Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Tara Maclay is not just one-half of one of the first legitimate (and sexual!) lesbian relationships on television. She’s also a shy, sweet, unflinchingly moral witch who wore dated long skirts and brought positivity to the Scooby Gang. Tara is so much more as a marker for how far representation of queer relationships had come during Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s time on television – she also managed to be a fully fleshed out, meaningful character, one fans connected to regardless of a shared sexual orientation.

Willow, one of the show’s main characters, meets Tara in college and quickly develops a relationship with her over their shared practice of witchcraft. Willow and Tara’s relationship is significant not only because of it’s rarity and explicit sexuality, but also because of the tenderness and care with which they treat one another – they model not only a fantastic gay relationship, but just a fantastic relationship in general.

Perhaps the most striking thing about Willow and Tara’s relationship is that it isn’t without hiccups: When Tara is helpless and incapacitated by a hell god, a devastated Willow must take care of her. When Willow becomes addicted to using magic, Tara sets her foot down and establishes boundaries in their relationship, breaking up with her when she betrays her trust and casts spells behind her back. In this regard, Tara and Willow are rendered as real people with real (albeit fantastical) problems. They aren’t token gays, they’re not hypersexualized and fetishized, nor are they completely desexualized – their presence on the show is normal, and like all other couples, they have their ups and downs.

When Tara was killed, fans absolutely blew up at Joss Whedon. Part of it was (perhaps justifiable) anger over losing one of the best (and only) lesbian characters on television being killed off. Another part of it, though, was the utter dismay of losing Tara as a character, of losing her lightness and moral compass.

That’s the thing about queer characters – their sexual identity shouldn’t be tokenized, it should just be one beautiful part of their multi-faceted identities, one of the many reasons why we should love them as characters. That isn’t to say they should be written exactly like straight people – television and culture should celebrate queer characters for who they are, all of their differences included. Tara Maclay, in just three short seasons, captured not only Willow’s heart, but the hearts of a legion of fans. Tara and Willow not only set a standard for depictions of queer relationships on nerd television, they were unforgettable characters of an unforgettable television show that has had an enormous impact on countless Buffy fans, and we owe so much to them.

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