Fiona said:
Fiona:
I once asked him [a gay friend] if he saw any of the gay subtext in B7 which many fans say they do. He replied that he detected no sexual tension *at all* between Blake and Avon.
OK, one man's opinion. He doesn't issue the imprimaturs for the Homintern though.
Possible counterargument: "But you can't just come out and show two men in bed in 1970s TV!" Yes, but there are other ways of doing it which make it clear that the relationship between the men is sexual. Egrorian calls
Pinter
his "golden-haired stripling" and tells about how they ran away together. Krantor langorously offers Toise an--aphrodisiac--pateki-cake.
Making fun of silly old queens is far more acceptable in popular entertainment than 1. mixing genres and including significant romantic/sexual elements in an action adventure much less 2. gay action-adventure heroes. It's not a perfect analogy, but as Robert Townsend's character said in "The Hollywood Shuffle" (about representation of black rather than gay characters): "We won't play the Rambos till we stop playing the Sambos."
In another series,
20 years later and made in a different country
Willow and Tara hold hands, are seen moving into a flat together (while Tara complains that she thinks Willow's friends are uncomfortable about them living together) and the sexual subtext of the scenes where
they
cast spells are pretty obvious
Willow and Tara are a canonical couple--you don't have to look for subtext. In fact they don't just act like a couple, there have been several episodes in which they say in so many words that they are lovers.
My point is, if the writers/actors/whoever had intended the characters to read as gay/involved, they could have done so. But they didn't.
And don't forget that apart from anything else B7 was sometimes considered a kids' show which would limit exploration of any kind of sexual relationship with anybody.
-(Y)