“Back in the day, teens and young people were still casually throwing around the slur, "your gay" as an insult. 90's People didn't really get that Tara and Willow were a proud couple and here to stay. One thing I respect from this show is that they treat Tara and Willow just like any other human sitcom couple. They deal with unique problems but it isn't with some sort of gloved hands or as a throwaway jokes. Theirs is a real relationship, neither on a perfect pedestal nor as a gay trope.”
Yep, I have to say that’s what I really love about them too. That they’re not without their own relationship conflicts and flaws just because they’re the gay couple. It’s more realistic that way. They feel real because of all the shit that goes down between them. I know most Buffy fans wanted the writers to avoid all the toxicity because of them being one of the first LGBTQ representations on mainstream TV. But I think it honestly just does them a disservice if they’re not willing to take the bad with the good. I saw this one article talking about how despite Willow and Tara being a beautiful legacy that they were still a toxic couple and that that wasn’t fair given they were one of the first depictions of lesbianism on mainstream TV. And while I completely understand that… I disagree. I think it’s better representation that they showed their relationship to be toxic sometimes too. That they showed times when they were healthy and unhealthy. Because like I said - that’s realistic. That’s a real romantic/sexual relationship whether same-sex or not. And that shouldn’t be avoided or changed just because they were one of the first representations of a same-sex relationship on mainstream TV. People needed to know that same-sex couplings were just like opposite-sex couplings. That they would have problems, conflicts and toxicity in them sometimes too. It was better that Willow and Tara weren’t without that because that would have been fake and insulting.
