Buffy rant: Andrew is gay.
I'd always been a big fan of Andrew in Buffy and have argued over and over about how pathetic and insulting it was that his motivation in later series 6 and 7 was ignored or treated as a joke.
I have always said that he's gay, whether he realises it or not, and that was a significant driver for him being in the Trio and why he sided with the First Evil in 7: he was in love with Warren. That's pretty strong stuff and believable motivation for what he was doing. Particularly in that final year. What pissed me off is that it wasn't taken seriously by the characters or fandom. Whereas the overblown WILLOW TRIES TO DESTROY THE WORLD BECAUSE HER GIRLFRIEND DIES plot was treated relatively respectfully.
To me it just seemed indicative of how gay men were treated on Buffy: fucking terribly and wholly dismissive. (Don't even get me started on that jock character or the 'heart-stoppingly funny' Xander-is-uncomfortable-around-the-homo scenes). To this day people will still argue that Andrew was/is not gay.
Well, Joss Whedon says he is:
From his website:
"It has to be said: the Andrew scene in "The Girl in Question" was a victim of me dropping the ball. I specifically said there should be a party of men AND women, all glamorous and Italian, waiting for Andrew. I wasn't there when it was shot, and didn't have the time/money/energy to change it after the fact, though it made me crazy. Andrew's sexuality is always on the cusp of self-awareness because Andrew is stunted emotionally and because it's hilarious." [...] "The 'people change' thing is a hold-over from the fact that the scene was originally written for Dawn (but Michelle turned us down). The idea was, there's little Dawn, then in the last scene there's hot grown-up Dawn going out on the town, a heavy visual support of people changing (since Spike and Angel always see her as older brothers do)."[2]
Wikipedia:
In November 2008, Tom Lenk came out as gay in The Advocate magazine. Joss Whedon was interviewed for the article, and revealed that it was decided that the character of Andrew was to be gay when they decided to cast Lenk in the role.
"Tom has a bit of a fey thing going on in his persona that, you know, you can't really deny. When I first looked at his audition tape, I said "OK, he, uh, he seems kinda gay. Do we want to make that decision [about the character]? There's no reason why he couldn't be, so, great, let's pick the funniest actor." [...] The character became very charming in his complete lack of awareness about, among other things, his own sexuality."[3]
Essentially confirming everything. Thank you, Mr Whedon. Now go do something decent with Dollhouse.
(With thanks to eduardgreen for the link on openly gay actors that led to this).
I have always said that he's gay, whether he realises it or not, and that was a significant driver for him being in the Trio and why he sided with the First Evil in 7: he was in love with Warren. That's pretty strong stuff and believable motivation for what he was doing. Particularly in that final year. What pissed me off is that it wasn't taken seriously by the characters or fandom. Whereas the overblown WILLOW TRIES TO DESTROY THE WORLD BECAUSE HER GIRLFRIEND DIES plot was treated relatively respectfully.
To me it just seemed indicative of how gay men were treated on Buffy: fucking terribly and wholly dismissive. (Don't even get me started on that jock character or the 'heart-stoppingly funny' Xander-is-uncomfortable-around-the-homo scenes). To this day people will still argue that Andrew was/is not gay.
Well, Joss Whedon says he is:
From his website:
"It has to be said: the Andrew scene in "The Girl in Question" was a victim of me dropping the ball. I specifically said there should be a party of men AND women, all glamorous and Italian, waiting for Andrew. I wasn't there when it was shot, and didn't have the time/money/energy to change it after the fact, though it made me crazy. Andrew's sexuality is always on the cusp of self-awareness because Andrew is stunted emotionally and because it's hilarious." [...] "The 'people change' thing is a hold-over from the fact that the scene was originally written for Dawn (but Michelle turned us down). The idea was, there's little Dawn, then in the last scene there's hot grown-up Dawn going out on the town, a heavy visual support of people changing (since Spike and Angel always see her as older brothers do)."[2]
Wikipedia:
In November 2008, Tom Lenk came out as gay in The Advocate magazine. Joss Whedon was interviewed for the article, and revealed that it was decided that the character of Andrew was to be gay when they decided to cast Lenk in the role.
"Tom has a bit of a fey thing going on in his persona that, you know, you can't really deny. When I first looked at his audition tape, I said "OK, he, uh, he seems kinda gay. Do we want to make that decision [about the character]? There's no reason why he couldn't be, so, great, let's pick the funniest actor." [...] The character became very charming in his complete lack of awareness about, among other things, his own sexuality."[3]
Essentially confirming everything. Thank you, Mr Whedon. Now go do something decent with Dollhouse.
(With thanks to eduardgreen for the link on openly gay actors that led to this).