Buffy the Vampire Slayer

That would be my assumption on how to make it work logistically in universe, but considering how under-developed anything LGBT related was at the time, you DID kind of have to come out and explain these things. So its either bi-erasure or bad writing.

While Joss Whedon has some severe flaws as a person as well as writer, I was a member of the BTVS fandom back then and there was a reason why he did Willow the way he did.

Joss was worried that if he didn't make Willow homosexual, they would think he was going to walk back on her sexuality by having her date guys or identify as LGBT but not show it. The fact Willow was one of two lesbians on television and for a time the literally only part of the only relationship with another woman on television made a bigger issue of it than he'd intended.

Especially since it was a horror-comedy show—which is not the best environment for representation.

Making Buffy bisexual would be a good decision, IMHO, in the comics. Unfortunately, the comics suck. I actually think the Satsu relationship and Dawn being a horse are about the only memorable things in them.

edited 30th May '18 4:48:00 AM by CharlesPhipps

That's fair and acknowledges a big problem of bisexual/pansexual representation. I still think that there should be an acknowledgement and shut down on the possibility of her being bi. Which, in turn, would have furthered Joss' goal of making the character gay and not walking back on it by elaborating the terms to the audience.

Joss notably got an enormous amount of crap for killing Tara because of the Bury Your Gays trope and acknowledged that but felt he wanted to treat her like another member of the cast, which is why he made sure to do what happened with Buffy and have Willow move on quickly. It didn't help in some respects but did illustrate Ship-to-Ship Combat had gotten mixed up with genuine activism.

But Joss said he knew he had to introduce Kennedy quickly because some asshole fans were assuming W Illow would go back to boys then and had written him about it.

Since we were last talking about Tara, it seems even Marti Noxon thought killing her off was a bad idea

https://io9.gizmodo.com/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-showrunner-marti-noxon-also-th-1827373487

Josh is back with Buffy only she is black now.

Say it with me now d i v e r s i t y.

Yat to black Buffy, boo to Joss's involvement.

In a million years I never thought I'd see a Buffy reboot.

Well, my concerns:

• I'm iffy about reboots unless I think the original sucked. I want a trailer before I get excited. This show reportedly didn't end very well, but the first four seasons I watched were brilliant.
• I'm curious how they'd handle the Angel content - not that the two shows were totally inseparable, but does Angel disappear around Season 2, or does he get axed early on, or does he just stick around instead of going to LA? Maybe they'll get rid of Angel all together.
• Will Giles, Willow, Xander, or Tara still be around? It's a reboot, so who knows.
• I thought the metaphors in OG Buffy and Angel were neat ("Lonely Hearts" and "Five-by-Five" still ranking as my favorite episodes). I'm not sure how comfortable I'll be with the sorts of metaphors and allusions I imagine will be drawn in this version, but I'm willing to be surprised.
• Why did they tell me she was black, but not tell me her name so I can look up her filmography and make catty judgments about her before I've seen any actual footage?
• I'd be kind of offended if a headline about me said something to the effect of, "he's the new black/hispanic person we hired!" Have they not actually picked an actress for the role?
• The last things I saw from Joss Whedon were Age Of Ultron (which I liked, but everybody else seems determined to convince me was an awful movie) and whatever percentage of Justice League was his doing (and I'll freely admit that movie was garbage, even if it's the sort of garbage I like to roll around in). Should I be concerned?
• So what does this mean for those Buffy comics I've heard almost nothing about?

Edited by Soble on Jul 20th 2018 at 5:37:09 AM

Does "casting has not been set" mean actors/actresses are not 100% locked it yet?

Either way, it seems to be a fair way off.

And since it's a Joss Whedon show I'd expect to see lots of old cast members back for smaller roles.

I'm avoiding feeling anything about this at this point, because this is sort of early announcement of a project doesn't guarantee a show will actually make it to our TV screens. These sorts of projects fall apart a lot.

Heck, for a while after Buffy ended, we kept hearing about how there was gonna be a Giles spinoff called Ripper, but nothing ever came of it.

Until a cast and crew have been hired, I'm not gonna get worked up one way or the other.

The Xena reboot ended up coming to nothing, maybe this will, too.

I have been a Buffy fan since I saw the very first episode when the show debuted. I was 7. As much as culture has changed in the...15 or so years since the series ended and I'd like a new generation to grow up with a Buffyverse they can recognize more easily, I'm uncertain about this. Buffy is such a pivotal pillar of modern nerd culture and it hasn't been THAT long. Somebody in the Film Diversity thread also pointed out that Sarah Michelle Gellar is so iconic as Buffy that any new actress is doomed right out the door.

It just hasn't been long enough.

Edited by Nikkolas on Jul 21st 2018 at 3:49:18 AM

Eh. The Slayer's always been a legacy character. If they play it up as a continuation, I'm theoretically for it in a way I won't be if it turns into a by-the-numbers reboot of what's come before.

I'm on board with the idea of a Black lead. But as others have said IDK why it needs to be a full-on reboot. Why not just make another show set within the established "Buffy-verse." Heck the already did it once and it worked out well-enough.

Easy. Continuity.

A reboot allows a lot more freedom of redeveloping concepts and not being stuck to how things were explained or used the first time around.

Speaking from a writing perspective, I would totally be way more comfortable starting from scratch than being intimidated by years and years and years of continuity to be aware of. Even if its only 'world building' and 'rules' continuity, that's a lot to ask a writer to be aware of in a setting they didn't create in the first place.

Even worse if there are rules that they just don't understand entirely.

I have two main issues with this reboot:

1. Joss is a creep. 2. Joss already had seven seasons of Buffy and he ran out of interesting and good ideas by the end. I see no benefit to having him helm this project.

So basically Joss is the problem.

See, if freedom from continuity is the goal, it feels like you're already hamstrung by the fact that it's a reboot. And based on other reboot TV series we've had, I'd be more worried about writers/producers using freedom from the past as an excuse to rehash it.

I don't mind them playing fast and loose with continuity. I mainly just want this to exist as something separate and distinct, rather than just a fresh set of paint on what's gone before.

Joss has always identified too much with the monsters in his work, I do kind of feel like he's getting off a little lightly here, and he really shouldn't be within 500 feet of a girl power sort of show or movie at the moment. I don't think he's out entirely of ideas, but when it comes to stories about powerful women who nonetheless still get chased around and exploited by male monsters? That's a pattern he needs to break.

Joss ran out of ideas because he left the high school behind and the metaphor for burgeoning adulthood was a lot weirder.

...so does this stem from what he did to Tara, or is this something new?

His ex wife came out with a list of abusive stuff whedon pulled.

I don't want to throw around the word abusive. All we really know is that he cheated on his now-ex wife.

And that she accused him of emotional abuse.

Specifically, his emotional abuse was the fact he constantly reaffirmed he loved her and said they'd save his marriage then continued to sleep with a huge number of actresses as well as models.

For 15 years.

His later publicized apology being basically, "I'm sorry but it's very hard to resist this shit."

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 24th 2018 at 9:39:51 AM

Well, that answers my question.

The Tiger Woods defense.

I believe the abuse stems as far back as during Buffy's original airing. There's also accusations that, while his idea of feminism worked (for some people, this isn't what I'm trying to argue about) for the 90s, the ideas that he championed then haven't aged well and there are new elements that he hasn't really... seen strives to incorperate.

Like, a big chunk of feminism right now is about intersectionality and queer feminism and poc feminism and that's... something he hasn't shown to be quite on board with. Particuarly since I think the high school landscape has changed dramatically since Buffy was on I think he's not only going to be out of touch with social issues to talk about, but also with the age demographic he's attempting to represent.