I haven't posted this before because, well just because, but now's the time. This seems the most appropriate place for it, apologies in advance that this will be rather long.
Ok – so this is me. By 15 I knew I was gay and at 17 I had my first girlfriend, and I’m happy to say that my life has been relatively easy. Although I’ve had to make some hard choices and lived through some difficult times, that is no more than should be expected by anyone choosing to take charge of their own life. I’ve never been queer-bashed, never been subject to any obvious discrimination and never been rejected by anyone who really mattered. My family love and accept my partner, we’re out to all our friends, we work together and all our colleagues know that we’re partners.
I’m 32 years old, a grown up with a loving partner, a decent career, a nice house, pretty much everything I could wish for.
So how come I lay in bed this morning crying at the prospect of watching a television show that I have always loved?
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it over the last few weeks, ever since I turned into the spoiler whore I always said I would avoid becoming. I know that everything I’m about to write has been said; I know because I’ve read it all, lurking in the background, wondering if I would ever feel the need to say it myself. Well, now I do and I'll thank you now for bearing with me while I spell it out, as much for myself as for anyone else.
I grew up knowing that I was different. All around me I could see images of love, in films, on TV, in music videos and love songs and on the covers of the magazines that every other teenager was reading. All the great love stories, the Gone with the Winds, Casablancas and Wuthering Heights were about the love of a man and a woman. That was great – but it wasn’t me; wouldn’t ever be me. So where did I find the images that told me my own choices were ok? Well the answer is no different for me than for any other lesbian, I didn’t. The images just didn’t exist, and if we’re honest, they still don’t.
Which is why, like thousands of others, I became a subtext hunter, looking for the love stories that could have been, should have been, but never really were. It’s also why I stayed up to an ungodly hour every week to watch shows like Queer as Folk. Ok – so they were blokes, but they were
gay blokes and that was closer to me than anything else I’d seen.
So you can imagine, because some of you felt the same, how I felt when one of my favourite characters, on one of my favourite shows did exactly what I had done. She realised that she was gay and fell head over heels in love with a beautiful woman who loved her right back.
I’d spent so long looking for subtext that I didn’t even see it coming. Being completed unspoiled at that time I watched Hush and the following episodes with my usual subtext fantasies, thinking “wouldn’t it be nice if…?” And then along came New Moon Rising and I was completely gobsmacked, I mean surely I was just projecting, if slightly more than usual, but no – this was really happening, right there on the screen in front of my eyes. Willow was gay! You could have knocked me down with an extremely small feather.
And yes, I have the same gripes as everyone else, why did Willow and Tara have to “do spells together” when Riley and Buffy were at it like rabbits? Why did we have to wait so long to see them kiss? Why wasn’t Amber put straight into the credits like Marc Blucas and Michelle Trachtenberg? I could moan on and on, but I won’t and the reason, for me, is clear. It was enough for me to say “look at that, two girls in love!” The fact that there was no hype and no attempt to play the relationship for ratings hardly even registered, although in hindsight I see those as positive moves by the programme makers.
Now I know that there is a lot I should say about the way this has been corrupted at the end. I know all about the lesbian cliché of finally seeing the two girls make up and fall into bed before demonstrating their karmic reward by killing one and turning the other into a world-destroying force for darkness. Intellectually, I know that I should be outraged at the betrayal by the programme makers who promised us so much then slapped us in the face in the most horrific fashion. But to be honest, I can’t get far enough past the sadness for the rage to kick in.
And that’s why I’ll be crying tonight.
Because I’ll miss them.
jo
at: 7/8/02 9:23:39 pm
and 
You know, between Tara cleavage, Tara leg, and nekkid Tara under a blanket- it's lucky I have some brain left to think rationally.
at: 7/8/02 3:58:19 pm