undone
January 17, 2022 3:01 PM Subscribe
"Surrounded by candles and crystals, [Erin Shade] described their relationship as an abuse of power. “People like Joss offset their trauma on other people in exchange for their energy, and take their energy to keep going — to keep themselves alive, almost,” she told me. “That’s why he’s so good at the vampire narrative.” (Whedon says he “should have handled the situation better.”)"- The Undoing of Joss Whedon (Vulture, cw: descriptions of abuse, racism). Joss previously on the Blue, here, here and here.
The last line says it all....
“I think I’m one of the nicer showrunners that’s ever been.”
What a misogynistic narcissist.
posted by Pendragon at 3:28 PM on January 17, 2022 [20 favorites]
“I think I’m one of the nicer showrunners that’s ever been.”
What a misogynistic narcissist.
posted by Pendragon at 3:28 PM on January 17, 2022 [20 favorites]
In case you don't want to read the article, here is a summary:
INTERVIEWER: Asks pointed, thoughtful, possibly uncomfortable question.
JOSS: "I have to go to the loo!"
I was a huge Buffy fan. Well, actually, I am still a huge Buffy fan. Joss being an angry, abusive, self-deluded d*ck cannot change my love for the show. I was disappointed, but not surprised to learn he wasn't the shining god of nerds he was made out to be. And I am not at all surprised that he remains to this day a deluded, narcissistic jerk. What's surprising is his agent let him do this interview. Cause woooooooooooo boy, it's not doing him any favors.
posted by pjsky at 3:32 PM on January 17, 2022 [32 favorites]
INTERVIEWER: Asks pointed, thoughtful, possibly uncomfortable question.
JOSS: "I have to go to the loo!"
I was a huge Buffy fan. Well, actually, I am still a huge Buffy fan. Joss being an angry, abusive, self-deluded d*ck cannot change my love for the show. I was disappointed, but not surprised to learn he wasn't the shining god of nerds he was made out to be. And I am not at all surprised that he remains to this day a deluded, narcissistic jerk. What's surprising is his agent let him do this interview. Cause woooooooooooo boy, it's not doing him any favors.
posted by pjsky at 3:32 PM on January 17, 2022 [32 favorites]
This fucking guy.
posted by minervous at 3:33 PM on January 17, 2022 [30 favorites]
posted by minervous at 3:33 PM on January 17, 2022 [30 favorites]
Christ, what an asshole.
posted by BlahLaLa at 3:34 PM on January 17, 2022 [30 favorites]
posted by BlahLaLa at 3:34 PM on January 17, 2022 [30 favorites]
Is this going to change anyone's mind? Some of the details are new (though not particularly unexpected), but I can't see how -- assuming someone knows the information that was out there from the last time -- this is going to sway anyone from their current position about JW.
(I don't think I want to try to watch Buffy again, but I loved it then and I still love some of it now. I didn't much like anything he did after, with the exception of Dr Horrible, which -- I KNOW.)
I did actually find it interesting how many ways he was stuck in the 90s. Yes! Buffy was progressive for that time! Yes! The dialogue was snappy and witty (and led to a FINALLY dissipating issue of everyone's character being Snarky Snarker Who Snarks)! But he just never moved anywhere since then. And of course the feminism thing is apparently because he's a misogynist (tbh, writing Angel where Angel regularly saved the damsels suggested that the Buffy feminism was accidental even at the time, and what wasn't accidental was due to other writers), but it's just -- interesting to see how little he changed between Buffy and The Avengers when the world just went and changed anyways. (I didn't watch the Justice League thing.)
posted by jeather at 3:40 PM on January 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
(I don't think I want to try to watch Buffy again, but I loved it then and I still love some of it now. I didn't much like anything he did after, with the exception of Dr Horrible, which -- I KNOW.)
I did actually find it interesting how many ways he was stuck in the 90s. Yes! Buffy was progressive for that time! Yes! The dialogue was snappy and witty (and led to a FINALLY dissipating issue of everyone's character being Snarky Snarker Who Snarks)! But he just never moved anywhere since then. And of course the feminism thing is apparently because he's a misogynist (tbh, writing Angel where Angel regularly saved the damsels suggested that the Buffy feminism was accidental even at the time, and what wasn't accidental was due to other writers), but it's just -- interesting to see how little he changed between Buffy and The Avengers when the world just went and changed anyways. (I didn't watch the Justice League thing.)
posted by jeather at 3:40 PM on January 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
No, I don't think it's changing minds, but that's just the thing. If Joss thought he was going to slink back out because he's been "doing the work", it's pretty easy to pull this up and say, "Yeah, no, ten more years down the memory hole, buddy."
Honestly, he needs to take the L and use those Feigebucks to privately and anonymously fund disadvantaged directors. If he was truly repentant that's what he'd do. But he won't. Because he's a fucking sociopath who thinks he can talk his way out of his own bullshit.
posted by offalark at 3:53 PM on January 17, 2022 [19 favorites]
Honestly, he needs to take the L and use those Feigebucks to privately and anonymously fund disadvantaged directors. If he was truly repentant that's what he'd do. But he won't. Because he's a fucking sociopath who thinks he can talk his way out of his own bullshit.
posted by offalark at 3:53 PM on January 17, 2022 [19 favorites]
One of the best moments of someone carefully triplechecking empty chamber, disassembling the firearm, painstakingly cleaning and oiling every part of it, reassembling it, triplechecking it again, very carefully sliding a live round into chamber, settling into a comfortable position, aiming, breathing slow, squeezing trigger carefully and firing directly into their own foot:
posted by Drastic at 3:55 PM on January 17, 2022 [101 favorites]
Gadot didn’t care for Whedon’s style either. Last year, she told reporters Whedon “threatened” her and said he would make her “career miserable.” Whedon told me he did no such thing: “I don’t threaten people. Who does that?” He concluded she had misunderstood him. “English is not her first language, and I tend to be annoyingly flowery in my speech.” He recalled arguing over a scene she wanted to cut. He told her jokingly that if she wanted to get rid of it, she would have to tie him to a railroad track and do it over his dead body. “Then I was told that I had said something about her dead body and tying her to the railroad track,” he said. (Gadot did not agree with Whedon’s version of events. “I understood perfectly,” she told New York in an email.)Silly ESL female and her inability to understand my advanced wordplay!
posted by Drastic at 3:55 PM on January 17, 2022 [101 favorites]
I'm now wondering whether BoJack Horseman was in part based on Whedon.
posted by acb at 4:02 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by acb at 4:02 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
Inevitably and irritatingly for this sort of profile (which is to say, one that lets its subject's character shine through without wildly signposting it), people on Twitter are flooding the journalist's mentions to complain because they have somehow mistaken it for a hagiography.
posted by eponym at 4:03 PM on January 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by eponym at 4:03 PM on January 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
This whole article deserves to be framed as a beautiful example of a journalist allowing her subject to do all of the work in digging the hole by just sitting back and letting him say all of the things he wants to say. All she had to do was add a few shovelfuls of perfectly sourced earth and call it done.
I saw someone describe it as an interview where Joss denies everything he's been accused of and then describes himself doing it. His publicist must be having a real fucker of a day.
posted by fight or flight at 4:03 PM on January 17, 2022 [69 favorites]
I saw someone describe it as an interview where Joss denies everything he's been accused of and then describes himself doing it. His publicist must be having a real fucker of a day.
posted by fight or flight at 4:03 PM on January 17, 2022 [69 favorites]
Non-paywall link for those who need it.
posted by lock robster at 4:03 PM on January 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by lock robster at 4:03 PM on January 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
Welp, that was even worse than previously. Seconding the foot shooting and "who let him do this" remarks.
I'm still amazed we haven't had everyone he ever boinked outed yet, but looks like it's creeping towards that. Just everything in this was awful and even worse than before and I'm depressed.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:07 PM on January 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm still amazed we haven't had everyone he ever boinked outed yet, but looks like it's creeping towards that. Just everything in this was awful and even worse than before and I'm depressed.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:07 PM on January 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
In re Buffy and Whedon: What I've realized over the years is that if you came from a "TV is shit, mainstream is shit, I am very punk rock indeed" background, Buffy was extremely dubious, because "tiny normatively beautiful punchy women punch things and have troubled romances while dressed in revealing clothes" thing stood out immediately as shitty fake feminism....but the eighties/early nineties were so generally awful, pop culture-wise, that if you didn't come from an extremely left counterculture background Buffy really looked great and feminist compared to everything else. It was extremely headspinning at the time.
But the upshot is that it is no surprise at all that Whedon is a trash person, and the really sad thing is the state of the world which made Buffy seem like a feminist statement instead of a kinda-sexist but still engaging show about teens battling evil.
posted by Frowner at 4:08 PM on January 17, 2022 [67 favorites]
But the upshot is that it is no surprise at all that Whedon is a trash person, and the really sad thing is the state of the world which made Buffy seem like a feminist statement instead of a kinda-sexist but still engaging show about teens battling evil.
posted by Frowner at 4:08 PM on January 17, 2022 [67 favorites]
It was better than a lot of other things out there.
I did think of Joss as more "feminish" than actual feminist, but good god, he's just the creeper that all the ladies hated.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:10 PM on January 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
I did think of Joss as more "feminish" than actual feminist, but good god, he's just the creeper that all the ladies hated.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:10 PM on January 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
Oh, how the tide has turned. :)
I have taken so much flack on MeFi for hating on this guy since day one.
posted by dobbs at 4:13 PM on January 17, 2022 [32 favorites]
I have taken so much flack on MeFi for hating on this guy since day one.
posted by dobbs at 4:13 PM on January 17, 2022 [32 favorites]
I can’t imagine anyone thinking it’s hagiography if they’d actually read it, excepting your usual bad-faith folks.
posted by bixfrankonis at 4:15 PM on January 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by bixfrankonis at 4:15 PM on January 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
I am with Frowner and dobbs here, in that I found Buffy trite, unoriginal and sexist AF when it was released ... and was showered with scorn and contempt by adoring fans for my opinion.
Seriously, could anyone watch more than one episode of Dollhouse and think the guy was anything but a creepy creepster?
posted by birdsongster at 4:26 PM on January 17, 2022 [14 favorites]
Seriously, could anyone watch more than one episode of Dollhouse and think the guy was anything but a creepy creepster?
posted by birdsongster at 4:26 PM on January 17, 2022 [14 favorites]
He's a lying asshole and I have believed the accusers all along. With that said: his defenses come down to a mix of "I did it but it was justified" and "oh come on it wasn't that bad." The bit about Gadot is telling, because the argument was over a scene where he wanted her sexually objectified on screen. Whether or not he threatened her (and I believe he did), he dug his heels in on that point even when she pushed against it.
Even if I can believe everything Whedon says here, his own defenses are more than enough reason to cancel him.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 4:29 PM on January 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
Even if I can believe everything Whedon says here, his own defenses are more than enough reason to cancel him.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 4:29 PM on January 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
It takes aim more at his work than his personal transgressions, but Gita Jackson at Vice wrote a decent piece on Whedon recently.
posted by juv3nal at 4:29 PM on January 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by juv3nal at 4:29 PM on January 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
“I couldn’t shut up [telling my current wife all my abusive patterns] because I finally found somebody I found more important than me“
He’s supposedly done all this work and still says this. It’s a slap in the face to all those that he has abused- ‘you were not important enough to not be my victim.’ What a jerk.
posted by Monday at 4:33 PM on January 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
He’s supposedly done all this work and still says this. It’s a slap in the face to all those that he has abused- ‘you were not important enough to not be my victim.’ What a jerk.
posted by Monday at 4:33 PM on January 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
I loved BTVS, enjoyed a lot of AtS, and bounced so. fucking. hard. off of Dollhouse. You can't make a show condemning the exploitation of people in Hollywood by ... exploiting people in Hollywood. (Also, I like Eliza Dushku but she's absolutely the wrong person to be cast in that role. She has a very limited range, and that role called for a chameleon.)
I have a fondness for Firefly because the cast was SO GREAT (RIP Ron Glass) and it didn't go on long enough for all the toxic shit to become public. But the lack of Asian characters was called out as a problem when the show aired, and has never been properly addressed.
After a while, even if you don't know anything about what's going on behind the scenes, JW's penchant for broken waifs is a bit too much to ignore. Just by watching what he's doing means you see a bit too much of his id, and it ain't pretty.
Which is why I made no effort to watch The Nevers, even if it did give Claudia Black some well-deserved work.
posted by suelac at 4:34 PM on January 17, 2022 [18 favorites]
I have a fondness for Firefly because the cast was SO GREAT (RIP Ron Glass) and it didn't go on long enough for all the toxic shit to become public. But the lack of Asian characters was called out as a problem when the show aired, and has never been properly addressed.
After a while, even if you don't know anything about what's going on behind the scenes, JW's penchant for broken waifs is a bit too much to ignore. Just by watching what he's doing means you see a bit too much of his id, and it ain't pretty.
Which is why I made no effort to watch The Nevers, even if it did give Claudia Black some well-deserved work.
posted by suelac at 4:34 PM on January 17, 2022 [18 favorites]
Fundamentally, if you are an artist and you think that the only interesting stories to tell about women are stories about very young, normatively beautiful, mostly straight, certainly never butch/masc women who have "sexy" trauma* that mostly impacts their sexual/romantic lives and makes them kind of hot and dramatic, well, whatever you are, you're not a feminist. Most people producing mainstream art are not feminists, no matter what they say. Many "radical" artists are not feminists. Many queer artists are not feminists.
"Women only hold my interest if they are fuckable and I'd like to fuck them or be them or both" is not feminist, but it's the default position. Life is so long; I really thought things would be better now than when I was twenty and frustrated that most art was just different brands of creepy fantasy about teenagers.
Whedon never was a feminist. I tried to be polite about it because I didn't want to ruin people's fun and because the fandom machine was cranking up and poptimism was ascendant, but he sucks, Whedonesque stuff sucks, flat, simple and instrumentalizing narratives about women suck and I frankly hate the whole enterprise.
*That is trauma that's titillating if you don't actually have to go through it yourself.
posted by Frowner at 4:46 PM on January 17, 2022 [53 favorites]
"Women only hold my interest if they are fuckable and I'd like to fuck them or be them or both" is not feminist, but it's the default position. Life is so long; I really thought things would be better now than when I was twenty and frustrated that most art was just different brands of creepy fantasy about teenagers.
Whedon never was a feminist. I tried to be polite about it because I didn't want to ruin people's fun and because the fandom machine was cranking up and poptimism was ascendant, but he sucks, Whedonesque stuff sucks, flat, simple and instrumentalizing narratives about women suck and I frankly hate the whole enterprise.
*That is trauma that's titillating if you don't actually have to go through it yourself.
posted by Frowner at 4:46 PM on January 17, 2022 [53 favorites]
Wow, it never takes long for people to prove their superiority in not liking Joss Whedon in a cool kid sort of way, eh?
So sorry there wasn't much for me as a young weird woman that felt geared towards me, or felt different than most TV of the day. Sorry that I had friends who finally felt comfortable to come out as queer due to Willow Rosenberg's storyline. Again, high school age feminism was different then as it would be now. We had to take what we could get. Was it shitty? Absolutely. But it was better than nothing at all when you're seventeen and living in the Bible Belt.
I used to love his shows. Well, BtVS, Angel, and Firefly. I wouldn't recommend any of them now to anyone who hadn't seen them. Well, maybe the Hush episode because it's creepy AF. But I can reconcile loving something when I was young with loathing the creator and his works now. Joss Whedon will never deserve a redemption arc. Joss Whedon doesn't even deserve to have the legacy he does. But I ask you to lay off the insinuation that anyone who did like his shows were idiots and you were right all along.
posted by Kitteh at 5:06 PM on January 17, 2022 [159 favorites]
So sorry there wasn't much for me as a young weird woman that felt geared towards me, or felt different than most TV of the day. Sorry that I had friends who finally felt comfortable to come out as queer due to Willow Rosenberg's storyline. Again, high school age feminism was different then as it would be now. We had to take what we could get. Was it shitty? Absolutely. But it was better than nothing at all when you're seventeen and living in the Bible Belt.
I used to love his shows. Well, BtVS, Angel, and Firefly. I wouldn't recommend any of them now to anyone who hadn't seen them. Well, maybe the Hush episode because it's creepy AF. But I can reconcile loving something when I was young with loathing the creator and his works now. Joss Whedon will never deserve a redemption arc. Joss Whedon doesn't even deserve to have the legacy he does. But I ask you to lay off the insinuation that anyone who did like his shows were idiots and you were right all along.
posted by Kitteh at 5:06 PM on January 17, 2022 [159 favorites]
We definitely need a way to talk about this sort of thing that doesn't intend or even just accidentally seem to throw under the bus people who at some point got something important out of a creator's work. Fandom is full of people for whom Buffy and its fandom were the start of their exposure to things like gender discourse, and for the vast majority of them (I'd say) it wasn't also the end of their exposure to things like gender discourse. Everyone, hopefully, has a starting point either for their own understanding of the variety of experiences of the world—or for beginning to see some part of themselves reflected in pop culture—and we really need to tread carefully so as not to walk all over them.
posted by bixfrankonis at 5:19 PM on January 17, 2022 [44 favorites]
posted by bixfrankonis at 5:19 PM on January 17, 2022 [44 favorites]
Buffy was extremely dubious, because...We had to take what we could get
I'd like to call a truce here. It's easy for both of these things to be true.
And tbh, while I joked about the quality of Al's accordion play, there's probably a majority of us that are tired of the purity tests, even if the harpoons are well articulated and accurate.
OTOH, the subject of this thread is basically a critique, so maybe that's what we can do.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:19 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
I'd like to call a truce here. It's easy for both of these things to be true.
And tbh, while I joked about the quality of Al's accordion play, there's probably a majority of us that are tired of the purity tests, even if the harpoons are well articulated and accurate.
OTOH, the subject of this thread is basically a critique, so maybe that's what we can do.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:19 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
Woof.
This guy is giving me serious flashbacks to Dan Harmon's podcast, whenever I listened to it (4 years ago? 5?). Two privileged white male directors who are so stuck confronting, or attempting to confront, the misery of their privilege. So close to finally grasping their own shittiness, so afraid to sit with their discomfort, so far from using any of it for a whit of good.
posted by snerson at 5:30 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
This guy is giving me serious flashbacks to Dan Harmon's podcast, whenever I listened to it (4 years ago? 5?). Two privileged white male directors who are so stuck confronting, or attempting to confront, the misery of their privilege. So close to finally grasping their own shittiness, so afraid to sit with their discomfort, so far from using any of it for a whit of good.
posted by snerson at 5:30 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
I know we've talked about whether even a sincere apology is of any use in the current media climate where bad-faith actors piggyback on people raising legitimate concerns to turn what could be useful discussions into endless shitstorms.
But this...Joss Whedon ain't even sorry.
I loved much of Buffy. It was a CW show--that is, aimed at the 18-24s--so if you're holding it to a Judith Butler standard of sophistication, I think you're bound to be disappointed. The fans did a lot of fun and interesting things with it. The idea that it's vaguely embarrassing to study pop culture is misguided--there's a certain disdain for the fans and distaste for the slightly flakier people formerly in Whedon's orbit threaded through this piece that makes it obvious why the established people steered clear (what did poor Rebecca X do???).
posted by praemunire at 5:33 PM on January 17, 2022 [9 favorites]
But this...Joss Whedon ain't even sorry.
I loved much of Buffy. It was a CW show--that is, aimed at the 18-24s--so if you're holding it to a Judith Butler standard of sophistication, I think you're bound to be disappointed. The fans did a lot of fun and interesting things with it. The idea that it's vaguely embarrassing to study pop culture is misguided--there's a certain disdain for the fans and distaste for the slightly flakier people formerly in Whedon's orbit threaded through this piece that makes it obvious why the established people steered clear (what did poor Rebecca X do???).
posted by praemunire at 5:33 PM on January 17, 2022 [9 favorites]
But I ask you to lay off the insinuation that anyone who did like his shows were idiots and you were right all along.
I hope I didn't imply that: I STILL like BTVS. It has its problems, but also its joys, and like you, a lot of people got a lot out of it.
It's possible to love something and still find its creator toxic.
posted by suelac at 5:38 PM on January 17, 2022 [11 favorites]
I hope I didn't imply that: I STILL like BTVS. It has its problems, but also its joys, and like you, a lot of people got a lot out of it.
It's possible to love something and still find its creator toxic.
posted by suelac at 5:38 PM on January 17, 2022 [11 favorites]
I mean, the thing about Buffy (and I was in the right age group) was that people said it was feminist. Like, people whose artistic judgement I trusted said this to me. And then once again it turned about to be the same old stories with the same implications about which women were valuable and important (translation, NOT YOU PRE-TRANSNESS FROWNER YOU ARE GARBAGE EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE STILL VERY YOUNG IT"S THE WRONG KIND OF YOUNG) but with a giant "this is feminist, you not only have to accept this but you have to think it's moral too" sign on top.
Like, the criticism of Whedon's approach isn't "I am a powerful, humorless Judith Butler clone who thinks that anything less than a visual PhD dissertation belongs in the dustbin of history"; it's that there was something which was loudly trumpeted as being great for girls and really feminist and empowering and yet it was more of the same really painful exclusion only one was not supposed to say this because it was nominally feminist. I did not come to my youthful punk rock snobbism because I felt so very welcome, empowered and represented by mainstream culture but wanted to be special by being a snob; i came to it because again and again mainstream culture told me that I was worthless, disgusting trash.
posted by Frowner at 5:42 PM on January 17, 2022 [54 favorites]
Like, the criticism of Whedon's approach isn't "I am a powerful, humorless Judith Butler clone who thinks that anything less than a visual PhD dissertation belongs in the dustbin of history"; it's that there was something which was loudly trumpeted as being great for girls and really feminist and empowering and yet it was more of the same really painful exclusion only one was not supposed to say this because it was nominally feminist. I did not come to my youthful punk rock snobbism because I felt so very welcome, empowered and represented by mainstream culture but wanted to be special by being a snob; i came to it because again and again mainstream culture told me that I was worthless, disgusting trash.
posted by Frowner at 5:42 PM on January 17, 2022 [54 favorites]
I know we've talked about whether even a sincere apology is of any use in the current media climate
An apology is never any good for the media. An apology is between the harmed and the person who did the harm.
I wish I could find the guidelines on restorative justice I once had, but basically, who cares about this dude, we must center the people who were injured, and their healing.
posted by eustatic at 5:44 PM on January 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
An apology is never any good for the media. An apology is between the harmed and the person who did the harm.
I wish I could find the guidelines on restorative justice I once had, but basically, who cares about this dude, we must center the people who were injured, and their healing.
posted by eustatic at 5:44 PM on January 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
That article was oddly unsettling, as the subject seemed oblivious as he kept shooting himself in the foot.
I'm kinda mad at myself for reading it all the way through, feels like time horribly wasted on an uninteresting subject.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:52 PM on January 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
I'm kinda mad at myself for reading it all the way through, feels like time horribly wasted on an uninteresting subject.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:52 PM on January 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
(Also, I like Eliza Dushku but she's absolutely the wrong person to be cast in that role. She has a very limited range, and that role called for a chameleon.)
I was glad I watched that show just for Enver Gjokaj. I vividly remember the episode where his "doll" is implanted with a female personality, and I don't think I've ever seen a male actor play female so convincingly, with no camp, no simpering, no caricaturing.
posted by Well I never at 6:06 PM on January 17, 2022 [32 favorites]
I was glad I watched that show just for Enver Gjokaj. I vividly remember the episode where his "doll" is implanted with a female personality, and I don't think I've ever seen a male actor play female so convincingly, with no camp, no simpering, no caricaturing.
posted by Well I never at 6:06 PM on January 17, 2022 [32 favorites]
Well, his parents sound insufferable
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 6:22 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 6:22 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
“His tone is deflecting, it’s funny, it’s got wordplay, rhyme, quote marks, some mumbles, self-deprecation, a comic-book allusion, a Sondheim allusion, and some words they only use in England. This means you, the recipient, have to do some decoding. You have to decide if there was a message in there that was meant to correct you, sting you, rib you affectionately, or shyly praise you.”
See, I do this too, but I’m a woman, so people generally deal with this by not giving a living shit what I am talking about. It pisses me off that there are so many books and workshops and condescending tweets ordering women to be more direct and manly, but when you are a man and your dad got you into the business, it doesn’t make any fucking difference.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:25 PM on January 17, 2022 [29 favorites]
See, I do this too, but I’m a woman, so people generally deal with this by not giving a living shit what I am talking about. It pisses me off that there are so many books and workshops and condescending tweets ordering women to be more direct and manly, but when you are a man and your dad got you into the business, it doesn’t make any fucking difference.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:25 PM on January 17, 2022 [29 favorites]
This guy is giving me serious flashbacks to Dan Harmon's podcast, whenever I listened to it (4 years ago? 5?). […] So close to finally grasping their own shittiness, so afraid to sit with their discomfort, so far from using any of it for a whit of good.
Off-topic, but: if you haven’t heard/read anything about Harmon’s journey with this issue over the past four years, you might want to get caught up on where things currently stand before assuming that he’s gone down the same path as Whedon.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 6:26 PM on January 17, 2022 [12 favorites]
Off-topic, but: if you haven’t heard/read anything about Harmon’s journey with this issue over the past four years, you might want to get caught up on where things currently stand before assuming that he’s gone down the same path as Whedon.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 6:26 PM on January 17, 2022 [12 favorites]
“English is not her first language
what the fucking fuck
posted by soundguy99 at 6:34 PM on January 17, 2022 [18 favorites]
what the fucking fuck
posted by soundguy99 at 6:34 PM on January 17, 2022 [18 favorites]
But this...Joss Whedon ain't even sorry.
I am happy to admit that I did enjoy Buffy twenty years ago and I still can take some pleasure in Firefly, but not much else in his oeuvre does it for me. The current revelations about who he seems to be certainly don’t boost his standing for me.
I am reluctant to join a pile-on, but I reckon the interview could be condensed to, “Hey, I think if I lacked self-knowledge, I’d be the first one to know it.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:44 PM on January 17, 2022 [29 favorites]
I am happy to admit that I did enjoy Buffy twenty years ago and I still can take some pleasure in Firefly, but not much else in his oeuvre does it for me. The current revelations about who he seems to be certainly don’t boost his standing for me.
I am reluctant to join a pile-on, but I reckon the interview could be condensed to, “Hey, I think if I lacked self-knowledge, I’d be the first one to know it.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:44 PM on January 17, 2022 [29 favorites]
I don't know how to reconcile my loving of his earlier work/shows with this. I know I can't recommend that anyone watch them again after this, though, because this will come up and this feels like it a least somewhat invalidates everything I or others got from them back in the day. I probably can't watch them again either.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:47 PM on January 17, 2022
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:47 PM on January 17, 2022
Yeah, Dan Harmon's apology to Megan Ganz for sexually harassing her is actual atonement. Comparing his monologue to Joss Whedon's utter obliviousness, the difference is so painfully telling.
posted by lock robster at 6:54 PM on January 17, 2022 [25 favorites]
posted by lock robster at 6:54 PM on January 17, 2022 [25 favorites]
Well, his parents sound insufferable
His father wrote Captain Kangaroo, Hey, Cinderella (a pre-Sesame Street Muppet production), and was head writer on The Electric Company. Don't know what he was like as a person, but he did some great work in children's television.
posted by cheshyre at 7:10 PM on January 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
His father wrote Captain Kangaroo, Hey, Cinderella (a pre-Sesame Street Muppet production), and was head writer on The Electric Company. Don't know what he was like as a person, but he did some great work in children's television.
posted by cheshyre at 7:10 PM on January 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
Seen on Twitter:
I keep saying us (Ex)Whedon fans and (Ex)Rowling fans should start a support group.posted by cheshyre at 7:12 PM on January 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
I've had people utterly gushing about Whedon for years and years in my life, but I was always sort of noped-out on his thing. Although I am one of the twenty people who liked the Buffy movie. And I really do like Dr. Horrible even though, yes, I know. But seriously Dollhouse... like, 1.5 episodes, and I was like, WTF? It was being marketed somehow as liberated, but humans as doll playthings? WTF????
I'm one who is okay with separating the artist from the art unless it's just too creepy and close to the person. And yeah, Whedon is problematic. I do hope Buffy keeps finding hearts, because it has good messages I think.
posted by hippybear at 7:48 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
I'm one who is okay with separating the artist from the art unless it's just too creepy and close to the person. And yeah, Whedon is problematic. I do hope Buffy keeps finding hearts, because it has good messages I think.
posted by hippybear at 7:48 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
It took me an embarrassing amount of time to notice how much of a creep Xander was. I wonder if Whedon ever realised.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:01 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:01 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
I wonder if Whedon ever realised.
I'm sure he never did.
posted by suelac at 8:08 PM on January 17, 2022
I'm sure he never did.
posted by suelac at 8:08 PM on January 17, 2022
I’m a Browncoat, just so’s you know I might be a mite biased.
However, this article doesn’t do Joss Whedon any favors; rather makes him out to be kinda Ted Cruz-like. He knows he should be feeling Ways About Things, and has Tried Humaning, but he just needs more practice and he might be one of those people who are just never going to get it, also like Ted Cruz.
Sucks, really, because he did produce some good works.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 8:10 PM on January 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
However, this article doesn’t do Joss Whedon any favors; rather makes him out to be kinda Ted Cruz-like. He knows he should be feeling Ways About Things, and has Tried Humaning, but he just needs more practice and he might be one of those people who are just never going to get it, also like Ted Cruz.
Sucks, really, because he did produce some good works.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 8:10 PM on January 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
“His tone is deflecting, it’s funny, it’s got wordplay, rhyme, quote marks, some mumbles, self-deprecation, a comic-book allusion, a Sondheim allusion, and some words they only use in England. This means you, the recipient, have to do some decoding. You have to decide if there was a message in there that was meant to correct you, sting you, rib you affectionately, or shyly praise you.”
Ugh! Managers, whether they are key creatives or not, would do very well to tailor their communications to their intended audience, and leave off trying to impress themselves.
posted by infinitewindow at 8:30 PM on January 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
Ugh! Managers, whether they are key creatives or not, would do very well to tailor their communications to their intended audience, and leave off trying to impress themselves.
posted by infinitewindow at 8:30 PM on January 17, 2022 [13 favorites]
I’m glad someone posted this. I read it today and was so disappointed. Others above have described the article better than I could. Reading everyone’s comments relieved a lot of my frustration, thanks all.
posted by herda05 at 8:51 PM on January 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by herda05 at 8:51 PM on January 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
I have spoken elsewhere of giving problematic creators/artists what I call the Sid Meniscus treatment; and, in fact, I use Whedon as the case study in that comment.
I say: continue to enjoy Buffy or Firefly if you were moved/affected by either. Just....focus on other people's contributions and leave Joss out of it entirely.
Because - from the sounds of this article, he's a dumbass.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:17 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
I say: continue to enjoy Buffy or Firefly if you were moved/affected by either. Just....focus on other people's contributions and leave Joss out of it entirely.
Because - from the sounds of this article, he's a dumbass.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:17 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
Is this going to change anyone's mind? Some of the details are new (though not particularly unexpected), but I can't see how -- assuming someone knows the information that was out there from the last time -- this is going to sway anyone from their current position about JW.
What's clear is that he thinks that it will, or at least might bring back some of the faithful. There's a certain sort of egotist who brings their own rope to an interview like this.
Wow, it never takes long for people to prove their superiority in not liking Joss Whedon in a cool kid sort of way, eh?
Some of us may still remember a time in fandom when it seemed like there was no justifiable way to publicly dislike Whedon in any sort of way, or even be indifferent--I had someone tell me that, if I didn't go see Serenity on opening weekend, I wasn't a real fan. Of anything. I've never seen any fan group evangelize the way that Whedonistas used to, and I've been a Trekkie literally almost my entire life, and I'm not young. I'm sympathetic to being severely into something, and subsequently having to reckon with the misbehavior of its creator; Gene Roddenberry wasn't exactly a prince of a fellow, in a number of ways. I don't have to let go of TOS, and you don't have to let go of Buffy.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:37 PM on January 17, 2022 [18 favorites]
What's clear is that he thinks that it will, or at least might bring back some of the faithful. There's a certain sort of egotist who brings their own rope to an interview like this.
Wow, it never takes long for people to prove their superiority in not liking Joss Whedon in a cool kid sort of way, eh?
Some of us may still remember a time in fandom when it seemed like there was no justifiable way to publicly dislike Whedon in any sort of way, or even be indifferent--I had someone tell me that, if I didn't go see Serenity on opening weekend, I wasn't a real fan. Of anything. I've never seen any fan group evangelize the way that Whedonistas used to, and I've been a Trekkie literally almost my entire life, and I'm not young. I'm sympathetic to being severely into something, and subsequently having to reckon with the misbehavior of its creator; Gene Roddenberry wasn't exactly a prince of a fellow, in a number of ways. I don't have to let go of TOS, and you don't have to let go of Buffy.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:37 PM on January 17, 2022 [18 favorites]
I'm now wondering whether BoJack Horseman was in part based on Whedon.
BoJack Horseman at least tried to be better.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:57 PM on January 17, 2022 [9 favorites]
BoJack Horseman at least tried to be better.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:57 PM on January 17, 2022 [9 favorites]
When it comes time to decouple his works from him, as has of late been necessary with Harry Potter works, I cross the streams and transplant my idea from a prior thread here, and encourage calling him “Whe-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named”. Not just for the pun, but because the act of unnaming is psychologically meaningful, and keeps future (not this one!) discussions of the work from derailing into litigations of the creator. Both need to exist, but it will eventually be time to let them exist separately, so I offer it up as a tool for future posts about Buffy et al.
posted by Callisto Prime at 10:07 PM on January 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Callisto Prime at 10:07 PM on January 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
I know he's being flippant here, but:
"He would later tell his biographer this duality gave him “an advantage” over the girls in his college class on feminism when it came to discussing relations between the sexes. “I have seen the enemy,” he said, “and he’s in my brain!”"
This is actually how I've come to think about Buffy, in particular, and why it so appealed to me, as a young woman struggling through some very misogynistic institutions. I don't want to say I "outgrew" Wheedon, exactly, but my interest in his work waned when it became clear he was repeating the same characters over and over; he has a pretty limited repertoire of types. Which is also not uncommon in SFF authors, and there have been a bunch of times I've loved someone's work, but on the third iteration of them writing the same set of characters in a new universe, there are diminishing returns for me personally; I spend too much time thinking about how this is character X from universe Y slightly reupholstered with some new tics and released as character S in universe T. (And I have zero problem with people who like that -- I totally get the appeal of familiar character types by an author you click with exploring a new universe. I'm more of a "reread the first one I loved" person because of the distraction of noticing the repurposing.)
Anyway, this is to say, I'd drifted away from Wheedon's work by the time he did Dollhouse, never saw his Avengers work (I have never seen a Marvel movie all the way through), so the revelations about him sucking didn't hit me as hard as people who were deep in the fandom. But Buffy meant a lot to me when I was going through some tough stuff, and figuring out how to be a girl, and later a woman, navigating a world that was telling me I was lesser-than. It was comforting, and there were big parts of it I identified with. I wasn't attached to it because of the (pseudo-)feminism, per se, so those re-evaluations haven't meant much to me, but because I saw reflections of the shit I was dealing with, and the struggles of become a fully-realized adult woman in a world where people are trying to put you in boxes that don't fit you. So realizing that Whedon himself was a horrible person who was horrible to women, but made this art that I found comforting and sustaining, did give me some inner turmoil.
But what eventually dawned on me is, a plucky heroine isn't that different from a plucky hero or a plucky anthropomorphized cat in a children's book. Writing the character of Buffy wasn't the hard part (and hiring Sarah Michelle Gellar to play her and bring her to life probably mattered more to the character anyway). The thing what Whedon understood, that made the stories feel so reflective of my life and my experiences, is the ways in which men are monsters and the ways that society leverages that monstrousness to objectify, restrict, and belittle women, and how women have to fight against it.
And the reason Whedon understood that, I finally realized, was because he was one of the monsters, and he knew exactly what that kind of man did, and exactly how to leverage that social power against women. And, yeah, he wrote about it brilliantly.
And maybe there's a Jungian(?) point to be made here: In Buffy, he showed us that he knew that monsters like him had to be vanquished; he knew that what he was doing was wrong, and he wrote himself a psychodrama where Woman triumphed over the monster, again and again and again. But in his own life, he let the monster win, every time. He knew what was right, and he tried to expiate his sins by telling stories, over and over, where women vanquish monsters. But he still chose what was wrong, no matter how many times he told the story with the "right" ending. Dr. Frankenstein was the real monster all along.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:27 PM on January 17, 2022 [87 favorites]
"He would later tell his biographer this duality gave him “an advantage” over the girls in his college class on feminism when it came to discussing relations between the sexes. “I have seen the enemy,” he said, “and he’s in my brain!”"
This is actually how I've come to think about Buffy, in particular, and why it so appealed to me, as a young woman struggling through some very misogynistic institutions. I don't want to say I "outgrew" Wheedon, exactly, but my interest in his work waned when it became clear he was repeating the same characters over and over; he has a pretty limited repertoire of types. Which is also not uncommon in SFF authors, and there have been a bunch of times I've loved someone's work, but on the third iteration of them writing the same set of characters in a new universe, there are diminishing returns for me personally; I spend too much time thinking about how this is character X from universe Y slightly reupholstered with some new tics and released as character S in universe T. (And I have zero problem with people who like that -- I totally get the appeal of familiar character types by an author you click with exploring a new universe. I'm more of a "reread the first one I loved" person because of the distraction of noticing the repurposing.)
Anyway, this is to say, I'd drifted away from Wheedon's work by the time he did Dollhouse, never saw his Avengers work (I have never seen a Marvel movie all the way through), so the revelations about him sucking didn't hit me as hard as people who were deep in the fandom. But Buffy meant a lot to me when I was going through some tough stuff, and figuring out how to be a girl, and later a woman, navigating a world that was telling me I was lesser-than. It was comforting, and there were big parts of it I identified with. I wasn't attached to it because of the (pseudo-)feminism, per se, so those re-evaluations haven't meant much to me, but because I saw reflections of the shit I was dealing with, and the struggles of become a fully-realized adult woman in a world where people are trying to put you in boxes that don't fit you. So realizing that Whedon himself was a horrible person who was horrible to women, but made this art that I found comforting and sustaining, did give me some inner turmoil.
But what eventually dawned on me is, a plucky heroine isn't that different from a plucky hero or a plucky anthropomorphized cat in a children's book. Writing the character of Buffy wasn't the hard part (and hiring Sarah Michelle Gellar to play her and bring her to life probably mattered more to the character anyway). The thing what Whedon understood, that made the stories feel so reflective of my life and my experiences, is the ways in which men are monsters and the ways that society leverages that monstrousness to objectify, restrict, and belittle women, and how women have to fight against it.
And the reason Whedon understood that, I finally realized, was because he was one of the monsters, and he knew exactly what that kind of man did, and exactly how to leverage that social power against women. And, yeah, he wrote about it brilliantly.
And maybe there's a Jungian(?) point to be made here: In Buffy, he showed us that he knew that monsters like him had to be vanquished; he knew that what he was doing was wrong, and he wrote himself a psychodrama where Woman triumphed over the monster, again and again and again. But in his own life, he let the monster win, every time. He knew what was right, and he tried to expiate his sins by telling stories, over and over, where women vanquish monsters. But he still chose what was wrong, no matter how many times he told the story with the "right" ending. Dr. Frankenstein was the real monster all along.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:27 PM on January 17, 2022 [87 favorites]
"Maybe the problem was he’d been too nice, he said."
^&*() ^ &*(*&^^%%%% #$%
posted by Coaticass at 11:44 PM on January 17, 2022 [7 favorites]
^&*() ^ &*(*&^^%%%% #$%
posted by Coaticass at 11:44 PM on January 17, 2022 [7 favorites]
In this thread is an astonishingly large number of people who claimed they hated Whedon from five minutes into Buffy, yet they somehow sat through Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, and Dr. Horrible. If y'all say so, I guess.
For me I'd say he's more like the bad ex, the one where after the breakup you look back and realize the warning signs were there all along from the very first date. But you overlooked them at first, somehow remained partners for four years, and even now you still can't honestly deny you had some great times together in the early days.
posted by xigxag at 11:59 PM on January 17, 2022 [20 favorites]
For me I'd say he's more like the bad ex, the one where after the breakup you look back and realize the warning signs were there all along from the very first date. But you overlooked them at first, somehow remained partners for four years, and even now you still can't honestly deny you had some great times together in the early days.
posted by xigxag at 11:59 PM on January 17, 2022 [20 favorites]
I'm now wondering whether there's a correlation between not taking to Whedon's work before knowing he's a sexcreep and not taking to Rowling's work before knowing she's a reactionary transphobe.
posted by acb at 1:14 AM on January 18, 2022
posted by acb at 1:14 AM on January 18, 2022
I'm now wondering whether there's a correlation between not taking to Whedon's work before knowing he's a sexcreep and not taking to Rowling's work before knowing she's a reactionary transphobe.
Are JK's writing tics as close to the mark of her actual dysfunction?
posted by StarkRoads at 2:02 AM on January 18, 2022
Are JK's writing tics as close to the mark of her actual dysfunction?
posted by StarkRoads at 2:02 AM on January 18, 2022
“I finally found somebody I found more important than me”. (Somebody who would also “occasionally come into the living room bearing tea and dark chocolates”.)
posted by anshuman at 2:14 AM on January 18, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by anshuman at 2:14 AM on January 18, 2022 [10 favorites]
Are JK's writing tics as close to the mark of her actual dysfunction?
People have pointed out how much of HP shows a deeply reactionary worldview, a celebration of entrenched hierarchies and power structures held over from the British Empire with a sheen of Blairite liberalism and superficial diversitywashing, so that could be a warning sign.
posted by acb at 2:33 AM on January 18, 2022 [27 favorites]
People have pointed out how much of HP shows a deeply reactionary worldview, a celebration of entrenched hierarchies and power structures held over from the British Empire with a sheen of Blairite liberalism and superficial diversitywashing, so that could be a warning sign.
posted by acb at 2:33 AM on January 18, 2022 [27 favorites]
I really loved Joss' work and still do. He's a bully and a creep and it's very, very disappointing. This article is very, very, very good, save (as praemire pointed out) for the mild "ew, weirdos/fans of woo/cringey ladies" moments which I think are not necessary when we're talking about their being treated like shit by a powerful man.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 4:03 AM on January 18, 2022
posted by pelvicsorcery at 4:03 AM on January 18, 2022
I'm now wondering whether there's a correlation between not taking to Whedon's work before knowing he's a sexcreep and not taking to Rowling's work before knowing she's a reactionary transphobe.
That's a really loaded question that could be true or true-ish, something of an insult, or ad hoc justification after the fact. It depends on where and how you are trying to get at the question.
Whedon and Rowling are notable as much because their failures stoke both a sense of betrayal among some who've invested a lot of themselves into their works and a sense of schadenfreude from those who never liked the works and, crucially, felt the attention paid to them annoying.
There are certainly ways of seeing their works that can be read as informing later known behavior, some of that though may be read in post-awareness of their actions or attitudes, but it also suggests both a slight on those who "missed" these signs, such as they might be said to exist, denies alternative perspectives on what may be of value in the work to some, and suggests some people's taste acts as a buffer to bad behavior, which almost certainly isn't true writ large for anyone who regularly enjoyed tv, movies, music, writing, sports, or any other celebrity endeavor as those industries are laden with problematic to awful behavior and actors.
posted by gusottertrout at 4:15 AM on January 18, 2022 [19 favorites]
That's a really loaded question that could be true or true-ish, something of an insult, or ad hoc justification after the fact. It depends on where and how you are trying to get at the question.
Whedon and Rowling are notable as much because their failures stoke both a sense of betrayal among some who've invested a lot of themselves into their works and a sense of schadenfreude from those who never liked the works and, crucially, felt the attention paid to them annoying.
There are certainly ways of seeing their works that can be read as informing later known behavior, some of that though may be read in post-awareness of their actions or attitudes, but it also suggests both a slight on those who "missed" these signs, such as they might be said to exist, denies alternative perspectives on what may be of value in the work to some, and suggests some people's taste acts as a buffer to bad behavior, which almost certainly isn't true writ large for anyone who regularly enjoyed tv, movies, music, writing, sports, or any other celebrity endeavor as those industries are laden with problematic to awful behavior and actors.
posted by gusottertrout at 4:15 AM on January 18, 2022 [19 favorites]
I really hope this thread stays focused on his actions against real life women and not an examination of his work.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 4:30 AM on January 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by pelvicsorcery at 4:30 AM on January 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
he wrote himself a psychodrama where Woman triumphed over the monster, again and again and again. But in his own life, he let the monster win, every time.
Very well said.
I was thinking about this. There’s a difference between men who are feminists and men who believe that women are powerful. Sometimes they’re the same people, but often they’re not, and Whedon is one of the latter.
Men like that often feel that there’s nothing wrong with hurting women, even that it’s fair play, because women can’t seriously be hurt by the likes of them, not with all that mystical goddess inner strength or pussy power or what the hell ever, and if a woman is hurt she’s pathetic and she had it coming from somewhere anyway. This is why you get old lechers handwaving away their sins by claiming that they’ve always felt that women are superior beings and secretly rule the world anyway.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:11 AM on January 18, 2022 [34 favorites]
Very well said.
I was thinking about this. There’s a difference between men who are feminists and men who believe that women are powerful. Sometimes they’re the same people, but often they’re not, and Whedon is one of the latter.
Men like that often feel that there’s nothing wrong with hurting women, even that it’s fair play, because women can’t seriously be hurt by the likes of them, not with all that mystical goddess inner strength or pussy power or what the hell ever, and if a woman is hurt she’s pathetic and she had it coming from somewhere anyway. This is why you get old lechers handwaving away their sins by claiming that they’ve always felt that women are superior beings and secretly rule the world anyway.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:11 AM on January 18, 2022 [34 favorites]
I'm now wondering whether there's a correlation between not taking to Whedon's work before knowing he's a sexcreep and not taking to Rowling's work before knowing she's a reactionary transphobe.
Possibly. Also, not liking either of those might be correlated to not liking work aimed at pre-teens and teenagers, or not liking fantasy/magic based stories. Or not liking pop culture or very popular works. Certainly they have their flaws regardless of their creator.
More relevant I think is that Rowling became a terf quite a while after after she had written the HP series, previously I don't think she had given trans people much thought (nor racism and diversity, nor LGB issues) and the HP books are likewise cis-normative but not, I don't think, explicitly transphobic. Some of her later works do reflect a terf-y agenda. On the other hand Whedon was actively the person he is now when he made BtVS and Angel, including his behaviour to actors in his shows and the way he wrote prominent characters such as Xander.
posted by plonkee at 5:46 AM on January 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
Possibly. Also, not liking either of those might be correlated to not liking work aimed at pre-teens and teenagers, or not liking fantasy/magic based stories. Or not liking pop culture or very popular works. Certainly they have their flaws regardless of their creator.
More relevant I think is that Rowling became a terf quite a while after after she had written the HP series, previously I don't think she had given trans people much thought (nor racism and diversity, nor LGB issues) and the HP books are likewise cis-normative but not, I don't think, explicitly transphobic. Some of her later works do reflect a terf-y agenda. On the other hand Whedon was actively the person he is now when he made BtVS and Angel, including his behaviour to actors in his shows and the way he wrote prominent characters such as Xander.
posted by plonkee at 5:46 AM on January 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
Some would argue that the Sorting Hat is philosophically a proto-TERFy concept.
posted by acb at 5:57 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by acb at 5:57 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
It can be really difficult to accept that a person can be terrible AND that their works can be problematic in ways related to how terrible they are AND that their works can also have merit and value.
posted by kyrademon at 6:05 AM on January 18, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by kyrademon at 6:05 AM on January 18, 2022 [10 favorites]
Some would argue that the Sorting Hat is philosophically a proto-TERFy concept.
A good counter-argument to that, however, would be the fact that The Sorting Hat also takes each person's own wishes and self-declared identity into account when making its choices (remember, The Sorting Hat was going to put Harry in Slytherin but he said "no, I want to go into Gryffindor!" and it said okay).
...So....Harry looked like a Slytherin but he self-identified as Gryffindor because he felt like that fit him better. And the Sorting Hat accepted that.
So...it looks like the right thing to do would be to accept someone's self-professed identity even though you're SUPER-SURE that they look like something else.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:15 AM on January 18, 2022 [21 favorites]
A good counter-argument to that, however, would be the fact that The Sorting Hat also takes each person's own wishes and self-declared identity into account when making its choices (remember, The Sorting Hat was going to put Harry in Slytherin but he said "no, I want to go into Gryffindor!" and it said okay).
...So....Harry looked like a Slytherin but he self-identified as Gryffindor because he felt like that fit him better. And the Sorting Hat accepted that.
So...it looks like the right thing to do would be to accept someone's self-professed identity even though you're SUPER-SURE that they look like something else.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:15 AM on January 18, 2022 [21 favorites]
Not for nothing, it would also be great if this didn't turn into a discussion about JKR and HP instead of what Joss has done and is continuing to do. Signed, a trans person very tired of having to acknowledge that woman's existence.
posted by fight or flight at 7:00 AM on January 18, 2022 [40 favorites]
posted by fight or flight at 7:00 AM on January 18, 2022 [40 favorites]
Bringing in HP/JKR is maybe a good place to segue into revisiting "how to be a fan of problematic things" (previously on the blue).
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:02 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:02 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
"The Sorting Hat was going to put Harry in Slytherin but he said "no, I want to go into Gryffindor!" and it said okay)"
My recollection was that he was thinking "Not Slytherin" and the hat put him in Gryffindor.
posted by Billiken at 7:51 AM on January 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
My recollection was that he was thinking "Not Slytherin" and the hat put him in Gryffindor.
posted by Billiken at 7:51 AM on January 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
I don't want to say I "outgrew" Wheedon, exactly, but my interest in his work waned when it became clear he was repeating the same characters over and over;
E.g.: "River the Reaver Slayer"
posted by mikelieman at 8:23 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
E.g.: "River the Reaver Slayer"
posted by mikelieman at 8:23 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
I really hope this thread stays focused on his actions against real life women and not an examination of his work.
I think it's inevitable that evidence of his misdeeds becomes an occasion for re-evaluating his work, but it's really important to recognize that even people whose work is good can be abusers and conversely it's possible to make problematic work without also choosing to abuse people.
We can choose to believe the testimony of people who were abused and believe Joss when he tells on himself, but most of us only have first-hand experience with what was good or bad about his work.
It think his "feminism" was always like the dudes who choose to play female third-person video game characters--not because they are able to identify with women as protagonists but because they prefer looking at female game characters. It's better than when all the protagonists are male, but it would be better still if the female characters were created as people to identify with from the inside rather than people to look at from the outside.
Whedon's was a sort of "real women have curves" feminism. Guys pat themselves on the back for being attracted to some different beauty standard but that's not the same thing as valuing women as people regardless of what they look like. All women are real.
posted by straight at 8:38 AM on January 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
I think it's inevitable that evidence of his misdeeds becomes an occasion for re-evaluating his work, but it's really important to recognize that even people whose work is good can be abusers and conversely it's possible to make problematic work without also choosing to abuse people.
We can choose to believe the testimony of people who were abused and believe Joss when he tells on himself, but most of us only have first-hand experience with what was good or bad about his work.
It think his "feminism" was always like the dudes who choose to play female third-person video game characters--not because they are able to identify with women as protagonists but because they prefer looking at female game characters. It's better than when all the protagonists are male, but it would be better still if the female characters were created as people to identify with from the inside rather than people to look at from the outside.
Whedon's was a sort of "real women have curves" feminism. Guys pat themselves on the back for being attracted to some different beauty standard but that's not the same thing as valuing women as people regardless of what they look like. All women are real.
posted by straight at 8:38 AM on January 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
The best thing I can say about all this is that now it makes me curious to watch the Snyder Cut, 'cause everyone is saying Snyder did Fisher's character of Cyborn very well. As a black guy that means a lot to me.
But Jesus Zack, 4 hours?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:39 AM on January 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
But Jesus Zack, 4 hours?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:39 AM on January 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
Well, enough about Whedon being problematic about women -- how about Whedon being problematic on race? You don't even have to bring poor Ray Fisher into it; just take a look at the, like, three Black characters in the entire Buffyverse. Here's Gunn:
*Introduced as a "street thug"
*Made the boyfriend of Fred, which rounded his character and with whom he shared an easy chemistry. A healthy interracial relationship? Wow! Of course, a number of fans just "felt" that Fred was, somehow, a "better match" for Wesley. Hmmm! Where will this go?
*Nowhere too weird for about a season, when Gunn, in a moment of anger, whirls...and...hits Fred? Oh, that's. That's not great. That seems to fall into some kind of bad stereotypes, right? But he didn't mean it! Oh, but no. Nope, nope. Now she's sad. She...oh, no
*So now it kinda seems like Fred and Wesley are getting closer, but wait! What's happening with Gunn? The evil magic people at Wolfram & Hart have leveled him up Matrix-style, introducing a wealth of legal knowledge into his head! Now Gunn wears a suit and gets to say smart things! He's a lawyer! Well, that's pretty cool. I mean, we always knew he was smart, but he was denied the privilege to pursue an education, and...oh, no, wait, no. Now they're making it clear that Wolfram & Hart actually made him smarter! Because before he was...oh. Oh no
*Meanwhile, Fred and Wesley are now an item. Fred and Gunn's relationship is basically never mentioned again, aside from one brief scene where Gunn says to Wesley something like, "Ha ha, remember when I dated Fred? So weird! No hard feelings, buddy!"
And that's it. That's the arc of literally the only Black main character in an entire universe of shows that makes up something like three hundred hours of TV. To review: thug; nice guy in a well-handled relationship with a white character; domestic abuser; dumb guy; passive loser who makes a joke of his past relationship to new boyfriend (white). This is the only, I want to repeat, the only Black main character in this whole saga.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:43 AM on January 18, 2022 [26 favorites]
*Introduced as a "street thug"
*Made the boyfriend of Fred, which rounded his character and with whom he shared an easy chemistry. A healthy interracial relationship? Wow! Of course, a number of fans just "felt" that Fred was, somehow, a "better match" for Wesley. Hmmm! Where will this go?
*Nowhere too weird for about a season, when Gunn, in a moment of anger, whirls...and...hits Fred? Oh, that's. That's not great. That seems to fall into some kind of bad stereotypes, right? But he didn't mean it! Oh, but no. Nope, nope. Now she's sad. She...oh, no
*So now it kinda seems like Fred and Wesley are getting closer, but wait! What's happening with Gunn? The evil magic people at Wolfram & Hart have leveled him up Matrix-style, introducing a wealth of legal knowledge into his head! Now Gunn wears a suit and gets to say smart things! He's a lawyer! Well, that's pretty cool. I mean, we always knew he was smart, but he was denied the privilege to pursue an education, and...oh, no, wait, no. Now they're making it clear that Wolfram & Hart actually made him smarter! Because before he was...oh. Oh no
*Meanwhile, Fred and Wesley are now an item. Fred and Gunn's relationship is basically never mentioned again, aside from one brief scene where Gunn says to Wesley something like, "Ha ha, remember when I dated Fred? So weird! No hard feelings, buddy!"
And that's it. That's the arc of literally the only Black main character in an entire universe of shows that makes up something like three hundred hours of TV. To review: thug; nice guy in a well-handled relationship with a white character; domestic abuser; dumb guy; passive loser who makes a joke of his past relationship to new boyfriend (white). This is the only, I want to repeat, the only Black main character in this whole saga.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:43 AM on January 18, 2022 [26 favorites]
Well, enough about Whedon being problematic about women -- how about Whedon being problematic on race?
As well as your good points, the man took a high school in southern California and made it somehow the whitest environment ever. Plus the lack of Asian characters in Firefly while he was happy to sprinkle "exotic" Asian influences around for worldbuilding purposes and have his white cast mangle Chinese phrases.
Though, to be completely fair, I don't think all of this was his decision alone. Lots of people enabled and supported his shitty writing and shitty decisions along the way, including the women who have now taken up the mantle of "acceptable" credit for BtVS and others.
posted by fight or flight at 9:12 AM on January 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
As well as your good points, the man took a high school in southern California and made it somehow the whitest environment ever. Plus the lack of Asian characters in Firefly while he was happy to sprinkle "exotic" Asian influences around for worldbuilding purposes and have his white cast mangle Chinese phrases.
Though, to be completely fair, I don't think all of this was his decision alone. Lots of people enabled and supported his shitty writing and shitty decisions along the way, including the women who have now taken up the mantle of "acceptable" credit for BtVS and others.
posted by fight or flight at 9:12 AM on January 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
Also with Firefly there's the whole romanticizing the Confederacy aspect as well as other racist tidbits like Shepherd's natural hair scaring River.
posted by TwoStride at 9:47 AM on January 18, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by TwoStride at 9:47 AM on January 18, 2022 [13 favorites]
Yeah, Firefly is just...I don't think it's even Whedon romanticizing the Confederacy so much as it is Whedon not understanding why romanticizing the Confederacy would be so bad, which may be worse.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:50 AM on January 18, 2022 [17 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:50 AM on January 18, 2022 [17 favorites]
Yeah. I'm not shocked, in hindsight, that someone like Adam "#Gamergate" Baldwin was attracted to a show like Firefly.
posted by fight or flight at 10:06 AM on January 18, 2022
posted by fight or flight at 10:06 AM on January 18, 2022
The best thing I can say about all this is that now it makes me curious to watch the Snyder Cut, 'cause everyone is saying Snyder did Fisher's character of Cyborn very well. As a black guy that means a lot to me.
But Jesus Zack, 4 hours?!
I'm not a fan of Snyder, or most superhero movies, but I enjoyed the "Snyder cut" a lot, I spaced it out over 3 viewings like it was a limited series and it worked. And Cyborg was the most interesting character, partially because I didn't know anything about him or his backstory.
posted by chaz at 10:15 AM on January 18, 2022
But Jesus Zack, 4 hours?!
I'm not a fan of Snyder, or most superhero movies, but I enjoyed the "Snyder cut" a lot, I spaced it out over 3 viewings like it was a limited series and it worked. And Cyborg was the most interesting character, partially because I didn't know anything about him or his backstory.
posted by chaz at 10:15 AM on January 18, 2022
I have never met Whedon, but a close friend of mine has had him for an occasional houseguest for a few weeks total over the last couple of years (my friend has known Whedon’s wife Heather for many years). Their most recent visit was a stretch of ten days maybe two months ago. Odd to think of him hanging around rural southern Ontario, but I have seen the photos.
By all accounts he is a very charming and intelligent guy who feels he has made some mistakes but that he has been hard done by a media eager to sensationalize things and rush to judgment. I myself think that given the way he was viewed twenty years ago that he is not mass-murderer-evil, but just a massive, massive disappointment. Joss, you could have been the kind of man you said you were. Instead you are the kind of guy you are.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:09 AM on January 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
By all accounts he is a very charming and intelligent guy who feels he has made some mistakes but that he has been hard done by a media eager to sensationalize things and rush to judgment. I myself think that given the way he was viewed twenty years ago that he is not mass-murderer-evil, but just a massive, massive disappointment. Joss, you could have been the kind of man you said you were. Instead you are the kind of guy you are.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:09 AM on January 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
By all accounts he is a very charming and intelligent guy who feels he has made some mistakes but that he has been hard done by a media eager to sensationalize things and rush to judgment. I myself think that given the way he was viewed twenty years ago that he is not mass-murderer-evil, but just a massive, massive disappointment.
I....don't really get the impression that the articles about him were depicting him as "mass-murderer-evil".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:18 AM on January 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
I....don't really get the impression that the articles about him were depicting him as "mass-murderer-evil".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:18 AM on January 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
Of course, a number of fans just "felt" that Fred was, somehow, a "better match" for Wesley.
Nah, Gunn was a better match for Wesley.
posted by praemunire at 11:21 AM on January 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
Nah, Gunn was a better match for Wesley.
posted by praemunire at 11:21 AM on January 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
The best thing I can say about all this is that now it makes me curious to watch the Snyder Cut, 'cause everyone is saying Snyder did Fisher's character of Cyborn very well. As a black guy that means a lot to me.
But Jesus Zack, 4 hours?!
On the one hand, yeah, Victor Stone gets a much richer backstory and characterization in this one. (Whedon's "contribution" to Cyborg seemed to consist solely of a last-minute change of his look to one that was much more like the classic comics version.) On the other hand, you also get a lot more of everything else; I once joked that, if all the scenes in ZSJL that were in slo-mo ran at normal speed, the movie would be normal length, but no kidding he really overdoes it. (And even though it makes sense during the Flash's scenes, the bit where Barry Allen is introduced just sort of drags--it's as if Snyder watched Evan Peters' scenes as Quicksilver from the X-Men movies, but didn't get what made them fun.)
Yeah, Firefly is just...I don't think it's even Whedon romanticizing the Confederacy so much as it is Whedon not understanding why romanticizing the Confederacy would be so bad, which may be worse.
I just finished reading Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels, and am baffled at the assertion (in the book's Wikipedia entry) that Whedon was inspired to make Mal and Zoe "rebels" after reading the book; Whedon's decision seems more inspired by ex-Confederate characters such as Josey Wales and John Carter.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:42 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
But Jesus Zack, 4 hours?!
On the one hand, yeah, Victor Stone gets a much richer backstory and characterization in this one. (Whedon's "contribution" to Cyborg seemed to consist solely of a last-minute change of his look to one that was much more like the classic comics version.) On the other hand, you also get a lot more of everything else; I once joked that, if all the scenes in ZSJL that were in slo-mo ran at normal speed, the movie would be normal length, but no kidding he really overdoes it. (And even though it makes sense during the Flash's scenes, the bit where Barry Allen is introduced just sort of drags--it's as if Snyder watched Evan Peters' scenes as Quicksilver from the X-Men movies, but didn't get what made them fun.)
Yeah, Firefly is just...I don't think it's even Whedon romanticizing the Confederacy so much as it is Whedon not understanding why romanticizing the Confederacy would be so bad, which may be worse.
I just finished reading Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels, and am baffled at the assertion (in the book's Wikipedia entry) that Whedon was inspired to make Mal and Zoe "rebels" after reading the book; Whedon's decision seems more inspired by ex-Confederate characters such as Josey Wales and John Carter.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:42 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I....don't really get the impression that the articles about him were depicting him as "mass-murderer-evil".
Nor I. He seems pretty loathed by a lot of people, though, to a degree I find to be out of proportion to his misdeeds.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:54 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Nor I. He seems pretty loathed by a lot of people, though, to a degree I find to be out of proportion to his misdeeds.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:54 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
He seems pretty loathed by a lot of people, though, to a degree I find to be out of proportion to his misdeeds.
He manipulated, abused, physically and sexually assaulted women, possibly while some of them were teenagers, possibly while some were employed by him. He also mentally/emotionally abused his wife to the point that she developed C-PTSD. That he's also a rude, racist, misogynistic narcissist is the cherry on top.
Honestly, even if he had done just some of that, I would believe the loathing some former fans have for him is totally justified.
posted by fight or flight at 12:03 PM on January 18, 2022 [25 favorites]
He manipulated, abused, physically and sexually assaulted women, possibly while some of them were teenagers, possibly while some were employed by him. He also mentally/emotionally abused his wife to the point that she developed C-PTSD. That he's also a rude, racist, misogynistic narcissist is the cherry on top.
Honestly, even if he had done just some of that, I would believe the loathing some former fans have for him is totally justified.
posted by fight or flight at 12:03 PM on January 18, 2022 [25 favorites]
...he was one of the monsters, and he knew exactly what that kind of man did, and exactly how to leverage that social power against women. And, yeah, he wrote about it brilliantly...But in his own life, he let the monster win, every time. He knew what was right, and he tried to expiate his sins by telling stories, over and over...but he still chose what was wrong, no matter how many times he told the story with the "right" ending.
Junot Diaz has entered the chat.
posted by youarenothere at 12:09 PM on January 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
Junot Diaz has entered the chat.
posted by youarenothere at 12:09 PM on January 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
He seems pretty loathed by a lot of people, though, to a degree I find to be out of proportion to his misdeeds.
He had enormous amounts of power in his industry (not everyone gets to direct multi-million dollar movies and create HBO series.) He used that power and his reputation as a feminist as a shield to cover up his affairs, sexual harassment, and assaults. A lot of people get angry about abuse of power and cynical use of important issues to cover it up, especially when the misconduct reveals rampant hypocrisy.
And there's no indication that any of this, even this horrendous interview, will result in permanent consequences. It's a lot harder to let go of loathing someone when all indications are they will get away with being terrible with no real hardships on their part.
posted by creepygirl at 12:09 PM on January 18, 2022 [14 favorites]
He had enormous amounts of power in his industry (not everyone gets to direct multi-million dollar movies and create HBO series.) He used that power and his reputation as a feminist as a shield to cover up his affairs, sexual harassment, and assaults. A lot of people get angry about abuse of power and cynical use of important issues to cover it up, especially when the misconduct reveals rampant hypocrisy.
And there's no indication that any of this, even this horrendous interview, will result in permanent consequences. It's a lot harder to let go of loathing someone when all indications are they will get away with being terrible with no real hardships on their part.
posted by creepygirl at 12:09 PM on January 18, 2022 [14 favorites]
I don't think this is a derail.
This is not an apology for Whedon's behavior.
I've never seen any of Whedon's TV work. Only the Avenger movies, I sometime tell friends that, "it's 28 yo males who have fucked up the planet" thinking especially of Zuckerberg when I say this. Lack of emotional or sexual maturity. Massive input of money and power. Invincibility. Then the rest of their lives all about saving face. Even I, at 48, went through a version of this.
Another friend of mine has said, "What matters is what you learn after you know everything"
I have seen this a lot in Hollywood over the past 30 years. (It may have applied even earlier than that though not involving the scale of power and money) I've had a smaller experience where in the end it was all about me saving face in the eyes of others. And there is this sense of having power and the new uses of it, especially on a sexual and relationship level.
I have friends who are close to Rian Johnson (they even had a Star Wars chapter named after them) It's been interesting to see his career from this vantage point, also knowing the integrity of my friends.
I am also uncomfortable with men being called or identifying as "feminists." It's is the height of hubris and arrogance. It's demeaning to woman. And women who see them as such are pandering to to this arrogance unknowingly. To me, it's as if I identified as black because I am sensitive to their plight.
I'm not going to analyze Whedon's inner world and its influence on his work. I do think that at some point that men have to realize how evolutionary, generational and authoritarian trauma has normalized behavior like Whedon's and really fucked us up
posted by goalyeehah at 12:26 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is not an apology for Whedon's behavior.
I've never seen any of Whedon's TV work. Only the Avenger movies, I sometime tell friends that, "it's 28 yo males who have fucked up the planet" thinking especially of Zuckerberg when I say this. Lack of emotional or sexual maturity. Massive input of money and power. Invincibility. Then the rest of their lives all about saving face. Even I, at 48, went through a version of this.
Another friend of mine has said, "What matters is what you learn after you know everything"
I have seen this a lot in Hollywood over the past 30 years. (It may have applied even earlier than that though not involving the scale of power and money) I've had a smaller experience where in the end it was all about me saving face in the eyes of others. And there is this sense of having power and the new uses of it, especially on a sexual and relationship level.
I have friends who are close to Rian Johnson (they even had a Star Wars chapter named after them) It's been interesting to see his career from this vantage point, also knowing the integrity of my friends.
I am also uncomfortable with men being called or identifying as "feminists." It's is the height of hubris and arrogance. It's demeaning to woman. And women who see them as such are pandering to to this arrogance unknowingly. To me, it's as if I identified as black because I am sensitive to their plight.
I'm not going to analyze Whedon's inner world and its influence on his work. I do think that at some point that men have to realize how evolutionary, generational and authoritarian trauma has normalized behavior like Whedon's and really fucked us up
posted by goalyeehah at 12:26 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Charm is not the absence of evil. It is orthogonal to it, but can also enable it to flourish undetected for longer.
(Yes, I used the E word. If you judge people by their character, and determine their character from their patterns of action over time, it is fair to say that Whedon is evil. Not Hitler-level evil, but Hitler is not the baseline for evil.)
posted by acb at 1:11 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
(Yes, I used the E word. If you judge people by their character, and determine their character from their patterns of action over time, it is fair to say that Whedon is evil. Not Hitler-level evil, but Hitler is not the baseline for evil.)
posted by acb at 1:11 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
I wish healing, happiness, and all good things to the people he wronged. I appreciate this post and this discussion. (Thanks, OP!) That said, I do not want to spend even a nanosecond more of my life thinking about that guy.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:45 PM on January 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by Bella Donna at 1:45 PM on January 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
big shout out to my manager at Kinko’s in Van Nuys, who, in 2006, described Joss Whedon’s dialogue as “written as though he’s waiting for his girlfriend to laugh”
posted by acb at 2:08 PM on January 18, 2022 [27 favorites]
posted by acb at 2:08 PM on January 18, 2022 [27 favorites]
The fact that he's sitting down for interviews, and that people are actually interviewing him, tells us pretty much everything we need to know about how this narrative will progress.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:10 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:10 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
Maybe he'll end up working with Mel Gibson on his next film?
posted by acb at 2:17 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 2:17 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
According to IMDB Mel Gibson has had more work since 2010 (his racist outburst was 2006, so he got to go on leave for four years) than preceding it, just about. Example: apparently he's gonna be the main dude in a series spun off from John Wick. Whedon has only been out bush for, what, two years? Weinstein would be back at work by now if he wasn't, y'know, in jail.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:56 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:56 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
The worst that will happen is that Joss has a career lull for a few years. Sometimes you just have to take that as a kind of win, like Trump's worst thing ever being losing his Twitter. But yeah, give it a few years and he'll be working with Mel. Sigh.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:58 PM on January 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:58 PM on January 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
He knows he should be feeling Ways About Things, and has Tried Humaning
I think this is exactly it for me. As seen in his work (and the work of others on the shows he ran), the man has some understanding of the ways in which people hurt each other, and how they atone for it, and he's pretty good at writing the words they use to apologize, so he knows (or at least "knows") what he needs to do to get people to like him again.
If he was a better actor he'd be able to fake it more consistently. As it is, every "I'm working on myself and demonstrating my growth by telling my new partner my patterns right off the bat" is paired with a "because she's the first person who's ever been more important than me", so it doesn't come off as convincing.
posted by Covert Kaiju at 3:15 PM on January 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
I think this is exactly it for me. As seen in his work (and the work of others on the shows he ran), the man has some understanding of the ways in which people hurt each other, and how they atone for it, and he's pretty good at writing the words they use to apologize, so he knows (or at least "knows") what he needs to do to get people to like him again.
If he was a better actor he'd be able to fake it more consistently. As it is, every "I'm working on myself and demonstrating my growth by telling my new partner my patterns right off the bat" is paired with a "because she's the first person who's ever been more important than me", so it doesn't come off as convincing.
posted by Covert Kaiju at 3:15 PM on January 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
I am also uncomfortable with men being called or identifying as "feminists." It's is the height of hubris and arrogance. It's demeaning to woman. And women who see them as such are pandering to to this arrogance unknowingly. To me, it's as if I identified as black because I am sensitive to their plight.
That would be more like men identifying as women than identifying as feminists. I am 100% in favor of men identifying as feminists.
posted by small_ruminant at 4:00 PM on January 18, 2022 [10 favorites]
That would be more like men identifying as women than identifying as feminists. I am 100% in favor of men identifying as feminists.
posted by small_ruminant at 4:00 PM on January 18, 2022 [10 favorites]
He seems pretty loathed by a lot of people, though, to a degree I find to be out of proportion to his misdeeds.
I mean, OK? You feel how you feel, I guess.
But I think statements like this can grind people's gears because it sounds a lot like a minimizing tactic that gets used all the time about all kinds of stuff - "I think the reaction is out of proportion, so it must be some kind of overreaction, and since it's an overreaction we shouldn't take it seriously."
Like you're setting up your interpretation of the situation as some kind of impartial logical rational standard, and thus anyone reacting more strongly than you is having some kind of hysterics or something.
You may not mean it like that, but that's how it can come across.
And the thing is is that anyone's feelings of loathing and reaction to his misdeeds is really context-dependent. Are you a woman? Are you a person - and let's be real, this is a thing that mostly happens to women - who has been pressured or coerced into having sexual relations with someone who has power over you in your current job and future career? Were you deeply involved in Buffy Fandom regardless of gender? Or Whedon Fandom in general? Were you a fan of Buffy because that's what you thought feminism should look like? Or because even though it might not be great feminism it was about the best you were gonna get in mainstream media at the time?
These are all things that could (and probably should) have an effect on how you view Whedon in light of the revelations about his behavior. So other people's reactions may well be "proportionate" in the context of their experiences with life & Whedon's creative output, and a thing to maybe consider when thinking about degrees of loathing.
posted by soundguy99 at 4:00 PM on January 18, 2022 [23 favorites]
I mean, OK? You feel how you feel, I guess.
But I think statements like this can grind people's gears because it sounds a lot like a minimizing tactic that gets used all the time about all kinds of stuff - "I think the reaction is out of proportion, so it must be some kind of overreaction, and since it's an overreaction we shouldn't take it seriously."
Like you're setting up your interpretation of the situation as some kind of impartial logical rational standard, and thus anyone reacting more strongly than you is having some kind of hysterics or something.
You may not mean it like that, but that's how it can come across.
And the thing is is that anyone's feelings of loathing and reaction to his misdeeds is really context-dependent. Are you a woman? Are you a person - and let's be real, this is a thing that mostly happens to women - who has been pressured or coerced into having sexual relations with someone who has power over you in your current job and future career? Were you deeply involved in Buffy Fandom regardless of gender? Or Whedon Fandom in general? Were you a fan of Buffy because that's what you thought feminism should look like? Or because even though it might not be great feminism it was about the best you were gonna get in mainstream media at the time?
These are all things that could (and probably should) have an effect on how you view Whedon in light of the revelations about his behavior. So other people's reactions may well be "proportionate" in the context of their experiences with life & Whedon's creative output, and a thing to maybe consider when thinking about degrees of loathing.
posted by soundguy99 at 4:00 PM on January 18, 2022 [23 favorites]
Instead, he quickly added that he had felt he “had” to sleep with them, that he was “powerless” to resist. I laughed. “I’m not actually joking,” he said. He had been surrounded by beautiful young women — the sort of women who had ignored him when he was younger — and he feared if he didn’t have sex with them, he would “always regret it.”
I can understand why he's “terrified of every word that comes out of my mouth.” What kind of human being says "Damn, I will always regret it if I don't abuse all these young attractive women?" You claim to regret having done it now, so it's weird that you'd fixate on how you might have regretted it if you hadn't. "I might have regretted it if I didn't" isn't something a healthy person says about something they truly regret.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:02 PM on January 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
I can understand why he's “terrified of every word that comes out of my mouth.” What kind of human being says "Damn, I will always regret it if I don't abuse all these young attractive women?" You claim to regret having done it now, so it's weird that you'd fixate on how you might have regretted it if you hadn't. "I might have regretted it if I didn't" isn't something a healthy person says about something they truly regret.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:02 PM on January 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
Charisma Carpenter today:
https://twitter.com/AllCharisma/status/1483538461495754755?s=20
https://twitter.com/AllCharisma/status/1483538263260348416?s=20
posted by bonehead at 4:39 PM on January 18, 2022 [17 favorites]
https://twitter.com/AllCharisma/status/1483538461495754755?s=20
https://twitter.com/AllCharisma/status/1483538263260348416?s=20
posted by bonehead at 4:39 PM on January 18, 2022 [17 favorites]
Joss is the millionaire screenwriter son of a millionaire screenwriter son of a successful screenwriter.
We need to start some kind of boycott against cultural works that employ nepotism babies like Joss.
posted by zymil at 5:03 PM on January 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
We need to start some kind of boycott against cultural works that employ nepotism babies like Joss.
posted by zymil at 5:03 PM on January 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
Like you're setting up your interpretation of the situation as some kind of impartial logical rational standard, and thus anyone reacting more strongly than you is having some kind of hysterics or something.
I am not. I speak only for myself. But this is the Internet, where others of course are the voice of cool, clear wisdom and I -- who fit into at least a couple of the categories you list -- am to have my personal views minimized. I think Whedon is a pretty terrible person. Others think he is more terrible than I do. I guess they win by doing this?
All I have offered here beyond that is that one of my closest friends of decades knows him personally and my friend offers the assessment that Whedon continues to think of himself as an okay guy: one who has made mistakes but still thinks he is good at his job, which is literally his last word in the interview in TFA. I venture that few of us judge ourselves by our worst acts, no matter how bad they are.
Like everyone on Earth, there are some things that I have stronger feelings about than others. There are assholes in many places, and I believe there are a lot in boardrooms and in government (or who are maneuvering to be in one of those two places) whose actions could make the world a lot worse than the possibility that Joss Whedon will direct a movie years from now.
YMMV.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:38 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
I am not. I speak only for myself. But this is the Internet, where others of course are the voice of cool, clear wisdom and I -- who fit into at least a couple of the categories you list -- am to have my personal views minimized. I think Whedon is a pretty terrible person. Others think he is more terrible than I do. I guess they win by doing this?
All I have offered here beyond that is that one of my closest friends of decades knows him personally and my friend offers the assessment that Whedon continues to think of himself as an okay guy: one who has made mistakes but still thinks he is good at his job, which is literally his last word in the interview in TFA. I venture that few of us judge ourselves by our worst acts, no matter how bad they are.
Like everyone on Earth, there are some things that I have stronger feelings about than others. There are assholes in many places, and I believe there are a lot in boardrooms and in government (or who are maneuvering to be in one of those two places) whose actions could make the world a lot worse than the possibility that Joss Whedon will direct a movie years from now.
YMMV.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:38 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
I am a fandom researcher and an elder millennial and NOT being a Whedon fan has been weird. I bounced off Buffy (loved the movie though), and the rest of the TV series' except for Firefly. Which is as much my enjoyment of SciFi as it is tolerance of Whedon's creative tendencies. I've had many arguments over the years about my personal dislike for Whedon-dialogue.
Professionally, not being into Whedon absolutely had an effect prior to his fall from grace. Disliking his dialogue particularly marked me as untrustworthy in some way. The fannishness about him as a kind of auteur (the film studies side of me has issues about using that word to describe any sufficiently cult or popular dude creator) was dominant for a long time. And it was centred on him as a person and the way that was expressed in his work.
So I can see how that kind of deeply personalised fandom, along with parasocial tendencies, and the increasing manifestation of media-centred identity, does result in both defensiveness and derision. Buffy the tv series meant nothing to me apart from varying levels of irritation at peers for their proselytism, the way it dominated research in my field in specific ways. It wasn't part of my identity except the way not being a fan ascribed some kind of value to me in the eyes of another.
It is difficult to not launch into a diatribe about his work now I'm not going to be met with "but he is a feminist" or "don't you like strong female characters written by men" or "but LESBIANS". Primarily because that's what the conversation was, prior to him being openly identified as a sexual predator. Suddenly I am either prescient or 'identified problems' before others did, or I'm performatively claiming I knew before others, or that I'm tying greatness with identity of the creator and denying it now Whedon is revealed as awful. But, I did always have something of an eversion to his work as a whole, and did dislike his representation of gender things, and quite frankly I'm relieved to not have fans decide I'm stupid or a misogynist because I don't have the same reaction to Buffy etc.
posted by geek anachronism at 5:43 PM on January 18, 2022 [15 favorites]
Professionally, not being into Whedon absolutely had an effect prior to his fall from grace. Disliking his dialogue particularly marked me as untrustworthy in some way. The fannishness about him as a kind of auteur (the film studies side of me has issues about using that word to describe any sufficiently cult or popular dude creator) was dominant for a long time. And it was centred on him as a person and the way that was expressed in his work.
So I can see how that kind of deeply personalised fandom, along with parasocial tendencies, and the increasing manifestation of media-centred identity, does result in both defensiveness and derision. Buffy the tv series meant nothing to me apart from varying levels of irritation at peers for their proselytism, the way it dominated research in my field in specific ways. It wasn't part of my identity except the way not being a fan ascribed some kind of value to me in the eyes of another.
It is difficult to not launch into a diatribe about his work now I'm not going to be met with "but he is a feminist" or "don't you like strong female characters written by men" or "but LESBIANS". Primarily because that's what the conversation was, prior to him being openly identified as a sexual predator. Suddenly I am either prescient or 'identified problems' before others did, or I'm performatively claiming I knew before others, or that I'm tying greatness with identity of the creator and denying it now Whedon is revealed as awful. But, I did always have something of an eversion to his work as a whole, and did dislike his representation of gender things, and quite frankly I'm relieved to not have fans decide I'm stupid or a misogynist because I don't have the same reaction to Buffy etc.
posted by geek anachronism at 5:43 PM on January 18, 2022 [15 favorites]
There are assholes in many places, and I believe there are a lot in boardrooms and in government (or who are maneuvering to be in one of those two places) whose actions could make the world a lot worse than the possibility that Joss Whedon will direct a movie years from now.
Although this may be true in a very direct way, Joss Whedon is someone whose work has had a huge social effect on literally millions of.people, and that's really not a role a sleazy guy should be filling. I'm sorry. To say nothing of all the people who would work with him directly. I'll put it to you this way: if you think Woody Allen shouldn't be making movies -- and maybe you do and maybe you don't -- but if you do think that, you should probably think that Whedon shouldn't be making them either.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:09 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
Although this may be true in a very direct way, Joss Whedon is someone whose work has had a huge social effect on literally millions of.people, and that's really not a role a sleazy guy should be filling. I'm sorry. To say nothing of all the people who would work with him directly. I'll put it to you this way: if you think Woody Allen shouldn't be making movies -- and maybe you do and maybe you don't -- but if you do think that, you should probably think that Whedon shouldn't be making them either.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:09 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
It took me an embarrassing amount of time to notice how much of a creep Xander was.
We just started a rewatch of s1 Buffy, in my bloke's quest to watch his entire TV collection in chronological order, one episode a night (several years in now and still in the 90s). Even the bloke (not the most aware of dudes, although he tries) turned to me and said "Xander is Joss Whedon, isn't he? He's such a whiny insufferable creep".
posted by andraste at 8:57 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
We just started a rewatch of s1 Buffy, in my bloke's quest to watch his entire TV collection in chronological order, one episode a night (several years in now and still in the 90s). Even the bloke (not the most aware of dudes, although he tries) turned to me and said "Xander is Joss Whedon, isn't he? He's such a whiny insufferable creep".
posted by andraste at 8:57 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
The fannishness about him as a kind of auteur (the film studies side of me has issues about using that word to describe any sufficiently cult or popular dude creator) was dominant for a long time.
The rise of fandom and the cult aspect to "auteurdom" has had a really detrimental effect on how people talk about TV shows, movies, and all the other associated new media. As I'm sure you know, there's been literally hundreds of articles written about Whedon's various works from all sorts of angles, some feminist film studies scholars, some media studies, and so on, some of them quite good, but a lot seemingly based more in fannish appreciation than more neutral study.
While many of the criticism levied against Whedon's work have been sorta out there for a long time, his handling of race and questions about the "feminist" aspects, along with more considered takes on some merits in his subversion of tropes and the like, the larger tendency is to push towards extremes, where it's all or nothing, where he was "great" because he was an "auteur" of this body of work, without necessary consideration of authorship being in itself value neutral, just describing a power relationship, who controls a project and can shape its "voice".
The end of that for Whedon is a good thing, but taking it too far the other direction likewise becomes fraught, as when there are suggestions that the status of the "author" completely alters how all aspects of the work are to be viewed, taste becoming virtually a moral issue in itself even when some of it has little direct reflection on any actions. The celebrity of the author, the standing of the works within fandom, become the hyperbolic battleground of extremity, even as the host of other works, the conventions on which all of our "pleasure" rests, the system in which this all operates and maintains is all too often treated as a given not subject to the same kinds of needed question.
Fisher's intitial complaints about Whedon were placed in a context of the studio bosses and DC exec's racism, they offered to throw Whedon under the bus if Fisher dropped complaints against them. He didn't, but they didn't need to worry as the vicissitudes of fandom and celebrity angst quickly came to bear when social and regular media prefered chasing celeb reactions and trading personal hot takes instead, leaving the power structure that creates Whedons intact.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:37 AM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
The rise of fandom and the cult aspect to "auteurdom" has had a really detrimental effect on how people talk about TV shows, movies, and all the other associated new media. As I'm sure you know, there's been literally hundreds of articles written about Whedon's various works from all sorts of angles, some feminist film studies scholars, some media studies, and so on, some of them quite good, but a lot seemingly based more in fannish appreciation than more neutral study.
While many of the criticism levied against Whedon's work have been sorta out there for a long time, his handling of race and questions about the "feminist" aspects, along with more considered takes on some merits in his subversion of tropes and the like, the larger tendency is to push towards extremes, where it's all or nothing, where he was "great" because he was an "auteur" of this body of work, without necessary consideration of authorship being in itself value neutral, just describing a power relationship, who controls a project and can shape its "voice".
The end of that for Whedon is a good thing, but taking it too far the other direction likewise becomes fraught, as when there are suggestions that the status of the "author" completely alters how all aspects of the work are to be viewed, taste becoming virtually a moral issue in itself even when some of it has little direct reflection on any actions. The celebrity of the author, the standing of the works within fandom, become the hyperbolic battleground of extremity, even as the host of other works, the conventions on which all of our "pleasure" rests, the system in which this all operates and maintains is all too often treated as a given not subject to the same kinds of needed question.
Fisher's intitial complaints about Whedon were placed in a context of the studio bosses and DC exec's racism, they offered to throw Whedon under the bus if Fisher dropped complaints against them. He didn't, but they didn't need to worry as the vicissitudes of fandom and celebrity angst quickly came to bear when social and regular media prefered chasing celeb reactions and trading personal hot takes instead, leaving the power structure that creates Whedons intact.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:37 AM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
On not realizing Joss' ills at the time:
Guys, it was the 90s. We had all just come out of a time when casually handing your girl off to another guy to date-rape because she was drunk was seen as a net win FOR THE GUY. (Don't know what i'm talking about? Go watch the scene with Jake and Ted in SIXTEEN CANDLES.) We're looking back with about 20 or so years of learning and perspective and we're able to see things most of us simply weren't able to then.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:13 AM on January 19, 2022 [20 favorites]
Guys, it was the 90s. We had all just come out of a time when casually handing your girl off to another guy to date-rape because she was drunk was seen as a net win FOR THE GUY. (Don't know what i'm talking about? Go watch the scene with Jake and Ted in SIXTEEN CANDLES.) We're looking back with about 20 or so years of learning and perspective and we're able to see things most of us simply weren't able to then.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:13 AM on January 19, 2022 [20 favorites]
Oh man, as a person who graduated high school mid 90s, there is so so so much that doesn't hold up in the pop culture of the time. Like, I will do nostalgic rewatches of movies (I rarely go back to TV) and go, "HOLY FUCK HOW DID I NOT GET THAT". But then as EC above says, I was definitely not as informed and aware as I am now. Honestly, this even carried over for me into the early aughts. It took a lot of self education, talking to people about how media impacted them negatively, for me to start putting the puzzle pieces together.
posted by Kitteh at 4:30 AM on January 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 4:30 AM on January 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
Also, Charisma Carpenter is a queen. If you want to do a story about this whole awfulness, I would rather read a lengthy article about the people whose lives he tried to ruin and how they thrived. I want to hear from them! I want a Charisma Carpenter full length article (which she doesn't owe to anyone, but dang, I'd read it).
posted by Kitteh at 4:32 AM on January 19, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 4:32 AM on January 19, 2022 [13 favorites]
In terms of the nineties: I think this discussion would really benefit from input from left/feminist pop culture or fandom types who cut their teeth in the sixties or seventies. The eighties are a time of hegemonic anti-feminism as backlash to the sixties and seventies, as a response to deindustrialization, etc etc etc. The nineties are sort of a mixture of backlash and pushback, plus also changes from the feminism that had persisted through the seventies and eighties, and of course the youths of the time were a small generation so in a different relation to pop culture than boomers/millenials.
So if you're the target age for Buffy you grew up during Reagan, yes, which means 16 Candles positioned as totally normal instead of rapey, extremely class-marked and racist. But at the same time, all those people who didn't grow up during Reagan weren't raptured away. Pop culture was contested; there were other discourses.
I also think there's a long arc of teenagerdom - like, the popular understandings of what it means to be a teenager have only really been developing since maybe the twenties, really the post-war period, and I think that even though it's for bad/marketing reasons, there's been an increase in the amount of thought about teenage interiority, gender, etc over time, and I think that in the eighties/nineties more attention was paid to the idea that, like, girls had feelings and so there was more available culturally. It was easier to depict a complex female character because we'd already accepted that women were complex (weepy and whiny, sure, but having feelings) whereas the official narrative was "boys just care about tricking girls into sex and impressing their fellow boys". So it's not so much "surprise, we can only write a terrible Xander" as "hey, we can't totally center a whole television program around girls, girls aren't that interesting even if they're hot, so you get Terrible Xander".
Looking back on being a youth in the nineties, it wasn't so much that one could not identify these guys as creeps as that one felt stuck with the creeps. No one looked at the Xanders and Whedons of the world and thought "those are swell guys, why would you mind someone sexually harassing you or making fun of your body", people just thought that there was no alternative.
posted by Frowner at 6:49 AM on January 19, 2022 [17 favorites]
So if you're the target age for Buffy you grew up during Reagan, yes, which means 16 Candles positioned as totally normal instead of rapey, extremely class-marked and racist. But at the same time, all those people who didn't grow up during Reagan weren't raptured away. Pop culture was contested; there were other discourses.
I also think there's a long arc of teenagerdom - like, the popular understandings of what it means to be a teenager have only really been developing since maybe the twenties, really the post-war period, and I think that even though it's for bad/marketing reasons, there's been an increase in the amount of thought about teenage interiority, gender, etc over time, and I think that in the eighties/nineties more attention was paid to the idea that, like, girls had feelings and so there was more available culturally. It was easier to depict a complex female character because we'd already accepted that women were complex (weepy and whiny, sure, but having feelings) whereas the official narrative was "boys just care about tricking girls into sex and impressing their fellow boys". So it's not so much "surprise, we can only write a terrible Xander" as "hey, we can't totally center a whole television program around girls, girls aren't that interesting even if they're hot, so you get Terrible Xander".
Looking back on being a youth in the nineties, it wasn't so much that one could not identify these guys as creeps as that one felt stuck with the creeps. No one looked at the Xanders and Whedons of the world and thought "those are swell guys, why would you mind someone sexually harassing you or making fun of your body", people just thought that there was no alternative.
posted by Frowner at 6:49 AM on January 19, 2022 [17 favorites]
Further: the feeling was that the state of being female or otherwise marginalized was to have others be hostile and instrumentalizing - of course men would try to trick or force you into sexual contact you didn't want, of course if you were anything but Kate Moss thin someone was going to make fun of your weight. It was bad, we all knew it was bad, but it was the state of the world.
This paranoid attitude has sometimes served me well as an adult, actually. The narrative has changed, the expectations have changed, but a lot of actual people have not.
posted by Frowner at 6:54 AM on January 19, 2022 [11 favorites]
This paranoid attitude has sometimes served me well as an adult, actually. The narrative has changed, the expectations have changed, but a lot of actual people have not.
posted by Frowner at 6:54 AM on January 19, 2022 [11 favorites]
I think it's a bit more as Eyebrows suggested earlier,
he tried to expiate his sins by telling stories, over and over, where women vanquish monsters. But he still chose what was wrong, no matter how many times he told the story with the "right" ending.
Xander was the normalizing character, the one that spoke for the era of the show basically, he was the subject of constant correction by the other characters and the show itself, but also the "funny" voice of the moment. Xander, like every other male character betrays Buffy out of his own sense of desire/need/weakness, that's the running theme of the show and the point of biggest failing in some ways, where Whedon's inability to imagine non-sexualized bonds between men and women leaves all men potential monsters and all women potential victims or having to become "slayers" of inequity by taking on the role of responsibility men are seen as unable to uphold themselves.
posted by gusottertrout at 7:25 AM on January 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
he tried to expiate his sins by telling stories, over and over, where women vanquish monsters. But he still chose what was wrong, no matter how many times he told the story with the "right" ending.
Xander was the normalizing character, the one that spoke for the era of the show basically, he was the subject of constant correction by the other characters and the show itself, but also the "funny" voice of the moment. Xander, like every other male character betrays Buffy out of his own sense of desire/need/weakness, that's the running theme of the show and the point of biggest failing in some ways, where Whedon's inability to imagine non-sexualized bonds between men and women leaves all men potential monsters and all women potential victims or having to become "slayers" of inequity by taking on the role of responsibility men are seen as unable to uphold themselves.
posted by gusottertrout at 7:25 AM on January 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
So if you're the target age for Buffy you grew up during Reagan, yes, which means 16 Candles positioned as totally normal instead of rapey, extremely class-marked and racist. But at the same time, all those people who didn't grow up during Reagan weren't raptured away. Pop culture was contested; there were other discourses.
True, but I would wager many teenagers weren't paying attention to those discourses because they were boring and thinky. People who had cut their teeth on Free to Be You And Me maybe paid some attention, but my hunch is most didn't.
And there were a lot of other discourses that dealt with things other than pop culture. This was also the first few years after the Berlin Wall came down, and you had a lot of people also going through the mind-fuck of "wait, so we're not going to be dying in a nuclear war after all? You mean it?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:30 AM on January 19, 2022 [8 favorites]
True, but I would wager many teenagers weren't paying attention to those discourses because they were boring and thinky. People who had cut their teeth on Free to Be You And Me maybe paid some attention, but my hunch is most didn't.
And there were a lot of other discourses that dealt with things other than pop culture. This was also the first few years after the Berlin Wall came down, and you had a lot of people also going through the mind-fuck of "wait, so we're not going to be dying in a nuclear war after all? You mean it?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:30 AM on January 19, 2022 [8 favorites]
One day, I took a walk with Rebecca X around the Huntington Botanical Gardens near Pasadena. She wore dark glasses and an Hermès scarf tied around her dark-gold hair and spoke with an inflection that called to mind the mid-Atlantic accent of an old-fashioned Hollywood star.
I swear I'm going to finish this piece because I've always harbored a suspicion that JW is a gigantic asshole, from the very beginning, but MY GOD is it hard to take these people seriously.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:24 AM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I swear I'm going to finish this piece because I've always harbored a suspicion that JW is a gigantic asshole, from the very beginning, but MY GOD is it hard to take these people seriously.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:24 AM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
So it's not so much "surprise, we can only write a terrible Xander" as "hey, we can't totally center a whole television program around girls, girls aren't that interesting even if they're hot, so you get Terrible Xander".
From a Whedon interview in 2003:
You know, Xander is as important a role model as Buffy and people will never really get that, I think, most of 'em. But, the fact of the matter is that I had a two-fold intent, which was to create a role model in the idea of a girl who's a genuine leader and the role model in a man who is not only comfortable, but turned on by that.
Yeesh.
posted by creepygirl at 9:39 AM on January 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
From a Whedon interview in 2003:
You know, Xander is as important a role model as Buffy and people will never really get that, I think, most of 'em. But, the fact of the matter is that I had a two-fold intent, which was to create a role model in the idea of a girl who's a genuine leader and the role model in a man who is not only comfortable, but turned on by that.
Yeesh.
posted by creepygirl at 9:39 AM on January 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
Sorry, just missed the edit window. This is the correct link.
posted by creepygirl at 9:45 AM on January 19, 2022
posted by creepygirl at 9:45 AM on January 19, 2022
EmpressCallipygos: Yes, re: it was the 1990s. I was just rewatching Tank Girl for the ten thousandth time (judge me how you will), and I was surprised by how dark I found some of it, and then I realized... tween me just kind of took all the rape threats for granted. Even being someone who is not a survivor in any way, shape or form. Yikes. (I still love the movie, despite some of its faults, and because of the most of its faults).
Frowner: Yep, I agree that, just how EC's "hey guys, let's take a beat and see how the target audience would have viewed this at that time" is a necessary lens, so is the lens of the non-target older audience.
Baby_Balrog: The deliberate framing of two of the accusers as weird/kooky/woo-loving/cringe -- Rebecca X and ... I forget her name (Erin?), but there's a reference to her Youtube series on Joss being full of crystals and candles -- that was the one part of this otherwise excellent piece that I found a bit loathsome. She should have tried to protect these women from judgment, not actively frame it in a way she knew her audience would sneer at. I'm not saying lie about their kookiness or whatever, but... idk. It left a bad taste in my mouth.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 12:31 PM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
Frowner: Yep, I agree that, just how EC's "hey guys, let's take a beat and see how the target audience would have viewed this at that time" is a necessary lens, so is the lens of the non-target older audience.
Baby_Balrog: The deliberate framing of two of the accusers as weird/kooky/woo-loving/cringe -- Rebecca X and ... I forget her name (Erin?), but there's a reference to her Youtube series on Joss being full of crystals and candles -- that was the one part of this otherwise excellent piece that I found a bit loathsome. She should have tried to protect these women from judgment, not actively frame it in a way she knew her audience would sneer at. I'm not saying lie about their kookiness or whatever, but... idk. It left a bad taste in my mouth.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 12:31 PM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
Xander really was the worst, and it's telling that Whedon thought he was some kind of role model (!). I remember not really getting why Buffy fandom was so down on Riley, who was the only one of Buffy's boyfriends who made sense to me -- responsible, age appropriate, has his shit together. (Please do not get me started on the love between a 16-year-old girl and a grown ass man, consummated on the very evening she reached the age of consent. How the hell was this show supposed to be feminist, lol?)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:49 PM on January 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:49 PM on January 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
Whedon's inability to imagine non-sexualized bonds between men and women leaves all men potential monsters and all women potential victims
I don't think that's quite right. One of the best and strongest relationships pre-S4 was between Giles and Buffy, which is absolutely chaste.
posted by praemunire at 4:02 PM on January 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
I don't think that's quite right. One of the best and strongest relationships pre-S4 was between Giles and Buffy, which is absolutely chaste.
posted by praemunire at 4:02 PM on January 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
I could write a novel here, but mostly I'll just say, I never want to hear that goddamn story about Charisma Carpenter getting a tattoo ever again, in any context. Hollywood has had all manner of makeup and skilled makeup artists that can cover scars and tattoos forever and the continued presentation of her wrist tattoo as evidence of her recalcitrance to be a good little meat puppet really makes me furious for some reason. If they could cover up Boreanez's bad skin, and do all that creature make up every episode, they could cover a wrist tattoo.
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 9:13 PM on January 19, 2022 [20 favorites]
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 9:13 PM on January 19, 2022 [20 favorites]
I don't think that's quite right. One of the best and strongest relationships pre-S4 was between Giles and Buffy, which is absolutely chaste.
On the surface, sure, but the underlying theme is constant throughout the show and Whedon's work in general, beneath the surface of Giles is Ripper, who is as Angel or Spike or Pack Xander is to their alter egos, beneath every man is this "attractive" monster that needs to be tamed, which becomes the woman's burden. I don't want to dig into the show as a text too much because that isn't really the point, but this comes up repeatedly in Whedon's work, the Banner/Hulk Natasha "relationship" being a noted later example.
The use of thinking about these things isn't to get an insight on Whedon, though such a thing likely exists, or to valorize the works, hate 'em or like 'em as you will, but because it goes towards explaining why so many people responded, inculding the many women scholars who wrote about it at the time and were of that earlier age Frowner was asking about, how/why they misjudged Whedon, and how this dynamic continues to inform showrunner driven TV, which is now the norm.
One may well hate Whedon's works, but since how this all fits together is still an issue in other shows and movies the same kinds of problems will recur and next time it might well be a show "you" like. I get that people might not be interested in talking about this, so I won't push it any further, but trying to look at all the various dynamics in play has some importance, whether at the metalevel of why and how a show gets made or why people respond to it as a thing itself.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:38 PM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
On the surface, sure, but the underlying theme is constant throughout the show and Whedon's work in general, beneath the surface of Giles is Ripper, who is as Angel or Spike or Pack Xander is to their alter egos, beneath every man is this "attractive" monster that needs to be tamed, which becomes the woman's burden. I don't want to dig into the show as a text too much because that isn't really the point, but this comes up repeatedly in Whedon's work, the Banner/Hulk Natasha "relationship" being a noted later example.
The use of thinking about these things isn't to get an insight on Whedon, though such a thing likely exists, or to valorize the works, hate 'em or like 'em as you will, but because it goes towards explaining why so many people responded, inculding the many women scholars who wrote about it at the time and were of that earlier age Frowner was asking about, how/why they misjudged Whedon, and how this dynamic continues to inform showrunner driven TV, which is now the norm.
One may well hate Whedon's works, but since how this all fits together is still an issue in other shows and movies the same kinds of problems will recur and next time it might well be a show "you" like. I get that people might not be interested in talking about this, so I won't push it any further, but trying to look at all the various dynamics in play has some importance, whether at the metalevel of why and how a show gets made or why people respond to it as a thing itself.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:38 PM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
CW: sexual trauma, the 90s.
Every time Joss Whedon comes up, I really think about it. I didn't answer for a while, because I think about it, I have so many thoughts about Joss Whedon and the Whedonverse and the writing and the things in it which spoke to me and helped me and the things in it which damaged me.
I was in many ways a politically unrealized teen during the era that Buffy aired. I knew I believed in feminism, but really had only an inkling of second-wave feminism. Feminism for me was wearing cool power shoulders and being able to go to the same work that men went to. I didn't really think feminism applied to the number of times I was date raped before my 18th birthday, or the way I was used and abused by older men who thought that a teenage girl was their ticket to regaining the youth they felt they deserved.
Buffy said a lot to me, even though it was deeply flawed. It said things to me that Joss Whedon intended to say, and it also said things to me that Joss Whedon did not intend to say about himself. Some of both were good and bad. It talked to me about what it was like to have an older man obsessively brooding about you and then after he'd had sex with you turning into an asshole who was still obsessively brooding over you and trying to ruin your life. It talked to be about what it was like to be self destructive and still trying to be better. About what it was like to want to do more and not have a path out of that life. It talked, often deeply, about the horrors of the real life that so many of us were living through. It was the first superhero type show that ever talked about the issues with trying to maintain a mortgage, or how much it cost to replace the glass from broken windows. It talked to me about what it was like to have your male friends trying to be friends and also trying to sleep with you and reading far too much into your every gesture.
I think it is a fair read to read portions of Buffy as deeply feminist. But I think there are also aspects of the show that are deeply anti feminist as well, and reflect so much of Joss Whedon's feelings and yearnings and desires that I am unsurprised by a lot of what we learn in the article. I am unsurprised that he had affairs with two of the young women actresses on the show, I would be unsurprised to learn that he had more, because even if he felt somewhat conflicted about it, he is the Dollhouse, he has always created as well as critiqued the Dollhouse.
I find the issue of how to dress the Buffybot fascinating as well. Sarah Michelle Gellar's analysis was spot on: of course Spike, who grew up as William, would dress his Buffybot in a mix of his two yearnings, the faint Victorianism of high necklines and the modernism of actual Buffy. And of course Joss Whedon, who I believe sexually fixated on SMG (I think I've talked all over Fanfare for a bit about how after SMG's wedding, Buffy's romances were increasingly written in meanspirited and angry ways), wanted her to be wearing the epitome of "hot girl clothes" of the 90s and early 2000s - because that was his sexual fantasy and that was the one that he thought other people would relate to.
And yet - the 90s were so, so bad. I think it is only in 2022 that I'm even really examining the trauma the 90s left on us. It was a time when I think a guy genuinely could think it was absolutely radical to have a shlub of a dude (Xander) somehow be Breaking Stereotypes by being attracted to strong, confident, Buffy. Because the norm was that women always had to be lesser than their dudes or no one would date them. It was the era where it was socially accepted that women would nerf any competitive instinct they had so (cis) dudes could feel better about themselves. Buffy was absolutely a step up. It genuinely was, even being problematic as fuck and focusing the camera on women's perky breasts half the time. It was a step up to even be raising and asking the questions of how it was acceptable to be treated.
But we moved on. The standards of the 90s were not the standards of the 2000s or the 2010s and definitely sure the fuck not now. It's not enough just to not rape anybody and to think that women are sometimes cool and complex. It's not enough just to show their internal lives. It's not enough to verbally abuse them but not use SOME words, and then think you're a mensch.
Joss Whedon had a choice. He could have owned what he did and apologized. He could have grown and reflected and continued into modern feminist analysis, and honestly he could have dined out forever at conventions about "The problematic shit I now realize about Buffy". But he didn't want to. Despite knowing he was a monster inside, he fought like hell to prevent anyone else from realizing it.
And that's why this is what he gets. Because of his choice - not to be problematic in the first place, but to double down on it and insist he's a prince of men somehow.
posted by corb at 12:47 PM on January 20, 2022 [37 favorites]
Every time Joss Whedon comes up, I really think about it. I didn't answer for a while, because I think about it, I have so many thoughts about Joss Whedon and the Whedonverse and the writing and the things in it which spoke to me and helped me and the things in it which damaged me.
I was in many ways a politically unrealized teen during the era that Buffy aired. I knew I believed in feminism, but really had only an inkling of second-wave feminism. Feminism for me was wearing cool power shoulders and being able to go to the same work that men went to. I didn't really think feminism applied to the number of times I was date raped before my 18th birthday, or the way I was used and abused by older men who thought that a teenage girl was their ticket to regaining the youth they felt they deserved.
Buffy said a lot to me, even though it was deeply flawed. It said things to me that Joss Whedon intended to say, and it also said things to me that Joss Whedon did not intend to say about himself. Some of both were good and bad. It talked to me about what it was like to have an older man obsessively brooding about you and then after he'd had sex with you turning into an asshole who was still obsessively brooding over you and trying to ruin your life. It talked to be about what it was like to be self destructive and still trying to be better. About what it was like to want to do more and not have a path out of that life. It talked, often deeply, about the horrors of the real life that so many of us were living through. It was the first superhero type show that ever talked about the issues with trying to maintain a mortgage, or how much it cost to replace the glass from broken windows. It talked to me about what it was like to have your male friends trying to be friends and also trying to sleep with you and reading far too much into your every gesture.
I think it is a fair read to read portions of Buffy as deeply feminist. But I think there are also aspects of the show that are deeply anti feminist as well, and reflect so much of Joss Whedon's feelings and yearnings and desires that I am unsurprised by a lot of what we learn in the article. I am unsurprised that he had affairs with two of the young women actresses on the show, I would be unsurprised to learn that he had more, because even if he felt somewhat conflicted about it, he is the Dollhouse, he has always created as well as critiqued the Dollhouse.
I find the issue of how to dress the Buffybot fascinating as well. Sarah Michelle Gellar's analysis was spot on: of course Spike, who grew up as William, would dress his Buffybot in a mix of his two yearnings, the faint Victorianism of high necklines and the modernism of actual Buffy. And of course Joss Whedon, who I believe sexually fixated on SMG (I think I've talked all over Fanfare for a bit about how after SMG's wedding, Buffy's romances were increasingly written in meanspirited and angry ways), wanted her to be wearing the epitome of "hot girl clothes" of the 90s and early 2000s - because that was his sexual fantasy and that was the one that he thought other people would relate to.
And yet - the 90s were so, so bad. I think it is only in 2022 that I'm even really examining the trauma the 90s left on us. It was a time when I think a guy genuinely could think it was absolutely radical to have a shlub of a dude (Xander) somehow be Breaking Stereotypes by being attracted to strong, confident, Buffy. Because the norm was that women always had to be lesser than their dudes or no one would date them. It was the era where it was socially accepted that women would nerf any competitive instinct they had so (cis) dudes could feel better about themselves. Buffy was absolutely a step up. It genuinely was, even being problematic as fuck and focusing the camera on women's perky breasts half the time. It was a step up to even be raising and asking the questions of how it was acceptable to be treated.
But we moved on. The standards of the 90s were not the standards of the 2000s or the 2010s and definitely sure the fuck not now. It's not enough just to not rape anybody and to think that women are sometimes cool and complex. It's not enough just to show their internal lives. It's not enough to verbally abuse them but not use SOME words, and then think you're a mensch.
Joss Whedon had a choice. He could have owned what he did and apologized. He could have grown and reflected and continued into modern feminist analysis, and honestly he could have dined out forever at conventions about "The problematic shit I now realize about Buffy". But he didn't want to. Despite knowing he was a monster inside, he fought like hell to prevent anyone else from realizing it.
And that's why this is what he gets. Because of his choice - not to be problematic in the first place, but to double down on it and insist he's a prince of men somehow.
posted by corb at 12:47 PM on January 20, 2022 [37 favorites]
... the many women scholars who wrote about it at the time and were of that earlier age Frowner was asking about, how/why they misjudged Whedon, and how this dynamic continues to inform showrunner driven TV, which is now the norm.
You know, it’s so hard to publish a book, to edit it, to get it together; imagine spending hours of your finite time to produce this and be so betrayed
posted by Countess Elena at 3:05 PM on January 20, 2022
You know, it’s so hard to publish a book, to edit it, to get it together; imagine spending hours of your finite time to produce this and be so betrayed
posted by Countess Elena at 3:05 PM on January 20, 2022
I totally have thoughts on the tattoo thing now. I don't have any myself, but I'm in a play where the actress playing Ulla has to wear a lot of skimpy/back showing dresses, and she's got two arm tats and a giant half-back tattoo to cover up. She says she got them when she wasn't planning on going back to acting again, and I do admit that I kind of wonder when actors get tattoos because of the cover-up issue for filming. (I note that Pete Davidson has cited this for getting rid of his.) She's tried makeup, moleskine, and a combination of the two and none of that looks super great and can be noticed from not-that-far-away. The makeup straight up doesn't do anything but make the tats paler and the moleskine makes her look injured. We have had several conversations in the dressing room about how we hear this stuff CAN be covered up in the movies, but how? Do they have REALLY good makeup compared to us plebes, or is it just bleeped out with special effects, or both?
That said, I haven't seen Charisma's wrist tat, but I dunno, maybe they could just get her a giant cuff bracelet or wear long sleeves? I concur it's weird to get a rosary during that show, but it probably wasn't the biggest disaster except he already hated her as is, so he probably considered it a bitch eating crackers thing. Joss's biggest disproportionate retribution towards her was for the pregnancy anyway, which, uh...just have her have another mystical pregnancy or cover it up with large bags or anything, like the other shows do? Even not knowing much of any of this crap in real time back in the day, it was pretty obvious he got a hate-on for her for the pregnancy.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:37 PM on January 20, 2022
That said, I haven't seen Charisma's wrist tat, but I dunno, maybe they could just get her a giant cuff bracelet or wear long sleeves? I concur it's weird to get a rosary during that show, but it probably wasn't the biggest disaster except he already hated her as is, so he probably considered it a bitch eating crackers thing. Joss's biggest disproportionate retribution towards her was for the pregnancy anyway, which, uh...just have her have another mystical pregnancy or cover it up with large bags or anything, like the other shows do? Even not knowing much of any of this crap in real time back in the day, it was pretty obvious he got a hate-on for her for the pregnancy.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:37 PM on January 20, 2022
Tattoo coverup requires understanding and use of colour theory, and full coverage foundation with contouring. It is available to nonprofessional folk (the ingredients and tools) but the technique needs to be learned.
posted by geek anachronism at 6:05 PM on January 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by geek anachronism at 6:05 PM on January 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
If she hasn't tried it, using Dermablend makeup will probably be an improvement over most non-specialty foundations, though.
posted by Adridne at 6:47 PM on January 20, 2022
posted by Adridne at 6:47 PM on January 20, 2022
It does seem like Whedon was hoping this interview/article might end up being the metaphorical Dermablend he's needing to cover up his still pretty apparently unresolved, um... issues. Seems that the professional he sought help from knows about blending and contouring, but didn't realize that isn't always a flattering final effect.
posted by hippybear at 7:52 PM on January 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 7:52 PM on January 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
Josh Whedon is the sci-fi/fantasy version of Aaron Sorkin
posted by wpgr at 5:48 PM on January 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by wpgr at 5:48 PM on January 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have never met Whedon, but a close friend of mine has had him for an occasional houseguest for a few weeks total over the last couple of years[...] By all accounts he is a very charming and intelligent guy who feels he has made some mistakes but that he has been hard done by a media eager to sensationalize things and rush to judgment.
For weird reasons, I have listened to a staggering number of women talk to me about shitty boyfriends of theirs over the last several years. Descriptions of behaviors, in-tears recounts of fights, occasionally flat-out screenshots of things their boyfriends have said.
I've occasionally met the men in question—always after hearing all this about them, never before. And not once have they been anything less than charming and intelligent. Some are conspicuous "allies" who have done their homework a surprising lot on this front.
Having intelligence matters a lot less than having the courage to focus it on uncomfortable things, just like knowing how to be pleasant to someone matters a hell of a lot more when that "pleasantness" is applied to situations where your kneejerk reaction is to be anything but.
The mention of Dan Harmon in this thread made me go back and read his apology for sexually harassing Megan Ganz, and there's a bit at the end where he says:
posted by rorgy at 2:42 PM on January 26, 2022 [6 favorites]
For weird reasons, I have listened to a staggering number of women talk to me about shitty boyfriends of theirs over the last several years. Descriptions of behaviors, in-tears recounts of fights, occasionally flat-out screenshots of things their boyfriends have said.
I've occasionally met the men in question—always after hearing all this about them, never before. And not once have they been anything less than charming and intelligent. Some are conspicuous "allies" who have done their homework a surprising lot on this front.
Having intelligence matters a lot less than having the courage to focus it on uncomfortable things, just like knowing how to be pleasant to someone matters a hell of a lot more when that "pleasantness" is applied to situations where your kneejerk reaction is to be anything but.
The mention of Dan Harmon in this thread made me go back and read his apology for sexually harassing Megan Ganz, and there's a bit at the end where he says:
The last and most important thing I can say is just: Think about it. No matter who you are at work, no matter where you’re working, no matter what field you’re in, no matter what position you have over or under or side by side with somebody, just think about it. You gotta, because if you don’t think about it, you’re gonna get away with not thinking about it, and you can cause a lot of damage that is technically legal and hurts everybody.It sounds like Whedon, after years of accusations and public scrutiny, has decided that he still doesn't want to think about this. That's either obliviousness to the point of cowardice, or it's utter disregard for other people. Or both.
posted by rorgy at 2:42 PM on January 26, 2022 [6 favorites]
« Older The NFTs must flow! (not) | What came first? Or last, or in between? Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
(2) The lake story struck me not just for being new but for the fact that it would have occurred maybe 25 miles from where I was at the time, as a kid.
(3) You'd think a writer would know better than to put himself into the hands of another writer, in this situation, but I guess that's part and parcel of the (self-)delusion.
(4) As a onetime superfan in the Firefly and Whedonesque world, this is one of those days I don't regret having quit Twitter.
posted by bixfrankonis at 3:17 PM on January 17, 2022 [41 favorites]