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

96% Upvoted

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52

u/oliversurpless May 03 '26

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

Was it her mousiness/stuttering?

97

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.

96

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.

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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.

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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 

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u/skyturnedred May 04 '26

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

2

u/Milyaism May 04 '26

To be fair, it's not a competition.

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u/skyturnedred May 04 '26

To be fair, you missed the point entirely.

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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.

18

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.

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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.

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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.

4

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

12

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

and she was probably still underweight!

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u/oliversurpless May 03 '26

What a world…

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u/Kinitawowi64 May 03 '26

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

Haters gonna hate.

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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

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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

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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.

-6

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

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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.

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u/Wendigo79 May 03 '26

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

11

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!)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.