Maybe even earlier, in the 70's? I'm not sure. I know I saw it in non-perjorative use in the 80s.
CousinJean was straight (so far as I know), and my age or even younger, but she struck me as someone who was a little... sheltered, perhaps? I suspect that the only association she had with the word was that she knew it had been used as a slur. (She became notorious later because she had the very bad idea of asking her friends list to support her financially for a year so she could have her fantasy wedding and take time off to write the Great American Novel, and maybe if she had time she'd finish her fanfic WIPs too, nudge nudge wink wink. This got translated in a lot of peoples' minds to "Pay me to write fanfic," which caused a HUGE kerfuffle, and she dropped out of fandom. We'd mostly fallen out of touch at that point, but it was quite weird.)
Most likely the line was cut for time, but it's possible that it was cut for other reasons. One of the really contentious subjects in fandom when seasons 5-7 were airing was that some fans like to draw an analogy between Buffyverse demons and Persecuted Minority Group Of Choice. They could fairly point to some episodes, especially on AtS, which encouraged that reading. But other fans were outraged at this, because Buffyverse demons and vampires are not just misunderstood and persecuted, they're, y'know, evil, with the killing and eating people stuff. Lots of angry meta was posted by both sides. I don't think that the ME writers had their finger on the pulse of fandom or anything, but it's not beyond possibility that someone pointed out that drawing an explicit parallel between vampires and gay people might be a trifle problematic in the eyes of some. Or that someone just decided that this could drum up too much more sympathy for Spike in an episode where they'd already had to re-shoot the alley beating because Joss thought fandom would never forgive Buffy if they kept the beaten-to-hamburger makeup from the first takes.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2013-06-20 02:10 pm (UTC)CousinJean was straight (so far as I know), and my age or even younger, but she struck me as someone who was a little... sheltered, perhaps? I suspect that the only association she had with the word was that she knew it had been used as a slur. (She became notorious later because she had the very bad idea of asking her friends list to support her financially for a year so she could have her fantasy wedding and take time off to write the Great American Novel, and maybe if she had time she'd finish her fanfic WIPs too, nudge nudge wink wink. This got translated in a lot of peoples' minds to "Pay me to write fanfic," which caused a HUGE kerfuffle, and she dropped out of fandom. We'd mostly fallen out of touch at that point, but it was quite weird.)
Most likely the line was cut for time, but it's possible that it was cut for other reasons. One of the really contentious subjects in fandom when seasons 5-7 were airing was that some fans like to draw an analogy between Buffyverse demons and Persecuted Minority Group Of Choice. They could fairly point to some episodes, especially on AtS, which encouraged that reading. But other fans were outraged at this, because Buffyverse demons and vampires are not just misunderstood and persecuted, they're, y'know, evil, with the killing and eating people stuff. Lots of angry meta was posted by both sides. I don't think that the ME writers had their finger on the pulse of fandom or anything, but it's not beyond possibility that someone pointed out that drawing an explicit parallel between vampires and gay people might be a trifle problematic in the eyes of some. Or that someone just decided that this could drum up too much more sympathy for Spike in an episode where they'd already had to re-shoot the alley beating because Joss thought fandom would never forgive Buffy if they kept the beaten-to-hamburger makeup from the first takes.