I don't usually do this, but I'm going to break out the terms "Watsonian/Doylist". Nearly everyone who addresses this issue does so from the Watsonian perspective: the reason that Willow identifies as fully 100% GAY NOW so-you-are-being-sooooo-stupid-if-you-even-suggest-that-she-once-liked-any-man-let-alone-several is that THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT SHE IS and SHE KNOWS AND YOU DON'T HAVE ANY RIGHT TO SUGGEST SHE COULD POSSIBLY BE INACCURATE.
But the explanation that truly makes sense is Doylist, not Watsonian: for whatever reason, TPTB simply wanted a major lesbian-not-bi character, and wanted it badly enough to try and make Willow that character even though she hadn't been written or played that way. And that frankly wasn't a good decision, because the Kuleshov effect only goes so far; despite TPTB literally depicting the relationship between Willow and Tara as OMG-magical, it couldn't erase what we had seen of Willow with Xander and Oz, which just simply didn't seem like a-young-woman-who-only-thinks-she's-into-the-person-she's-with.
So the only TPTB really could do was make Willow's Kinsey-6 an Informed Attribute. (You know, like when the B-movie is about a musician whose music has made him beloved worldwide but they can't afford to hire a musician for the role who's actually that good, so instead they have characters listen to the music and squee and swoon and declare "Oh my God, he is absolutely a world-class talent!") Of course, with Willow, it didn't make sense to have Buffy or Xander or Giles declare "Gosh, Willow, you sure are 100% lesbian-and-not-bi now!" so they had Willow doing it, but it was still the same trick pulled by B-movie producers: it was trying to tell us through dialogue we'd seen something when that wasn't what they showed us.
There's no way to disprove the Watsonian hypothesis that Willow abruptly denies all her past history with men and starts announcing the "GAY NOW" because, in fact, she is wholly gay, and just took some time to find it out. But the Doylist hypothesis that "TPTB pushed it on us even though it didn't really make sense with what they'd already established, like they did with A LOT OF THINGS in Season 4" makes a lot more sense.
no subject
I don't usually do this, but I'm going to break out the terms "Watsonian/Doylist". Nearly everyone who addresses this issue does so from the Watsonian perspective: the reason that Willow identifies as fully 100% GAY NOW so-you-are-being-sooooo-stupid-if-you-even-suggest-that-she-once-liked-any-man-let-alone-several is that THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT SHE IS and SHE KNOWS AND YOU DON'T HAVE ANY RIGHT TO SUGGEST SHE COULD POSSIBLY BE INACCURATE.
But the explanation that truly makes sense is Doylist, not Watsonian: for whatever reason, TPTB simply wanted a major lesbian-not-bi character, and wanted it badly enough to try and make Willow that character even though she hadn't been written or played that way. And that frankly wasn't a good decision, because the Kuleshov effect only goes so far; despite TPTB literally depicting the relationship between Willow and Tara as OMG-magical, it couldn't erase what we had seen of Willow with Xander and Oz, which just simply didn't seem like a-young-woman-who-only-thinks-she's-into-the-person-she's-with.
So the only TPTB really could do was make Willow's Kinsey-6 an Informed Attribute. (You know, like when the B-movie is about a musician whose music has made him beloved worldwide but they can't afford to hire a musician for the role who's actually that good, so instead they have characters listen to the music and squee and swoon and declare "Oh my God, he is absolutely a world-class talent!") Of course, with Willow, it didn't make sense to have Buffy or Xander or Giles declare "Gosh, Willow, you sure are 100% lesbian-and-not-bi now!" so they had Willow doing it, but it was still the same trick pulled by B-movie producers: it was trying to tell us through dialogue we'd seen something when that wasn't what they showed us.
There's no way to disprove the Watsonian hypothesis that Willow abruptly denies all her past history with men and starts announcing the "GAY NOW" because, in fact, she is wholly gay, and just took some time to find it out. But the Doylist hypothesis that "TPTB pushed it on us even though it didn't really make sense with what they'd already established, like they did with A LOT OF THINGS in Season 4" makes a lot more sense.