bisexual way but simply stated that Willow is gay, which allowed lot of gay persons to identify and feel empowered and respected and so on. Do you know what I mean or does it sound stupid? - Also when I am thinking about bisexuality in Buffy (and Angel), there are some characters which are not clearly stated as bisexual or gay, but they seems to be - take Lorne from Angel for example, there is no real sign of his sexual orientation but he looks like he could be bisexual without any issues. And there are others - Andrew came out as a gay in comics, but in TV, again, in Angel - he is in Rome and he is leaving to party with two girls. But I read somewhere, that he was supposed to leave with one girl and one boy and it didn´t happen only because Whedon wasn´t there and they messed it up. And so on and so on. So I am not sure, that they really ignore bisexuallity, but, sniff, I think I am simply to in love with the show to simply admit that creators of Buffy are sort of rigid in some ways. :) Still great great show, tho. And thank you for your video! PS: When it comes to gays in Buffy, you completely forgett to at least mention Larry Blaisdell - he was the football bully stereotype before his coming out as gay. His quote about him, "so out even [his] grandma was setting [him] up with guys," was great and he was also gay before it was cool (I mean before Willow :) ). Sorry for messy post, I hope it makes at least some sense. Nice video, keep up good work and good luck and everything!
Great points re:bi-erasure. I honestly hadn't given that specific point much consideration in that manner. I first watched the series when I was MUCH younger and as much as I enjoyed it, Willow's character did bother me. I liked her open representation, even though it seemed to ring a bit false to me. In the end I chalked it up to her being a teen and most of the time we think in extremes during that point of our lives. She WAS with a guy, NOW she's not. She WAS straight, NOW she's not, that basic logic. Right or wrong, it's the kind of thought process I've seen many people go through regarding their sexuality, teenager or mid-40's.
yes, even whedon said willow is bisexual but for that time they were scared that the audience would consider her relationship with tara as a phase so they avoided it
Personally, I thought Willow saying "gay now!" was more about her own journey of self discovery & confusion, trying to shove herself into a box of "cool gay witch" & ignore the old box of "mousy, quiet, pining after boys who don't give her the time of day-girl" that she used to be, reinventing herself after high school. More self-bi-erasure than external. But I guess that might just be me being generous to the writers, since none of the other characters really say, "hey, you might be bi". There's a few moments of implied gay-faking, like Tara questioning the relationship & Anya being jealous & worried about Xander, but yeah, no one brings up Bi.
I feel like they could have made her a lesbian struggling with compulsory heteronormativity and internalised lesbophobia, which could jave been very helpful since many people consider any woman who's been in relationships w/ men in the past or even called a man "cute" to be fakers if they later come out. However, they didn't. Really really didn't.
Tara/Willow was my first canon lesbian relationship in anything and I will treasure it forever and ever, but yes the magical transformation of "attracted to guys Willow" to "100% gay Willow" didn't make much sense.
I remember when I watched Buffy and got mad at Wlliow for not even consider beign bisexual. 🙄I watched Buffy for the first time just a year ago so I did not grow up with the show. But I loved it anyway except for how they handled Willow’s sexuality. I mean if they thought of making her gay they should have from the beginning.
It's not _necessarily_ a fault of the writers, because it is not at all unusual - certainly not back then - for bisexuals to identify as gay, and in a way renounce their past straight sexuality. Back then, more than now, coming out was a pretty big social investment. You'd be met with all sorts of attitudes, like "it's just a phase" or "you can choose to be straight". When Buffy's mom finds out that Buffy is a slayer, she asks, "have you tried _not_ to be a slayer?" An obvious metaphor. So when someone does take the plunge and comes out as gay, they certainly don't want to validate friends and family's suspicion that it _was_ just a phase, by going back to opposite sex relations later on. There'd be pretty strong pressures - from both "teams" - to pick a side. And bisexuality sort of had slutty connotations, as if it meant being a sexual omnivore with a voracious appetite. So there was a good deal of incentive to be loyal to one's new team once one came out. Sinead O'Connor used to describe herself as a lesbian, but later admitted that she was probably over-compensating when she said that. That's what I see Willow doing when she says, "hello, gay now".
I think it's shows like "Buffy" that have created a world where shows like "Flash", "Arrow" and "Legends of Tomorrow" can casually have gay characters. The police chief in "The Flash" (like his comic book version) is gay and it's mentioned like it's nothing. Before that, on "Arrow" we find out Sarah is either just discovered she's a lesbian or is bi and, again, it's nothing. Then we get Mr Terrific who is married to another man. Sarah continues on "Legends of Tomorrow" and it's still treated as not a big deal, even when she travels in the past (the whole being nearly burned at the stake in Salem aside). "Legends" also had a brief appearance by Obsidian (another gay in the comics character) whose sexuality is referenced as if it's no big deal (it's sad though because of the time he lived in, WW2, he didn't find his love until he was much older). Theses shows have really made being gay a non issue and I think that's how it should be. Not made any more of a big deal than another character being strait should. That is true equality right there.
eating raw faces is my least favorite thing to do. Well, they still (normally) run into hateful characters who represent that side of things but it's good that the core characters don't even bat an eye because it says that it's not weird or something to be ashamed of while other characters having the more expected reaction shows that not everyone is that enlightened. It's also good when gay and lesbian characters are about more than just being gay or lesbian and writers don't feel the need to constantly use it as a their only characteristic or the only plot point in their stories. What's been so great with "Flash" and their police Captain and "Arrow" and Mr. Terrific is it only comes up when it's natural. It doesn't feel forced it's just natural to the conversation and story. Like right now (spoilers) Mr Terrific is having issues at home and they're important for his character not just thrown in because.
There is this really funny episode where this guy that has a magic letterman jacket that makes all the main girls including willow into wanting to bang him, and so Buffy and dawn are like, but you're gay, so willow tries to turn rapey mcdouchebag into a girl, but while amusing it was a pretty big slap in the face to the obvious notion that willow is bi
honestly that would annoying the living crap out of me. But I remember that line Spike said..."I was never intimate with Angel...except that one time" I was like....wait..what? couldnt stop laughing
What do you think about The Winter Soldier? Sebastian Stan, for a while, was sort of typecast as the "sad gay prince" kind of character (Jack Benjamin in Kings, T.J. Hammond in Political Animals, and the crazy wtf warlock from The Covenant) but is starting to break that typecast as his popularity expands. There is a fairly large fanbase that headcanon Steve/Bucky, especially that Steve is Bisexual (and that Peggy Carter is Bi as well from the show Agent Carter) It's not my ship, but there is some powerful love between those two, whether it's brotherly/platonic, romantic/sexual, or whatever. Are you going to do a Captain America NMG on it? (I mean I swear, Stucky is freaking EVERY)
A lot of lesbians who have dealt with compulsory heterosexuality can completely relate to Willow. It's unfair to say that Willow must be bisexual when lesbians also have similar experiences, myself included. There isn't a character I relate to more. I've dated guys in the past because of compulsory heterosexuality and wanting to push back any attraction I had towards women. At the time I didn't know that, and I believed that I genuinely had feelings for those guys and wanted to be with them. It wasn't until some introspection that I realized my true feelings. That's why I wanted to empathize that Willow's character absolutely is relatable to lesbians as well. That's not to say it also isn't unfair the bisexuality isn't even considered a possibilty. But lesbians, bi, pan, and really any women who is attracted to women can all relate to Willow. Something interesting in this comment section though, is that just stating that, hey, Willow actually maybe could be a lesbian gets you a bunch of negative responses but saying she's bi only has lots of thumbs up and no dissenting comments. To me, Willow is a lesbian. If you want to say she's bi I'm not going to argue but to out right deny even the possibility of her being a lesbian, I'm sorry but that's just lesbophobia! And just the buffy fandom's (and society's in general) hatred of lesbians. Also, I don't see Willow's and Oz's relationship as completely positive, although admittedly it was better than my relationships with men. However I still care about my exes and wish then the best and stuff. Just because I care about my exes doesn't mean that I'm bi though! I'm a lesbian because I say that I'm a lesbian, I'm exclusively attracted to women. People can't use my past relationships to deny that I'm a lesbian just because they prioritize men and m/f relationships over women and f/f relationships.
It's called ThunderShield. Decent ship. And who cares what's close to canon. Steve x Clint is near canon in the comics. So are a bunch of things. He ships the beef cake blonds, power to him!
I totally get what you are saying! As a bi girl am always dissapointed by tv shows that totally ignore us and our identeties! However, I don‘t view willow as bisexual at all. I mean the writers handled her sexuality poorly and there should have been a conversation about bisexuality! but to me it is totally plausible that she is a lesbian, she obviously loved oz and she had a crush on giles but neither of these things mean she cannot be gay! I have a friend who is a lesbian, she was married for 5 years to her husband and she was head over heels for him until she discovered things about herself... i don’t know what happened before.. heteronormativity maybe? But yeah i can totally accept willow as gay... but it is inportant to talk about her sexuality and bi erasure (ahem buffy Summers ahem)..
Don't they have a few? Hulkling/Wiccan and Rictor/Shatterstar are canonical gay couples. Mystique and Daken are bisexual. Karolina Dean and Karma are lesbians.
Buffy was awesome. The bi Erasure is more of a less understanding of bisexuality. It was harder to swallow. I'm writing a bi gay love interest... Mostly because of this
Even though the kind of made it seem like Andrew was straight or bi curious..But Joss whedon confirmed l later that he was gay the fact that it's acknowledged after off the air.Was kind of disappointing and annoying I suppose.I know.evevm we knew why.. And said later also that he( Joss's) said he wanted a gay character that's why he pushed Willow as being gay the problem is I never agreed that Willow was gay .Willow was clearly bi.he clarified also later that Doyle was bi but I'm fairly sure that that came across even in the show Angel. Since Doyle had a huge crush on Angel and Cordelia...Also I'm fairly sure the books were very clear on who sired Spike it was Angel not Dru.and I'm fairly sure that he's even written in the comic books a bisexual undertone between Angel and Spike which kind of hit you over the head with a hammer when Buffy catches them kissing that's Spike and Angel.
Now logically I know that bisexuality exists .But I had a friend who told me that she was straight when she was with her husband and she was gay when she was with a girlfriend that's all I can tell you . Cindy nice girl. May not have believed in bisexuality weird since she technically was. But okay .
I wouldn't really say this is a case of bisexual erasure. She confirmed that she was gay in season 5, meaning she might of had enough time to conclude whether she was gay or bi.
3:28 Is where you start making quite a flawed argument. Willow's "gayness" did not just come out of nowhere. There were previous hints to her being gay. In S03E16 "Doppelgangland" Willow's doppelganger pretty much exclusively flirts with women. When she traps her doppelganger in the cage in the library and talks about seeing herself as a vampire, she looks at Buffy and goes: Willow: It's horrible. That's me as a vampire? I'm so evil and skanky. And I think I'm kind of gay. Buffy: Willow, just remember, a vampire's personality has nothing to do with the person it was. Angel (awkwardly): Well, actually -- *Willow and Buffy stare at him* Angel: -- that's a good point.
