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I don’t even think I have you on Twitter! What’s your handle? I’m wwonderstruck there.

I’m not particularly original, I use the same name everywhere online pretty much lol, so it’s FrellingTralk over there as well :)

... I just realized something. I've been reading your screenname as "frelling_talk" the whole time we've been friends.

I found out a while ago that a lot of people read it the same way actually! Idk it’s just a term from Farscape that I thought would be funny to use as my online handle around *gulp* 18/19 years ago, and I guess that it’s just sort of stuck because I feel like this is the name that I’ve established for myself online, even though I suppose it’s more the norm now to use your real names and real photos for profile pics

It must give you a guilty thrill that you are flaunting "Fucking Slut" in front of everyone and not getting caught.

But then again, I'm a die hard scifi girl, so I always knew what it meant.

Lol honestly I don’t really think about it that much any more, I associate it so much as my online identity that it’s kind of just become that to me. In hindsight probably not a name that I’d choose for myself again if I’m honest, but hey like you say, hardly anyone does know what it means 😂

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Hope that you're doing well! (Apart from everything going, although I hope you're doing okay in that area too.)

(ETA: Ignore my little spiel, I misunderstood something.)

I was a teen back then and the concept of bisexuality was understood, but it was definitely more common for people to just land on "confused" or "very very closeted" or "just a phase." I feel like that's unfortunately still a problem, if much less so with more and more media representation.

Edited Date: 2020-05-20 03:22 pm (UTC)

I was in the fandom from around season 5 time, and I do remember exactly the same discussions going on back then as well with people assuming at the time that New Moon Rising had portrayed Willow as bisexual, and so people definitely really picked up on the first time that Willow said, ‘gay now’. Huge debate has been going on since the beginning really on that topic, so it’s not like it would have been unheard of even in the early 2000’s to make Willow bi, but at the same time I can understand what Joss is saying here

It would have been a huge misstep to follow up a relationship as groundbreaking as Willow and Tara with Willow dating a guy in season 7, even if they also established that her attraction to women hadn’t gone away, so I can certainly understand why they felt it was important to establish once and for all that Willow was gay and end the series with her dating Kennedy, even if the execution of that left something to be desired imho

Oh, if that's what Joss Whedon was saying, I can see why they wouldn't have had her with a man. Especially not in the last season. I think it would be one thing if they'd shown her having an interest in both genders, but undermining Tara by having Willow be with a man... yeah, that wouldn't have gone over as well.

people assuming at the time that New Moon Rising had portrayed Willow as bisexual,

Yes. I rewatched that episode recently, and NMR definitely portrays Willow as really considering Oz or Tara. It's a real choice for her, and I love that about it. (It's also an example of love triangles that work.)

The other thing is that while Hollywood is very liberal and progressive in some ways, in other ways it's pretty far behind. I feel like media has always been like that, sometimes testing established societal boundaries, other times staying a decade or more behind. Having Willow in a same-sex relationship in and of itself WAS a pretty big deal, but apparently having her be bisexual was too big of a step?

I mean honestly I don’t know if the writers ever thought that much about are we saying that Willow is actually gay or bi before season 7. They had Willow quipping about being gay now, but was that just Willow making the point that she’s in a gay relationship? I didn’t feel like the writers had entirely figured out what they were trying to say until Him definitively stated that Willow would need to remove RJ’s penis and work around it, whereas in season 5 she is still expressing interest in both April and Dracula, in season 4 she is torn between Oz and Tara.

I believe before season 7 that Marti had commented something along the lines of Willow falling in love with the person and not the gender, so it did seem like they originally vaguely had in mind that Willow was bi and attracted to both genders, but then the backlash to Tara’s demise meant introducing Kennedy for Willow so that they could leave the series on a more positive note. Not sure if there’s any actual truth to this or not, but I do remember over the summer stories were floating around about the writers considering pairing up Willow and Xander for the final season, and that generated huge backlash understandably.

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Twitter got too political for me recently, so I've been avoiding it..... Nice to see you here :)

Thank you 😊 I try an avoid politics talk if I can tbh, Twitter is mostly just me reblogging fandom stuff really, although I have also found it a much more hostile environment than LJ sadly.

Sometimes I wish I was less cynical. The way they went so overboard about the gay stuff makes me not buy this. It only reads to me like 'Oh, I totally would have done that if society could handle it!' Who was pressuring him? Certainly not the WB since they were worried about Will being gay, supposedly.

Then when he did those crappy comics, after the satsu publicity stunt, he again went out of his way to make it known Buffy is straight, y'all. Straight. Faith, who most see as bi, that wasn't explored in the comics, either.

For Joss to say that we weren’t ready for that back then doesn’t entirely make sense to me either, because most of the viewers were already assuming that Willow was meant to be bisexual and just fell in love with the person, the concept of bisexuality did exist back then and it wasn’t that big a deal. If anything it was the writers having Willow start to proclaim that she’s gay now that caused the most hated discussion and arguments from what I remember. The Kittens would have felt betrayed if season 7 had seen Willow go back to dating men though after everything, so I think that’s what Joss was thinking of when feeling the pressure to not make it look like they had meant for Willow to just be going through a phase and was back to dating guys after losing Tara in the way that she did

the concept of bisexuality did exist back then and it wasn’t that big a deal. If anything it was the writers having Willow start to proclaim that she’s gay now that caused the most hated discussion and arguments from what I remember.

That's what I mean. It wasn't society. It was a certain part of the fanbase. Which, OK, I can understand that. W/T WAS a big thing for people, being one of the first lesbian relationships on US TV and all. I just don't like the wording used if that's what he meant. It wasn't society not being able to handle it. It was really just fan service when you get right down to it.

Yeah I don’t know, but surely if someone is homophobic then it won’t make much of a difference if Willow calls herself bisexual or gay, both would be equally unacceptable in their eyes? And wider society if you like were hardly clamouring for Willow to not be bisexual either, most viewers were far more bothered about how can Willow call herself gay when she’s obviously bi

I definitely think that Joss is thinking more in terms of not wanting to inadvertently undo the positive representation of Willow and Tara by having Willow go back to dating guys. People were already upset enough about Tara dying in the way that she did, so the writers must have felt a lot of pressure to end things on a positive note for Willow given that she was one of the earliest examples of a tv character coming out and dating another woman. Interesting really that Joss doesn’t mention the killing of Tara controversy at all when discussing their choice to make Willow gay instead of bi

Yeah, I can see all that. I definitely remember some hubbub around the idea of Willow and Xander in S7. Thing is they were doing the gay now stuff before Tara even died.

Like I said, though, I'm just cynical about it. He's had plenty of time since to tap into that subject. He could have made Faith bi. He could have made Andrew bi. It's been nearly 17 years since the show ended and now out of the blue he says this stuff about what he shoulda woulda coulda have done when we all know he has zero intention of doing anything in the Buffyverse, reboot or whatever.

Even in the Buffy reboot comics at Boom where he has clout. Willow? Gay.

I do remember there being quite a few fandom discussions about Andrew as well after a lot of viewers had also originally seen him as bisexual. It’s curious for Joss to now blame the times because, as someone who was actually around in those times, Buffy viewers were constantly discussing this stuff even then and insisting that Willow should really be bisexual, the first time she said ‘gay now’ in Triangle caused sooo much discussion. It was generally concluded that it was the ME writers who just couldn’t conceive of a character coming out as anything other than gay or straight, whereas viewers were the ones getting annoyed because they had been picturing those characters as bisexual.

I mean tbh a lot of it comes down to ships as ever I would say, a lot of viewers took it especially personally with Willow because of her relationships with Xander and Oz, and not being able to wrap their heads around what the writers were saying about Willow/Oz if Willow is now calling herself gay. I think that’s why the debate gets so heated about Willow in particular

"For Joss to say that we weren’t ready for that back then doesn’t entirely make sense to me either, because most of the viewers were already assuming that Willow was meant to be bisexual and just fell in love with the person, the concept of bisexuality did exist back then and it wasn’t that big a deal."

YES THIS.

A lot of us bi people felt it just added to bi erasure.

SIGH

ugh, that was me. Stupid lj! It didn't have me logged in.

I did think that that would have made more sense in a lot of ways, especially in light of Vampire Willow already being portrayed as bisexual, and it did seem like that’s what they were going for in New Moon Rising as well.

. Faith, who most see as bi, that wasn't explored in the comics, either.

I really don't get that. I watched season three with absolutely NO fandom experience, and I saw Faith as having a thing for Buffy, if nothing else. Apparently Eliza Dushku played it that way on purpose, but she didn't write her lines. Why not explore that instead of Satsu?

(I haven't read the comments so maybe I shouldn't have opinions, but from what I do know, that's how I feel.)

Edited Date: 2020-05-20 05:32 pm (UTC)

Why not explore that instead of Satsu?

That's a big part of why I am cynical about Joss's comment. He had ample opportunity to explore bisexuality through Faith in the comics. He didn't.

As far as Buffy goes, that whole thing was so obviously a publicity stunt they didn't even try to do it seriously. Even the writer of it said it was meant to be a farce. To do that, they couldn't really have it happen with a known character like Faith or Willow any more than you can have a one night stand with Xander.

Oh boy. This is going to fuel the fire even more with how contentious the subject of Willow's sexuality has been in the fandom throughout the years.

I'm confused about what is being said here, though. Because yeah, there was a lot of restrictions of what they could or couldn't show and the network did want a lesbian couple featured on the show, but that didn't mean that bisexuality as a whole wasn't an option. It was implied through many interactions with other characters of this possibility. They mentioned they didn't want to do what other shows on networks were doing back then, they just wanted to focus on two women falling in love without any labels attached. They didn't even mention Willow being gay until the fifth season. She just said that Tara was her girlfriend. I do think there was a much needed transitional point of her questioning her sexuality, of her deciding if she was bisexual or a lesbian, before finally realizing and accepting that she was a lesbian. And in my headcanon, that is what I believe she did during the fourth season and in between S4 and S5 before she finally accepted herself to be a lesbian.

I think in a modern reboot version they would definitely need to have a scene or conversation of Willow questioning her sexuality, which was the missing piece in the original series, but her being a lesbian wouldn't change in the end. It would showcase that sexuality is a complicated, complex thing, and that people do go through transitional periods of their life and discovering themselves. That it's okay to be confused, to explore your options before finding that place where you are comfortable with accepting yourself. But just making her bisexual for the sake of it because you "weren't ready for it" back then? That makes no sense whatsoever.

I don't know, I just don't know what to make of this. Like others have mentioned, it's not like Joss couldn't explore the possibility of bisexuality with other characters that demonstrated this through plenty of subtext in the main series (Faith, Xander, Spike, Angel, etc). This just feels like Joss needs to interject himself in this conversation that fandom has been having for a long time discussing her sexuality. It feels off to me, somehow.

I thought the same thing! It’s a subject that people can take very personally, so I’m quite surprised that Joss wanted to get involved in it after all these years to imply that Willow would have been bisexual if only audiences were ready for that. If that’s really what they wanted to portray, but were supposedly just worried about giving anyone amo to describe it as a phase, well then they could have just left it to the audiences imaginations and not had Willow say anything one way or the other about being gay or straight? Many viewers were already taking for granted that Willow was bi anyway, the writers were the ones who made the choice for that character to instead describe herself as gay on quite a few occasions.

Seems a bit disingenuous to now come out with well we would have made her bisexual if it was being made today. People were still aware of the existence of bisexuality in the year 2000...

well then they could have just left it to the audiences imaginations and not had Willow say anything one way or the other about being gay or straight?

Exactly. They should have just played it out as such initially, that they wanted to focus on Willow and Tara's relationship without adding any labels to it and allowing audiences to come up with their own conclusions. While I don't think it would've stopped the fandom debates, it wouldn't be as severely intense as it has been and it certainly would've been easier as an explanation that they didn't want to have any specific labels instead of flip-flopping now with this excuse, because that's what I'm reading this as. An excuse.

I know that things were different when it comes to LGBT representation back in the day, and while it's still an uphill battle we have come a long way since then, and perhaps it would've been fine to make a comment in that regard. But it does feel disingenuous that he's coming out of the woodwork now to make such a statement when it adds nothing to the conversation at all.

And you're right, this is a very sensitive topic that people take very personally, as I've witnessed firsthand how nasty people can be during arguments and fights online simply debating this very thing. It's one thing to admit that they could've done better with having Willow question her sexuality during the fourth season when they were going this route with her character, it's another to basically backtrack their conscious decision to make Willow a lesbian and say that in a modern remake she would be bisexual instead, because many will read that as lesbophobic.

Just, ugh. I don't know. Not that many people are really taking Joss Whedon's word on anything anymore these days, as he's way behind the times on many things. But again, idk what to think other than, "just stop talking, Joss."

It's so good to hear from you again :)

I just followed you on Twitter *^^*

Oh wow, there's definitely going to be a lot more debate regarding Willow's sexuality, I bet.

Thank you :)

And probably! I’m not sure how much there is even left to say at this point though 😂

No reason not to have Willow be bi even then. Homicide had one of its leads be bi and that ruffled a few feathers cause he was a guy. But Tim Bayliss was one of the few tv characters to even say he was bi.
If Willow was allowed to be bi then her love for Oz was more real. She could still be with Tara and then Kennedy. So many people assume being bi is just a phase. Sex and the City did appallingly with this.
Did ship Samantha with her female lover though. Ah well.

And they did write vampire Willow as bisexual as she was dating Xander while she was flirting with women and expressing interest in them, so if anything that almost says more that the writers were prepared to have the more obviously evil characters be bisexual. Not just Vampire Willow, but I’d also argue that the writing of Faith went beyond just subtext in her Angel episode when she has that flirty moment with Lilah, and yet they somehow couldn’t conceive of society accepting it with regular Willow. It’s funny too that Joss wants to now argue that society wasn’t ready for that when most of the fandom debate was actually because the show didn’t write Willow as bisexual, many viewers got way more upset about feeling like her love for Oz was being invalidated, so I can’t see how bisexual Willow would have been the more controversial choice when it’s what most people were originally assuming that they were portraying with Willow anyway 🤷‍♀️

And Willow being bisexual would not automatically have meant that viewers would would have all dismissed Tara as Willow just dabbling or whatever, it would have been up to the writers to make it clear that Willow being with Tara was not just a phase. Of course there would have been wrong ways of handling it if Willow had gone back to dating men right after Tara’s death, that would not have played well when Willow was one of the very first tv characters shown in a gay relationship and Tara had just been killed off, but Joss painting it as making Willow 100% gay was their only choice for those times isn’t quite true either

And I do remember Sex And The City not ageing well when it came to that! It’s funny how the more progressive shows of the time like SATC and Friends are the ones that have dated the worst in some respects, because of the stuff that they were trying to do comes off as far more offensive now to modern eyes than the shows that just didn’t mention gay or trans people at all

As someone who was pretty damn naive back when I was watching Buffy, I'm can believe this. Bisexuality wasn't "mainstream" yet and being gay was definitely "safer" for a show like this, targeted towards a younger audience. I mean, it's kind of like now where you can have bisexual and gay characters but good luck getting a transgender or ace character (the whole Riverdale Jughead debate) in a mainstream show.

That being said, I don't know if I 100% believe this, it might have been more an unconscious bias and not a "I was stopped from doing this".

But who knows, past it past and I honestly can only get so mad about it? LOL

Joss saying that he was pressured to not make it appear like a phase is slightly confusing wording, because it does read like it was the network/higher-ups stopping him, but I *think* what he meant to say was that he just personally felt pressured to make sure that they got it right and didn’t give anyone any reason to think that they were portraying it as Willow just going through a phase

Maybe not the network but the gay community itself.
Back then, many were of the mind that Bi was code for non-committal and had the potential to take away a relationship/swing the pendulum back the other way. Because a Bi in a het relationship wasn't noteworthy Bi characters were therefore not noteworthy.
Having a Bi character meant the show could change the lover if the social backlash hit too hard, taking away a ship you could cheer for/felt represented you, and the phobes could ignore the gay relationship and dismiss it.
There is also the whole "passing" issue. And the "idea" that Bi's don't have it as bad in society.
The same problem goes for Asexuals. People can dismiss them because those people can mentally claim the person just hasn't found their one that would "turn" them heterosexual.

Yes that’s what I assumed he meant, especially as there was the time in the late 90’s where a lot of shows like Ally Mcbeal were having their main characters ‘experiment’ with kissing another woman just to bump the ratings for that week, then went back to dating men

Interestingly in the show itself Tara does seem to suggest that she wouldn’t be thrilled if Willow was still open to dating men, in their big fight from Tough Love Willow is upset and says what does she need to do to establish her lesbian street cred after Tara says something about Willow not having been out all that long, so it did come across like something that would have been quite an issue for Tara if Willow had said that she was bisexual. Tbh I wondered if some of Willow’s comments on being gay now or a breast girl etc were about overcompensating if you like, wanting to make it really clear to everyone that her relationship with Tara was not just a phase

*waves*

Hi, nice to see you! <3

And thank you for that link/information. Good to know. :)

Thank you :)

Nice to see you here.
I may have to find you on Twitter, even though I only really tweet about books and LivePD, and the occasional Design article.

I’ve added you back :) I mostly just retweet fandom content on twitter myself, I’m terrible at thinking up what to say for my own tweets. I’ve found it easier to get into than tumblr in a lot of ways though, because it’s been easier to comment on tweets and engage with other people, as opposed to tumblr where everyone has to separately reblog and it’s not a platform build for conversation at all

Thanks! Agreed about Tumblr. Haha, I have such a hard time with it. I feel like an old lady when using it.

Same! I still use it occasionally to reblog some cool gifs or something but, try as I might, I could not get into the art of conversation on there at all, and it felt like a very isolating fandom experience when it was made that difficult to interact with other people

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