From a response to a friend: is Joss Whedon homophobic?

[fpb]

Actually, I do think that Joss Whedon has something of a prejudice against male homosexuals. I do not mean a violent, burn'em-at-the-stake, pathological hatred, but simply the kind of negative blokeish feeling that was, not so long ago, virtually universal. In all seven years of the series, I have not seen a single gay male character treated with respect; on the other hand, I have seen a considerable amount of negative humour or unpleasant portrayals. The underlying homosexual attraction between the three nerds, for instance, is both fairly evident and fairly negative - it leads Jonathan and Andrew to let their better sense be overruled by their dominant partner, and is at any rate associated personalities so ludicrous and ineffective as to count as a classical negative description of effeminacy. At the same time, there are jokes of which homosexuality or buggery are the implicit catchphrase; for instance, when Jonathan and Andrew are fleeing to Mexico and find themselves with a truck driver who seems to have designs on their virtue. When they realize what he wants, we are meant to laugh. A good few villains and vampires, beginning with Mister Trick, have high-camp attitudes and hints of effeminacy. And I think that this is not actually changed by the supposedly positive portrayal of lesbianism, which seems to me to reduce itself partly to the well-known male fantasy, and partly to a portrayal of two damaged women - Tara with her oppressive family background, and Willow with her dangerously addictive personality. On the whole, I find the interest of "queer theorists" and such in BtVS sadly misplaced.

Comments

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think his portrayals are a bit off. Comes down to him being a straight guy who likes seeing women together, but the men? Not so much. His "strong women" characters are borderline fetishistic too and usually paired off with geeks. But, you know, I don't really want to be harsh about Whedon, because he is better than most.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I regard him as a genius. At the same time, I think he has been praised for all the wrong things.

[sanscouronne.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I never read into Whedon's representation of sexuality as homophobic, just typically straight male. Actually, I found his portrayal of Tara and Willow to be ahead of its time, as far as popular tv goes. I am not the most knowledgeable follower of the series, but I always thought that Spike's sexuality was intriguingly ambiguous.

[fishlivejournal.livejournal.com]

Before turning lesbian, Willow is supposed to have had a crush on Xander for over a decade...and we even get to see Xander dreaming about lesbians. That always struck me as more male fantasy than anything else.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The Xander-dreaming-about-Willow-and-Tara bit always struck me as diagnostic, especially since Xander is supposed to be Whedon's alter ego. On the other hand, I disagree about the meaning of Willow's early crush; apart from the fact that it is mainly mentioned as part of a bitterly humorous situation where Xander is actually hopelessly crushing on Buffy, it strikes me as simply suitable for the frustrated and addictive kind of person that Willow is.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Willow also had a nice relationship with Oz, before messing it up with Xander. And I'm pretty sure Joss wasn't thinking that far in advance; Willow's feelings for Xander and Oz should have been genuine (if immature, especially in Xander's case -- kindergarten crush), with attraction to girls as a later writing development. Which is why a lot of fans looked askance at "I'm gay" and not "I'm bisexual".