Are Tara's Family Strawmen?

[CordelliasHeart]

The Manipulative, draconian and Cynical father.

The violent and dumb brother.

The Weakwilled, submissive, stupid Cousin

do all these roles fill flat to you?

 

[thetopher]

Well, to a certain extent all the Buffy characters are based on broad stereotypes to begin with, such as vapid valley girl, computer nerd, class clown/joker, the stuffy english guy and the spoilt cheerleader-princess type.

We only see Tara's family for one episode so its hard for them to be fleshed out as characters, so they remain the one-note character's that you outlined.

Having said that we only see Willow's Mom for one episode and she seemed far more fleshed out than Tara's folks. (and also managed to explain where much of Willow's insecurities come from...)
Add to that the lack of characters that come from the southern states/heartland on the show, and its hard not to see Tara's family as representative of 'those sorts of people'- backward, patriarchal, insular and uneducated.
They seem to represent (incorrectly) what a lot of people think of folks from rural, 'flyover states'.
Also remember that that Joss himself, a big Democratic supporter, wrote the episode, and it would be easy (though not nessesarily correct) for someone to assume some lazy predjudice at work here.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

The trouble with calling these people strawmen is that I have met these people. My wife and I wonder sometimes if we are the only people we know whose life is not as lurid as a soap opera.

The draconian patriarch? Every church we have been to caters to exactly that person and there are legions of them. I have met some of those at work, too. "Spare the rod, spoil the child" keeps collection plates full.

The violent dumb brother? Yeah, I have no problem with him as a character - in fact one person we have had over at our house (only once) is now doing time for manslaughter. He only got invited here once because we could see he was a psycho, much more than Tara's brother. It was no shock when we heard he had stabbed someone fatally in a fight outside a bar.

The cousin who has bought into the idea that this life is "righteous" even though it is to her detriment? Once again, a staple of some of the churches were have attended.

This is not a rural / hillbilly thing either - we live in a well-established suburban area and the people I am talking about are also from this area. If the MacLay's seem stereotypical, it is only because they are one-dimensional people we only see once and they are not the most extreme cases out there.

 

[CordelliasHeart]

Any idea how Her family reacted to her death other then saying "Shes not a Macclay she turned her back on her family why should we care, she'd have been better off with us"

Would like to think that with his Scam opposed, either beth, or his Son, Grow hostile towards Mr Macclay

 

[Lyri]

Well, she was buried in Sunnydale as opposed to her original hometown, where presumably her mother was buried.

Says it all, really.

 

[Evil Angelus 95]

To be honest, I don't really think they needed fleshing out. We knew what they were like, we knew what they did to Tara by being abusive, and in short, I guess, that's all we really needed to know.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

Would like to think that with his Scam opposed, either beth, or his Son, Grow hostile towards Mr Macclay

It seems that this is not the case. Look up "cognitive dissonance", the effect where a belief that is disproven is retained even more strongly because of the investment the believer has made in it. Even after the scam is exposed, Beth still supports her family of liars against Tara. Of course, Donnie has no problem with the lie, he is the beneficiary of it.