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Fictional Women Around the World: Willow Rosenberg · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
0:06
Speaker 2: I'm welcome to Stephan never told you protection of iHeartRadio.
0:18
Speaker 2: And welcome to another edition sub sub sub sub segment
0:22
Speaker 2: of fictional women around the World. And this is Pride Edition.
0:28
Speaker 2: And I really waffled on this one. Which is a
0:30
Speaker 2: word that Samantha was telling me is not a word
0:33
Speaker 2: in the way that I use it. Maybe it's not.
0:35
Speaker 1: It is It is a failure to make up one's mind.
0:39
Speaker 2: Ah, I have no doubt it.
0:42
Speaker 1: Yeah. It says leaves us squandering or leaves us in
0:45
Speaker 1: indecisive waffle. Yeah, as the example, I have never vindicated.
0:52
Speaker 2: I feel vindicated.
0:53
Speaker 1: You should be British is different, by the way.
0:55
Speaker 2: Though, Oh is it quaffle?
0:59
Speaker 1: No waffle? Waffled In British terms, speak or write, especially
1:03
Speaker 1: at great length without saying anything, or we need the
1:07
Speaker 1: trivial or useless talking.
1:10
Speaker 2: I could fit both, to be honest.
1:12
Speaker 1: So if I call you a waffle means you're trivial.
1:16
Speaker 2: All are unimportant like waffles. This is kind of what
1:21
Speaker 2: the audiobook experience was like. It was like, oh, that's
1:26
Speaker 2: what that means. Oh, and in Brutish it means this.
1:30
Speaker 1: Yes, I love it because we had a British director producer.
1:34
Speaker 1: She was like, this is not what that means here
1:36
Speaker 1: and in like English, in the UK English, this is
1:39
Speaker 1: how we say it, right.
1:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was funny. There's a running joke over on
1:44
Speaker 2: Savor that I'm a sleeper British spy because I say
1:46
Speaker 2: things in the UK English a lot, and she mentioned
1:50
Speaker 2: it when we were doing the audio book. She was like, yeah,
1:52
Speaker 2: you're You're doing a lot of the UK stations, Like,
1:55
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, maybe it's true.
1:58
Speaker 1: I watched Harry Potter a lot.
2:03
Speaker 2: That's all it is.
2:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, okay, but I waffled about this one, and
2:09
Speaker 3: I'm sure some of you were screaming about how I
2:12
Speaker 3: picked it because it is problematic in a plethora of.
2:15
Speaker 2: Ways, and we're going to talk about some of them.
2:17
Speaker 2: But I also can't deny this was one of the
2:19
Speaker 2: first times, legitimately I saw a lesbian couple on TV,
2:24
Speaker 2: more specifically in the mainstream but like ever on TV
2:27
Speaker 2: at all, and it really impacted me. It did. And yes,
2:32
Speaker 2: we are talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayers, Willow Rosenberg
2:35
Speaker 2: and her relationship with Tara McLay, and we're mostly focusing
2:39
Speaker 2: on the show you made fun of how long this
2:42
Speaker 2: outline is. I didn't even put in any of the
2:44
Speaker 2: comic book stuff because I was like, well and eventually
2:47
Speaker 2: I'm just going to be explaining everything, and like five
2:49
Speaker 2: hours later, maybe we'll be done. So I'm focusing on
2:53
Speaker 2: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, not Angel, which she also appeared on,
2:57
Speaker 2: and I do I did watch. I watched both, but
2:59
Speaker 2: I can't remember Angel as well. Yes, and it does
3:04
Speaker 2: come with the Joss Whedon disclaimer because a lot of
3:06
Speaker 2: stuff has come out about the set of this show
3:09
Speaker 2: and how weedn treated women specifically and young women specifically,
3:14
Speaker 2: which is incredibly disheartening because it did feel so refreshing
3:17
Speaker 2: and so feminist in a lot of ways. Past host
3:20
Speaker 2: have talked about it, and that tarnishes the whole thing, unfortunately,
3:23
Speaker 2: but I have to think about it. So this character
3:27
Speaker 2: was first played by Riff Reagan in the movie, but
3:31
Speaker 2: largely has been played by Alison Hannigan, who dyed her
3:35
Speaker 2: hair red for the part. I did not know that
3:37
Speaker 2: because I guess he was like, we have a blonde,
3:39
Speaker 2: we have a brunette, we need to red or something
3:42
Speaker 2: like that. So yeah, So while this romance between these
3:49
Speaker 2: characters Tara. I always say Tara, but it might be Tara.
3:52
Speaker 2: It's been a long time since I've watched this show,
3:54
Speaker 2: and Willow was very groundbreaking at the time. It was
3:57
Speaker 2: handled somewhat clumsily and so aspects, especially in hindsight. And
4:02
Speaker 2: that's not to diminish the impact it had at all,
4:04
Speaker 2: because again, it really did impact me and a lot
4:06
Speaker 2: of people. But I remember, even as kind of a younger,
4:10
Speaker 2: not as educated in terms of queer literature person, that
4:13
Speaker 2: I was raising my eyebrow a few lines in there
4:16
Speaker 2: about it. That being said, I think you can make
4:21
Speaker 2: the arguments that the characters were growing too, because I,
4:25
Speaker 2: for one remember, and I hate this, but it's true.
4:28
Speaker 2: I remember desperately wanting to be straight and afraid that
4:32
Speaker 2: I wasn't, which is toxic bullshit. But I suspect that
4:38
Speaker 2: this was less character driven and more writer driven and
4:40
Speaker 2: just how things were spoken about at the time. But
4:42
Speaker 2: I do see like some people make the argument like, oh, well,
4:45
Speaker 2: they were young and growing and learning all that kind
4:48
Speaker 2: of stuff, all right, So the history. Buffy the Vampire
4:52
Speaker 2: Slayer was an American drama slash horror slash comedy created
4:57
Speaker 2: and largely written and directed by Joss Whedon that ran
5:00
Speaker 2: from nineteen ninety seven to two thousand and three. It
5:03
Speaker 2: was crazy.
5:05
Speaker 1: The movie was to I don't know, so the movie
5:09
Speaker 1: is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
5:11
Speaker 2: There is. I don't know that he had anything to
5:13
Speaker 2: do with that, but he created the show.
5:15
Speaker 1: Okay, it was not created Buffy the Vampire Slayer because
5:18
Speaker 1: it starts off the same mm hmm. It is based
5:20
Speaker 1: off all the same things, So that's all I'm one, Yes, okay,
5:24
Speaker 1: but specifically to this show, but not necessarily.
5:27
Speaker 2: The characters, right, Okay, there, Yes, I believe that's correct. However,
5:33
Speaker 2: it has spawned a whole host of other media, like comics.
5:37
Speaker 2: So many comics. It follows a young woman and vampire slayer,
5:42
Speaker 2: Buffy Summers and her friends nicknamed the Scooby Gang, and
5:46
Speaker 2: their battles against evil in the town of Sunnydale. My
5:50
Speaker 2: little brother used to live in sunny Vale. Yeah, and
5:52
Speaker 2: so I always get confused. It's sunny Dale. Sunnydale aka
5:57
Speaker 2: the hell Mouth. Buffy's best friend is a witch named
6:01
Speaker 2: Willow Rosenberg. In the beginning, she's shy, she's a bit
6:04
Speaker 2: of a nerd, but she goes on to become a
6:06
Speaker 2: powerful and dangerous witch. By some accounts, she's Erth's greatest witch,
6:12
Speaker 2: their most powerful witch. She was smart, level headed, determined, shy, sweet,
6:18
Speaker 2: and not one to hold a grudge, but at the
6:20
Speaker 2: same time vengeful, very very vengeful. We're going to talk
6:24
Speaker 2: about that. She was a very powerful magic user. She
6:28
Speaker 2: could do all kinds of things, like the whole host
6:30
Speaker 2: of things. She often expressed frustration about being childish or
6:36
Speaker 2: being perceived as childish, and later was weighed down with
6:40
Speaker 2: a lot of self doubt and guilt about dark Willow,
6:43
Speaker 2: which we'll talk about again in a second. But before that, Yes,
6:48
Speaker 2: she was a nerd, and she was a go to
6:50
Speaker 2: for tutoring. Because of this, she was the target of
6:53
Speaker 2: popular student Cordelia Chase, leading Willow to create the We
6:57
Speaker 2: Hate Cordelia Club. She had a huge unrequited crush on
7:02
Speaker 2: her best friend Xander, whom she'd grown up with, but
7:06
Speaker 2: he had a huge unrequited crush on their shared best friend, Buffy,
7:10
Speaker 2: and some of Buffy's advice about seizing the day led
7:14
Speaker 2: Willow unknowingly to go on a date with a vampire
7:18
Speaker 2: as you do, and having to be rescued by Buffy.
7:22
Speaker 2: Buffy told Willow about her secret identity as a vampire slayer,
7:25
Speaker 2: and then they became BFFs, and Willow dedicated herself to
7:29
Speaker 2: learning more about the supernatural so she could help Buffy,
7:32
Speaker 2: although that kind of came later on. In the early day,
7:34
Speaker 2: she was much more like research. I'll help you with research,
7:38
Speaker 2: libraries and computing and hacking and all that. This led
7:44
Speaker 2: to her almost getting killed by some demons she met
7:47
Speaker 2: on the internet, but that's also how it goes sometimes.
7:52
Speaker 2: After witnessing several deaths and having several nearly fatal run ins,
7:56
Speaker 2: Willow started to evolve. She became more out spoken and assertive.
8:01
Speaker 2: She confronted Xander over choosing to date Cordelia over her,
8:06
Speaker 2: and went about moving on with a guitarist named Oz
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Speaker 2: played by Seth Green, who we discussed I had a
8:13
Speaker 2: crush on. Yes, yes, it turns out he's aware wolf
8:20
Speaker 2: and he almost killed Willow on accident, but she continued
8:23
Speaker 2: to date him.
8:24
Speaker 1: I got that plotline.
8:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's a blastomas. After Buffy's vampire love and
8:43
Speaker 2: just Angel killed one of Willow's favorite technopagan teachers, Willow
8:49
Speaker 2: taught her her classes for the remainder of the year,
8:52
Speaker 2: and she used the materials that the teacher had left
8:54
Speaker 2: behind to learn more about witchcraft, including the original ritual
8:58
Speaker 2: that was used to in Soul Angel decades before. She
9:03
Speaker 2: set about learning it and succeeded right before Buffy was
9:07
Speaker 2: going to kill Angel. It was a whole dramatic thing.
9:09
Speaker 2: Willow decided she wanted to learn magic to help Buffy
9:12
Speaker 2: fight evil. She briefly took over leadership of the Scooby
9:15
Speaker 2: Gang while Buffy was away and led them on largely
9:18
Speaker 2: unsuccessful vampire hunts. Out they're trying, she started practicing spells
9:25
Speaker 2: and blessings. She joined a covin, though they became targets
9:29
Speaker 2: of an anti occult group that included Willow's mother. Xander
9:33
Speaker 2: and Willow continued to kind of dance around each other
9:36
Speaker 2: despite the fact that they were involved with other people,
9:39
Speaker 2: and they shared a kiss and a tense situation with
9:43
Speaker 2: both of their respective partners witnessing it. Xander and Cordelia
9:48
Speaker 2: broke up, but Willow and Oz worked it out. At
9:51
Speaker 2: one point, Willow joined forces with ex vengeance demon Anya
9:55
Speaker 2: and accidentally summoned or released her vampire counterpart from another dimension.
10:03
Speaker 2: Yes she is stunned to learn that vampire Willow is
10:08
Speaker 2: attracted to women, and later, after losing her memory, Willow says,
10:13
Speaker 2: I think I'm kind of gay. So they were like
10:16
Speaker 2: Hents early on earlier Seawan. Though Willow got into many
10:21
Speaker 2: Ivy League colleges, she opted to go to university in Sunnydale,
10:25
Speaker 2: so she keep fighting it alongside Buffy, at one point
10:29
Speaker 2: believing that she was going to die without exploring her
10:32
Speaker 2: relationship with Oz. They had sex together it was Willow's
10:35
Speaker 2: first time. Later, Oz cheated on her with another werewolf
10:39
Speaker 2: named Veruka, and he left town, leaving Willow heartbroken. She
10:44
Speaker 2: attempted to curse them both, but was interrupted when Varuka
10:48
Speaker 2: tried to kill her, and Oz killed Veruka to stop her.
10:53
Speaker 2: Oz left fearful of putting Willow in danger. Willow wrote
10:57
Speaker 2: letters to him, but didn't know where to send them
10:59
Speaker 2: and grew increasingly bitter, casting a spell that accidentally put
11:03
Speaker 2: her friends in danger, which is a kind of common
11:05
Speaker 2: thread of her story. Actually, she was able to reverse
11:10
Speaker 2: it and was offered to become a vengeance demon, but
11:12
Speaker 2: she turned it down. So she joined up with the
11:16
Speaker 2: campus WICCA group, but found only one of them actually
11:19
Speaker 2: had experience with magic, and it was shy, Timid but
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Speaker 2: serious Tara McLay played by Amber Benson. After an encounter
11:27
Speaker 2: with some monsters. They become friends and have regular meetups
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Speaker 2: to practice magic, and Twillow eventually introduces Tara to the gang.
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Speaker 2: Over time, they became really, really, really close and they
11:39
Speaker 2: fell in love, though they kept that part quiet but drama.
11:45
Speaker 2: Oz returned claiming he had his wolf side tamped down
11:50
Speaker 2: and that he wanted to continue his relationship with Willow,
11:53
Speaker 2: and Willow is really torn and she goes to Buffy
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Speaker 2: and comes out to Buffy and explains how she feels
11:59
Speaker 2: about when Oz found out it turns out his wolf's
12:03
Speaker 2: side was not so much in control he left down
12:07
Speaker 2: once again. Willow told Tara she was the one she loved. Spike,
12:12
Speaker 2: who if you have never seen this show, you might
12:14
Speaker 2: be so confused and what a ride this must be,
12:17
Speaker 2: But he's a vampire. He, along with others, tried to
12:20
Speaker 2: split the Scoobies up, and one of the ways that
12:23
Speaker 2: they did that was essentially by outing Willow to everyone
12:26
Speaker 2: by revealing her relationship with Tara. It didn't work. Willow's
12:31
Speaker 2: power grew massively and her feelings for Tara strengthened. When
12:34
Speaker 2: she found out about the abuse and the lies that
12:36
Speaker 2: Tara had to grow up and deal with with her family.
12:40
Speaker 2: But Tara was worried about how much Willow was relying
12:42
Speaker 2: on magic and how much she was using it, and
12:45
Speaker 2: it led to a fight between them, one of many
12:47
Speaker 2: when a powerful evil hell goddess named Glory attacked Tara,
12:53
Speaker 2: leaving her insane. A spiteful Willow attacked Glory. Even though
12:57
Speaker 2: Buffy did her best convince her not to, she spat
13:02
Speaker 2: in the goddess's face. Willow did injure her, but was
13:05
Speaker 2: almost killed in the effort. So Buffy was trying to
13:07
Speaker 2: tell her, like you're not strong enough, she'll kill you,
13:10
Speaker 2: don't do it anyway. Glory then cursed Buffy to be catatonic,
13:17
Speaker 2: but Willow was able to pull her out of her
13:18
Speaker 2: own mind and then restore Tara's mind and helped slow
13:22
Speaker 2: down Glory. However, Buffy had to sacrifice herself to save
13:26
Speaker 2: her sister Dawn. Willow became the Scooby's leader. After she died.
13:32
Speaker 2: She looked after Dawn and told Angel about Buffy's death. However,
13:37
Speaker 2: using magic in the help of her friends, she was
13:40
Speaker 2: able to resurrect Buffy. Though many express concerns with her
13:45
Speaker 2: channeling such powerful deep magic. Tara argued that she developed
13:51
Speaker 2: an addiction to magic, but Willow, who yes was addicted
13:54
Speaker 2: to magic this is very culiarly like a metaphor for
13:57
Speaker 2: drug addiction, used it to erase the memory of the
13:59
Speaker 2: fight from Tara's brain. So when she discovered that Buffy,
14:04
Speaker 2: Willow discovered that Buffy had been in Heaven and not
14:06
Speaker 2: in hell as which is what she believed. She discussed
14:10
Speaker 2: erasing the memory of heaven from Buffy's mind, which caused
14:13
Speaker 2: another argument between her and Tara. To reassure her, Willow
14:18
Speaker 2: swore not to use magic for an entire week, but
14:20
Speaker 2: immediately backtracked and tried to cast a spell to race
14:23
Speaker 2: both Tara and Buffy's memories of her using it excessively,
14:27
Speaker 2: but it backfired. It gave them all amnesia, put them
14:31
Speaker 2: all at risk when their memories were restored. Tara broke
14:34
Speaker 2: up with Willow. The pain of the breakup and the
14:37
Speaker 2: absence of Tara's presence allowed for Willow's addiction to spiral
14:40
Speaker 2: out of control. She started going to a dark magic dealer,
14:44
Speaker 2: at one point, putting Dawn in danger and ignoring the
14:47
Speaker 2: concerns of her friends and accidentally summoning a demon while
14:52
Speaker 2: high on magic. Dawn was injured in their escape, and
14:55
Speaker 2: Willow finally had to face these consequences of her actions,
14:58
Speaker 2: and she swore off magic and instead went back to
15:01
Speaker 2: her tech skills. Willow and Tara reconciled, and while they
15:06
Speaker 2: were laying in bed, Tara was shot and killed by
15:08
Speaker 2: a bullet met for Buffy, fired by this guy named Warren.
15:13
Speaker 2: Willow tried to use magic to bring Tara back, but
15:16
Speaker 2: she couldn't, so her grief transformed to rage. She absorbed
15:21
Speaker 2: all the dark magic she could. It turned her hair
15:24
Speaker 2: and her eyes black. She had like these black veins
15:27
Speaker 2: going everywhere. She abandoned her old life and her friends
15:31
Speaker 2: and embraced the dark, eventually using magic to flay Warren alive.
15:36
Speaker 2: And this is one of the most memorable scenes for
15:38
Speaker 2: the whole series for me. I remember this episode in
15:41
Speaker 2: this arc very clearly.
15:42
Speaker 1: I think I stopped watching at this point.
15:44
Speaker 2: Oh there's one part where she's like on a semi
15:48
Speaker 2: truck and the music is like, oh, like, I'll never
15:54
Speaker 2: forget it. I bet people listening some of you.
15:59
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, because I don't know. Obviously, I did not
16:04
Speaker 1: watch this.
16:06
Speaker 2: They did call her Dark Willow, which became kind of
16:09
Speaker 2: a haunting. It kind of became a joke people would
16:14
Speaker 2: use what they'd say, I don't want to go all
16:15
Speaker 2: dark Willow, and it really messed with it messed with her.
16:19
Speaker 2: This is like one of the things that hangs over
16:20
Speaker 2: her a lot that she well, I mean rightfully, So
16:22
Speaker 2: she did a lot of bad Yeah yeah, but that's
16:27
Speaker 2: like her big after this is being too afraid. Well anyway,
16:30
Speaker 2: I'm getting ahead of myself. So okay, okay. So Buffy
16:34
Speaker 2: fought Willow, but Willow had cast a super strength spell
16:37
Speaker 2: on herself and declared I'm the slayer now. She then
16:41
Speaker 2: absorbed Giles's magic along with the magic he borrowed to
16:44
Speaker 2: fight Willow. Sensing all the pain of the world and
16:48
Speaker 2: overcome with it, she decided that it was time to
16:51
Speaker 2: end the world, so Xanders. She tries to start the apocalypse,
16:57
Speaker 2: but Xander stopped her when he refused to leave her side.
17:00
Speaker 2: No matter what the power she'd stolen from, Giles left her,
17:05
Speaker 2: and she broke down in grief over everything that she
17:07
Speaker 2: had done. Giles, along with others, helped her in rehabilitating
17:12
Speaker 2: and controlling and connecting to her magic, though she was
17:15
Speaker 2: much more hesitant to use it now. She was so
17:18
Speaker 2: scared of reuniting with her friends that she accidentally cast
17:21
Speaker 2: a spell that rendered her invisible. She started dating the
17:25
Speaker 2: potential slayer Kennedy very reluctantly, and after their first kiss,
17:31
Speaker 2: a curse started to transform her into Warren as punishment
17:37
Speaker 2: and using her to continue his violent rampage. Kennedy helped
17:41
Speaker 2: her stop it before she fully transformed by getting her
17:44
Speaker 2: to face her grief over what had happened to Tara. Gradually,
17:48
Speaker 2: Willow became more confident in using her magic again, helping
17:51
Speaker 2: out Angel and Cordelia at Buffy's behesse, Willow used her
17:56
Speaker 2: magic and tech skills to activate several potential slow all
18:01
Speaker 2: around the world. Her hair turned pure white in the process,
18:06
Speaker 2: and like Kennedy deified her, I don't know, uh, And
18:12
Speaker 2: then she famously said that was nifty, and they got
18:16
Speaker 2: out of sunny Dale before it was destroyed. Then this
18:22
Speaker 2: is where like I'm going to condense so much because
18:25
Speaker 2: that's the end of the show. This is we're moving
18:28
Speaker 2: into like comics territory.
18:29
Speaker 1: Oh.
18:30
Speaker 2: She spent some time in Brazil with Kennedy, was given
18:33
Speaker 2: the choice to have Tara as a spiritual guide, but
18:35
Speaker 2: turned it down when she realized it would either be
18:37
Speaker 2: an illusion or would rip Tara from the afterlife. Then
18:41
Speaker 2: Kennedy died and was resurrected, and Willow revealed she believed
18:45
Speaker 2: Tara's death was her punishment for resurrecting Buffy. Willow was
18:49
Speaker 2: then kidnapped by a flayed Warren, who revealed he'd been
18:53
Speaker 2: revived soon after Willow killed him by an ex friend
18:57
Speaker 2: of Willow's, Amy, who by the way, spent a lot
18:59
Speaker 2: of the show was at trapped in rat FORMA.
19:03
Speaker 1: Oh, I remember that episode, the one that took over
19:06
Speaker 1: the mom or the mom's body they switched.
19:10
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it was early Yeah, yeah.
19:13
Speaker 1: I remember this episode.
19:14
Speaker 2: I think she was rat for like five seasons.
19:17
Speaker 1: I think she just disappeared.
19:20
Speaker 2: No, Willow kept her as a pit because.
19:24
Speaker 1: That was a doll, that was a trophy. Never mind,
19:26
Speaker 1: I switched it.
19:27
Speaker 2: Okay, Well we had a moment and then it was
19:30
Speaker 2: all wrong.
19:30
Speaker 1: But that's I do feel like I remember the rat thing.
19:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, ok, yeah, Well, Amy was very jealous of Willow
19:39
Speaker 2: and had also been there during her dark magic times
19:42
Speaker 2: and was like, let's try more dark magic, so she
19:44
Speaker 2: didn't seem like she was great, but anyway, she also
19:47
Speaker 2: spent a long time as a rat who knows, so
19:51
Speaker 2: this like flayed version of Warren tried to bottomize Willow,
19:55
Speaker 2: but Willow was rescued by Buffy. A vision of the
19:58
Speaker 2: future revealed that Dark Willow returned and there was a
20:02
Speaker 2: world without magic at some point, and Willow worked with
20:04
Speaker 2: Angel and his son Connor to restore it, but she
20:08
Speaker 2: accidentally absorbed too much dark magic in the process, and
20:11
Speaker 2: then she kind of briefly went evil and kicked some ass,
20:14
Speaker 2: like dropped aim mountain on somebody, but was able to
20:16
Speaker 2: come back. A little dramatic, A lot of it, I
20:20
Speaker 2: mean a lot of It's pretty dramatic, let's be honest.
20:24
Speaker 2: I watched, like I said, I remember her showing up
20:26
Speaker 2: on Angel, but I don't remember this, so I don't know.
20:29
Speaker 2: That might have been the show, or it might have
20:31
Speaker 2: been the comics. But a super coven tried to convince
20:34
Speaker 2: Willow to stay in their paradise dimension and forget about
20:37
Speaker 2: saving Earth, but Willow realized that there was no Light
20:40
Speaker 2: Willow and no Dark Willow. There was just Willow. She
20:44
Speaker 2: dueled her disguised ex dark Magic Dealer eventually restored her magic,
20:50
Speaker 2: and at one point she stopped Tara from being resurrected
20:54
Speaker 2: because she was happy in heaven. She was called the
20:57
Speaker 2: mad Woman in this dystopian future. Please if you've read
21:03
Speaker 2: the comics, Oh my gosh, let me know, because I
21:05
Speaker 2: was reading this like whoa.
21:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. Just to clarify, Also, because I did look it up.
21:20
Speaker 1: Joss Whedon did do the screenplay for the movie.
21:23
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so he did.
21:25
Speaker 1: He did do it all of that. He didn't direct
21:26
Speaker 1: it necessarily, but he did write the movie. So this
21:29
Speaker 1: is all his baby. He changed it vastly, obviously, because
21:33
Speaker 1: the first one is a complete comedy. Yeah, a little
21:35
Speaker 1: bit like a little bit of darkness, but not this.
21:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think I've watched that movie during the pandemic
21:41
Speaker 2: for the first time, and I was like, whoa.
21:44
Speaker 1: I watched it when it first came out. Oh yeah,
21:47
Speaker 1: and this was one of my go to movies with
21:49
Speaker 1: one of my best friends. We could have quote all
21:51
Speaker 1: the lines. It's one of those movies for me.
21:55
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to go back and rewatch it because
21:56
Speaker 2: I didn't know Willow was in there. But yes, yes,
22:01
Speaker 2: that's yes. Pigs for clarifying. So this character was groundbreaking
22:05
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways. There are also a lot
22:07
Speaker 2: of issues we could talk about here. One of the
22:09
Speaker 2: big ones is the barrier gaze trope. So Willow didn't die,
22:14
Speaker 2: but there was a massive backlash when Terra died, with
22:18
Speaker 2: Nie saying that this really played into that trope, which
22:21
Speaker 2: is basically what it sounds like. Killing off the few
22:23
Speaker 2: gay characters that there are usually fairly quickly and in
22:26
Speaker 2: some tragic way to further plotlines, which is fair critique
22:31
Speaker 2: in this I will say, Tara, it's not she was
22:33
Speaker 2: there for a minute, but yeah, she did get killed
22:37
Speaker 2: off while they were having a sweet moment in bed.
22:40
Speaker 2: Wheden was also accused as being homophobic at the time.
22:44
Speaker 2: I don't think either of these actors are gay. But
22:49
Speaker 2: one of the things I vaguely remember was there was
22:52
Speaker 2: this idea in the show and just around like the
23:00
Speaker 2: reaction to the show that that was like turned to gay,
23:04
Speaker 2: Like she got turned gay. But Buffy does have a
23:08
Speaker 2: line where she's like, as you you know, back in
23:12
Speaker 2: the past somehow with her present day memories and it's
23:16
Speaker 2: their high school time, and she has this line where
23:18
Speaker 2: she's like, oh, you don't realize. You're not basically implying
23:23
Speaker 2: Willow doesn't realize she's gay yet. So, as I said,
23:27
Speaker 2: it can be a process. It's quite possible she didn't know,
23:30
Speaker 2: and then there's a whole conversation this is actually more recent,
23:34
Speaker 2: like maybe she was by.
23:36
Speaker 1: Well, that's the first thing I was gonna ask recently.
23:38
Speaker 1: I was like, because she really was in love with
23:40
Speaker 1: the Seth Green character, Like, right, all of that, So
23:44
Speaker 1: could she not have just been By or Pan one
23:46
Speaker 1: of those two things and not necessarily just lesbian? But
23:48
Speaker 1: I mean, there's nothing wrong with being a LESBIANI I
23:51
Speaker 1: just wondered, because.
23:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because it's a big conversation around by rasure
23:57
Speaker 2: and she did. I think she had three steady relationships
24:01
Speaker 2: with dudes before she met Tara, and then after that
24:03
Speaker 2: they were all women, and she made a lot of
24:06
Speaker 2: lesbian jokes after that. But Weedon has said that if
24:12
Speaker 2: the show were made today, she would be by, but
24:14
Speaker 2: at the time audiences weren't ready and would see it
24:18
Speaker 2: as a phase. So here's the quote. It was like, Okay,
24:21
Speaker 2: you can make Willow bye, but you can't say this
24:23
Speaker 2: is a phase, because that's what people do to deny
24:26
Speaker 2: their existence. So if I did it now, I'd be like, yes,
24:29
Speaker 2: she can be by because some people are. But back
24:32
Speaker 2: then it was like, no, we're not ready for that. Also,
24:35
Speaker 2: there's I kind of chuckled because I forgot about the
24:38
Speaker 2: whole Vampire Willow being into women and that I was like,
24:41
Speaker 2: that feels so like lesbians are evil and like, hey, people,
24:45
Speaker 2: what are they up to?
24:48
Speaker 1: But she was also dating the dark Xander character I think, so, yeah,
24:54
Speaker 1: that was the alternate universe that Cordelia creates when she's
24:58
Speaker 1: mad at Xander with the revenge.
25:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's where.
25:01
Speaker 1: The Dark Willow order the Vampire Willow came from. I
25:04
Speaker 1: did remember this episode.
25:07
Speaker 2: Aesthetic Yeah, yeah, as Dandrel.
25:09
Speaker 1: Was an a vampire too, I think, and the two
25:12
Speaker 1: of them were real dark and evil, but they would
25:14
Speaker 1: always make out with each other. But she also liked
25:16
Speaker 1: women too, right. I don't think she was full on.
25:19
Speaker 2: Right, but it does kind of play into that that
25:21
Speaker 2: we've talked about before, that sort of sexualization of gay
25:25
Speaker 2: people where it's like, oh she's evil, now she's everybody
25:30
Speaker 2: like m M. But it was groundbreaking. It was one
25:37
Speaker 2: of the first lesbian couples in mainstream at media that
25:41
Speaker 2: wasn't a punchline or used for shock factor, which we
25:43
Speaker 2: discussed recently. And I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer as
25:47
Speaker 2: a young person, and I remember being so blown away
25:49
Speaker 2: by it and the way it was treated like it
25:51
Speaker 2: wasn't a big deal in the context of the show.
25:54
Speaker 2: That's just it was. They loved each other, that was it.
25:56
Speaker 1: It did definitely came off as if like because most
25:59
Speaker 1: of the things, especially in that generation or that timeframe,
26:02
Speaker 1: was like it came from a mel gaze, like obviously
26:04
Speaker 1: their sexual lives and this is like out of a
26:06
Speaker 1: male men's fantasy level of lesbian and this is and
26:11
Speaker 1: the two of them were cute together and like genuinely
26:13
Speaker 1: sweet and loving and it wasn't for anybody but them,
26:17
Speaker 1: but being in a relationship necessarily, so like, oh that
26:21
Speaker 1: is different. And it didn't make you uncomfortable because they
26:23
Speaker 1: weren't overtly sexual, no, as of like being all the
26:27
Speaker 1: time making out and like trying to address each other
26:30
Speaker 1: and then staying at a dude as of right, that's
26:33
Speaker 1: who it's for.
26:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, they had like a really sweet relationship and like
26:38
Speaker 2: most of the scenes I remember of their relationship, are
26:41
Speaker 2: you know, like kind of just like gentle kisses, or
26:44
Speaker 2: there's a scene where they're helping Terror's helping Willow pick
26:47
Speaker 2: out her clothes, like it's a lot of just kind
26:50
Speaker 2: of a sweet, like normal couple stuff.
26:52
Speaker 1: It really was.
26:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was the first long term lesbian relationship
26:56
Speaker 2: depicted on mainstream television, so that means it'd get a
27:00
Speaker 2: lot of backlash when the character was revealed as gay,
27:04
Speaker 2: But Weeden said, for every negative post, there's somebody saying
27:07
Speaker 2: you made my life a lot easier because I now
27:09
Speaker 2: have someone I can relate to on screen. So there's
27:13
Speaker 2: that importance of representation and good genuine representation. When Willow
27:18
Speaker 2: had sex with the potential Slayer Kennedy in the seventh season,
27:22
Speaker 2: it was one of the first lesbian sex scenes on television. Yes,
27:26
Speaker 2: and this kind of cracked me up because, like I said,
27:28
Speaker 2: the Dark Willow arc is one of the most memorable
27:31
Speaker 2: things to me. But Willow is often described as having
27:34
Speaker 2: largely healthy relationships pre magic, addiction and post recovery, and
27:39
Speaker 2: even then, people pointing out like Tara realized Willow was
27:42
Speaker 2: bad for her and left, unlike Buffy who kept staying
27:47
Speaker 2: of these toxic relationships she was also Jewish culturally and religiously.
27:52
Speaker 2: She described herself as a Jewish Wickan, and there are
27:55
Speaker 2: plenty of instances throughout the show where she makes a
27:58
Speaker 2: comment about growing up Jewish, being Jewish, and she was
28:02
Speaker 2: a woman in Stem, although some articles I read pointed
28:05
Speaker 2: out like that part felt so quickly abandoned when she
28:09
Speaker 2: discovered the magic, which I get, but I also get
28:12
Speaker 2: why that might annoy you a woman in Stem, where
28:15
Speaker 2: it's like, nah, don't do this computer stuff anymore.
28:18
Speaker 1: That's funny.
28:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, So she was in a lot of ways. She
28:22
Speaker 2: made it. She made a pretty big impact for a
28:24
Speaker 2: lot of people. So I know, we got to talk
28:27
Speaker 2: about all the problematic stuff, but I wanted I just
28:30
Speaker 2: remember her having such a big impact on me when
28:34
Speaker 2: I was young. So here you go. And I know
28:38
Speaker 2: I glossed over so much and I probably made some
28:40
Speaker 2: mistakes because it's complicated to describe things like this, I
28:43
Speaker 2: tell you, so let me know so long ago too.
28:47
Speaker 2: I know I haven't rewatched it forever. Yeah, I try.
28:51
Speaker 1: To rewatch it because it came of course, it came
28:54
Speaker 1: back up, and we were talking about Petro Pascal being
28:56
Speaker 1: in the first like, yeah, thanks seasons like what, I've
29:00
Speaker 1: rewatched it. I saw him. I was like, best what
29:05
Speaker 1: But yeah, like I try to rewatch it, still couldn't
29:08
Speaker 1: make it all the way through it.
29:11
Speaker 2: I really liked it. I mean some of those some
29:13
Speaker 2: of the episodes I remember very clearly. But yeah, it
29:17
Speaker 2: has been a minute since I've watched it. So if
29:19
Speaker 2: I made any mistakes, or if you have any notice
29:21
Speaker 2: about the comics or thoughts about this at all, you
29:24
Speaker 2: can email us at STEPHANIEA mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
29:27
Speaker 2: You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast,
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Speaker 2: or on Instagram and TikTok and Stuff I Ever Told You.
29:32
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29:44
Speaker 2: Thanks as always to our super producer Christina, our executive
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Speaker 2: producer Maya, and our contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks
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