Buffy star Amber Benson reflects on the lasting queer impact of Tara and Willow

Buffy the Vampire Slayer has long been a TV favourite among LGBTQ+ people.

While the show was primarily focused on the arse-kicking antics of Sarah Michelle Gellar‘s Buffy, the relationship between Willow and Tara – played by Alyson Hannigan and Amber Benson respectively – was majorly significant in advancing queer representation on screen.

Now in an interview with Out, Benson has opened up about just how much the iconic lesbian couple has meant to her over the years since the show concluded over 20 years ago.

“I felt like I was part of something important” – Amber Benson

“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,” she said.

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

At the time when the show was airing, depictions of queer relationships on TV were few and far between, and Benson remembers getting some frustrating pushback.

However, she recounted something that a crew member once said to her that helped her see past any negativity.

“What you have to understand is that this relationship, this positive relationship goes into people’s homes every week,” Benson recalled the crew member saying to her. “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.”

Benson added: “It totally changed how we saw things and we were like, yeah, doesn’t matter what we do anymore. It’s just that we exist in this moment and we are a hand to people who don’t have that.”

Of course, Tara and Willow’s relationship wasn’t without its complications, and the way things ended for Tara definitely played into some harmful TV tropes.

Still, it’s hard to deny just what an impact these two had on the landscape of LGBTQ+ TV.