From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V4 #84 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Friday, May 31 2002 Volume 04 : Number 084 Today's Subjects: ----------------- b/mourning for Tara ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/mourning for Tara [Joseph Zitt ] Re: b/mourning for Tara ["Marta Grabien" ] Re: b/mourning for Tara [allenw ] Re: b/mourning for Tara ["Marta Grabien" ] Re: b/mourning for Tara ["David S. Bratman" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 07:01:53 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: b/mourning for Tara Salon's article on the season finale at http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2002/05/22/buffy/index.html was interesting, but the letters in response at http://www.salon.com/ent/letters/2002/05/30/buffy/index.html are even more so. Excerpts: "Unlike the character of Willow, Wiccans don't shoot beams of evil magical energy at people, summon balls of fire to incinerate their enemies, or rip apart police stations. The only characters on the show who have come close to representing real Wiccans were the women's spirituality group at U.C. Sunnydale from two seasons ago." "Fans are not upset simply because a gay character got killed on "Buffy," and we're not pleading for special treatment. What offends is the sudden descent to cliche. Two cliches in fact: First, whenever two lesbians are shown having physical sex (as opposed to soppy emotional hand-holding) one of them must die immediately afterward. And second, if one half of a lesbian couple dies, the other must immediately turn into an evil sociopath. Now these are well-documented cliches -- there have been books written on them, doctoral treatises even -- and when "Buffy" introduced a lesbian relationship, the writers even commented about the existence of such cliches and promised they wouldn't stoop to using them. But they did." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 14:09:51 -0500 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: b/mourning for Tara On Thu, May 30, 2002 at 07:01:53AM -0700, David S. Bratman wrote: > Salon's article on the season finale at > http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2002/05/22/buffy/index.html > was interesting, but the letters in response at > http://www.salon.com/ent/letters/2002/05/30/buffy/index.html > are even more so. Excerpts: > > "Unlike the character of Willow, Wiccans don't shoot beams of evil magical > energy at people, summon balls of fire to incinerate their enemies, or rip > apart police stations. The only characters on the show who have come close > to representing real Wiccans were the women's spirituality group at U.C. > Sunnydale from two seasons ago." Yeah, I agree with this. The word Wicca, as it's come to be used, has some implications that the show ignored, and it rang wrong to me each time they used it. > "Fans are not upset simply because a gay character got killed on "Buffy," > and we're not pleading for special treatment. What offends is the sudden > descent to cliche. Two cliches in fact: First, whenever two lesbians are > shown having physical sex (as opposed to soppy emotional hand-holding) one > of them must die immediately afterward. And second, if one half of a > lesbian couple dies, the other must immediately turn into an evil sociopath. > Now these are well-documented cliches -- there have been books written on > them, doctoral treatises even -- and when "Buffy" introduced a lesbian > relationship, the writers even commented about the existence of such > cliches and promised they wouldn't stoop to using them. > But they did." In an interview at the Succubus Zone (?), one of the writers pretty much admitted that they fell right into that and didn't realize it until afterward. My hunch is that the Willow/Tara and Willow as Big Bad threads pretty much had an inevitable trainwreck. Had Seth Green not left the show, I suspect that the magic thread would have played out the same way with Oz instead. - -- | jzitt@metatronpress.com http://www.josephzitt.com/ | | http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt/ http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt/ | | == New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems == | | Comma / Gray Code Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 12:41:13 -0700 From: "Marta Grabien" Subject: Re: b/mourning for Tara > My hunch is that the Willow/Tara and Willow as Big Bad threads pretty > much had an inevitable trainwreck. Had Seth Green not left the show, I > suspect that the magic thread would have played out the same way with > Oz instead. I agree. Joss has state several times that no one gets to be happy for long. Amber Benson had a ton of other work to do and I am sure requested to be written off. Same as Buffy's mom. She wanted to go back to Austrailia. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 14:46:35 -0500 (CDT) From: allenw Subject: Re: b/mourning for Tara On Thu, 30 May 2002, Marta Grabien wrote: > > My hunch is that the Willow/Tara and Willow as Big Bad threads pretty > > much had an inevitable trainwreck. Had Seth Green not left the show, I > > suspect that the magic thread would have played out the same way with > > Oz instead. > > I agree. Joss has state several times that no one gets to be happy for long. > > Amber Benson had a ton of other work to do and I am sure requested to be > written off. Same as Buffy's mom. She wanted to go back to Austrailia. > She certainly has been nusy lately. However, if she had asked to be written off, wouldn't M.E. have said so by now, and saved themselves a ton of grief? When asked that very question, DeKnight said no, she hadn't asked to be written off; and all of the writers have been adamant that it was all Joss' idea, planned a year in advance, as has Joss himself. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 13:05:41 -0700 From: "Marta Grabien" Subject: Re: b/mourning for Tara Ah well, I suppose I am a victim of supposition. > She certainly has been nusy lately. However, if she had asked to be > written off, wouldn't M.E. have said so by now, and saved themselves a ton > of grief? When asked that very question, DeKnight said no, she hadn't > asked to be written off; and all of the writers have been adamant that it > was all Joss' idea, planned a year in advance, as has Joss himself. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 13:13:06 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/mourning for Tara According to one of the letter writers on Salon, Amber Benson had specifically not asked to be written off, and would have been quite happy to continue with the show. Thinking back to "Blakes 7" as I often do, for despite its cheap Dr Whovian production values it had a grittiness of storytelling akin to BTVS, at least one departed actor demanded on a guest reappearance that his character be killed off because he didn't want to be dragged back for more guest reappearances. This situation was considered somewhat shocking at the time. (Not that it need help: dead (and not un-dead) characters on BTVS have reappeared in flashbacks, dreams, hallucinations, videotapes from the grave, etc.) I think the structural problem here is something akin to the mathematical proposition that a negative times a negative equals a positive: two daring original ideas (sympathetic lesbian relationship, killing off sympathetic character) put together cancel each other out and come out as a cliche. And the writers claim they didn't noticed this! Yikes. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V4 #84 ****************************