Joss Whedeon, getting more canceled by the day

[Annara Snow]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

 

For a second I thought you meant he was somehow involved in The Shield and was like WHAT


No, AoS isn't one of his shows. He set it up, but not only did he not showrun but when it turned out that nepotism meant two people who didn't know how to make a show were making a show they didn't get Joss in to help his brother (coz he was making Ultron), they got Jeffrey Bell.

Admittedly he also hadn't showrun before so it was a weird choice (old mate of Whedon, more nepotism!) but at least he'd been involved.

Jed and Maurissa definitely know how to run a show, since not only did they do that with Dollhouse through most of its run and some of the run of Spartacus, but they did that with AoS for 7 seasons for pretty much all of its run (Joss Whedon only wrote and directed the pilot and was there during the casting and planning and left afterwards). And there were no problems and no toxic atmosphere on the set of AoS - everyone in the cast and crew always said it was one of the rare shows with no BTS drama, and you can see how relaxed the cast was in every BTS video.

[Annara Snow]

18 hours ago, Mr Gordo said:

The shit that really scares me is how the people coming forward with the really monstrous stories are the ones that where Super Team Whedon for quite a while. And I'm not saying that to cast doubt on their claims or be one of those "well why didn't they speak up at the time" assclowns. I'm saying the man must have been one hell of a monster to have terrorized so many people into silence.

Who? What happened with Charisma was well known for years. He fired her. It has also been well known that he didn't get along with SMG. I've never heard anything about Michelle Trachtenberg. But none of these people were "super on team Whedon" nor did he cast them again after BuffyAngel.  James Marsters had also basically described Joss as a d1ck many times.

Now, if Amy Acker, Nathan Fillion or Alexis Denisoff said something against him, that would be a big surprise.

Eliza Dushku was indeed on good terms with Whedon way after Buffy and Angel ended, and they basically jointly came up with the idea for Dollhouse (which she made happen when she had a development deal with Fox), but she hasn't said anything except lending general support to the women who have spoken out about their mistreatment. She has not told or hinted at any bad story of her own. Ditto Marti Noxon.

[BigFatCoward]

8 minutes ago, Mr Gordo said:

Well, I've always thought that those type of coaches should be in prison. So.....no?

Yeah, but what's the difference?  Why is there no outrage about one, while the other gets ripped to pieces on social media? 

[Ran]

5 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Yeah, but what's the difference?  Why is there no outrage about one, while the other gets ripped to pieces on social media? 

I suspect the Venn diagram between those on Twitter who care about these things overlaps those who care about media much more than it does with those who care about sports.

[polishgenius]

9 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Yeah, but what's the difference?  Why is there no outrage about one, while the other gets ripped to pieces on social media? 

 

In fairness like I think if a manager tried what Fergie or Clough did now and it came out there'd be more outrage. There was a whole thing at Villa a few years back where a coach got binned off for bullying and generally managers who rip into their players seem to have less success these days. It's not the only reason Mourinho's success has fallen off but I'd hazard a guess it's some of it.

(in also fairness, almost every player who's talked about it has said Fergie's hairdryer was overstated and he was a far fairer and warmer man than that and no bully, but (1) that doesn't really change the point since the perception is that it was true, (2) they might of course not be telling the truth for the same reason abuse is often played down by victims for a time)

[unJon]

32 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Yeah, but what's the difference?  Why is there no outrage about one, while the other gets ripped to pieces on social media? 

Sort of ironic you post this today after what went down with Chris Doyle. 

[Mindwalker]

I watched Angel for a while, 1 or 2 seasons. Didn't like that Kate left (or died?), also missed half-demon guy (forgot his name).

Oh, and I don't care for sports, so I wouldn't know what coaches do.

[Ran]

10 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

I watched Angel for a while, 1 or 2 seasons. Didn't like that Kate left (or died?),

The actress left to Law & Order. She just sort of disappeared. Google tells me that there's an indirect reference to her, suggesting she's no longer on the LAPD at some point the next season.

Quote

also missed half-demon guy (forgot his name).

Glenn Quinn was fired because his substance abuse issues were causing problems for the production, and sadly he ODed a few years later. I heard his name mentioned on the Comedy Bang Bang podcast earlier this week, a rather unlikely place for it. Sarah Chalke was the guest, and mentioned a time that she and Glenn Quinn were both sent to a dialect coach when they were on to sort out their American pronunciation  (they're Canadian and Irish, respectively).

 

[Mindwalker]

Yeah, he played Mark on Roseanne. (I never recognized him on Angel, though!)

Very sad.

Somehow, often my favorite characters leave shows/ get kicked off, whatever.

[Zorral]

John Scalzi  just put up some of his personal thoughts on what it means to be 'cancelled' these days, and why it happens.  Surprise (not!) it has to do with money, rather than actually being "woke" -- at least as far as the capitalist vision of these matters operates.  As John is all about the media in all forms, this is something that he feels he needs to understand in a comprehensive way, no matter what his personal virtues and alignments might be.

"General Unstructured Thoughts On “Being Cancelled”

However, what he's telling us, at the moment, as he stresses, applies across the board. His sections 2 and 3 describes why, probably, so far, it hasn't been happening so much in sports as someone asked, as in media-pop culture, since still everyone from the impeached prez to our local political stats expert are avid sports fans. 

Me I don't know from sports and care less, so the only thing I specifically know about is the horrific pedophile case of the assistant coach, Sandusky -- where o my stars, was the capitalist money thing in bare body reveal, as well as how the fans didn't give a damn because They Were Winners! But as real laws were broken blatantly here, there was arrest and trial, but the fans would have preferred the hiding of the crime to the revelation and punishment, because it hurt dear Paterno who gave them win.

Quote

 

....3. “Being Cancelled” doesn’t mean you never work, it means you work in the minor leagues. “Cancelled” means you publish with Regenery or Skyhorse rather than with Macmillan or Simon and Schuster. “Cancelled” means you make a movie with (ugh) Ben Shapiro instead of Disney. “Cancelled” means Gab, or — heavens! — your own web site instead of Twitter. “Cancelled” means being a talking head on Newsmax and not CNN.

Is this so awful? Well, yeah, apparently, it kind of is — but again, this is not anything that anyone who isn’t a privileged white person didn’t already know about how capitalism works in America. Entire commercial and political ecosystems exist and have existed for decades, created by and for the people who have otherwise found themselves shut out of or simply ignored by the commercial mainstream — marginalized economies, in effect. The idea that American Conservatism would have its own side economy (or in its case, grift) is not exactly new; it too has existed for decades. What might be new is the idea that it will possibly no longer be a stepping stone into the mainstream — that it is its own terminal destination, and that those participating in it might now be locked out of a wider appeal.

Which from an economic point of view is probably fine! There are lots of people in the American Conservative grift economy who do quite well for themselves financially — the “marginalized” market here is still many many millions of people, after all. You can still make as much money as any one person can make, and be as “famous” as any one person could be, and still never climb out of the right-wing media trough. But ironically for ostensible capitalists, merely making money is not enough. They want to be thought-leaders, too, and they want their views given the cultural currency that only comes through, you now, hanging with Disney or CNN, as much as they sneer at those organizations when it’s convenient to do so. You won’t starve not working for Disney. But you don’t get what working with Disney brings.

Like access to Disney money, you might say, and you’re right — the sort of high-end production values that come with mainstream studios are something they won’t have anymore. Which, well, again, welcome to what everyone else goes through. Almost no one gets $200 million for a movie! Or even $20 million! If you go in with the expectation that you are owed that $200 million movie, where are you coming from, culturally speaking?

But that’s really the thing about “canceling,” isn’t it....

 

 

 

 

[Lord Varys]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

I don't think anything has come close to nailing Buffy's tone of combining romance, horror, high school drama, supernatural fantasy and occasional gritty realism, though. Some shows have done as well or maybe even better in one or the other of those fields, but no show in the same area since has landed quite so squarely on executing all of those elements simultaneously, and certainly none have come remotely close to producing an episode as harrowing and powerful as The Body.

Sure, the show is pretty unique as this genre mix ... but you really have to like that kind of thing. If you like it or want to test whether you like it ... then, of course, you should watch it. But I'm somewhat doubtful that the show can connect to the new generation in the same way it did with myself and my friends back in in the late 1990s.

And, of course, 'The Body' is a truly outstanding episode. I don't know if there is any other show where this plot was dealt with so competently.

[DMC]

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Other than the noncey stuff, is his (or Kubrick as discussed up thread) behavior really any worse (not acceptable) than a significant number of professional sport team coaches? I'm thinking about Alex Ferguson's etc and his famous 'hair dryer' treatment etc. Beckham got a boot kicked in his face causing a scar iirc etc. So many head coaches in so many sports are notorious for their behavior. 

Does the fact that sport is 'live' with no reshoots etc slightly excuse this? 

I'm not sure what you mean, but probably because I had to look up Alex Ferguson and hair dryer treatment, so in that regard, I'd say Americans don't care because we don't give a shit about soccer.  But, the Bobby Knights of the world have been held accountable, at least eventually/when it comes to light.  There was also the example of Rutgers coach Mike Rice.  I can't think of a lot of coaching examples that are nearly comparable to what Kubrick did to DuVall.  As for what Whedon did, well, weaponizing an employee's pregnancy obviously is difficult to compare to male-dominated sports.

I guess you could say the stereotypical verbally abusive coach as a means to motivate is generally more accepted in sports, yeah.  Even in my own experience my high school basketball coach was a pretty big dick like this.  I, and other players, didn't really find it abusive - more just annoying.  I guess because it's such a cliche it's easier to not take it personally.  We also hated him more just because he sucked as a coach.

Anyway, generally, I think professional athletes - at least the major team sports - have far more power to speak out against any coach being abusive when compared to the executive or director/actor dynamic.  College sports there's a bigger problem there and other obvious examples (e.g. Penn State, Ohio State) that are even worse.

[Werthead]

Quote

Who? What happened with Charisma was well known for years. He fired her. It has also been well known that he didn't get along with SMG. I've never heard anything about Michelle Trachtenberg. But none of these people were "super on team Whedon" nor did he cast them again after BuffyAngel.  James Marsters had also basically described Joss as a d1ck many times.

Marsters was at least partially on Team Whedon, he was one of the people who used to go to his house for the Shakespear stuff etc and they did spend some time working out ideas for another show, either Spike solo spin-off or a Faith/Spike road series (which I think became redundant because of Supernatural) before Whedon decided he didn't want to work with Fox again (and vice versa, although that only lasted a few years before Dollhouse.

4 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

Now, if Amy Acker, Nathan Fillion or Alexis Denisoff said something against him, that would be a big surprise.

Eliza Dushku was indeed on good terms with Whedon way after Buffy and Angel ended, and they basically jointly came up with the idea for Dollhouse (which she made happen when she had a development deal with Fox), but she hasn't said anything except lending general support to the women who have spoken out about their mistreatment. She has not told or hinted at any bad story of her own. Ditto Marti Noxon.

Dushku was having drink and drug problems around the time she was on Buffy and Angel (and wasn't fully clean until a year or so before Dollhouse), so I think people have always thought there was scope for her to have more stories to tell about what was going on, but also it might be quite traumatic to do so.

Nicholas Brendon has been active on Twitter for the last few days publicising his weekly Buffy rewatch event, but so far hasn't spoken about the events, so people are interested to see what he says on the next one on Tuesday. Of course, given his own personal history he might be cautious about speaking about other people's abuse, but he could show support for his costars.

[Mindwalker]

20 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Nicholas Brendon has been active on Twitter for the last few days publicising his weekly Buffy rewatch event, but so far hasn't spoken about the events, so people are interested to see what he says on the next one on Tuesday. Of course, given his own personal history he might be cautious about speaking about other people's abuse, but he could show support for his costars.

Oh dear. I just read up on Nicholas and I'd understand if he just kept quiet; in fact, it might be better. He was arrested for physical abuse of his respective gf (always got a nice deal though) in 2015 and 2017, amongst other things. He choked them.

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

I can't think of a lot of coaching examples that are nearly comparable to what Kubrick did to DuVall. 

 

At the top level it's almost never going to happen because if a coach abuses a player so much their health is affected, their peformances will also be affected and it will (1) be counterproductive to the coach's aim and (2) the public will want to know why and the fact that the scrutiny is on them in real time makes it more difficult to cover up behaviour or carry anything on long-term. I've heard of it happening from player to player- infamously France's collapse at the 2010 world cup happened in part because several of the senior players were so resentful of young player Gourcuff being made the creative center of the team they flat refused to give him the ball on the pitch and reportedly bullied him to tears off it, leading to a collapse in form his career never recovered from - but rarely in coaching.

It happens at lower and youth levels though, for sure, and to extreme levels. I mean, between 2000 and 2019 thirty - thirty- college football players were worked so hard in training they died. 

[Zorral]

Not to mention what gymnastic coaches are now routinely convicted of doing to the little girls in their care.

If ever there was anything devised for pedophiles' predilection for pre-pubescent girls, gymnastics is it, all up and down the line from medical to coaches.

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I've heard of it happening from player to player- infamously France's collapse at the 2010 world cup happened in part because several of the senior players were so resentful of young player Gourcuff being made the creative center of the team they flat refused to give him the ball on the pitch and reportedly bullied him to tears off it, leading to a collapse in form his career never recovered from - but rarely in coaching.

Yeah a lot of abuse in team sports the teammates are often complicit if not the root of the problem.  As for football players dying of heat exhaustion, that's of course outrageous in its own right - especially because it's so easily remedied - but I'm not sure it's a great comparison.  It's true the outrage should be more vigilant (and come sooner) to ensure it's avoided, certainly.

[karaddin]

On Firefly it was always Farscape that I compared it to and I was very firmly in the Muppet camp. There was no one in Farscape that ever felt equivalent to the way Inara was treated.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

Inara

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?

[IlyaP]

2 hours ago, karaddin said:

On Firefly it was always Farscape that I compared it to and I was very firmly in the Muppet camp. There was no one in Farscape that ever felt equivalent to the way Inara was treated.

And Farscape was wonderfully weird. It's still my favourite show for a thousand-and-one reasons, including the point you made above.