----- Original Message ----- From: Tavia Chalcraft tavia@btinternet.com To: 'Lysator mailing list' blakes7@lists.lysator.liu.se Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2001 1:05 AM Subject: Re: [B7L] Sally-speak
Fiona:
I once asked him if he saw any of the gay subtext in B7 which many fans say they do. He replied that he detected no sexual tension *at all* between Blake and Avon. Now,before you say "but the actors weren't gay, so of course he didn't," this doesn't always read.
This could of course be bad acting. I detected no sexual (or any other) tension between Anna and Avon, but put that down to poor acting or at
least
uninspired casting.
It could :). But the thing is, it's conveyed in other ways. Avon is seen in bed with Anna. They talk about love. They embrace when they meet. He cradles her in his arms. She says "When I was with you I was always Anna." I think you'd have to work hard to deny that there's an implied hetero/sexual relationship between Avon and Anna. My gay friend is, I think, just as attuned to behavioural cues as to "Chemistry," and still didn't see any way of reading B and A's relationship as sexual, even taking the "bad acting" argument into account (which I don't see. PD and GT are at *least* as good actors as Scott Fredericks, who as I've said successfully pulled off playing a character as bisexual despite being straight).
Possible counterargument: "But you can't just come out and show two men in bed in 1970s TV!" Yes, but there are other ways of doing it which make it clear that the relationship between the men is sexual. Egrorian calls Pinter his "golden-haired stripling" and tells about how they ran away together. Krantor langorously offers Toise an--aphrodisiac--pateki-cake. In another series, Willow and Tara hold hands, are seen moving into a flat together (while Tara complains that she thinks Willow's friends are uncomfortable about them living together) and the sexual subtext of the scenes where they cast spells are pretty obvious-- you don't have to have lesbian-dar of any sort to realise what is being implied.
My point is, if the writers/actors/whoever had intended the characters to read as gay/involved, they could have done so. But they didn't.
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
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