Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Many of us started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer seven years ago to see a woman kick weekly demon butt. We were not in it for lesbian subtext. But even as we wondered at former soap star Sarah Michelle Gellar’s ability to master a sweep kick, we found ourselves distracted by her spellbinding buddy. Young witch Willow (Alyson Hannigan), in forgettable outfits and honest, flat red hair, was resplendent. As Buffy’s nurturing best friend, she thought her way through the hell of Sunnydale high school with gooney, understated wit. Then she fell in love—with a girl.

It was the fourth season, and the show’s boy-genius feminist creator Joss Whedon and executive producer Marti Noxon started Willow on what in screenwriting terms is considered an interesting "arc." They presented her with Tara (Amber Benson), a painfully shy witch in granola cottons and a bigger-than-TV-sized body. From their first spell together, sparks flew. At Buffy viewing parties and Internet chat rooms, lesbian and bi women hoped aloud that Whedon and Noxon would really deliver here by giving viewers something more than one of those TV flights over lesbianland that’s over in a ratings minute. And bless them they did. For nearly three seasons the world got to watch as two smart girls fell slowly in love.

Willow and Tara’s warts-and-all relationship was heavy on sugar and spell casting. After Tara’s brains were sucked out by a god trapped in the wrong dimension, Willow nursed her back to health; when Tara’s fundamentalist father gave her a give-up-the-witchcraft ultimatum, Willow helped her girlfriend handle family rejection. The two advocated Wiccan pride, conquered addiction (as Willow’s powers become all-consuming, Tara tough-loved her into quitting), and even modeled lesbian parenthood when Buffy died long enough to leave her orphaned little sister in their care. All that was missing was the sex.

"The chaste thing was necessity," says Noxon. "We had to fight [Buffy’s former network] the WB for every little thing there. ŒOkay, you can have one kiss. Okay one fondle. Okay, a kiss and a fondle but, uh, not in the daytime or in bed! There were all these arbitrary rules. So their relationship became a little idealized. It worked out okay, because it became more romantic. Once we got to UPN there was a little less concern."

Except for one minor detail: When Tara was killed at the end of the sixth season, her death set off a controversy that rocked the show’s heavily invested fan base. Some of the heat came from the fact that the episode contained the first-ever look at Tara and Willow in a post-coital embrace. Shortly thereafter a bullet intended for Buffy tore through the young lover’s chest. We watched her die in Willow’s arms, her blood soaking her girlfriend’s clothes. In subsequent episodes Willow’s grief turned her dark, and this gentle character achieved the crest of her arc. When her pleas to a powerful god for Tara’s return were refused, she attempted to destroy the world—including her Sunnydale pals—settling in the end for torturing and then flaying the skin off Tara’s killer.

All hell also broke loose in the real world. Arguments flared in The Kitten, The Witches, and The Bad Wardrobe, an online Willow and Tara board, and the gay and mainstream press recycled them. Petitions circulated for Tara’s reinstatement. Popmatters.com TV critic Todd Ramlow called on GLAAD to rescind its nomination of the series for Outstanding Drama. Suddenly Whedon and Noxon found themselves defending against charges ranging from ignorance to outright homophobia. They were accused of recklessly invoking the lesbian-sex-leads-to-death trope. Suddenly, the darling, longest-running lesbian relationship in television history was lumped in with The Children’s Hour, Basic Instinct, and the many short-lived television lesbian characters who turned evil or died horrible deaths.

The pair apologized for any insensitivity but reiterated that Buffy was a show about hardship, and that not killing Tara would have been homophobic. Noxon says "I’ve gotten some of the most frightening e-mails and letters from our fans for killing Tara. Our fans are so passionate and feel so deeply about these characters. We were aware that killing Tara was problematic. There was a lot of talk before we did it. But then we knew we would have done it to any character regardless of sexuality. It was Willow’s time to get it and it would have been hypocritical not to do it."

At the time Whedon tried mollifying fans with assurances that Willow would remain a lesbian. He told TV Guide Online "without any equivocation" that "Willow’s gayŠWe decided it would be unfair of us, particularly considering the circumstances of Tara’s controversial death to say, ’Oh, now Willow’s over it.’"

Willow has not gotten over her homosexuality; nor has she completely gotten over Tara. Noxon says this season will find her "coming back slowly from last season. She needs to earn her right to do magic again and to embrace her power. There’s no ’Here I am, like my shirt? Mochas for everybody!’ We know it will be more difficult than that. She needs to recover from what she became and from a really strong relationship with Tara."

At one point there had been talk of bringing Tara back, albeit in a more limited capacity. "At a time we were pursuing a story line where Tara shows up as The First," says Noxon. "The First is a character that can assume identities of the dead. We saw Tara coming to talk to Willow and then revealing herself as The First. But Amber wasn’t available. We saw some other possibilities too, but Amber wasn’t available for those either."

Instead, Willow has taken up with the assertive slayer-in-training Kennedy (Iyari Limon). This relationship has already overtaken the first in terms of overt sexuality. Some Buffy fans we spoke with are thrilled, while others are wary. Tricia, a fan who lately filled in her BtVS gaps by collecting all the old episodes on video, says, "It made my heart hurt when (Tara) was killed. Their love was one of the most beautiful things I’d seen on television. I allow for the sort of ignorance that may have been at play in the writers’ decisions. There aren’t enough hours in the day for everybody to be a queer theorist. However, I am very upset about this new woman. There was no building this relationship up, no Willow discovering anything about her ability to love again. Just boom. Relationship."

Tracy, who is a long-term member of a Buffy viewing party, says, "I love Willow and I want to see her happy. But Buffy is a tragic show. Buffy can’t have Angel because he’ll lose his soul. Xander leaves Anya at the altar. Giles was in love with the computer teacher so she had to die. It’s a show about dying. And having a good time." But Tracy isn’t so sure about Kennedy. "I am not happy about this new girl. Willow is hot, we’ve known that all along, but she should be in mourning longer. Why was she making out on the couch like that?"

Willow devotee (and real-life Wicca practitioner) Christina disagrees. "I was surprised and sad when Tara was killed. But I still feel like the show has done nothing but good in terms of advancing gay issues. If we want gay, lesbian, and bi relationships to be shown as a natural part of life on Buffy, that means they will also be a natural part of death. I was so pleased to see the writers have Willow and this new girl really makeout. And she didn’t show up too soon. Remember, this is teenage TV. Willow and Tara were a good transitional relationship for audiences. Mainstream America may still not be ready for bulldykes in codpieces, but these characters pushed the edge. This new relationship may push it even more."

Noxon will only say, "We haven’t decided whether or not we’ll get to (more sex) with Kennedy. We better get on it though, we only have a few more episodes to go!" How about when Buffy ends, what will become of Willow? Will there be a spin off? A movie? "What will happen to Willow is the same thing that will happen to all the characters. The end of this season will mean nice character conclusions for all and a real series wrap-up. Whether or not they’ll go on, well, there’s only discussion about that."

With a series that has spawned conventions, action figures, video games, popular comics, and the kind of fanatical devotion that rivals Star Trek, Noxon knows that whatever happens now the stories she’s told have had an impact. "Will we be at Buffy conventions for the rest of our lives? In twenty years I hope I’m not the crazy lady showing off all her stills from Buffy. I hope to have a long career and other successes. But yeah, this has been great. How can you not embrace something that’s become part of the zeitgeist?"