Joss Whedeon, getting more canceled by the day

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

On 2/12/2021 at 2:17 PM, AverageGuy said:

I didn't read these as Fisher sounding satisfied: 

t.co/y51qzMp7bg 

https://comicbook.com/movies/news/the-flash-ray-fisher-cyborg-essay-warner-bros-officially-moving-on-dc-boss/

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"On December 30th 2020, I made it clear that I cannot—with a clear conscience—participate in any production associated with the current President of DC Films, Walter Hamada,” he continued. “The reasoning behind that declaration was twofold: 1) Walter’s purposeful attempt to undermine the Justice League investigation in order to protect his friend, and former co-president, Geoff Johns. 2) Walter’s attempt to protect himself by contributing to the public dissemination of lies and misinformation about myself and the Justice League investigation in Warner Bros. Picture’ September 4th statement to The Wrap.”

“Bear in mind, Walter Hamada interfering with the Justice League investigation is a completely separate issue than the investigation itself,” Fisher added. “And while Walter’s behavior was not a point of focus for the investigation of the Justice League reshoots, his dangerous and enabling actions during the investigation process must be called to account.”

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Granted that was almost a month ago, so I may have missed something recent.

"Dissemination of lies" reminds me of something tangentially related to this. Did anything come of the John Campea email that defended Joss' behavior on the JL reshoots? The one he accidentally <cough> flashed on screen during one of his youtube streams that coincidentally <cough> <cough> had portions redacted from it?  

[SpaceChampion]

I was just reading a list of "metamodernist" fiction, and Buffy was included on it. 

Quote

A full list of cultural products that this wide community of researchers—which includes myself—has examined (and/or are ripe for examination!) would take up too much space for the present venue. However, before I launch into a more theoretical explanation of metamodernism, I’ll mention a few examples right off the bat, in order to provide a more palpable sense of the aesthetic I’m talking about. In film: Rushmore (and Wes Anderson’s work in general), The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Jo Jo Rabbit. In television: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, BoJack Horseman, and Atlanta. In literary fiction: Life of Pi (Yann Martel), Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold), A Visit From the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan), and The Idiot (Elif Batuman). In popular music: Sufjan Stevens, Jenny Lewis, and Childish Gambino.

The items in the list above—again, only a smattering of metamodern cultural products that have caught the public’s attention over the last two decades—are thematically diverse. All, however, evoke a similarly complicated feeling: a braiding of playful irony or experimentation with an unabashed delight in the intricacies of being human. Indeed, a feeling generated—at least in part—by these products’ oscillation across the modern/postmodern polarities that Vermeulen and van den Akker noted as a common pattern in early 21st-century culture.

So my impression it is a treatment of stories, ideas and character oscillating between irony (or perhaps mockery) and sincerity on one axis, and realism and absurdity on another.

[Annara Snow]

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

You frackin' betcha! Among all the other ickyness, including brown shirts as heroes -- hello?  He seems to have forgotten, or never knew (meaning IDIOT) or didn't care -- which is more than ugly. Then they tried to justify with "glorious lost cause - confederacy".  How much more of the evil authoritarian jerkwaddie as pop culture could we get?

Uh, they were clearly not the Confederacy. What with the lack of slavery and racism.

This is one of these arguments that makes me 

[mormont]

13 hours ago, polishgenius said:

In fairness like I think if a manager tried what Fergie or Clough did now and it came out there'd be more outrage.

Heck, even Fergie didn't do what Fergie did, in the later stages of his career. Those stories go back to the nineties. He changed his whole approach, because he quickly grasped that modern players didn't react well to it.

But, that approach isn't comparable to what we're discussing here anyway. Ferguson could be aggressive and that was bad. But what we're talking about here is Whedon being cruel and exploitative, which is worse.

[Heartofice]

Yeah Whedon and even Kubrick’s behaviour is more like sustained abuse. Fergies occasional teacup throwing and screaming were probably quite rare, and more impactful because of it. 
 

It does say a lot about how things have changed that you really cannot imagine anyone doing that now. But at the time I think it was pretty accepted. It was all part of getting people to operate as a team and to maintain the dominance hierarchy. 
 

But times have changed and you can’t operate businesses and sports teams as if they were the army.  I’ve worked in places where bosses scream and swear at people and it’s not really productive, and that’s probably the biggest takeaway.

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

Heck, even Fergie didn't do what Fergie did, in the later stages of his career. Those stories go back to the nineties. He changed his whole approach, because he quickly grasped that modern players didn't react well to it.

Isn't Fergie some British royalty or something? 

Or I am now conflating two different people? 

[polishgenius]

11 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Isn't Fergie some British royalty or something? 

Or I am now conflating two different people? 

Sarah Ferguson is the ex-wife of Prince Andrew.


Alex Ferguson, the bloke in my avatar, is possibly the greatest manager in football history.

 

[Ran]

There's also Fergie the singer... who I am wowed to discover was part of Kids Incorporated in the mid-80s. Gosh. That brings me back.

[Maltaran]

58 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Sarah Ferguson is the ex-wife of Prince Andrew.


Alex Ferguson, the bloke in my avatar, is possibly the greatest manager in football history.

 

 

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

There's also Fergie the singer... who I am wowed to discover was part of Kids Incorporated in the mid-80s. Gosh. That brings me back.

Things that got worse when Fergie left

[Vaughn]

2 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Alex Ferguson, the bloke in my avatar, is possibly the greatest manager in football history.

This is Greg Berhalter cancellation.

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

Uh, they were clearly not the Confederacy. What with the lack of slavery and racism.

This is one of these arguments that makes me 

Whedon wanted to create a fantasy Confederacy with all the problematic support for slavery and racism removed so he could have an argument about the desire for independence and the idea of lost causes.

I mean, he's said that Firefly is strongly inspired by The Killer Angels, about the American Civil War, and the plucky but less-numerous and less-advanced "little people" getting beat on by the more numerous, more technologically-advanced city folk (and let's kind of ignore the whole slavery thing).

It ties in with the very thin worldbuilding of Firefly and the limited time we had to see any nuance in the setting. We do see, several times, friendly or law-abiding Alliance personnel, and Serenity's favourite tactic of generating a false distress call to distract pursuing Alliance ships only works if the Alliance actually give a shit about distress calls (and we see they do). Obviously they have the whole "we created the Reavers and covered it up" thing going on as well, but even that ties into that; exposing that secret only works if Mal thinks the Alliance government will be shamed or have problems because of it.

It's possible if the show had continued we would have seen more in that vein and maybe a more complex take on the issues, but we'll never know.

[Lord Varys]

I only watched one episode of Firefly. Didn't really click back then, but that has been ten years or so. What's the overall appeal of that show in your opinion? Is it worth another try? Does it end well despite the few number of episodes?

[Vaughn]

The appeal of FireFly is the cast is good and the time commitment is small, unlike a show like say 'Lost' or 'Person of Interest' where you need to sink some time in it.

[IlyaP]

2 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Sarah Ferguson is the ex-wife of Prince Andrew.


Alex Ferguson, the bloke in my avatar, is possibly the greatest manager in football history.

 

Right, ok, soccer. Gotcha. 

Not the British royalty woman. 

Thank you for that; I legitimately wasn't certain who we were talking about! 

[Heartofice]

I don’t even know if I could go back to watching Whedon stuff any more, big reason being I’m pretty much done with his ‘everyone is witty’ schtick. The Marvel universe seems to a direct descendant of that way of writing and it’s a little tiresome. 
 

 

[Ran]

Just now, Heartofice said:

I don’t even know if I could go back to watching Whedon stuff any more, big reason being I’m pretty much done with his ‘everyone is witty’ schtick. The Marvel universe seems to a direct descendant of that way of writing and it’s a little tiresome. 

That's mainstream Marvel comic books, really. There's rarely an issue where a hero doesn't have a quip or three, for the most part, with only some of the darker heroes (like the Punisher) as exceptions.

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

That's mainstream Marvel comic books, really. There's rarely an issue where a hero doesn't have a quip or three, for the most part, with only some of the darker heroes (like the Punisher) as exceptions.

I do wonder if Buffy and Whedon have had a profound effect on mainstream media in that way. People who’ve grown up watching his shows are now creating their own media and using his style in some way. 
 

I might be lending too much importance to his influence but it does seem like there are a lot of things out there trying to be Buffy.

[mcbigski]

 

11 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I only watched one episode of Firefly. Didn't really click back then, but that has been ten years or so. What's the overall appeal of that show in your opinion? Is it worth another try? Does it end well despite the few number of episodes?

When you add Serenity as the finish it ends ok.  To me its about a bunch broken people who fix themselves by basically forming up a family and it's witty and clever if you like Whedon's sort of dialog and sometimes quite touching.  

I'd check out Dr. Horrible first though as that's a one off.  Plus it has NPH and Felicia Day.  I know we've come to bury Whedon not to praise him but I'm surprised no one that i recall brought up that one.  

[Heartofice]

Oh yeah Dr Horrible. That is great 

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I do wonder if Buffy and Whedon have had a profound effect on mainstream media in that way.

There's a Vox article that argues for it having done so. I think there's something to it, in particular as a number of Whedon alumni have gone on to run their own shows.

Been a long time since I've seen Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog. Worth a rewatch sometime.

As to Firefly, if one didn't like the first two episodes, I wouldn't bother. That said, the best run of episodes is probably around the middle.