Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Question: I’m sure you may have heard about the controversy regarding the "de-gaying" of the minor character of Zach on Heroes (it was treated by Michael Ausiello in his column last week). I had no problem accepting the character as gay, and it was a minor part of the show’s grand sweep anyway. While I fully agree that this is an embarrassing episode and was insulting to the intelligence of the show’s viewers (though apparently not creator Tim Kring’s fault), it does raise an interesting and politically incorrect question: Why is it utterly horrible to take a character that has been portrayed as gay and then suddenly decide that character is straight, but it is perfectly acceptable to do the opposite? I’m thinking of what Joss Whedon did to Willow on Buffy. In the first three seasons of the show, Willow was straight. She was unambiguously, decidedly straight, complete with a full-on sexual relationship with Oz and years of pining for Xander. Then suddenly, in the fourth season, she was gay. Why, in our politically correct culture, could we accept that as a brave move on Joss Whedon’s part, while doing the opposite is somehow discriminatory and bigoted? Wasn’t Joss Whedon lying to us as well, telling us that what Willow had with Oz and Xander was all a lie? And even if we buy the argument that she just happened to fall in love with a woman, an argument presented several times by Whedon, that doesn’t explain why after that woman’s death she was still attracted to women in the last season. It seems to me that when outrage works one way, it should work the other. If we are outraged when a character with ambiguous sexuality is "inned," then why is it heroic or not insulting when an unambiguously straight character is suddenly "outed"? I know that this question might offend many people, but I think that it is a double standard that deserves to be addressed. We have seen prominent people in the "real" world go from gay to straight (Anne Heche is the most obvious example), and the other way around (Elton John was married to a woman), but apparently what can happen in reality is equal to bigotry in fiction.- Kelly H.

Matt Roush: Do you really want me to go there? (I am so in need of this holiday break!) Well, you can’t say this column isn’t eclectic. Here’s a few simple thoughts on the rather profound subject of sexuality: It’s complicated. The spectrum, of course, also includes bisexuality, which you rarely see represented on TV, even in these straight-to-gay scenarios. If a writer could develop a character who went from a straight to gay relationship and back again and made it plausible, I’d be willing to roll with it, as long as it didn’t look like a retreat from intolerant criticism. But it seems to me that in most instances when a character "comes out" as gay, it dramatizes the fact that people have been known to repress their homosexuality for obvious reasons. People don’t tend to repress their heterosexual impulses or actions, even if they’re not genuine. So in a typical dramatic arc, once a character comes out, he or she rarely goes back. And I’d rather not get into the psychology of Anne Heche during her Ellen period or the tendency of gay celebrities to marry "beards" of the opposite sex since time immemorial. Personally, I bought Willow and Tara together, and I’m just glad people didn’t jump to the conclusion that all lesbians are witches.