quote:
-What do W/T mean to you personnaly, and what do you believe their importance is for media representations, and society in general?
-What draws you to the Kitten? What do you love about this place?
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1) For years television and film have portrayed lesbians and gays in films, some in a subtle way, others blatant. However, for the most part, "Hollywood" seems to have fallen into a sterotype when doing anything relating to homosexuality. Lesbians are big ole bulldykes or criminals or other negative connotations. For gays it's that "flamer" image with an overly feminine male strutting his stuff with limp wrists and a lisp.
As the new century rolled around a great deal of awareness came with it. Roles started to become more fleshed out, though they still fell into the sterotype. "Will and Grace" for instance. Will isn't necessarily a "flamer" but his friend is. Xena started to break away from that mold but stayed so far in the subtext of it that it wound up doing more harm than good, and even then that was a bit sterotypical because you had the "butch" and the "femme."
After Xena ended I decided to give Buffy a go, especially after hearing so much about Willow being gay. I tuned in to see "The Gift," but I was too far along in the story line to know what was happening. When "Bargaining" came along I was floored by the naturalistic way a lesbian couple was finally shown on TV. Neither one was "butch" or "femme." They both were just two girls in love. They didn't fall into the "lets go to a bar" or "lets have sex constantly because that's what the male viewers want." Joss meticuliously created this relationship at a slow and natural pace (in TV time at any rate) and showed that things were not always easy and not always hard. That a relationship takes time to work out, to learn each other, to trust one another.
Often in films and whatnot there's a major problem - someone cashing the hero or something similarly life threatening and the two leads are thrust into each others lifes (and beds) and they ride off into the sunset happily ever after. But that's not how things really are and W/T show that. Yes, they went through various life threatening events, but after which they didn't start shagging each other's brains out. They let their feelings slowly grow and as they grew to love each other you grew to love them as a couple.
Buffy is often over looked by other media other than to do articles on whatever seems to be the hot topic at the time, but the fact that the show is breaking the rules and breaking free of the standard molds in place for TV and film will hopefully catch on with others in the field and show them it may not always be the safe route, but the fans would prefer something more natural than the typical and current depiction of gays and lesbians on screen.
2) I don't recall exactly how I found the board, but I read some posts and decided to join in the conversations and have found that unlike many fandom chat rooms and message boards the Kitten is truly accepting. The Kitten's do not look down on anyone, do not belittle or scoff at anyone. If you have an idea, no matter how off the wall, there's always Kittens there to support it and nurture it to help it grow. They're there to give support to other Kittens in times of need and they share a passion for W/T which has bonded us all together in the first place. It's a safe haven, a place to turn to for uplifting (giving or getting), for talking endlessly about the show and W/T without having people roll their eyes at hearing "more stories" about the girls.
Okay, now that I practically wrote a paper in itself, I hope that helps out. I tend to ramble, as you can tell, so feel free to edit whatever you like if you want to use any of this in your paper. I'd be interested to see the end result.
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Joining in the chorus of people pissed at Joss.
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