Amber Benson Reflects on Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Groundbreaking Lesbian Romance

Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Amber Benson has continued to celebrate the huge cultural impact of Willow and Tara’s lesbian relationship and wider LGBTQIA+ representation in the iconic 90s series. 

The 1990s supernatural teen drama series has long been considered a trailblazer for LGBTQIA+ representation, particularly via the beautiful relationship between Willow and Tara.

Their relationship made history as the first long-term lesbian romance on prime-time television. 

Amber Benson reflects on Willow and Tara’s history-making lesbian romance in Buffy

In celebration of the series’ release on streaming platform Tubi, Benson attended the streamer’s Buffy’s Biggest Slays event in West Hollywood. 

At the event, she reflected on why the relationship between core character Willow Rosenberg, played by Alyson Hannigan, and Tara Maclay, played by Benson, had such a groundbreaking impact on younger and older LGBTQIA+ viewers alike. 

“As an actor, you do a ton of work where you’re like, ‘Okay, I did this thing and it’s fine and I paid my bills.’ But with Buffy, I felt like I was part of something important and that what we were doing was not just a television show,” Benson told Out.

“It was at hand to people who were living in places where there wasn’t a community. I know Aly[son Hannigan] felt the same way, that this relationship was iconic in so many ways. It was also about empathy and love,” Benson said. 

Buffy actors and producers faced backlash over the lesbian representation

Willow and Tara’s romance was the show’s most-loved and healthiest relationship, yet during the time of the series’ release, the actors and producers faced some backlash from viewers and the network. 

The relationship received “a lot of pushback from standards and practices,” which resulted in a lack of on-screen intimacy for the couple, despite straight couples on the show being able to be intimate on-screen.

Due to the network’s concerns about showing queer intimacy on television, the witches’ first kiss didn’t occur until ‘The Body’ in season five.

‘You are changing people’s perceptions of what it means to be queer’

Benson did recall a positive conversation with a member of the show’s art department who said: “It’s stupid and annoying that you guys can’t kiss or you can’t be in the bed or whatever but what you have to understand is that this relationship, this positive relationship goes into people’s homes every week.” 

“You are changing people’s perceptions of what it means to be queer. You are talking to people in other parts of the world, our crazy country especially, who are watching this show but have never met a queer couple in real life but love Tara and Willow,” the crew member said.

Despite it all, she never received too much hate, besides a passive-aggressive gift, Benson said.

She also received some religious mail, but never any “nasty mail” as Benson says she was sadly expecting. 

Willow & Tara rewritten into a couple because of actors’ ‘electric’ chemistry

Benson was introduced as Tara in Buffy’s season four as a shy university student who attends a Wicca meeting, which is where she meets Willow.

The producers and directors said that the chemistry between Benson and Hannigan was so electric that they rewrote their relationship to be more intimate. 

Tara quickly became an important character in the Buffy gang, until her controversial death in season six. 

Ever since the series’ airing, Buffy has been a pivotal piece of representation for LGBTQIA+ people spanning multiple generations.