----- Original Message ----- From: Ellynne G. rilliara@juno.com
If characters I respect and like are made by the author to do something very wrong, and it is treated as something right, then I hate what the author has done to the characters. It's character assassination at the least. (*)
Actually, that's close to my own feelings about slash, but with a slight difference. I don't consider homo- or bisexuality morally or biologically wrong (and I don't want to get into a debate about it; I respect that some people do, so please respect that I feel otherwise), but it just seems so... *out of character* for some of the people involved.
Right, it would be like watching Avon kill Blake and then having all the characters pat him on the back for it.
OTOH, that could be equally shocking. When Kathryn brought up Ultraviolence I was surprised, because while Ultraviolence is presented as a good thing in A Clockwork Orange, the universe of ACO is so horrible that I wouldn't accept anything its members glorified as a good thing for me personally. A bit like how a friend of mine was recently making a good case for the rehabilitation of "Power"-- the message is sexist, but the way the message is presented is so abhorrent that it makes sexism abhorrent to the viewer too.
I am really annoyed with the creators of the Buffyverse for making
Willow a lesbian.
And the _way_ they did it. One season, Willow was very conservative sexually - finding out her vampire double was bi disturbed her considerably.
I didn't have a problem with it myself, and in some ways that was why-- I know several gay people who, when they first became aware of their sexuality, were troubled by it and as a result swung to the other extreme-- either becoming very heterosexually active or becoming very morally upright, as a panic reaction (remember, too, that the vampire Willow *was* Willow-- and a big red flag that Willow wasn't all straight). That aside, too, there
are many people who were firmly convinced that they were straight/gay-- until they meet someone of the same/opposite sex whom they really like and are forced to rethink their priorities. From what I saw, this was how it happened with Willow-- she implies in Series 4 that she thought she was straight until she met Tara, and also she is so nervous about her feelings for Tara that she doesn't tell anyone, even Buffy, about her until very late in the day.
Besides that, there was also her religion (her personal
discomfort with 'Merry Christmas' and her concern for how her dad would react if he found a cross in her room both brought it up). These should have been issues even if she had come to the same decision. But then, when the writers had the _Jewish_ girl arguing hereditary/racial guilt (and punishment) made sense in the Thanksgiving episode, I knew they just didn't care.
Again, though, people change, and their priorities, views and even moral beliefs change. My own religious beliefs, politics and attitudes to human sexuality are different now to when I was twenty-one--and very different to what they were at fifteen. Why shouldn't Willow change similarly, especially as she goes to college, meets other witches and sees the world? Watching back over the Buffy stories, one of the things I like is the way that there's room for the characters to grow and change. I think the creators *do* care-- that's why they allow their characters to develop.
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
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