AIBU to be disappointed with Joss Whedon

[BlueKarou]

Yes, I know it's just sleb twaddle, and it doesn't impact my life one bit...

That said, I really thought he was one of the good guys and it turns out he's an entitled cheat, as well as a gaslighting arsehole. It feels like a betrayal - he was supposed to be this feminist creator, this writer of strong women and equality, and it turns out he's just a regular creep.

Kai Cole's article.

Hard to trust that someone really means it though when they say they believe that women are equals, but then treat them like shit. Makes you wonder if it's just a marketing ploy.

I don't need to know what Whedon has done in his personal life, or to find out he has behaved abominably to colleagues, to think he isn't an authority on feminism, tbh.

I love Buffy, Angel Firefly, etc, but his plotting is... not that of a writer who has deeply immersed themselves in feminist philosophy. He has sparks of brilliance, and he'd run rings around many people who have less insight into feminist issues. But we're still talking about a writer who pushes Sex Work is Just Another Profession message without wanting to dig very deeply into it and whether that's true.

No @Lauralou69, I'm talking about the evidence present in his work, not the 'tabloid gossip' as you call it (the direct word of his ex-wife, who I choose to believe as a) I believe women and b) she's presented his own words in evidence and they say enough to me - he admits in his own words to cheating and blames the patriarchy!). People were doubting Joss Whedon's feminist credentials long before any of this came out.

If you want to continue to enjoy his work that's your choice. Separation of art and artist is hardly a new debate - that's why people still watch Woody Allen or Roman Polanski films. But don't criticise those of us who recognise him as the hypocrite he is. You cannot continually applaud yourself for being a feminist and then behave in the way he has behaved - to his wife, to Charisma Carpenter, to his female colleagues, and in his writing.

I didnt really watch Buffy and just the sound of Dollhouse makes my teeth itch.

Re. male feminists as a whole............Samuel West seems to be the real deal. I follow him on Twitter.

But that's my point? No one actually knows what happened in any of those scenarios. He left his wife so I'm going to assume that there were issues there, again not excusing the cheating. Neither he nor Charisma have unequivocally stated what happened, so ut is heresy. Have your opinion, and I can have mine. Lots of human beings are flawed, and make mistakes.......Richard Prior is my comedy hero but he was a right shit bag to his wife, doesnt stop him being a comedy genius.

I appreciate what you're saying @Lauralou69, but I think the difference that PPs are trying to get at is that, taking your example, Richard Pryor didn't repeatedly tell the world he was a fantastic husband who treated his wife life a queen.
I think it's the hypocrisy that is really key here.

@Lauralou69 nobody is denying that he's good at what he does.

If you can't get your head around why Charisma has said nothing and attends things related to him. View it from this angle,

You work for a shit awful boss/company you're leaving. During interviews you are asked why you are leaving.

Do you say a) I am looking to stretch my wings and further my career and feel that I am unable to progress any further at x company.

Or

B) my boss is a twat and the company treat me like shit so I have to leave.

You say b, no employer is going to touch you with a barge pole. Whether you are telling the truth or not, they will feel that if you can say that about that company you can and will say it about them.

Charisma will have wanted/needed to stay quiet coz quite rightly her assumption if she spoke up would hamper very badly her career. Yes that's wrong but they would view her as not to be trusted. People within that circle wouldn't speak out for worry of losing their own jobs.

They are not as well protected there as in the U.K.

Joss wouldn't say anything coz it'd damage his character and quite rightly so.

It's not a witch hunt it's a discussion between adults about a mans portrayal of himself that he used to bolster his career on what feels to be a pack of lies. If it's to be believed he also abused his power or trust.

I am still a huge fan of his works, just not of the man himself.

Which is exactly the point I am making......separate the two. Oh and be careful about believing everything you read on the internet.

I'm confused. Are we supposed to disbelieve what is being said, or not care? Because those are very different things. I won't watch any Roman Polanski. Because he is a child-rapist. If I didn't believe that; he would be fine to watch.

I think it's fine to expect someone who has made a career out of a 'point' to actually live up to that point.

This is why I prefer 'allies' to 'feminists' when we are talking about men.

@Lauralou69 His words and actions alone are enough to make it clear that he is not a feminist.

@TheHodgeoftheHedge Very well-put.

There's three separate issues: his treatment of his wife, his treatment of co-workers and his work.

His treatment of his wife was scummy. I'm inclined to think that most people, given the right unfortunate concatenation of circumstances, could be unfaithful. There but for the grace of god (possibly non existent, substitute flying spaghetti monster according to taste) go I and all that. However, serial unfaithfulness really doesn't have much of an excuse. It's certainly possible to be a one-off adulterer without being a misogynist. I think one can be a habitual philanderer without being a misogynist (just incapable of keeping one's trousers zipped rather than any intrinisic objectification of women as a class).

Abusing a position of power to shag your subordinates in the workplace, on the other hand, is a big no-no if you claim to be a feminist, because one of the things feminism has a lot to say on is power imbalances between men and women, and the way insitutional and professional power structures are used to oppress women.

Then there's his work - quite a few of us on this thread have said we have reservations about his lazy use of rape as a plot device, his fondness for the madonna/whore thing, and various other less-than-savoury stereotypes about women. Those speak against him being a feminist.

So, even if you don't think his adultery impacts on his claims to be a feminist (and I personally don't), counts two and three are still pretty problematic. Like I said, lefty dude bro who uses the pretence of feminism to advance his career (and it would appear get into women's knickers). Hardly a new thing, far from laudable.

Neither he nor Charisma have unequivocally stated what happened, so ut is heresy.

Sorry to burst your bubble but everything I posted about Carpenter came straight from her mouth. She gave an interview at a convention over a decade ago where she described just how appallingly he treated her and how hurt she was by it, how he made her cry over and over. How he deceived her when he pursued her to return to the show for the 100th episodes. She also described how uncomfortable it was to work with him on the dvd commentaries and how he led her to believe he might involve her in Dr Horrible but never contacted her again.

And throughout her very honest retelling of her last year working for him, she constantly praised his 'genius' because she was clearly aware that she was probably destroying her own career by being honest. Years later, she started redoing the Buffy convention circuit, her career reduced to bit parts and tv movies by then, and she has stated that she has decided to move on from what happened at the end of Angel and re-embrace it as a good part of her life. (Because it was and will likely remain, the pinnacle of her career.)

Whedon has never denied it and I believe her, not because I believe the woman in all cases. But because season 4 of Angel made no sense whatsoever and Cordelia's disappearance and demise was one of the worst, least thought out storylines to ever come from Whedon. It was just awful. He'd spent years building Cordelia into a brilliant character and then made her do weird stuff and be gone. It made no sense until she made what happened public.

I loved Buffy, even the Spike redemption arc that so many people hate. I loved Angel until it went off the rails in season 4. I loved Firefly. I'm in the minority that enjoyed Dollhouse (which had more than 2 male Dolls btw) the overall storyline had great potential as a harder sci-fi. Most of all, I absolutely loved his initial run on Amazing X-men. That first issue with Kitty walking through her memories as she returns to the school was a thing of genuine beauty. I would just love to see how his X-men movie would have turned out if he hadn't been replaced by Brian Singer (a bad, bad movie maker and a probable a rapist). Though both of his Avengers movies were massive disappointments but I gave him a pass as he made no secret how constrained he was by Perlmutter, Feige and co.

I'll probably still go see Batgirl and maybe Justice League but I'm not going to stick my head in the sand. Whedon's a talented writer who writes fun and engaging dialogue and some wonderful characters though he constantly relied on deus ex machinas to resolve the corners he wrote his plots into. He's also a dick who abused his power over the women who worked for him and removed his wife's agency and gaslighted her for most of their marriage. He is not a feminist by any shape or form and he doesn't deserve, nor did he ever deserve praise for his feminism. He also didn't invent the female superhero, he was just the first to manage to make one so mainstream.

@MrsTerryPratchett I have no idea.

TBH I believe it and I believe Kai they divorced in 2012. She's kept quiet for so long and always been fairly out of the spotlight, I can't see what she'd gain from lying.

@craftsy so it did until you said that I forgot about the plot twist. I also loved dollhouse too.

Non of what you've all said is untrue, well most of it as I've also seen and heard interviews with Charisma that do not reflect the views you speak of. I guess like everything it's open to interpretation. There's alot of speculation in the land of celeb......there's truth, lies and something in the middle which is usually the case. I do wonder if you share your high morals with other celebs and their less than gracious behaviour? I don't necessarily think of those women that he has relations with as victims, to be honest that is a bit patronising. Actors sleeping with producers, directors, writers or other actors is nothing new, in fact it's rife in that world. As far as I'm aware no one has ever made an allegation against him for sexual harassment so it's probably safe to assume they were all consenting adults......these women would have been aware he was a married man. He has created iconic characters, strong female characters which did change the face of popular culture. He has challenged the lack of females in the tv/movie world, he has talked about sexism in the media, he has brought these issues to the fore and for that I applaud him. There have not been many other males in that industry that have done that. Yes he's been a douche, well and truly and I have every sympathy for his wife and children.

OMG!!! I just read Whedon's original take on the kind of show he wanted Firefly to be. Thank god it was cancelled.

This is Tim Minear talking about how Whedon pitched the show to him:
She had this magic syringe. She would take this drug. And if she were, for instance, raped, the rapist would die a horrible death. The story was that she gets kidnapped by Reavers and when Mal finally got to the ship to save her from the Reavers, he gets on the Reaver ship and all the Reavers are dead. Which would suggest a kind of really bad assault. At the end of the episode, he comes in after she's been horribly brutalized, and he comes in and he gets down on his knee, and he takes her hand. And he treats her like a lady. And that's the kind of stuff that we wanted to do. It was very dark. And this was actually the first story that Joss pitched to me when he asked me to come work on the show. He said, 'These are the kind of stories we're going to do.'

io9.gizmodo.com/5959794/the-firefly-episode-were-really-glad-joss-whedon-didnt-get-to-make

The she in the quotes is Inara.

@craftsy I most certainly think that had that episode actually happened the legacy that is firefly now wouldn't be what it is.

@Lauralou69 You can't see a problem with the fact that he was exploiting his power as writer, director and producer to sleep with younger women? (He openly admits this in the extracts from letters published by his ex-wife.)

He has been a self-proclaimed, self-congratulatory 'feminist', all while perpetuating rape culture / the Madonna/Whore complex / misogyny in his writing, AND exploiting and gaslighting women in his personal life. I cannot understand why you're so desperate to defend him.

@Lauralou69 this puts it very well what we are all trying to say
www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/news-and-views/opinion/clementine-ford-why-joss-whedons-treatment-of-exwife-kai-cole-matters-20170821-gy16lx.html

It's not just that he's a cliched sleazy cheat. It's that he parlayed his apparent wokeness into the position of power that allowed him to become, and remain, a sleazy cheat. Twat.

Thanks for that @Scoobygang7
I wish I had the eloquence to write articles like that

I had no idea that Joss the Buffy guy was a young hipster. I though he was a fat British luvvie. Or perhaps had been in a coffee advert. I should probably pay more attention.

What a bloody sleaze though.

I have no idea who he is but he's pretty ugly! Scrolled through that article looking for a hot studmuffin type. Eeeeewww