Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Discuss Their Favorite Television Show (Smart Pop series) (11 page)

B
UFFY THE
V
AMPIRE
S
LAYER
is thinking man’s eye candy. Thinking woman’s dramedy. Prime-time soap opera for Trekkies. Strokevision for loner Lovecraft buffs. Textually rich, emotionally dense, psychologically juicy, it’s as layered and complex as
Twin Peaks
without the po-mo pretension. Douglas firs, doughnuts, and log ladies? Huh-uh: palm trees, herby potions, and vampires, oh yeah. Even academics like me can get away with penning essays and presenting them at conferences, and in between the sandwiches and mineral water and panel discussions and comparing of CVs we all feel a delicious glee: watching and analyzing this sexy show is legit, somehow. But none of us need fool ourselves: if we still have pulses, we watch in part because the young nubile characters are so damn fine.

Hetero-confession time: I have a thing for Giles. He’s urbane, handsome, brilliant, compassionate (yet capable of cold-blooded calculation when it’s called for), and he sings like a dream. But I feel a need to explore my love for one of the show’s female characters who I find to be a perfect foil to Buffy’s California cheerleaderliness, Anya’s sexpot-alien-bombshell, Willow’s bad-grrrl-geekitude, Drusilla’s nasty little-girl strangeness, or any of the assorted other femme fatales, nocturnal emissaries, or lambs-for-the-slaughter who appear from time to time,
sometimes only for the duration of your average Clairol Herbal Essence commercial. One woman walks alone, in quiet strength, with languid gait, street-urchin eyes, shepherdess hair, New Romantic fashion sense, and a penchant for logic of the acid-flashback variety. Tara is to
Buffy
what brainy rebel Lindsay was to
Freaks and Geeks
, or raventressed Sam was to
Popular
(both those excellent shows were, sadly, cancelled prematurely), or Audrey Horne to the aforementioned
Twin Peaks:
undeniably sexy but set slightly apart from the cast’s more glamorous females, too smart or political or strange, more “striking” than “beautiful.” In the spirit of praising the offbeat and the undersung, I offer a paean to Tara Maclay and to Amber Benson’s unforgettable portrayal.

Okay, she’s blond; this differentiates her from the brunette goddesses just mentioned. And, truth be told, at first glance she’s your classic corn-fed all-American bland, flaxen beauty. She has nice cheekbones. She’s taller than average. There may be a Nordic origin to that peaches-and-cream coloring. But there is something about Amber Benson’s beauty, her earthy authenticity, her solidity, that is refreshing and decidedly not in the typical angular Anglo-Saxon Hollywood mold. Mostly it’s her body. This is not to suggest that Buffy’s bevy of other babes—Miss Gellar, or Miss Hannigan, or Miss Caulfield, or indeed Miss Trachtenberg (I can call them all “Miss” without seeming condescending and arcane, ’cuz I’m a girl, okay?)—are in any way lacking in tooth-someness or serviceability. But, let’s face it, they’re twigs. Like most actresses in most TV shows, these young women, lovely though they are, probably do not weigh more than 105 pounds soaking wet (or clad in leather pants).

Amber has heft. Hips. Thighs. Breasts. A slightly rounded belly. In short, she looks a bit more like the rest of us. Goddess help us, she may even be a size 7.

And it is perhaps the ever-so-slight tendency toward the Rubenesque (this is not to imply she is overweight! Just that she is luscious! Like the actress in
Dark Angel
in the first season, or Christina Ricci a couple years ago, before they turned into twigs, too. Like Kate Winslet, the curvy English rose, long may she bloom) that suggests a painterly quality to Miss Benson’s looks. Lovely she is, but she is not perfection (her eyes a bit too large, heavy-lidded and far apart, her lips overfull and perhaps not as precisely-shaped as one might like) but her idiosyncratic appeal is unforgettable, haunting, much like the models used again and again and obsessed over by artists like William Waterhouse
(the mermaid is the flower-seller is the nymph who finds Orpheus’s head), or Dante Gabriel-Rosetti (willowy redheads clutching, variously, pomegranates, lilies, or serpents), or Degas’s shadowy dancers, or Renoir’s ubiquitous gold-and-pink bather. In Andrew Wyeth’s paintings of longtime model and sometime-lover Helga, we see a glimpse of Tara, too: the soft green tones in her skin and hair, the hint of a secret smile on that closed mouth, the nature-spirit trappings of tree-lined country roads, sere meadows, and frosted windows. Helga’s loden-green coat becomes Tara’s pale-brown suede jacket; one a forest, the other a fawn.

Color and texture touch our senses as surely as pheromones scream “sex” to the neocortex; and the show’s costume design plays upon subtle character traits ranging from the culturally literate to the mythic. Willow’s togs toggle between numerologically pertinent sports jerseys and gypsy thriftshop tops. Buffy slinks, capitulates, and kicks butt in badass leathers, near-nude colors, and soft ruffles. And Anya just plain owns it, baby, whether in tight denim or creamy bridal satin. But in Tara’s clothes (and the sometimes-slouchy, always comfortable way she wears them) we are not swept into flights of fancy, but grounded; not aroused, but soothed. Watch those reruns for the greens and browns that dominate; earthy, yes, but also, according to the color theory of costume design, a sign of a character who is alien, other, or somehow separate from the crowd. Green and brown, the hues of the tree-hugging neopagan, the teenage witch who is too self-conscious to go garbed in goth black.

Not for Tara the nylon sweats and baggy sweatshirts emblazoned with Nike and Tommy Hilfiger insignia—nor the artificially-distressed dark blue dungarees, or the overalls, or the cargo pants and wispy tank tops of the Abercrombie & Fitch clones. We get a frequent suggestion of the pastoral, as channeled through her Southern California retro-hippie garb. Flowing skirts, clingy shirts, color palettes Derek Jarman might have approved of, hip pagan logos, ultra-feminine stylings often trimmed with beads, feathers, shells (more of the pagan, elemental connection) or other ornaments—often, as with the other cast members, her sartorial details are highly suggestive of the emotional tone of the moment, a wry comment upon a plot movement, or a connection to other characters. Remember the green shirt with the hemp leaf outlined in green rhinestones? Cleverly masked by a pendant crafted from a single peacock feather? What about the medieval corset get-up from the musical episode? That scene by the pond looked lifted straight
from a Renaissance faire, complete with dancing wenches. There’s a Celtic myth flavor to it, the spreading trees by the water; is this Avalon? Are these two beguiling priestesses of Arthurian times, Nimue and Morgan Le Fay; straight out of a pre-Raphaelite painting by Burne-Jones? Close your eyes and smell the orchard. Listen to the birds.

Ah, the musical episode. How can one fail to wax rhapsodic about Amber Benson’s singing voice? A pure, shimmering soprano, but with a power and warmth behind it that belies Tara’s tendency to stammer and pause before speaking softly. We saw her improvement with this, her growth in confidence as her relationship with Willow progressed and she felt loved and validated. The song “I’m Under Your Spell” celebrates this flowering forth of self (even as it is an ode to sex and a thinly veiled reference to the manipulative magic Willow has recently used on her), and what better way to do this than to allow Tara one of the episode’s show-stopping numbers in a score of mostly fantastic songs? Of course it doesn’t hurt that she shares a duet with the show’s other finest singer, Giles and his smoky, tremulous folk-tenor. I had found myself anticipating this pairing even before I watched it happen . . . when I heard Tara’s sweet siren sound I immediately wondered if she and Giles would sing together. And even though Buffy belted nicely and Anya’s triple-threat moves and chops were staggeringly good (that retro-number with the Golden Era of Hollywood 1940s lounging robes was a stroke of genius), Tara would be equally comfortable with a pure acoustic folk-club sound, a neo-Celtic pop confection, or a legit Richard Rodgers ballad. She not only sings rings around everyone else in the cast, she can do it in multiple styles. And while she’s not the hoofer Anya is, and not the catlike mover Buffy is (even without her stunt double), Tara’s dancing in the musical numbers was just, well, so Tara. Quietly competent, not studied or athletic, a wobbly fawn among whippets. As she enchants with her Guinevere gown and silvery voice, we see a woman come into her power, emboldened by love and ecstasy and total acceptance. A shame it’s a sham; but as that song climaxes (with Tara realizing Willow’s betrayal, and Giles knowing he must leave Buffy), we also hear the passion that remains behind the anger and grief, the passion that will get them through the rough days ahead as Willow must battle her addiction alone and Tara must work her own solitary magics.

Tara’s animal grace is also part and parcel of her witchiness. She and Willow merged so well magically because they complement each other: Willow is enamored of books and spells and power and rare magic items, but Tara is of a more earthy stamp: buying tea-lights at the drugstore
and herbs from the farmer’s market, perhaps, and sitting quietly beneath a full moon after soaking in a rosewater bath. A natural witch, she believed for years she had demon blood, lied to by her family who seemed, after all, to merely want to keep their women down. When the Scoobies stood up for her and refused to let Mr. Maclay take his daughter away, we know they also showed their approval of her relationship with Willow, and after a rough start (no one understood her jokes, for one), they accepted Tara into the Sunnydale family. It always seemed clear that it was Tara who made magic really blossom in Willow, that without a partner in love and witchcraft she would wallow further in greedy spell acquisition and geeky Internet research. In “Tabula Rasa,” when the two forget but then remember each other, they have telling reactions while in The Magic Box. Everyone is wondering why they’re in such a place and with these people. Looking at the occult detritus everywhere, Willow comments on all the “weird stuff” and implies it’s unwholesome (though she lets out a small excited “Ooh!” when she notices a book called
Magic for Beginners
). But Tara’s face is knowing when she proclaims “This is a magic shop,” as if even total amnesia could not erase her intuitive grasp of her own talents, nature, and karmic destiny.

To paraphrase Bart Simpson (though he was quoting George Burns and speaking of show business), karma
is
a hideous bitch goddess.
Why
? we asked ourselves when the blood droplets flew and landed. Why her? “Your shirt” were her last words: an eerie reference to Willow’s near-breakdown when trying to find something suitable to wear for Joyce’s funeral, tossing aside her hated, childish togs like Daisy shuffling through Gatsby’s shirts. And then, unfathomable, final, sad silence. The golden girl, the gentle woodland fawn, the earthy witch, gone from us. When it happened, I thought of Willow’s earlier act of blood sacrifice: luring the hapless fawn so she could procure its blood for Buffy’s resurrection rite. On some level that act (irresponsible and wrong-headed to the extreme, and yet also necessary, and unavoidable) set things in motion that culminated in the murder, violence, mayhem and brutality of the rest of the season’s narrative arc. One fawn slaughtered, another offered up, the Slayer brought back, the universe in balance again, blessed be.

I know it’s fashionable just now to be annoyed at Joss Whedon for killing her off. The level of hurt and indignation among fans has been nothing short of staggering. Of course, much of this rage (often inarticulate in its unfocused emotion) is aimed at Whedon’s unthinkable
act of betrayal to those viewers who saw Willow and Tara as lesbian role models. I’m one of those lily-livered romantics for whom politics goes right out the window as soon as my heart is ignited. That we were privy to the sweet musings, hot sex, heart-stopping epiphanies and tissue-shredding rifts of these lovers, to me, meant never considering the sociological implications of this couple’s representation as the only loving lesbian relationship on serialized television. These two simply
were
, from moment one in “Hush” (4-10) by the soda machine. No sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but they loved, as tall, trousered Rosalind/Ganymede would say. Their own paths of self-actualization converged like overflowing tinderboxes suddenly upended and neatly arranged into cordwood. Willow’s need for approval and Tara’s need for unconditional love allowed their supernova trajectory its singular, incendiary thrust toward its triumphant but tragic end; like all witches who burn, martyred by flames, they move on to a place where their gods are the right ones.

Of course, this is not over. I don’t necessarily mean Whedon will decide to reunite them, or resurrect Tara or have her serve as some sort of shamanic, psychopompic, or otherworldly mentor, or have Willow find some magical means of contacting her or entering the realm of the dead (although none of these narrative trails would be unreasonable or untenable).