The cast of Buffy the Vapire Slayer is often read both intra- and extra-textually as a kind of alternative family relationship. [1] Because of its lesbian subplot, the show is also commonly evaluated as a kind of queer text. Although it was a significant development both within the series and in the world of television, the lesbian relationship is not the most significant queer moment on Buffy. Rather, it is the way the series negotiates a new definition of "family" and shows that this family can be the most valuable form of personal relationship. Although some writers have suggested that Buffy privileges homosexual romantic relationships over heterosexual ones, it actually breaks down both kinds of relationship, by showing how they can be unhealthy and damaging for the people in them. In this essay, I will focus on the figure of Tara Maclay and the characters with whom she develops the closest relationships, namely Willow Rosenberg, and Buffy and Dawn Summers. Through these characters, I will show that Buffy challenges both the heteronormative couple and monogamous homosexual relationship, and centres instead on the creation of a queer family structure that is open to all its characters, regardless of sexuality.
As Jes Battis points out in Blood Relations: Chosen Families in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Buffy initially sets itself up as a conventional romantic love story. [2] In the first episode of the series, beautiful sixteen-year-old Buffy Summers encounters Angel, a good-looking young man who is eventually revealed to be a two-hundred-year-old vampire with a soul. Despite the difference in age and species, Buffy and Angel are drawn together sexually, and the first three seasons of the show plays out the romance between the two demon-fighters as the standard, star-crossed love story. The relationship eventually proves unsustainable, and Angel leaves town at the end of season three to star in his own, L.A.-based series.
This conclusion to the romance that plays such a defining role to the series's early years becomes the template for many of its other heterosexual romantic plot-lines. In "Witches, Vampires, Slayers: Practicing Sexualities on Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Margaret DeRosia suggests that Buffy's failure to find a fulfilling relationship with a man constructs a criticism of heterosexuality, and opens up a space for advancing queer relationships. [3] Buffy certainly goes through a long string of men, but is never successful in finding one who is compatible. Owen Thurman and Scott Hope are presented as too "normal," unable to cope with Buffy's unusual lifestyle. Parker Abrams is an insensitive player, who dumps Buffy shortly after he has sex with her. Riley Finn, though himself a trained demon hunter, also seems too normal to handle Buffy, and eventually leaves town. By the middle of the fifth season, Buffy has decided that she is better off without men, and rejects cute doctor Ben's offer of a date. Her subsequent affair with Spike only proves the point, since the relationship emerges out of trauma, and is emotionally damaging for both partners.
Supporting cast member Willow, Buffy's best friend and most powerful ally, is also unlucky with men. Her first romantic experience is with an online admirer who turns out to be a homicidal computer virus. Her long-term relationship with Oz is troubled by the fact that Oz is a werewolf, and ends near the beginning of season four when Oz decides that the wolf side of his nature is too dangerous, and leaves town in search of a way to control it. Two patterns are thus established for heterosexual romance on the series. One is that it is doomed to failure, with one partner inevitably dumping the other. The other is that masculinity is often associated with the monstrous, with male partners manipulating, terrorizing, or even eating the females. [4]
Willow's homosexual relationship with fellow witch Tara may be seen as a counterpoint to these heterosexual romances. [5] Willow meets Tara shortly after her breakup with Oz, and the two begin doing spells together. As the girls spend more time together, and the spells become more explicitly eroticised, their relationship deepens, and Willow eventually "comes out" to her friends. Although there is some grief associated with this, since Willow is forced to choose between Tara and the ever-adorable Oz, the outing is a generally positive experience. Buffy, though initially shocked, quickly accepts the relationship, and Willow's decision is cast as being about choosing the person she loves.
Tara is presented as much more safe and non-threatening than many of the male romantic interests. She occupies mostly female spaces, and seems to embody "feminine" virtues like empathy and kindness. [6] She is not only non-male, but just as emphatically non-demon, a point underscored in a story arc spanning parts of seasons four and five. In "Goodbye Iowa," it is suggested that Tara may be a demon, because she prevents Willow from doing a demon-locating spell. It is later revealed that Tara only thinks she has demon in her, and that she is, in fact, fully human. DeRosia cites this as a rebuttal to the negative stereotype of the predatory lesbian, and also as a challenge to masculinity. Tara turns out to be reassuringly human, more the victim of violence than its perpetrator. Nor does she have any dark side to contend with, the way Angel or Oz do. She is thus constructed as a much better romantic partner for Willow than any of the men she and Buffy have previously dated. [7]
While DeRosia is right to point out the ways in which the Willow-Tara relationship is good for Willow, her analysis fails to take into account the ways it is not good for Tara. In the sixth season it becomes clear that, while Willow may not be dating a monstrous girlfriend, Tara is. Willow is increasingly characterized as unstable in her use of and dependence on magic. Moreover, Willow increasingly displays masculine characteristics, both in her use of magic and in her role as Tara's partner. In this way, Willow is reconstituted as just the kind of monstrous male figure that she and Buffy have found so much grief with.
Perhaps in part because Tara is so feminine, Willow seems to slip unconsciously into the "masculine" role in their relationship. Although Tara has been "out" longer and has more experience with magic, Willow is in other respects the more powerful of the two. She belongs to a social group, the Scoobies, while Tara is portrayed as a loner, cutoff from her family and unable to make friends. It is through Willow that Tara begins to find a sense of belonging, [8] and Willow takes it upon herself to stand up for her, defending Tara's place within the group.
Willow is also more the more powerful witch. When they first meet, Tara is portrayed as being more knowledgeable, since she comes from a witch family, yet she says that Willow has a lot of power. The implication is that while Tara is more experienced with magic, Willow has inherent abilities far beyond hers. As Willow works on her powers, she quickly surpasses Tara. In "Out of My Mind," Willow does an illumination spell she has learned from Tara, but does it much better than the spell Tara taught her. By the end of season five, Willow has no further need of Tara's help, and is in fact using her powers to protect Tara from danger. In "Tough Love," she takes on the god Glory who has just fried Tara's mind, and in "The Gift" she uses her magic to reverse the spell and restore Tara to health.
Tara's personality, which tends to be passive, supports this structure, with Willow in the dominant, or "masculine" role, and herself in the submissive, or "feminine" role. Two sequences in the first half of season six highlight this fact. One is the song "I'm Under Your Spell," which Tara sings in the musical episode, "Once More, With Feeling." The lyrics, about how Willow has "brought [Tara] out" and placed her "under [a] spell" suggest that Tara sees herself as the subordinate partner. [9] The other scene, though brief, illustrates the gender play even more clearly. In "Tabula Rasa," all the characters lose their memories, and Xander and Willow assume that they must be dating. When the characters try to leave the Magic Box together, Willow is momentarily flustered when Xander offers her his arm, and she instinctively offers him her arm. The confusion comes from both characters trying to perform a masculine gesture, indicating that, in her relationship with Tara, Willow is the one who usually plays the masculine role.
The "masculinization" of Willow does not begin with Tara, but may be traced back to the earliest seasons of the show. As one of the most intelligent members, and the level head of the group, Willow naturally moves from a position of shy passivity to one of active leadership, which in itself may be seen as masculinizing. [10] Willow's sense of agency is also closely linked to her romantic relationships. In the first season, her passivity is largely represented through her relationship with Xander, whom she has a crush on, but whom she is too shy to ask out. Her development of a relationship with Oz in season two coincides with her first experiments with magic. Magic is important to Willow's relationship with Oz, because it gives her power. This combines with Oz's generally quiet and passive nature to give Willow a great deal of agency in the relationship. Willow takes the initiative in such instances as asking Oz out on their first date, or giving Oz their first kiss. At first, the relationship produced might be called egalitarian, but as Willow's magical abilities and self-confidence increase, she begins to see herself as the dominant partner. In "Fear, Itself," when Oz expresses concern over her use of magic, she asks why he isn't being the "supportive boyfriend." She is implicitly casting Oz as the proverbial woman behind the great man, or in this case, the opposite.
Willow also feels an implicit need to maintain dominance in her relationship with Tara. Notably, once Willow enters the relationship, she insists on seeing herself as "gay," rather than bisexual, despite her history with Xander and Oz. Indeed, she is quite defensive about this point. In "Triangle," when Anya suggests that Willow might still have romantic feelings for Xander, Willow insists that she can't because she's "gay now." More revealingly, in "Tough Love" she lashes out harshly against Tara when Tara expresses concern that Willow may eventually not need her any more. Willow's interpretation of this is that Tara believes Willow will "go straight," and she takes this as an attack on her lesbianism, or, as it were, on her "manliness."
Most importantly, Willow's masculinization can be seen through her rejection of femaleness, in the form of her former self. Willow constantly expresses the fear of returning to her previous state as the nerdy loner, from her dream in "Restless," where she reveals that her current identity is merely a costume disguising the "real" her, to "All the Way," where she says she was a "spaz" in high school. Willow's rejection of her old self is extremely revealing for the simple reason that the character who most resembles "old Willow" is Tara. Like old Willow, Tara is a shy, quiet loner with a sweet personality, but little self-confidence. She is physically and verbally awkward, just like Willow used to be. Her growing confidence under Willow's care mirrors Willow's growth through her relationship with Buffy, [11] and in the early episodes, she seems to pine after Willow in much the same way that Willow used to pine after Xander. Willow thus sets herself up in opposition to Tara; while she wants to have Tara, she is deathly afraid of being her. This aligns Willow with the "masculine lesbian," who sees possession of a woman as necessary for her possession of the "phallus." [12] In Willow's mind, having Tara allows her to have agency, but she would not want to be Tara, since that would re-feminize her, robbing her of her privileged "male" position.
My aim in pointing all this out is not to conflate gender performativity and sexual orientation, [13] nor is it to suggest that all "masculine" behaviour is bad. Rather, it is Willow who re-imagines her gender, in part by adopting a lesbian relationship, and she not only behaves in a masculine fashion, but adopts masculine behaviours that end up being hurtful, especially to Tara.
Although she appears to gain self-confidence as the series progresses, Willow remains a deeply insecure character, and her magic acts as a mask, rather than a cure for this. As Willow develops her magical abilities, she becomes increasingly dependent on them, so that one of her greatest fears is losing her power. [14] Although she initially uses magic only to help, she begins using it selfishly to make her life easier, and cover up her mistakes. This use of magic may be aligned with "masculine" behaviour, [15] and it is this kind of use that Tara calls Willow out on in "Tabula Rasa," when she says that Willow may have started by using magic to help people, "but now you're helping yourself."
Willow is threatened in this scene, not just with criticism of her magic, but with the breakup of her and Tara's relationship. Romantic relationships are another mask that Willow uses. Oz functions in part to give Willow a sense of self-worth. When he breaks up with her, she sees it as a personal slight, and laments that if she was a better witch, she would have been able to make him stay with her. She exhibits similar feelings about her relationship with Tara. Battis argues that Willow is very immature, and feels a need to belong to someone in order to feel a sense of meaning. [16] Like a child, she becomes obsessed with Tara, and selfishly does anything she can to keep her. [17] Her attempts to control Tara align her strongly with some of the worst boyfriends of the show, notably evil Angel, who psychologically manipulates Buffy in order to weaken her, and Parker, who charms Buffy into having sex with him. Willow's strategy is less subtle, and just as reprehensible: she uses magic to make Tara forget fights they have had, effectively a form of mind-control. When Tara discovers this, she is disgusted, and when Willow shows no signs of reforming, Tara breaks up with her. In this incident, Tara finally exhibits assertive behaviour, [18] refusing to stay with a girlfriend who would "violate" her like that.
In a sense Tara's decision to leave Willow puts her in the same position as the second-wave feminist deciding to leave an abusive marriage. This leaves Willow in the position of the abusive male, who tries to control his woman, without respect for her autonomy. It also connects Willow to the other monstrous males of the series. Like Angel and Oz, she has a power inside her that has destructive potential. Although she tries to control it, it ends up hurting the people she cares about, suggesting that she is not a healthy romantic partner, and that Tara is better off without her.
Up to here, I have only discussed Tara in terms of her relationship with Willow. As one of the first long-term lesbian relationships on television, Willow and Tara's relationship is prominently featured in discussions of the show, but what such discussions often fail to take into consideration is the crucial role that Tara plays in the lives of the other characters on the series, particularly Buffy and Dawn.
Tara's relationship with Buffy is a complex one that is set up early, but left ambiguous. Their first contact is in "Who Are You?," when Willow introduces Tara to Faith, who has high-jacked Buffy's body. Willow fails to recognise the change, believing Faith to be Buffy, and even Riley does not realise what has happened when he has sex with her. Tara is the only one who grasps the situation instantly, using her powers to sense the disturbance in "Buffy"'s energy. Although this hardly makes them instant friends, it is significant that on their first encounter, Tara is of vital assistance to Buffy. Another incident occurs in Buffy's dream sequence in "Restless," at the end of the same season. When Buffy encounters the spirit of the First Slayer, it is Tara who acts as the Slayer's voice, telling Buffy that she does not yet understand her power. Presumably, the association of Tara with her slayer power is a formulation of Buffy's subconscious, but it is left an open question as to why Buffy's subconscious would make such a connection.
The girls bond in more concrete ways, beginning in the middle of season five, when Buffy's mother Joyce dies. Buffy, who has paid little attention to Tara up to this point, is surprised to find that Tara is the only person who seems able to relate to her experience, having lost her own mother at seventeen. Tara is later shown sticking up for Buffy as she deals with the aftermath of her mother's death. Finally, Buffy chooses Tara as her confidante in season six, when she tells Tara about her affair with Spike, a secret that no one else can know. Although Buffy begs her to be angry, Tara's response is forgiving and compassionate, offering Buffy her unconditional support. In the next episode, Buffy celebrates her birthday, and she invites Tara as her guest, despite the recent breakup with Willow. Tara becomes an unlikely friend to Buffy, and helps her to work through one of the darkest periods in her life.
Tara's relationship with Dawn is easier to define. Seeing that Dawn, like her, is an outsider to the Scooby gang, Tara makes an effort to reach out to Dawn, becoming like a kind of big sister to her. When Buffy dies at the end of season five, Willow and Tara move into her house and begin looking after Dawn as surrogate parents. Although Buffy comes back from the dead, Willow and Tara continue to live in the house and share parenting responsibilities. After Willow and Tara break up, Tara continues to see Dawn. In "Smashed," Tara tells Dawn that the split had nothing to do with her, and that she will always be there for her, no matter what. The language she uses is very much like that of a biological parent after a divorce, and solidifies her status as one of Dawn's mother figures. [19]
In this way, Tara becomes a kind of replacement for Joyce Summers, who acted like a matriarch to the Scooby Gang. [20] Tara and Willow occupy Joyce's old bedroom when they live with Buffy. Tara provides comfort to characters like Buffy and Dawn. She provides a voice of moral authority, and attempts to counter Willow's growing dependence on magic. Although only a supporting character, she could be said to act as the matriarch who holds the Scooby "family" together. [21] This last point is underscored at the end of season six, when her death precipitates the decent into chaos, as Willow turns to the dark side.
Tara is strongly associated with the concept of "family" in an other way. The fifth-season episode "Family" is the first truly Tara-centred one of the series, and plays an important role in defining her personality. It is also the episode where the theme of "family," which runs through the entire series, is most explicitly stated. In the episode, Tara is preparing to celebrate her twentieth birthday with Willow and the rest of the Scoobies, when her father and two other relatives show up, with the intention of taking her home. The father explains that all the women in their family are demons, that their demon side begins to manifest itself once the women turn twenty, and that they intend to keep Tara locked up for the greater good. The Scoobies figure out that the father is lying, and that the story is only a cruel ploy used by the family to keep its women in line. When the father threatens to take Tara away by force, Buffy, Dawn, and the rest of the group all stand up for her. Although Tara is still in many ways a stranger to them, they make the decision to claim her as one of their own. Buffy justifies her interference into the supposedly private business of the Maclay clan with the simple words, "We're family," with all the implications of commitment, responsibility, and support that that entails.
The idea of the Scooby relationship as family is mentioned in earlier episodes, but while previously expressed as a casual metaphor for friendship, in this episode it becomes a term of defiance. In accepting the Scoobies, Tara rejects not only the only family she knows, but the patriarchal, heteronormative family itself. [22] This is the most explicit instance of a recurring theme on the show: the rejection of biological families in favour of families of choice.
Tara's is only one example of how biological families are shown to be negative experiences on Buffy. Buffy, Xander, and Willow all come from less than ideal family situation. Xander's parents are abusive, Willow's are distant, and Buffy's are divorced. [23] Although Buffy's mother is generally shown in a positive light, her father is largely absent from her life, especially in the last three seasons. Other bad parents include Catherine Madison, who steals her daughter's body in order to relive her youth, and Ted, who, while not a biological parent (actually, a robot!), seems to exemplify the ways in which "traditional" parenting styles may in fact be tyrannical. [24] Some traditional relationships are shown to be good, such as the one between Joyce and her two daughters, but the prominent occurrence of bad family relationships helps to contrast and emphasize the value of good families, whether natural or chosen. [25]
The idea of the chosen family has been important throughout history, and is especially important for modern-day queers. In the book, Friends as Family, Karen Lindsey describes how many people choose to reject the dichotomy of friends and family, in which non-biological relationships are generally considered inferior. Instead, they "reclaim for themselves the power of naming," by identifying their friends as "family." Committing to such a relationships can entail as many emotional risks and rewards as any "traditional" family relationship, including marriage, but they are not granted the same formal recognition and institutional support as marriage has. [26] The families Lindsey describes come in all varieties. Some live together, others are dispersed over the world. [27] The members may be the same generation, [28] or different generations. They may be gay or straight. [29] Some "families" are formed by economically disadvantaged groups, [30] some, by social "outcasts." [31]
Chosen families are especially relevant in the modern queer community. Homosexuals often find themselves rejected by their biological families, which leads them to seek out family-like relationships elsewhere. [32] Lindsey argues that the need people have for emotional bonds is so great, that if their traditional family structures are disrupted, they will inevitably create other bonds. [33] It is thus understandable why queers, rejected by their own families and marginalised by society, would form nontraditional families. Another important factor is the AIDS epidemic, with has brought together both male and female homosexuals as they care for, bury, and mourn those stricken with the disease. [34]
Some queer families are based around the same-sex couple, but they may also include non-queer members. They may live together as a family unit, but they may also be people living in different locations, who consider themselves part of an "extended famil[y] of choice." They may include romantic partners, ex-romantic partners, friends, and even biological relatives. Although unrecognised and often condemned by heteronormative society, these groups perform many of the same functions as other families, such as supporting each other financially and emotionally, and caring for children. [35]
One possible definition of a queer family is, "a family headed by one or more people who are either gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender," in which the members "are committed to each other for emotional support," and "they demonstrate love and caring for each other." [36] The Scoobies certainly constitute such a family. One of the key members, Willow, identifies as a lesbian. The members are there for each other in times of crisis, such as a romantic break up or the death of a parent, and also through petty everyday concerns like studying for school or killing demons. They also care for each other deeply, standing by each other through all kinds of adversity.
Like the people described in Lindsey's book, the Scoobies use the "power of naming" to define their relationship. When Buffy says, "We're family," it is instantly clear that she and her friends intend to stand by Tara and defend her against all assaults, demon or human. Jes Battis maintains that this "naming" does not change the nature of the relationship between the characters, it merely helps to explain it. In calling themselves "family," the Scoobies are not adopting a patriarchal, nuclear structure. Instead, it is the word that they are changing. [37] They are redefining family, not in terms of biological relationship, but in terms of emotional attachment. With the exception of Buffy and Dawn, and possibly Joyce, none of the Scoobies are related to each other. Although there are sexual relationships within the group, between Willow and Tara, and Xander and Anya, sex is not a determining factor either. They have no legal status as a family. They are "family" based on the platonic bonds of friendship between them.
In Televised Morality: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gregory Stevenson identifies the key principles of community on Buffy. These are "acceptance" of every member, even those who do wrong or whom one does not personally like; "tough love", or holding each other accountable for wrongdoing; "loyalty" through both major and minor crises; "trust," and the maintenance of trust, even trusting others with one's life; "sacrifice," including giving up one's life for another; and "dependence" in practical and emotional matters. [38] These elements are similar to those identified as necessary for maintaining queer families in the Gay & Lesbian Almanac. [39]
One element is time. Buffy and her friends see each other in school, fight demons together, and hang out over weekends and holidays. They are seen celebrating Buffy's birthday together in seasons two through six, and Tara's birthday in season five. They share Christmas dinner at Buffy's house in season five, and regularly plan their Hallowe'ens together. Another is trust. Stevenson mentions that trust is very important, and that the violation of trust is considered the worst offence someone in the group can commit. [40] Another is emotional, practical, and material support. Although the financial realities of the characters are rarely addressed, Giles does offer Buffy financial assistance in "Life Serial," when he hands her a cheque to cover her expenses. Besides fighting demons together, they help each other in other practical matters, such as in "The Replacement," when they help Xander move into his new apartment, or in several episodes when Xander uses his carpentry skills to do odd jobs for Buffy.
An element of the queer family that is especially significant to Buffy is the presence of a central figure, around whom the rest of the group organises itself. Buffy obviously functions in this role, as the titular character and the only one with a "sacred destiny," but she is not alone in this position. When she dies, Willow becomes the acclaimed "boss" of the group, which does not disband simply because Buffy is no longer there. Joyce is a mother figure to the whole group, [41] and Giles plays a fatherly role not only to Buffy, but to the other Scoobies as well. [42] Tara's role as a mother figure has already been mentioned. The resilience of the group even in Buffy's absence helps to illustrate an other important element of queer families: relationship density. The characters are not only connected through their relationship with Buffy. Willow and Xander, for example, have been friends since kindergarten. The scene in "Bargaining, Pt. I" when the Scoobies bid Giles farewell as he leaves for England shows how he has become important to all of them. Tara's relationships with Buffy and Dawn transcend her status as "Willow's girlfriend."
Finally, the queer family is defined by its ability to integrate new people. It is not a closed unit, but a fluid system that allows people to enter and leave. This is one way in which Buffy's family is more flexible than traditional families. Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Giles form the core of a group that is expansive and welcoming of new members. [43] Characters like Tara, Dawn, and even Spike are able to find a sense of community with the others. As Battis points out, the "family" they create is also structured differently from the biological family. [44] The Scoobies do not function like a mother and father with their children. As has been stated, there are multiple characters who could be cast in the role of "parents." Buffy is a mothering figure who also needs a certain amount of mothering herself. [45] Giles and Joyce display irresponsible behaviour in episodes like "The Dark Age" and "Band Candy," proving that they too need mothering sometimes. [46] Buffy and Xander are in many ways like siblings, but there is also a romantic level to their relationship, since Xander has an infatuation with Buffy in the first two seasons.
Rather than trying to make the language of family fit with the Buffy relationships, it is more helpful to see each character in terms of the specific qualities he brings to the group. Buffy can be seen less as a mother, and more as a "mothering force," one of several. She protects her friends, gives them advice on personal problems, and organises social events. [47] Since Tara is an other mothering force, she and Buffy may be seen as alternatively mothering and being mothered by each other, or be viewed more simply as sisters. Buffy begins by looking after Dawn in an informal capacity, but becomes her official guardian after Joyce's death. [48] By the end of the sixth season, Dawn is starting to assert her independence from Buffy, beginning a more reciprocal phase of their relationship, but though the relationship changes, its importance to the characters does not.
Dawn interacts differently with different members of the Scoobies. Joyce initially believes she is her daughter. Although she later finds out that Dawn is a "Key," she continues to care for her the same way, much the way a parent might care for an adopted child. [49] Giles is like a father to her, but is also once removed, since his strongest connection is to Buffy. The other characters treat her with varying degrees of parental or elder sibling-like affection. Tara talks to her like a parent; Xander is more like a big brother. What they all have in common is a sense of responsibility towards her, and all assist in the task of raising her.
Buffy initially appears to be about heterosexual romance but, as Jes Battis concludes, it ends up being something very different. [50] The point is most powerfully made at the end of the show's sixth season. Upon Tara's death, the monster inside Willow finally emerges in the form of "Dark Willow," a super-powerful witch who tries to destroy the world. The person who reaches out to Willow and is able to stop her is not a relative, or even a lover; it is Xander. Willow's relationship to Xander is indefinable according to heteronormative language. They are like siblings, but have had romantic feelings for each other. They are like ex-es, but haven't officially "dated" since they were five years old. There has been romantic tension in their past, but a relationship seems inconceivable now that Xander is in love with Anya and Willow considers herself "gay." Despite this, Xander speaks with perfect assurance when he says that Willow is his best friend, and he loves her. Willow has spent the past five years of the series trying to hide behind various masks, but Xander, who means "nothing" to Willow in any kind of formal sense, is able to see past the persona she has created. It is the unconditional love from a friend that allows Willow to feel accepted for who she is, [51] and when she finally breaks down and returns to her normal state, her friends forgive her and accept her back, because she is part of their "family."
All the characters I have mentioned experience romantic encounters at one time or another, and all find themselves hurt. Throughout the series, the common thread that ties everything together is the importance of community. Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Giles found the Scooby Gang together, and every season their friendship allows them to face another apocalypse. Their social group is able to absorb characters like Tara and Dawn in ways that both borrow from and transcend traditional biological and sexual structures. Romances begin and end, but the queer family they create provides them all with a place they can experience love, support, and unconditional acceptance.
1. Lorna Jowett, Sex and the Slayer: a gender studies primer for the Buffy fan (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005) 51.
2. Jes Battis, Blood Relations: Chosen Families in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2005) 14.
3. Margaret DeRosia, "Witches, Vampires, Slayers: Practicing Sexualities on Buffy the Vampire Slayer," unpublished manuscript, forthcoming in Camera Obscura date TBA, 12-14.
4. DeRosia, 12-13.
5. DeRosia, 6.
6. Jowett, 49-52.
7. DeRosia, 15-16.
8. Battis, 37.
9. Jowett, 52-53.
10. Jowett, 38.
11. Jowett, 52.
12. Teresa de Lauretis, "Introduction," d i f f e r e n c e s: A journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 3.2 (Summer 1991): xii.
13. Judith Butler, "Critically Queer," GLQ 1.1 (1993): 28.
14. Gregory Stevenson, Televised Morality: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2003) 237-239.
15. Jowett, 59-60.
16. Battis, 37.
17. Battis, 32.
18. Jowett, 53.
19. Jowett, 52.
20. Jowett, 181.
21. Jowett, 52-53.
22. Jowett, 52.
23. Stevenson, 149.
24. Stevenson, 152-153.
25. Stevenson, 151.
26. Karen Lindsey, Friends as Family (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1981) 179.]
27. Lindsey, 180.
28. Lindsey, 180.
29. Lindsey, 181-183.
30. Lindsey, 63.
31. Lindsey, 182.
32. Lindsey, 182-183.
33. Lindsey, 33.
34. Neil Schlager, St. James Press Gay & Lesbian Almanac (Detroit, MI: St. James Press, 1998) 132.
35. Schlager, 113-132.
36. Schlager, 114.
37. Battis, 21.
38. Stevenson, 141-144.
39. Schlager, 132.
40. Stevenson, 142.
41. Battis, 68.
42. Battis, 93.
43. Stevenson, 141.
44. Battis, 18.
45. Battis, 86.
46. Stevenson, 153-154.
47. Battis, 86.
48. Battis, 68.
49. Stevenson, 150.
50. Battis, 14.
51. Stevenson, 243.
Battis, Jes. Blood Relations: Chosen Families in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2005.
Butler, Judith. "Critically Queer." GLQ 1.1 (1993): 17-32.
de Lauretis, Teresa. "Introduction." d i f f e r e n c e s: A journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 3.2 (Summer 1991): iii-xviii.
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Comments: This essay is very well organized, and across its various sections, you develop agood analysis of th ematerial from the series. I would like to have seen a more developed engagement with two other sources from the course besides my own essay (i.e. de Lauretis and Butler, mentioned briefly). That being said, I do like the critical interventions you make in my own reading of the series, locating a useful weak spot in terms of how Tara is weakened by her relationship with Willow, much like Buffy is by hers with Angel, for instance. perhaps desire functions in the series as a scene of hope and self transformation as well as, you point out, danger, regardless of where one rests on the gay-straight binary.
I'm not so convinced by your argument that Willow adopts a "masculine" position to Tara's feminine ones, especially since much of the series is committed to undermining the associations of masculinity with (physical) activity and femininity with a wounding passivity. The argument of Willow as masculine is less obvious than the argument that she is an active, and eventually destructive figure, but the (rhetorical) danger of your argument is that it presumes an elision between masculinity, agency and destruction that especially in the case of Willow is more complex. It reiterates a vision of female homosexuality on the model of the invert, that we discussed in class, and especially given how much Willow (and sometimes Tara less, sometimes more so) dress in highly feminine ways, your argument is a bit specious here.
I also think that the beginning part of your essay, especially your thesis, sets out to prove that (asexual?) queer families are more nurturing environments than sexual or biological ones, and given that the Scoobies form a queer family made up of a mixture of sexual and asexual bonds, I don't think this thesis quite holds true; that is, the queer family imagined on the series displays a sense of community formed by the [u]join[/u] of sexual and asexual intimacies, of their ability to coexist and crossover, even change shape over time. Moreover, the value of Tara's contributions to the queer family in part are staged only because of her sexual (if metaphorically so in terms of screen acts) relationship with Willow, so it seems that the lesbian sexual relationship serves as a ground for all kinds of other nurturing intimacies up to the ending of her life/plot on the series. Still, it's important to mention, as you do, how much Tara herself does not get nurtured by that relationship so much as she becomes a maternal figure to characters, albeit at her own expense.
Mark: 83%