Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer locates lesbians and lesbianism in a place of power over others and within the magical. The character of Willow is empowered by her sexuality, as her journey of sexual discovery is paralleled by her increasing agency within the Scooby Gang.

Buffy is founded on the overarching metaphor that high school is hell; the horrors of life are made literal and take on various forms and guises throughout the series (Little 282; Chandler; Wilcox). An extension of this use of metaphor can be seen in the character development of Willow. Her sexual evolution is a metaphor for her sexual awakening and empowerment. Other representations of homosexual teenagers on television focus on disempowerment and social rejection, for example Jack from Dawson’s Creek, Kurt from Glee, and Anna from One Tree Hill. In contrast, Willow’s exploration of her sexuality coincides with her evolution from nerdy sidekick to powerful witch. Willow is simultaneously empowered by her evolving magical abilities and her sexuality. Through an examination of the facets that make up the character of Willow, in particular the Willow/Tara relationship, it is evident that Willow’s increasing sexual agency and magical abilities are constructed in order to empower her as a queer character.

While it is not ideal to define anyone, even fictional characters, by their relationships with others, the trajectory of Willow’s story is shaped by her burgeoning sexuality and the impact of her lovers on her development. Willow’s transformation from nerdy, impotent girl to the most powerful member of the Scooby Gang, reflects a different way of telling queer stories. The formative years of Willow’s development are spent yearning for the oblivious Xander, until she is pulled into the world of Oz, who is himself a supernatural being. After enduring the loss of Oz to the darkness of his inner werewolf, Willow develops an unexpected and sensual relationship with Tara, whose influence on Willow is undeniable and shapes her magical and sexual developments. Yet it is the loss of Tara that drives Willow to her darkest place and her powerful yet evil unleashing of magic at the end of Season Six. Finally it is Kennedy who restores Willow’s confidence sexually and magically and enables her to change the Buffyverse forever.

When the show first introduces her, Willow is a sweet but geeky girl who adores her best friend Xander, but her feelings are not reciprocated. She is a weak individual in a show dominated by characters with supernatural powers. Xander is Willow’s equal in terms of agency, because they both lack the ability to alter events around them. Throughout Season One and into Season Two Willow’s computer hacking skills develop and her role within the Scooby Gang becomes more important, as she surpasses her seemingly juvenile feelings for Xander.

Willow’s sexual development really starts in Season Two when she begins a relationship with Oz: guitarist and werewolf. Oz is powerful and cool, attributes that Willow does not see in herself. Yet Oz is drawn to Willow, such as in the episode “Inca Mummy Girl” (2.04) where Oz notices Willow dressed as an Eskimo, over other more scantily clad ladies. In the episode “Halloween” (2.06) Oz sees Willow walking past his van and asks “Who is that girl?” with intense fascination. During their relationship Willow discovers magic and Oz becomes a werewolf after being bit by an infant relative. As Willow learns about and accepts Oz’s darker, wolfish impulses she begins to explore her own relationship to magic. The end of Season Two sees the culmination of the confidence Oz has given Willow and her willingness to delve into the magical. In “Becoming, Part 2” (2.22) Willow attempts a spell well beyond her proficiency and experience with magic. What she doesn’t realize at the time is that she was successful in restoring Angel’s soul; however, this advance is minimal compared to abilities she acquires during her relationship with Tara.

In Season Three the audience realizes that there may be more deviance to Willow than what her baggy sweaters portray when Vampire-Willow pays Sunnydale a visit in the episode “Dopplegangland” (3.16). Vamp-Willow is empowered by her supernatural abilities; she is overtly sexualized to the point that Willow notes about her alter ego: “I think I’m kinda gay” (“Dopplegangland” 3.16). Edwina Bartlem looks at the character of Willow in her article “Coming Out on a Hellmouth” and she notes that “Vampire Willow is not simply Willow’s externalised other, rather she appears to be a reflection of a different aspect of Willow’s character…implying that Willow has the potential to be queer, seductive, powerful and evil” (Bartlem). This kind of foreshadowing is a common trope of the show, but it also reflects the strong relationship between sexual agency and supernatural power.

Towards the end of the high school Willow considers her place within the Scooby Gang and asserts her desire to become a “bad-ass wicca” (“Choices” 3.19). Yet her wishes do not come into fruition, until she encounters Tara and is forced to outgrow and move beyond her high school boyfriend in Season Four. When Oz decides to leave, she is forced to reevaluate who she is and what she wants (“Wild at Heart” 4.06). She has been left powerless and it is this need for utility that drives her towards Tara. There is a decisive shift in the episode “New Moon Rising” (4.19) when Willow is forced to make a choice between Oz and Tara. Willow is forced to externalize what she and the audience has known for much of Season Four: her relationship with Tara is sexual, magical, and powerful. Ultimately Willow’s relationship with Oz is about his power and his inability to control his inner darkness, which is not constructive for Willow’s growth. In contrast Tara is a powerful and positive force in Willow’s life that enhances her sexual and magical life.

The progress of Willow’s relationship with Tara and the exploration of her magical abilities are key influences on Willow’s character arc. It is through her relationship with Tara that she finds confidence in herself as a sexual being and is encouraged to pursue magic. Her feelings of impotence are voiced in the first episode of the series “Welcome to the Hellmouth” (1.01) when Willow tells Buffy how she loses the power of speech when around boys she likes. Willow does not value her own sexual agency, because she doesn’t think she has any, until she meets Tara.

Within the Willow/Tara relationship, choice and agency work simultaneously. In the “coming out” episode “New Moon Rising” (4.19) Willow is forced to choose between Oz and Tara, past and future, wolfy-impotency and magical power. As Rebecca Beirne points out “Willow…believes that Tara gives her her sexuality” (Beirne). This is correct from the perspective of Willow; however, for the audience it appears to be power in the realm of magic that empowers her sexual agency. As a show Buffy, is highly aware of this:

Tara: Even when I’m at my worst, you always make me feel special. How you do that?

Willow: Magic. (“Family” 5.06)

Willow and Tara’s relationship is constructed within the realms of witchcraft and magic, and thus the associations with empowerment are innate. While Farah Mendlesohn is more concerned with the Buffy/Willow relationship, she makes some interesting points about the rise of Willow’s agency throughout the series, noting that her witchcraft becomes an invaluable tool to the Slayer (Mendlesohn 47). By coding the characters’ progressions in terms of relative power gains, the choices made are seemingly self-evident; however, Willow and Tara’s relationship is more complex than a simple power grab. A Queer Character, Indeed

Through the development of Willow and Tara’s relationship both characters become more powerful. Power is an essential part of the show’s premise, as many of the characters are defined in terms of their relative power. To the Scooby Gang, Willow and Tara are most useful as witches, but they’re also imperative to each other’s growth:

Willow: You’ve been spell gal night and day lately.

Tara: Well, I just wanna keep up with you, and I’m…well, I just like to be useful. You know, to the gang? I just ...never ...feel useful.

Willow: You are. You’re essential. (“Family” 5.6)

Willow is correct, because without Tara, Willow would be unable to make the magical advances that she does; it is through the trust and understanding she gains from their relationship that Willow is able to further her magical prowess. The Willow/Tara relationship is understood from the outset in terms of magic, as in their first connection in “Hush” (4.10) when they lose the power of speech and join together to protect themselves magically from The Gentlemen. The lines between their physical and magical interaction becomes increasingly blurred as the series continues. It is clear from the relationship’s conception that “magical experimentation is a close metaphor for sexual experimentation” (Winslade). Willow’s sexual development is essential to her magical one, as all of the progress she makes throughout the series contributes to her empowerment.

The Willow and Tara’s relationship is between two women, but also between two witches. As the primary representation of witchcraft and queer women within the show, Willow and Tara are portrayed as “wicca good…love the earth and woman power,” as Xander sings in “Once More with Feeling” (6.07). Dominique Wilson discusses how the portrayal of witches in Buffy is fluid and varying according to context; thus it is reflective of contemporary Western values and represents good and evil as not black and white (Wilson 146). Willow and Tara are portrayed using various symbols taken from the occult and witchcraft and appropriating them for the Buffyverse. Within the show “witchcraft is set up as the domain of women and is frequently linked to the powers of beauty and love” (Krzywinska 186). Willow becomes the primary embodiment of witchcraft throughout the show, thus “witchcraft gets partially freed from many of the traditional trappings of transgression” (Krzywinska 187).

As an established character within the series the audience is more likely to trust and identify with her. In a way witchcraft is normalized in the context of Buffy through Willow; this is also the case for lesbianism, as same-sex relationships are as central to the show as heterosexual ones. Willow and Tara’s relationship represents the only lasting loving relationship on the show, one that was cut short by means beyond the their control. All other relationships in the Buffyverse ended either by choice or due to irreconcilable differences. Willow and Tara reflect a relationship based on love and stability, which is evidenced when they take on parental roles for Dawn at the beginning of Season Six after Buffy and Joyce have died. Placing a homosexual couple at the top of the domestic hierarchy further normalizes their place as within the show.

Sexuality and intimacy between Willow and Tara is expressed through magic. It is commonly acknowledged that predominantly in Buffy “lesbian sex…is presented using the conventions of fantasy” (Bartlem). An example is the deflowering of a rose in “Who Are You?” (4.7). Levitation, like the rose, is a common trope used throughout the show to represent Willow and Tara’s intimate scenes, such as in “Once More With Feeling” (6.07) when Tara is levitated off the bed in a moment of sexual pleasure; or in the conclusion of “Family” (5.06), when the two embrace and float above the floor while dancing at The Bronze. Bartlem states that this representation may be problematic, as the “depiction of lesbian sex as a form of magic, situates it as being beyond the material world, outside the physical body and beyond reality.”

While this holds weight in terms of a larger political agenda, when this representation is contextualized as part of the larger construction of the show, the representation is consistent. It is difficult to compare the sexual relations between Willow and Tara to the relations between other characters. Buffy has sexual relations with Angel, Spike, and Riley; power for these characters manifests itself in physical strength. Thus sparring and combat became a sexual metaphor, representing a form of foreplay. The representation of Willow and Tara’s sex life as spells and witchcraft is reflective of the characters shy personalities as well as a construction through which to explore the nature of a same-sex relationship between witches.

Throughout her evolution as a lesbian character Willow retained her femininity, which is essential to her representation as a witch and a lesbian. Tanya R. Cochran notes that the characters are not “lipstick lesbians”, but they still retain their feminine locks and flowing, floral dresses (Cochrane 53). Their style seems to be taken more from Wicca culture than lesbian stereotypes; their flowing skirts are reminiscent of boho-chic and play into ideas of wicca woman power. Whedon appears to want to evade any stereotyping of the characters as “butch” and “femme” and they are represented as equals. Cochran argues that in the eyes of the audience this is “fortifying its normality and ambiguity” (Cochran 53). Thus further emphasizing that for Willow her sense of self and identity comes from being a witch, as well as being queer. In a conversation with Buffy, Willow reveals her fears about how interconnected her sexual desirability and magic are:

Buffy: Will, there’s nothing wrong with you. You don’t need magic to be special.

Willow: Don’t I? I mean, Buffy, who was I? Just…some girl. Tara didn’t even know that girl. (“Wrecked” 6.10)

Willow connects her sexual desirability with witchcraft and Tara’s gaze. Willow’s self-worth throughout the show is heavily connected with her usefulness; she stays in Sunnydale, as she says in “Graduation, Part 1” (3.21) in Season Three, “to help people.” Her conception of herself is intrinsically linked with her relationship with Tara, as she expresses: “the only thing I had going for me…were the moments, just moments, when Tara would look at me and I was wonderful” (“Villains” 6.20). Beirne contends that Willow attributes her desire to sleep with women with her love for Tara, which is evident in the awkwardness of her courting Kennedy in Season Seven (Beirne). Willow’s understanding of herself as a lesbian is shaped by her sexual agency and thus her conception of empowerment.

In Season Six when Tara is killed by a stray bullet we see the full potential of Willow’s power. Her self-control is bound only by her love for Tara and when that is destroyed she sees no reason for restraint and becomes unrestrainedly evil. A comprehensive understanding of Willow’s character at this point is difficult to negotiate. Beirne asserts that we are presented with an “unmistakeably queer character, whose desires are wholly unnatural, and whose will must be obeyed” (Beirne). Yet can these characteristics be attributed to the fact that she is a lesbian, a witch or just because she is Willow? The Willow/Tara relationship began with the creation of magic and in a disturbing way it makes sense that it may end with the destruction of magic, along with everything else. Made literal, love is creation; loss is destruction.

The loss of Tara is just as essential to the character arc of Willow as is her relationship with Tara. By gaining of all the power at the end of Season Six Willow creates a new niche for herself within the group and gains further agency by the end of Season Seven; however, it is a slow process for Willow to regain both her sexual and magical confidence and control. It is no coincidence that as Willow’s relationship with Kennedy develops, so does her magical control. The idea of power becomes an important issue in the fight against The First and Willow’s willingness to use it becomes imperative:

Kennedy: Willow, she’s not even the most powerful one in this room. With you here, she’s not close.

Buffy: You’re new here, and you’re wrong. Because I use the power that I have. (“Get It Done” 7.15)

After Tara’s death Willow comes back into the fold and she reverts back to the impotency of the early seasons, relying on her computer hacking skills. Yet at the end of Season Seven, Willow’s power becomes the lynchpin in a plan to save the world. Willow has to be willing to use the magics she once used to try and destroy the world, only this time to save it. In a way this is Tara’s final gift to Willow, and she becomes a “goddess” (“Chosen” 7.22). Not without, however, the confidence in her sexuality and womanhood that has been gained with her blossoming relationship with Kennedy. Willow’s role within the group evolved over the years to ensure that Willow’s “spells are part of the armoury of the Scooby Gang” (Krzywinska 188). Willow’s transformation finally culminates in her ability to empower others, by making every Potential a Slayer (“Chosen” 7.22).

In seven seasons Willow has gone from impotent, geeky friend of the Slayer to an essential power player within the Buffyverse. Her development sexually throughout the series has shaped the audiences understanding of power, lesbianism, and witchcraft in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Willow is a queer character in many senses of the term, which takes on various burdens of representation. Whether she is a positive role model or an accurate representation of queer society is debatable, but we do know that she is empowered.