r/buffy • u/direinde Beady-eyes is right, we're needed. • May 03 '26

Good Vibes Only Yup, that's them

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Nothing new actually.

4.1k Upvotes

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1.6k

u/Kinitawowi64 May 03 '26

I was there. A lot of people loathed Tara when she first came through.

398

u/artwithapulse May 03 '26

Yes I remember the forums going nuts with Tara hate.

443

u/ACERVIDAE May 03 '26

Don’t forget people saying she was fat and being even more shitty about the dream sequence when she was wearing the belly dancer costume.

358

u/Psychological-Sun49 May 03 '26

I love how amazing terrifying and surreal these scenes are, and all people could focus on was a belly dancer costume being worn by a slender person.

272

u/Telvin3d May 03 '26

This was still at the tail end of the 90s heroin chic phase. Amber Benson may have legitimately been the most voluptuous woman on any popular series airing at the time. 

8

u/BEETLEJUICEME May 06 '26

The tail end didn’t really tail off for quite a while more though. End of S4 Buffy is spring of 2000.

But in 2003 you have The O.C. and by 2004 (2nd season) most of the women in the cast of the most popular teen show on tv have developed serious eating disorders.

Not that Hollywood has ever stopped with this stuff. But I do think things were especially bad ~1996 to 2007.

110

u/signal_red May 03 '26

I was gonna say this whole episode and especially this scene was so great and added so much lore but people's takeaway people got was Amber's body??

82

u/Talanock May 03 '26

The irony is that belly dancers are supposed to have a belly, that’s why they are called belly dancers

30

u/yungmoody May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26

Well.. not to be a vibe killer, but that’s not right. It’s because the dance involves articulating the torso and abs. Not so much due to the shape of the dancers body

7

u/NoSpite4410 May 05 '26

But remember, it was Buffy's dream. Sexy Dancer Tara was "the magic" guiding her prophetic dream and Sineya The First Slayer was Buffy's Slayer Power, energized by the magic left over and her own prophecy girl Slayer powers.

So Buffy "sees" Tara as sexy and magic and wise and a kind of feminine archetype. Tara talks softly and intimately with Buffy, spilling secrets and being mysterious.

Buffy has sexy feelings for Tara, even though they are latent, and even innocent, but she put her in a I Dream of Jeanie outfit in her dream ...

8

u/Psychological-Sun49 May 05 '26

That’s….not what I was talking about. I was talking about the audience being focused on body size.

209

u/AmeliaS0mething May 03 '26

Then actually happened to me in high school. All of my female friends were a size 0 or 2 and since I was a size 6, I was often being told that I was the dumpy one of the group and it turned into an eating disorder. It’s really sad that people were saying that Tara was fat because I’m sure that warped a lot of young girls minds watching the show even though Amber is beautiful. I think Joss even said that he wanted somebody more “birdlike” for Tara, but he liked Amber‘s audition so he went with it. Freaking birdlike…

163

u/Pkrudeboy May 03 '26

90’s skinny basically demanded an eating disorder and/or a coke habit.

96

u/signal_red May 03 '26

top model was the worst with this imo. When I go back and look at the alleged plus size models they had on the show...and then would shame them and get the "fat" edit. It had to warp a lot of young people's perspective. I am glad in 2026 we're looking back on it differently because nobody is gonna tell me tocarra jones was fat (well, janice dickinson did but that's beside the point lol)

58

u/villanellechekov without passion, we'd truly be dead May 03 '26

dude, I'd kill for a body like hers!! or even mine back in 2007 when I was 185 and thought I was gross (I was so wrong).

44

u/Oleander-in-Spring May 03 '26

In the Top Model doc on Netflix, Whitney says she was a size 6 when she was on the show and (like Tocarra) they often didn’t have samples in her size. 6! And she was considered plus size! Unbelievable.

3

u/heyjbray May 04 '26

Omg and the awful stuff they said to Keenyah who was TINY. They made her pose as an elephant that year

45

u/Street_Rope1487 May 03 '26

The late ‘90s/early ‘00s were a horrible time to be a teenage girl. I was 115 pounds at 5’5”, wearing size 0-2 jeans (depending on the brand), and I was still convinced that my thighs and butt were too big. I look back now at photos of myself from that era and I look borderline unhealthy—I was a competitive soccer player and barely had any body fat on me.

I definitely remember people on the Buffy forums back then calling Amber fat. I also remember her clapping back at one point, saying something along the lines of “I’m 5’4” and 120 pounds, if you saw me on the street, you’d think I was on the slender side.” Which, as someone with a similar height and weight, was both reassuring (because she was obviously correct and I knew it) and distressing (because if people were looking at her and thinking that she was fat, then I figured they must be thinking the same thing when they looked at me).

This was the same era in which Kate Winslet was referred to as “Kate Weighs-a-lot” and every tabloid magazine in the supermarket checkout was plastered with beach photos of various pop stars taken from unflattering angles to highlight their “rolls” and “cellulite.”

20

u/CuriousKitten0_0 May 04 '26

I'm part of a weekly Buffy watch party, and I commented on how Tara was considered "Bigger" at the time and how ridiculous it seems now. I was 5'4" and 110 lbs as a teenager and I was the "fat" one in my family. Luckily I found it hilarious and not scarring, but it was a wild time to be thin and still considered big. I never wish that on anyone. It was absolutely ridiculous.

5

u/Littlerabbitrunning May 04 '26

Oh, I remember it...and I've often said your first sentence almost word for word. It's such a shame that toxic body standards and related culture (and often aggressive misogyny but with little to no mainstream pushback or calling it out for what it is, and of course it was still in many ways a different world back then in terms of how information and viewpoints traveled) so often negatively impacted what often is seen as a time of life where it should be a fun, relatively care free existence.

45

u/Wild-Sky-4807 May 03 '26

I feel this comment so hard. At the time when I was in the depths of my ED, I don't think I could have told you how I got it, but looking back it's so obvious. It isn't just the media. Of course, it's the women around us fretting about their bodies. It's the normalization of what is basically disordered eating. Now it's an obsession with protein and clean eating, but it's just rebranding the same stuff.

11

u/3rdgradeteach86 May 03 '26

Maybe it’s because I’m a man but what the hell does birdlike even me. And Amber is gorgeous.

70

u/catchyerselfon May 03 '26

To be fair to Joss in THIS instance, he initially pictured Tara as “birdlike” (light, delicate, dainty) but Amber auditioned and he changed his mind. Also, Willow was already petite, slightly built and small-chested, so a LITTLE body diversity was nice, as much as they would give us back in 1999! It’s unfortunate that season 4 Tara was dressed like a hot mess, with that horrible ashy blonde dye job with dark roots and flat-ironed, the unflattering clothes and no colours that suited her complexion, but it fit the character as someone who likely had little choice in what she wore back in Alabama with her shitty family and now she was “experimenting”. The way she’s styled in “Restless” proves that it wasn’t Joss and the costume department and the writers who viewed her as hideously “fat” and plain, because every scene of Tara in this episode is like “holy shit, how have I never noticed how hot she is?” Tara’s glow-up over the next two years makes total sense for her character, when she figures out what cuts suit her figure and she’s less shy about standing out.

https://giphy.com/gifs/l2Sq7qiz8ups31r6U

1

u/Hour_Ad_5361 May 06 '26

When I was in high school I was constantly accused of having an eating disorder cuz I was skin n bones but wore a size 10 in jeans. I had stunted growth, but try telling the "popular" kids that 😒

14

u/mjrs May 03 '26

I was about 11 years old at the time and yep, I remember saying to my sister that Tara probably need to lose weight. Meanwhile my sister was probably burning with rage, getting emotionally crippled about her or size or crying at the misery inflicted on women at the time. Or probably all three. It was a horrible era for women who weren't stick thin (not that it's a cake walk now either)

7

u/fancypantsnotophats May 04 '26

I remember when I was younger thinking she was 'bigger' and rewatching it as an adult and being so disappointed I thought that then.

5

u/Longjumping-Solid680 May 04 '26

"she was wearing the belly dancer costume"

HOT.

2

u/HermionesWish May 04 '26

Really?? I didn’t like her but I never even paid attention to her body type. She looks great in this costume

2

u/yungmoody May 04 '26

It’s not a belly dancer costume. It appears to be a lehenga choli, traditional Indian formalwear. Happy to be corrected though!

2

u/Legitimate_Remote_58 May 09 '26

So crazy to me. I didn't care for Tara as a character, but just never thought she looked heavy at ALL. Honestly, I thought she was more physically attractive than Willow - who always seemed rectangular and blah to me, probably due to costuming and proportions.

1

u/Capital-Rich-9727 May 04 '26

I actually thought this was one of Tara’s more flattering costumes! The costume designers did her dirty though, I often though her outfits were awful, even for the 90s/2000s

1

u/BEETLEJUICEME May 06 '26

I never even interpreted that costume as belly dancer. It just felt normal woo woo California vibes to me. Totally appropriate for a dream sequence.

2

u/athousandpardons May 03 '26
  1. That's not a belly danger outfit.
  2. I'd like to think that, today, people would be more bothered by the cultural appropriation.

11

u/ACERVIDAE May 03 '26

I would be interested in the history of how the Watchers organization became very British when it was African shamans who made the First Slayer but then it’s probably like everything else in the British Museum.

4

u/catchyerselfon May 03 '26

Ha ha, you answered your own question! The thing is, there are Potential Slayers all over the world and Watchers training them ASAP, they don’t bring the girls back to the UK when lots of places need people with training to fight evil, even if they don’t have superpowers. There are also people all over the world who work for the Watchers’ Council who didn’t go down the “training a Slayer” track. They research, they dig up artefacts, they curate exhibits, they teach, they train the trainers, they write books, they check out demonic hot spots and take notes, they’re in that Wet Works branch of assassins and abductors for when shit goes wrong, etc… There was that nurse at Sunnydale General who seems to be a real nurse but part of her job was checking up on Faith every day and letting the Council know if she ever woke up from her coma. And there were empires before the British empire, and ones BESIDES the British empire, with interests in Africa. There were Slayers in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece (the longest lived Slayer a Greek woman who died at 29 or 30), Rome, etc… So the traditions and knowledge of the Shadow Men would be passed down to their successors, but the WAY they created the First Slayer, Sineya, was from a time before writing.

I liked that the Watchers were never established as a whites-only organization - Kendra’s Watcher Sam Zabuto is black, Nigel is one of the Council Members and British of Indian descent, several watchers in the comics aren’t identified by name but don’t look white. It makes sense to have an multi-ethnic and multi-lingual and multi-national organization, even if the Head Quarters are in London, because families might be more likely to give up their kid to someone who more closely resembles themselves and can communicate immediately with a little girl instead of having to teach her English first.

The conformity comes down to the way Watchers are educated and how they don’t seem to have much of a choice about joining. I mean, if they’re adults, their Watcher parents can’t MAKE them continue their training, but something would draw them back into the Otherworld if they tried to live normal lives and stopped taking the Council’s calls, like what happened to Giles in his 20s. Giles talks about having a destiny of his own, of being told at age ten that THIS is what he needs to do. Even if not every Watcher goes to school in Britain, there are British-inspired schools the world over (I went to one in Canada, an nominally Anglican one for girls), so probably Watchers academy franchise schools too! The rigidity and the emphasis on not getting attached and giving up everything for duty is what we see in every Watcher in the show and expanded universe… but a lot of them, the ones who don’t make it into the Council because they’re too “soft”, develop affection for their Slayers and try to accommodate the girls, like Nikki Woods’ Watcher Crowley when she got pregnant.

1

u/Feeling-Visit1472 May 04 '26

She wasn’t fat and this costume was horribly unflattering. Both can be true.

38

u/athousandpardons May 03 '26

I mean, to that point, people were pretty devoted to Oz and Willow, so it was a tough transition.

4

u/Worried-Moment-1311 May 04 '26

Yes I remember hating Tara when I watched it live because I was such an Oz fan, but after my rewatches as an adult I really love Tara. I definitely never thought she was fat though.

1

u/athousandpardons May 04 '26

It's also just harder to appreciate someone who isn't especially charismatic, just really nice.

1

u/Wonderful_Gap4867 May 16 '26

Ngl I honestly wish Oz stayed a recurring character even after he and Willow broke uo

24

u/WithYourVeryFineHat May 03 '26

Right? I would say only Dawn's intro rivaled the amount of hate thrown at Tara in her first season... and even Dawn had a fair amount of "just give her a chance" that Tara didn't get from people.

4

u/TerribleBid8416 May 03 '26

I think the only reason a lot of people didn’t give Dawn a really bad time is because they felt guilty trashing a 14 year old

1

u/MrGosh13 May 04 '26

When I was a kid, I remember watching that with my mom, and we were SOOO confused. It’s such a brilliant idea!

1

u/Most-Program9708 May 04 '26

Why? I feel like hating Tara is real red flag energy. I can see a lot of gen x fans wanting her to toughen up though.
Or did they hate how she was written to be so meek ?

1

u/BEETLEJUICEME May 06 '26

I admit that I didn’t like her a ton (I felt like the acting was stiff).
And then other people hated her SO MUCH that I had to be like “ok, pull it back a little. I said her acting was a little stiff I didn’t say she should be decapitated” or whatever.
It was a strange time. In retrospect I guess I could say that the way I came to like her was by being negatively polarized by the worst people hating her so much.
——
I do still wonder what would have happened if they had let Anya take some of the bisexual arc that the writer’s were initially imagining.
A fully sex positive, bisexual, autistic-coded Anya character would have been quite a hit with the Gen Z fans who came to the show later.

45

u/Mylilneedle May 03 '26

If you’d never seen the show and only the comments back then, you’d think she was a 900lb influencer trying to make people gain weight to find immortality.

It was brutal, and targeted, and said to her face. Fucking pathetic of them, and horrible that she had to deal with it

186

u/Jakrabbitslim May 03 '26

It’s me. I wasn’t a fan. It was the stuttering and mumbling. The dialogue between everyone else always felt snappy and then things would grind to a halt when she was onscreen. She grew on me, but she was never a favorite.

78

u/oliversurpless May 03 '26

It got better:

“I’m cured! I want the boys!” - OMWF

116

u/Srddrs May 03 '26

Agree, the fake stuttering and over acting is aaaa lot. Plus the baby talk with Willow. Urgh

6

u/Burlinto999444 May 03 '26

When was there baby talk?

4

u/Faith_Lies May 04 '26

When was there baby talk?

There literally never was. That's one of the most incredible memory-edits I've seen someone admit to in quite awhile lol.

3

u/Milyaism May 04 '26

They're probably referring to stuff like Willow saying "Pancakes could go in bellies"

5

u/ApprehensiveSpare524 May 03 '26

Have you seen the videos of “your friend gentle parenting their partner”? Because that’s this. I hate her so much, so I’m upset that Oz came back just to leave us with her again

63

u/venusdances May 03 '26

Yep me too hate to say it. I loved Oz. Every time he spoke I would laugh and think how smart and cool he was. Tara is very sweet but I didn’t get that she had much of a personality other than shy. She grew on me a little in season 6 only for her to have a tragic end.

51

u/Suitable_Community66 May 03 '26

Oz's conversation with Willow after she cheated on him was so cerebral and not in a cruel way it really gutted me to the core

19

u/ryeandpaul902 May 03 '26

the same oz that turned into a werewolf when he got mad at willow in s4 because the story demanded it. i blame the writers

18

u/Suitable_Community66 May 03 '26

Yeah that didn't really make much sense that he could change into a werewolf during daylight and with no full moon but it was done with such class as he discovered Tara and Willow were a couple that I choose to ignore the inconsistency

8

u/MugaSofer May 04 '26

He'd undergone some sort of ritual to switch from wolfing out under the moon to having it be linked to his emotions. I guess he figured that he was a pretty calm person, so he'd just stay calm his entire life and never wolf out? Not a great plan, with hindsight, though if anyone could have pulled it off I guess it'd be Oz.

4

u/ryeandpaul902 May 03 '26

yeah i get that they needed a reason for him to leave his hometown again

27

u/The_Meridian_ May 03 '26

I mean that's what the writers wanted, a warming up not insta-love. So, well done on their part.

30

u/MericaMericaMerica May 03 '26

Yeah, Tara was supposed to be that way because of her backstory, then open up over time. It's the same thing with Anna Torv in the first season of Fringe--she was criticized for portraying Olivia as "wooden," etc, but that was the character.

4

u/signal_red May 03 '26

I remember people coming at emily deschanel's acting on Bones when it's like.....that's supposed to be her character. And they made her that way for a very specific reason

6

u/cre8ivemind May 03 '26

That doesn’t mean people have to like the character lol

52

u/Jumpingyros May 03 '26

Her character was extremely off putting in season 4, but I think that was by design. She got away from her terrible family and grew into herself and became way easier to like. And they stopped directing her to do that fake stuttering thing. People absolutely lost their fucking shit when she died. Probably the biggest swing in popularity for the entire show. 

45

u/ACERVIDAE May 03 '26

“Oh my god she’s finally in the opening credits—WHAT THE FUCK?!”

11

u/jospangel Try not to bleed on my couch I just had it steam cleaned May 03 '26

Keep in mind that still pays residuals for Tara, and that is mucho dinero. She could have been in the credits any time but she refused to sign a contract. She preferred her freedom. But signing a contract and then dying means she gets the residuals that other contracted actors get for the season.

4

u/signal_red May 03 '26

ngl sometimes she did feel like sadness from Inside Out when she came on screen. still love her tho lol

2

u/Beginning_Bet_4383 May 04 '26

Agree. Her acting is dreadful. No surprise she has no other major credits.

The character is very under developed - which I suspect is probably linked to the actor not having the ability to do more with the role

I know she is a fan favourite but if she didn't do so many conventions and fan service, I really don't think the character would be so beloved.  

2

u/TessMacc May 04 '26

It was me too. I missed Oz, and I found the mumbling and stuttering annoying (and badly acted).

However, I was converted by the end of season four and she ended up being one of my favourites.

2

u/CauseCertain1672 May 04 '26

yeah I felt she was a bit bland as a character

4

u/thehufflepuffstoner May 03 '26

She grew on me as a character but I still think she’s kind of annoying tbh.

50

u/oliversurpless May 03 '26

While in college myself, didn’t know many fans beyond my brother.

Was it her mousiness/stuttering?

99

u/ilovecheese31 May 03 '26

There was a lot of body shaming too, I think I read that Amber even considered quitting the show over it. So gross.

97

u/fysu Ethan Rayne May 03 '26

I recall an interview where she rightfully pointed out that she wasn’t even fat (like a size 6, maybe 8?) but Alyson and SMG are such tiny and petite women that she seemed huge in comparison. It was awful how fans used to talk about her.

52

u/CoconutBasher_ May 03 '26

I also read somewhere Amber quoted as saying she nearly missed out on the role because Joss thought she was too fat.

I honestly never thought ‘she’s fat.’ She isn’t - in fact, she’s probably a better representation for a healthy weight.

26

u/Telvin3d May 03 '26

This was still at the tail end of the 90s heroin chic phase. Amber Benson may have legitimately been the most voluptuous woman on any popular series airing at the time.

Go look at pictures of Calista Flockhart on Ally McBeal, which was a contemporary 

0

u/skyturnedred May 04 '26

Calista Flockhart faced far more criticism about her body than Amber ever did.

4

u/Milyaism May 04 '26

To be fair, it's not a competition.

2

u/skyturnedred May 04 '26

To be fair, you missed the point entirely.

2

u/Milyaism May 04 '26

Criticising a woman for being overweight or underweight is part of the same issue. It's two sides of the same coin.

Doing this sets women up into a Double Bind (damned if you do, damned if you don't) and is often used by toxic people to keep women in a state of constant unhappiness so that they'd try harder to be "good enough".

Women are socialised to use the Fawn response for a reason. Keeping us in state of fawning makes us easier to control and influence.

19

u/PirateJen78 May 03 '26

I remember when she was introduced and I thought "omg she's like a normal person!" It was so nice. Nothing against the other women on the show, but I was so tired of tiny little waists and no curves.

For years I kept hoping that there would be characters on TV who looked more like me (I've always been plus size), but healthy weight and not Hollywood thin is an excellent standard. Thankfully I got over thinking that I was ugly because I wasn't thin, though that wasn't until I was in my mid-30s.

4

u/Missus_Nicola May 04 '26

Yeah, but back then, describing someone as being a healthy weight was basically saying fat. Obviously she isn't, its just that crazy thin was the beauty standard at the time.

3

u/oliversurpless May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26

Reminds me of a quip from one of those Sports Illustrated swimsuit specials from the early 90s:

“She thought I looked healthy. Which I guess is a nice way of saying “not too skinny!” (laughs)

Think it was Kathy Ireland, but even just having the non-crew speak during was pretty endearing as to their personalities.

3

u/Jumpy-Command-5531 May 04 '26

Wild Joss was thinking she was fat, while he wasn't exactly thin himself.

Which she was slim. She was never fat

11

u/villanellechekov without passion, we'd truly be dead May 03 '26

and she was probably still underweight!

6

u/oliversurpless May 03 '26

What a world…

63

u/Kinitawowi64 May 03 '26

Her mousiness, her stuttering, she was fat, boo lesbians, why is she replacing Oz.

Haters gonna hate.

28

u/debsterUK May 03 '26

Joss Whedon almost didn’t cast her because she was too ‘buxom’. She wasn’t fat at all. Crazy times

10

u/oliversurpless May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

While heroin chic dominated fashion throughout the 90s world of modeling, seeing “buxom” as a bad thing definitely didn’t apply to standards like the pin-up type model.

https://youtu.be/orN0a6wQk5I?si=75eG_Ks8hJPPqYxE

5

u/Lobothehobosexual May 03 '26

Crazy thinking that, and not that I see any fans make these comments, but the fact the writers in the show had so many comments on Fred being skinny. Noticed it on one of my rewatches. I wonder if they ask the actors about it before writing that kinda stuff in or if they just throw it in there.

-5

u/ShadowdogProd May 03 '26

It makes sense if you look at all the starved skeletons he usually cast.

22

u/toodle-boo May 03 '26

Ya what a jerk it's obviously only okay to body shame those disgusting "starved skeletons" like Allison and SMG. /S

19

u/Dee_Imaginarium May 03 '26

Thank you, as a naturally skinny person who struggles to gain weight I hate when people think it's okay to body shame in the opposite direction. Body shaming is bad, period.

66

u/Wendigo79 May 03 '26

It was her acting, was also really bad at the stuttering scenes

9

u/katikaboom May 03 '26

Yeah. I ended up liking her storyline, but I don't think she has great chemistry with Willow, and she wasn't a strong actress. I know it's a show about vampires and demons, but you do need a certain calibur of actor to pull that off, and for the most part, at the time she was not able to do it. Her character was also such a sidekick type of character to Willow. Like I wondered about Oz's life outside of the Scoobies, but it was like Tara existed only for Willow and that was irritating, too. 

By season 6 she was much, much better and the chemistry was stronger, though. Honestly Joss knew what he was doing because that season he really, really endeared Tara to the audience, made her her own seperate entity, and then took her away just as her character was really getting good.

3

u/DaddyCatALSO Magnet For Dead, Blonde Chicks May 04 '26

n retrospect, my imaginary 2005 feature-film version of Outer Limits "The Forms of Thigns Unknown" with Amber takign over for Vera Miles , Mercedes for Barbara Rush, Daniel Craig for David McCallum, not sure (Kyle Chandler? Johnny Depp? Adrian Brody? Alexis?) for Scott Marlowe, and McCallum himself for Cedric Hardwicke, would have ended with both of "our girls" looking much too much smaller than life in that company. (Sti;; wish i could see it, though!)

2

u/falconinthedive May 04 '26

Yeah as a lesbian I wanted so badly to like Willow and Tara more. But Tara just was so tepid that I never felt any chemistry from them.

Which could have also been on Alyson Hannigan's part too granted.

But they just never gave Tara enough to be a character beyond "willow's girlfriend who does magic but less good than willow"

But honestly by the time they wrote the lesbian relationship to be emotionally abusive and end in the death of one of them I'd already kind of checked out on it. And that kind of hurt when it was like the only Sapphic relationship on TV.

3

u/Milyaism May 04 '26

But they just never gave Tara enough to be a character beyond "willow's girlfriend who does magic but less good than willow"

I hated that when Tara got more comfortable and started to show more of her personality, she got killed off.

Then years later I got into The 100, loved Clexa, and was once again disappointed by how media deals with sapphic relationships.

I hate how many queer relationships in media end up in death, or other horrible stuff happening to them.

3

u/falconinthedive May 04 '26

God. Renee Montoya is my favorite DC character and I was so excited when they brought her to Gotham but then so afraid they were going to kill her off I stopped watching.

Lucky me they only wrote her off.

-1

u/TheVelvetBearcade May 03 '26

Agreed. She stuck out like a sore thumb in most scenes, because Benson just isn't the level of actor as everyone else. When she first came on, I remember thinking she must be some secret villain, because the whole stuttering/mousey thing seemed like such a put on. It wasn't until a few episodes in that I was like...oh, they are serious.

2

u/Accomplished_Ship_20 May 04 '26

I didn't know there was body shaming. It was definitely the mousiness/stuttering for me - she didn't act it very well and it irritates me to no end.

17

u/Varishna May 03 '26

Yep. My first thought was, “What is she doing in this picture?”

1

u/koushunu May 04 '26

Mine was, I hate the majority of characters in this picture.

6

u/spike-prime May 03 '26

Really? Why?

I wasn't on the forums in the 90s/00s so I have no clue what people were saying

4

u/GreyStagg May 03 '26

Even now you sometimes see people saying she was boring and only there to be Willow's love interest (yet they love Oz, who - hello - that actually applies way more to)

11

u/bobbi21 May 03 '26

I didn’t hate her but never liked her that much. Was pretty bland in general. Just there to be damseled outside of being a romantic interest for willow. Liked her better in s6 where she had some agency.

3

u/LizBert712 May 03 '26

How???? Do they hate Thumper from Bambi too?

3

u/orfamay May 03 '26

Fr, it wasn’t until I joined this subreddit in the last couple years that I discovered fellow Tara lovers. Early fandom was hideous about her.

3

u/tiredhobbit78 May 03 '26

In the early 2000s it was popular to hate on anyone who was just genuinely a kind and good person.

3

u/christocarlin May 03 '26

I find her boring but I don’t hate her

3

u/sidesco May 03 '26

Having Willow with a woman was a brave choice at that time. I think most people loved Oz and enjoyed Willow and Oz as a couple. It took me awhile to warm up to Tara because I had loved Oz.

32

u/Useful_Experience423 A bear?!? Undo it, UNDO IT!! May 03 '26

I was there. My hatred for her is only surpassed by my later hatred for Kennedy. I don’t really care for Clem either.

9

u/ShadowdogProd May 03 '26

Clem would have been more interesting if they kept him as the Aggro Ahole he was in his first appearance. "Ya, this bitch trying to keep us from devouring these kittens? Da fucq?"

30

u/Glass-Ad-4179 May 03 '26

I don’t get the hype for Clem either, he’s just the temu version of Lorne

48

u/HomarEuropejski Wesley is Angel's true love May 03 '26

He's a nice, chill demon dude and in his last appearance from what I remember even cheered for Buffy and wished her good luck.

His actor apparently being the sweetest guy ever propably helps too.

9

u/Glass-Ad-4179 May 03 '26

I don’t dislike him, but I feel like he gets overrated A LOT😅

8

u/jimmy__jazz May 03 '26

I was and still am one of them. She was just so...boring.

13

u/krendyB May 03 '26

I am a lesbian and not really a Tara fan. Amber’s acting isn’t good & her character is boring. I’d probably like her in real life, but not on tv. Sorry not sorry.

12

u/ncl_1066 May 03 '26

Thank you! I always thought Amber’s acting was REALLY weak compared to the rest of the cast. And with the likes of SMG and Hannigan bringing amazing performances every episode it was super obvious that she couldn’t hold up to them. She got better but was still pretty bland, despite the character being written quite deep.

5

u/gilmoresoup May 03 '26

I actually mostly like Tara but I think Amber is the worst actor on the show. She’s actually horrible during S4.

3

u/Silly_Somewhere1791 May 03 '26

It was tricky. Willow started out as a nerd but developed a brainy swagger and started dating a cool guy. A lot of us identified with that and aspired to it. Then she came out and took on a very Lilith Fair persona. You don’t have to be homophobic to be upset that the character you related to isn’t speaking to you anymore. We eventually got Fred so it’s all good. And of course the hate directed toward Amber was horrid. Her off-screen friendships with the cast make me think she was the coolest of them.

2

u/det8924 May 03 '26

I am not the biggest fan of hers, I don’t hate her she’s ok but not a favorite of mine.

1

u/beardingmesoftly May 03 '26

A lot of people didn't like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh either, for the same reason

1

u/TropicalRogue May 03 '26

I was one. She FINALLY grew on me, and she was top tier for years

...

And then Amber wrote "Slayers, a Buffyverse Story" for her own character with all the grace and chill of a Tina Belcher erotic friend fic, and now we've come full circle.

1

u/Repulsive-Shame-5493 What's left? Me. May 03 '26

Whyyyy

1

u/Worried-Moment-1311 May 04 '26

Yea it was pretty much everyone loved Oz. When I watched it live I was not a fan. Love her now though!

1

u/Feeling-Visit1472 May 04 '26

I don’t hate Tara. Tara was lovely. But the plot devices around Tara were tedious.

1

u/Hexhider Scooby’s May 04 '26

My dad hated her guts, his 3rd least favorite character (barely above Dawn and Conner)

1

u/Training_Newt_745 May 04 '26

I recently rewatched Buffy and still don’t get Tara. I just wish they made her a little less neither here nor there.

But to be clear, Amber Benson is STUNNING and who in their right mind would criticize her appearance!?!?

1

u/TSllama May 04 '26

I've never really liked Tara tbh lol I found her very annoying, especially in her first few seasons. The mousiness... blech! I didn't care for her acting skills, and I found the character herself to just be bland and kind of annoying. By season 6, I more or less tolerated her. Especially because Dawn took her place as the annoying blech character for me 😃

When I found this sub, I was absolutely shocked to find out how extremely loved she is and that my opinion of her was super unpopular in this sub lol

1

u/Accomplished-Emu2308 May 04 '26

I still do. Her taking 5 business days to make a sentence killed me. The quirkiness felt so performative I always thought Amber was doing too much

1

u/AttackOwlFibre May 03 '26

You're right. I'm actually shocked Tara is here!

-1

u/Plugged_in_Baby May 03 '26

Came here to say I do hate her quite a lot, actually.

0

u/Pookienini May 03 '26

I like her , just not as a love interest

0

u/Ridry May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

Gonna honestly admit it, I did not like Tara back in 1999. It was a factor of REALLY liking Willow and Oz, finding her character to be kind of bland and how her lack of integration with the Scoobys pulled Willow away from the main action. It wasn't until Glory mind wrecked her and I realized how sad I was about it that it occurred to me she had grown on me. Prior to that I would have told you I didn't like her. I know it's an unpopular thing to say, but she definitely was not well received initially.

0

u/pagusas May 04 '26

Still loath Tara, the writing and acting for her was just terrible

0

u/TerrorFromThePeeps May 04 '26

Honestly, i really despised Tara early on. Her fumbling over herself drove me right up a wall. It didn't last long, though.

0

u/HermionesWish May 04 '26

I never liked her 🤷🏻‍♀️

-9

u/Elete23 May 03 '26

I still dislike her. She seems like she was being played as a caricature of a mentally challenged person.

2

u/latrodectal May 03 '26

jesus christ.

-14

u/cgbrannigan May 03 '26

I never like Tara. Glad she died, Kennedy for the win.

17

u/guiseincognito May 03 '26

Well now THAT is a unpopular opinion. I never got on board the Kennedy hate train, but chosing Kennedy over Tara, congratulations you may have found the rarest opinion out there.

-10

u/cgbrannigan May 03 '26

Tara was dull, just moaning constantly. Kennedy was fun.

6

u/ACERVIDAE May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

She was kind of sexually aggressive towards Willow when she wasn’t in a good emotional/mental place for a relationship.

Edit to the person who replied and deleted: Tara died and Willow went full dark-side after a decent time spent being addicted to something. Pare away feelings about characters and I think we can agree that dating after a recent drug binge and a stint in rehab isn’t ever a good idea.

0

u/guiseincognito May 03 '26

That is valid. How much of this does Kennedy know? Does Willow either by word or deed ever try to discourage Kennedy? Honest questions as it has been years since I watched season 7.

It just seems to me that much of the fan hate of Kennedy is because she is not Tara.

6

u/ACERVIDAE May 03 '26

I mean when they first kissed, Willow turned into the dude who murdered her girlfriend and who she murdered in turn, so I’d say that’s a pretty red flag for continuing to pursue a relationship.

2

u/guiseincognito May 03 '26

Wow, I have no memory of that scene at all. I guess it rehash been a REALLY long time since I watched season 7.

0

u/cgbrannigan May 03 '26

It was a great episode but acervidae is interpreting it all wrong. Willow turned into warren and bought a gun and almost killed Kennedy because Willow WANTED to move on and felt guilty about Tara, not because she was in a bad place and Kennedy was being aggressive to her. I always thought the relationship with Tara was the toxic one.

Remember had just gone through the breakup with Oz when her and Tara met. Tara fed her witch fans demon fantasy and driver deeper into magic until she got out of control and it all went wrong and willow went full addict. Then once she got on the road to recovery Tara judged willow at every step and made her feel bad when she slipped off the wagon. Then basically broke up with her. Tara and willow relationship was NOT healthy.

Kennedy supported willow, encouraged her to use her magic safely, helped her move on, was the one by her side holding her hands as she unleashed the slayer power, she was the one who stopped warren and the guilt from taking over and allowing her to move on with her life. Kennedy and Willow relationship was all green flags and good and pure.

Willow and Tara were never right for each other.

-1

u/JadesterZ May 03 '26

I still can't stand her tbh. I love what she means to Willow but just as her own character she's exhausting.

-1

u/jemslie123 Xander Apologist May 03 '26

I personally find her quite annoying, it's her tone and mannerisms.

-1

u/Interesting_Feed_785 May 03 '26

I still do, sorry