Oh, Joss...was his attention already wandering to other projects?
In Buffy S3? It was wandering to 'Angel' the series. :) But to be fair to him, I think any creator would feel the same way when fans give an interpretation to the story you didn't put there yourself.
Thought experiment: imagine you write a story where Tara meets Spike, and they banter with each other and compare notes on Willow and Buffy, and it's a nice fluffy friendship fic. Then one of your readers leaves a comment saying, "Wow, that was so incredibly hot! I've never read Spike/Tara before, but the sexual subtext in your fic really turned me on (literally!) to that pairing! Please please write a sequel where they actually get it on together!
Would you be pleased? Or horrified? Would you stare blankly at your fic thinking, "How on earth did they see hetero subtext in this?" :)
I am NOT saying it's meant to be homophobic or done intentionally.
I do think one of the themes that runs through BtVS, that a lot of people in present-day fandom find objectionable, is the idea that "wild uncontrolled casual sex is kind of a bad thing, you know?" It's perhaps understandable in a show started in the 1990s for a US broadcast TV network aimed at teenagers, but it doesn't really fit with a modern sex-positive ideology.
So yes, in 'Bad Girls' we see Buffy flirting with Faith, and Buffy flirting with a bunch of strange guys on the dancefloor in the Bronze, and Buffy leaping on Angel and wrapping her legs around him in public, and I do think we're meant to think this is a bad thing - whereas most people in fandom are probably cheering her on! I don't think it's specifically meant to be homophobic in particular, since after all it's Angel who is shown to be made uncomfortable by her behaviour towards him, not Faith.
I don't tend to think in numbers on a scale because to me it's a continuum, a sliding scale, but Kinsey
To me, the Kinsey Scale is just a convenient shorthand. There's no reason it can't represent a continuum, with Buffy being a 0.9, Faith being a 3.4 and Willow being a 4.9 on the scale! :)
no subject
In Buffy S3? It was wandering to 'Angel' the series. :) But to be fair to him, I think any creator would feel the same way when fans give an interpretation to the story you didn't put there yourself.
Thought experiment: imagine you write a story where Tara meets Spike, and they banter with each other and compare notes on Willow and Buffy, and it's a nice fluffy friendship fic. Then one of your readers leaves a comment saying, "Wow, that was so incredibly hot! I've never read Spike/Tara before, but the sexual subtext in your fic really turned me on (literally!) to that pairing! Please please write a sequel where they actually get it on together!
Would you be pleased? Or horrified? Would you stare blankly at your fic thinking, "How on earth did they see hetero subtext in this?" :)
I am NOT saying it's meant to be homophobic or done intentionally.
I do think one of the themes that runs through BtVS, that a lot of people in present-day fandom find objectionable, is the idea that "wild uncontrolled casual sex is kind of a bad thing, you know?" It's perhaps understandable in a show started in the 1990s for a US broadcast TV network aimed at teenagers, but it doesn't really fit with a modern sex-positive ideology.
So yes, in 'Bad Girls' we see Buffy flirting with Faith, and Buffy flirting with a bunch of strange guys on the dancefloor in the Bronze, and Buffy leaping on Angel and wrapping her legs around him in public, and I do think we're meant to think this is a bad thing - whereas most people in fandom are probably cheering her on! I don't think it's specifically meant to be homophobic in particular, since after all it's Angel who is shown to be made uncomfortable by her behaviour towards him, not Faith.
I don't tend to think in numbers on a scale because to me it's a continuum, a sliding scale, but Kinsey
To me, the Kinsey Scale is just a convenient shorthand. There's no reason it can't represent a continuum, with Buffy being a 0.9, Faith being a 3.4 and Willow being a 4.9 on the scale! :)