Joss Whedeon, getting more canceled by the day

[IlyaP]

Adam Busch has now come out supporting Carpenter and co. Don't know if he was on a Whedon show, if at all? Or who he even played? 

[IlyaP]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

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.

 

Objects in Space, Out of Gas, and maaaaayyyybeee Jaynestown are terrific. The former 2 are noteworthy for their interesting structures and ways in which they cleverly provide background information and/or character building.

The rest I'd say is hit or miss. YMMV. De gustum non est disputandum and all that.

[polishgenius]

I'd say Whedon has had an effect, but so did Aaron Sorkin, and in comic book movies specifically I think Marvel brought him in because they wanted it to be like that because the comics are- a result of the popularity of Spider-man and Deadpool, and the influence of writers like Ellis, Bendis and Simone, rather than direct Whedon-inspiration. It's been a sort of more general creep towards quippery and snappiness rather than Whedon on his own influencing it all.

[Ran]

Busch played Warren, one of "The Trio" who became unlikely antagonists. He's a recurring character.

@polishgenius

Oh, yes; Sorkin's a big one for the television landscape in particular. 

[Vaughn]

Whedon had some impact but then so did shows like 'the X Files' in terms of characters being snarky and a bit self-aware. Thinking of the Darin Morgan episodes for example like 'Jose Chung's from Outer Space' (the one with Trebek as a MIB) and 'Clyde Bruckerman's Final Repose'

[Mindwalker]

I actually liked the humor and the snark most.

Council of Geeks and Jessie Gender's take on Joss Whedon:

 

 

[Zorral]

7 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 

Ah -- Whedon did talk about how he was also doing the Civil War and confederacy in space, more than once.  And there was slavery in the firefly universe on some planets, such as mining ones -- how Jayne gets to be a hero -- and racism, you betcha.  He just didn't center it, but lordessa, look at how the Asians tend to be portrayed -- he did that out of his own, well, call it his own sensibility.

[Werthead]

2 hours 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 think the quick-witted thing was something that Whedon took from comic books and applied to his writing, then it fed back into the TV and movies, so you have the Marvel movies being called Whedon-esque when they're more, well, Marvel-esque. 

Quote

Adam Busch has now come out supporting Carpenter and co. Don't know if he was on a Whedon show, if at all? Or who he even played? 

Warren was a major recurring character in Seasons 5 and 6 of Buffy, and arguably the primary antagonist of the latter. He also dated Amber Benson for a while, and they're still good friends now.

[Werthead]

 

[Mindwalker]

Michelle: I was subjected. To a lot.

Also, replying to SMG:  We know what he did. Behind. The. Scenes.

https://twitter.com/DoktorWatson/status/1360064601589768192/photo/1

[Annara Snow]

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

Ah -- Whedon did talk about how he was also doing the Civil War and confederacy in space, more than once.  And there was slavery in the firefly universe on some planets, such as mining ones -- how Jayne gets to be a hero -- and racism, you betcha.  He just didn't center it, but lordessa, look at how the Asians tend to be portrayed -- he did that out of his own, well, call it his own sensibility.

The losing side was not about slavery as race-based slavery. Is that clearer? Unless you're determined to misrepresent it all? Yeah, Zoe and Mal were totally fighting to keep slavery....is that your interpretation? Is that your preferred fanon? 

[Werthead]

Bit of a weird one. David Boreanaz deleted his entire Instagram account this week apart from just one post and seems to be lying low.

Boreanaz had a bit of an odd reputation on Buffy, with his tendency to sometimes just walk around naked on set. I think it was a complaint about how often the writers and directors would get him to take his shirt off, so sometimes he'd just show up completely in the buff. One of those stories that castmembers used to share at conventions and make people laugh about, but then you think hang on a sec, that's weird.

[Ran]

He tweeted a message of support, saying he was there for her or something like, I saw somewhere or other. That said, he also had a sexual harrasment suit against him in the past, settled out of court. Gloria Allred represented the complainant. 

ETA: By which I mean that his being low-key about it is probably not a surprise. There's some other things as well in his career that maybe make him a target. Apparently he was being trolled really hard about something on his Instagram shortly before he deleted everything and went private, but it's hard to say how those connect. 

[Ran]

Note: I'm absolutely not going to let the thread get as off topic as it did with the Kubrick exegesis. There are other places to discuss other creators.

[DMC]

51 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Boreanaz had a bit of an odd reputation on Buffy, with his tendency to sometimes just walk around naked on set.

That is indeed a bold strategy, Cotton.  Plus, speaking of behavior that's usually criminal.

[polishgenius]

56 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

The losing side was not about slavery as race-based slavery. Is that clearer? Unless you're determined to misrepresent it all? Yeah, Zoe and Mal were totally fighting to keep slavery....is that your interpretation? Is that your preferred fanon? 

 

 

No-one is saying that the browncoats are a literal 1-to-1 for the confederacy. But since there are pretty clear parallels even before you factor in that Joss Whedon has outright said that they are and that he named one of his characters (Jubal Early) after a confederate general. No matter how good his intentions and how he deliberately excised the evil parts of the confederacy to build on their noble-heroes mythos instead, some people are gonna have a problem with that, and they've perfectly well got the right to.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Apparently SMG and James Marstrrs were unhappy with the rape plotline in season 6, so much so that Marsters required therapy.

[Ran]

That was Marti Noxon's season to run, and the episode was based on her own personal experiences (as the assaulter, not the victim, apparently; per Marsters, it had to do with her forcing herself on a recent ex-boyfriend in college, thinking it'd get him back and he had to physically push her away),  Steven DeKnight wrote the episode, and Whedon didn't direct it so he was nowhere around, I think, for the filming of the episode. It's true the mandate from Whedon was that they were on a new network without, apparently, a Standards and Practices office, so they could explore darker, more adult territory pretty freely, but Noxon was much more in charge of that season and how the scripts came out. Slayers and Vampires has a long section on that season and Whedon's barely quoted compared to Noxon, Fury, and DeKnight.

As I recall, Marsters went to therapy because it was traumatically close to his own personal history. And he noted that it was a good thing, in retrospect, because therapy has since helped him with a lot of unresolved issues he had in his life, for whatever that's worth. I don't recall what Gellar's issues were, but I think she was generally just not happy with the show depicting Buffy on a self-destructive spiral.

I really find it hard to see any fault in this aspect of things, to be honest. Talking about it was probably a bit soul-baring for Noxon, writing it was doubtless difficult for DeKnight, and it would be concerning if Marsters and Gellar treated it as if it was just another day at work. But actors do these things all the times, because that's their craft and there's value in it.

[DMC]

24 minutes ago, Ran said:

It's true the mandate from Whedon was that they were on a new network without, apparently, a Standards and Practices office

Wait, are you saying UPN didn't have Standards and Practices?  That's..really odd.

[Annara Snow]

6 hours ago, Zorral said:

Ah -- Whedon did talk about how he was also doing the Civil War and confederacy in space, more than once.  And there was slavery in the firefly universe on some planets, such as mining ones -- how Jayne gets to be a hero -- and racism, you betcha.  He just didn't center it, but lordessa, look at how the Asians tend to be portrayed -- he did that out of his own, well, call it his own sensibility.

 

19 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?

 

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

 

 

No-one is saying that the browncoats are a literal 1-to-1 for the confederacy. But since there are pretty clear parallels even before you factor in that Joss Whedon has outright said that they are and that he named one of his characters (Jubal Early) after a confederate general. No matter how good his intentions and how he deliberately excised the evil parts of the confederacy to build on their noble-heroes mythos instead, some people are gonna have a problem with that, and they've perfectly well got the right to.

Really? No one is saying that? Then what is Zorral saying in these posts, exactly?

You do realize that you can't have Confederacy without slavery - specifically race-based slavery? Since Confederacy was all about race-based slavery.