Joss Whedeon, getting more canceled by the day

[Werthead]

12 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

I knew that Jerry Doyle's politics were a source of some frustration - but the rest is all new information to me! Thank you for taking the time to tell me about that! Guess I can scrap that show from the list of showrunners I mentioned earlier!

Yeah, I mean it's not on the same level as Whedon, let alone some other things that have gone on, but there was certainly drama and even lawsuits behind the scenes (Foundation Imaging apparently rinsed the production company in an out of court settlement after suing them for breach of contract because Netter wanted to line his own nest with the effects money).

Most shows do have drama or problems at some point, as making 22 hours of television a year is not an easy thing to do, with temperatures running hot even in the most normally-chilled and relaxed environments.

I don't think the politics thing was a huge problem. Many of Doyle's very liberal, left-wing costars said they respected and liked him, Andrea Thompson married him and she's pretty liberal (and Melissa Gilbert stood for office as a Democrat and was married to Boxleitner, who was only "moderately" right-wing compared to Doyle) and they've all said they know Doyle had their backs when guest stars came on and acted like arseholes. Reportedly Paul Winfield - a very experienced and respected actor - showed up under-prepared on his first day and didn't know his lines and Doyle, who was literally nobody, chewed him out in front of the whole cast and crew and told him he was being disrespectful to everyone else and he came in the next day fully prepared ready to go. Only Stephen Furst apparently got really upset because he couldn't get into the back and forth which is how people like Christian and Jason Carter dealt with it (Carter and Doyle would get into afternoon-long political debates and then go for a beer afterwards, apparently).

Doyle did go full Limbaugh later on though, when he became a talk show host.

[IlyaP]

Just now, Mindwalker said:

As for BtVS

*facepalms*

I only just realised this is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So many posts just had Buffy or Angel, and I'm sitting here thinking "...Batman vs Superman?"

*hangs head in shame*

[karaddin]

The idea that we're discussing whether it's reasonable to end careers with 140 characters in a thread discussing the new "cancellation" of someone who had already been "cancelled" a few years ago and seemed to recover quite well is bizarre. No one with power ever actually loses their career over unsubstantiated allegations, but plenty of victims have for speaking up so I know where my sympathies and benefit of the doubt lie.

[Werthead]

5 minutes ago, karaddin said:

The idea that we're discussing whether it's reasonable to end careers with 140 characters in a thread discussing the new "cancellation" of someone who had already been "cancelled" a few years ago and seemed to recover quite well is bizarre. No one with power ever actually loses their career over unsubstantiated allegations, but plenty of victims have for speaking up so I know where my sympathies and benefit of the doubt lie.

If Whedon was to never work on a new project again, he's still completely covered for life. The residuals from The Avengers by itself will take care of that, let alone everything else he's ever been involved with, plus his inheritance must have been huge: people tend to forget that Whedon was born into a very wealthy family; he's certainly never been a scrappy underdog fighting his way up the ladder in any way.

I think you have a good point that Whedon has recovered from Carpenter's first round of allegations and went on to make one of the biggest movies of all time. He then recovered a second time after his wife's allegations (which no-one else followed up on) and only seems to have faltered at this third hurdle. A further recovery cannot be ruled out, unless something even grosser emerges (hence the reaction to Michelle Trachtenberg's post).

[IlyaP]

41 minutes ago, Mr Gordo said:

Oh, what board, may I ask? 

Old BBS systems, from what I recall. Like rec.arts.scifi.babylon5 or something, if memory serves?

[Kalbear]

Much like football stars, the public's appetite for talent will always overcome the public's distaste for skeezy assholes. 

[Fez]

27 minutes ago, karaddin said:

No one with power ever actually loses their career over unsubstantiated allegations

Kinda feels like Aziz Ansari did.

[IlyaP]

44 minutes ago, Mr Gordo said:

Oh, what board, may I ask? 

Ah, here we go: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/resources/online.html

 

rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated is a moderated newsgroup for general B5 discussion. It was created April 2, 1996. Any show-related topic is allowed, and criticism is accepted as readily as praise, but flames, story ideas, commercial postings, and off-topic messages will be blocked. For complete details see the group's official Web page. Series creator J. Michael Straczynski (JMS) participates in this group. You can post a message to the group even if you don't have Usenet access by sending your message to b5mod@deepthot.ml.org.

An archive of most of JMS' Usenet articles from both of the above groups is available.

A mailing list exists for people who're only interested in reading JMS's messages to the group. It also gets compilations of his messages from CompuServe and other services.

rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5 is an unmoderated board for Babylon 5 discussion. This group was created the week of March 28, 1994. JMS doesn't read this group, but some other B5 staff members do, so please do not post story ideas. There's a mailing list for them.

rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.info is a moderated newsgroup for informational messages about Babylon 5, including compilations of JMS messages from other online services, notes about schedule changes at local stations, and so on.

An archive of messages from the group is available.

alt.tv.babylon-5 is the old Babylon 5 newsgroup. This group was created the week of Feb. 15, 1993. You can post to the group, if you don't have access, by emailing to alt-tv-babylon-5@vtserf.cc.vt.edu.

uk.media.tv.sf.babylon5 is for discussions about the UK broadcast of Babylon 5. Avoid posting any spoilers about episodes that have aired in the US but not the UK. There is a FAQ for readers of the group.

uk.media.tv.sf.babylon5.social is a meeting place for arranging social events of interest to B5 fans.

aus.sf.babylon5 is for discussions about the Australian broadcast of Babylon 5. Avoid posting any spoilers about episodes that have aired in the US but not Australia. There is a Web page devoted to the newsgroup.

 

[IlyaP]

Just now, Mindwalker said:

Oh, did you mean B5?

That URL looks more like the usenet, preceding the WWW as we know it.

Yep - Babylon 5. I used to access it via a usenet reader. It was around at the same time as the old Robert Jordan Wheel of Time groups that I was active on.

(Sorry, I know it's a tangent; just wanted to answer that query for the curious parties.)

 

[Zorral]

What most strikes this reader from the latest stories about JW is how seamlessly they map upon the letter his ex-wife published as to why she divorced him, that the power and worship he was receiving as BtVS creator, he, the nerdest of nerds, went right to his head and other head, and he abused people, including abusing her trust and her love and her loyalty, because he had fulfilled the nerd dream of being emperor of the universe with unfettered access to young, powerless, beautiful women.

That Anthony Head didn't see anything, well it's highly unlikely that he would, considering his age and gender, and that Charisma Carpenter's statements are from Angel, primarily, on which sets and in which casts he was not.  Nor was he on the set of JW As You Like It, which production just screamed, well ugly stuff, gender-wise.  Also  a lot of stuff, not just gender, but political, was at best iffy in Firefly.

But every discussion as to these kinds of allegations ends up with his true believers very angry and generally unbelieving, particularly of the ex-wife.  There never was / will be? a trial, of course,  Yet new allegations arrive, and new people make them.

Of course people still are utterly convinced that Hillary runs a pedo ring under a pizzeria and drinks their blood. 

 

[Zorral]

Both Buffy and B-5 were huge interactive forums on the old SFWA GEnie back in the day, which is maybe the only time I ever was a participant in such a thing.  No allegations of any kind were made in those forums, it was all speculation of what was what and what will happen, what people want to happen.  Straczynski ran the B-5 forum and participated, though he wasn't sysop -- he delegated -- actually even paid, I think, someone else to do that.

What I recall from that era particularly was how every SF writer was trying to figure out desperately the right combo of agencies to get their stuff on tv. 

GRRM was on GEnie too, then, and researching like crazy the fans and the writers as to what everyone wanted out of a big fat fantasy trilogy.  I think George was the only one on GEnie besides Straczynski to have hands on Hollywood experience.  Harlan wasn't on GEnie.

GEnie was dial-up, btw!  

[Week]

46 minutes ago, Fez said:

Kinda feels like Aziz Ansari did.

Allegation out in 2018 -- had a comedy special in 2019. It wasn't very good and, frankly, I found his attempts at humor over the situation weren't particularly funny or showed any real understanding. So, no, I don't think this is ONE.

Per wikipedia:

Quote

Regarding future seasons, Ansari told Vulture in April 2017, "I don't know if we're going to do a season three. I wouldn't be surprised if I needed a looonng [sic] break before I could come back to it [...] I've got to become a different guy before I write a third season, is my personal thought, I've got to get married or have a kid or something. I don't have anything else to say about being a young guy being single in New York eating food around town all the time."^[73] In July 2018, Netflix head of original content Cindy Holland expressed interest in creating a third season "when Aziz is ready."^[74][75]

Production work began on a third season in early 2020 in London, but was put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic. By January 2021, production was getting ready to resume, with Naomi Ackie joining the cast

 

[Tywin et al.]

44 minutes ago, Karlbear said:

Much like football stars, the public's appetite for talent will always overcome the public's distaste for skeezy assholes. 

Or a corporations thirst for money. He will be welcomed back if he's still seen as profitable, even if he has to go away for a bit.

[Tywin et al.]

1 minute ago, Week said:

Allegation out in 2018 -- had a comedy special in 2019. It wasn't very good and, frankly, I found his attempts at humor over the situation weren't particularly funny or showed any real understanding. So, no, I don't think this is ONE.

I was never the biggest fan of his, and I thought his character on P&R got tired fast, but he's a good example of where do we draw the line? From what I recall, he misread a situation like many men do and wasn't cognizant of the power dynamics at play. I don't think he deserved to be lumped in with some of the worst off offenders, and it clearly did negatively impact his career.

[karaddin]

42 minutes ago, Zorral said:

That Anthony Head didn't see anything, well it's highly unlikely that he would, considering his age and gender, and that Charisma Carpenter's statements are from Angel, primarily, on which sets and in which casts he was not.  Nor was he on the set of JW As You Like It, which production just screamed, well ugly stuff, gender-wise.  Also  a lot of stuff, not just gender, but political, was at best iffy in Firefly.

Its really quite sad how rare it is for someone to be able to say "I didn't see it" but accept that doesn't mean it didn't happen, just that it doesn't happen around them because of course it wouldn't. The statement from him that I saw would be the exception as he seemed to accept it. You're also bang on that these allegations are entirely consistent with what his ex-wife said about him.

Bolded - all else aside its always bothered me that he chose to make his plucky underdogs brown coats. Of all the colours of the spectrum why would you pick the one that results in a phrase very easily confused with nazis in 1920s/30s Germany.

[Lord Varys]

14 hours ago, Ran said:

My understanding was that the original plan for S4 was that Cordelia was going to be possessed by an evil deity, becoming the Big Bad, and that at the end Angel would kill her in a direct mirroring of the Buffy episode “Becoming” (when Buffy believes she kills Angel/Angelus). Either way, Carpenter was being written out. She even admitted as much in past interviews, indicating that she felt the show had told all the stories worth telling about her character.

The late revelation of her pregnancy a month before cameras rolled led to a mass of rewriting and figuring out how to make it work when she was going to be less present. So instead of becoming the Big Bad, she gives birth to the Big Bad and the character ended up in a coma. 

If that were roughly correct then the story got a lot better during the rewrites ... because a rehash of the conflict in 'Becoming' would have been pretty trite. But apparently it isn't.

Thinking about one of the people involved in this, Amber Benson, does anybody here have a clue why Tara never made it back to the cast in the final season of Buffy? After all, the big bad was a thing which could be any dead person, and they used that a lot ... but they never used it with Tara. That was very odd, especially since there is that one episode with Azura Skye where they actually use the 'I've got a message from Tara' plot - but it would have been much more powerful if the First Evil had always/often worn the face of Tara ... rather than them going with it looking like Buffy most of the time.

Do we know whether there was a Carpenter-like breach there, too?

As for Head - yes, he very much did get preferential treatment in the sense that they allowed him to do his thing when he was no longer happy with his character's role and was written out completely like quite a few other actors.

[Week]

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I was never the biggest fan of his, and I thought his character on P&R got tired fast, but he's a good example of where do we draw the line? From what I recall, he misread a situation like many men do and wasn't cognizant of the power dynamics at play. I don't think he deserved to be lumped in with some of the worst off offenders, and it clearly did negatively impact his career.

It didn't really.

Even if it did *shrug* -- "And even if some good ones die, fuck it, the Lord'll sort 'em". Seems like a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things considering the mountain of injustice against people without a voice, without any power.

[karaddin]

On Aziz - I've never gone into the details of that allegation as what I did see of it was that it would make me deeply uncomfortable, but 

1. It was still a lot more than a 140 character tweet and while his career may have been impacted it clearly isn't over
2. He is/was a relatively successful young comedian, but his power is still a hell of a long way short of even Joss - let alone someone like Weinstein. I'd put him at a successful individual level rather than having become more of an institution
3. He's a man of colour. Racism always makes men of colour more likely to face consequences. Its like with police misconduct - if the officer was black they're more likely to get thrown under the bus, while white men are much more likely to get a life line or just weather it entirely consequence free. It doesn't mean men of colour will always get taken down by allegations, look how long Cosby was able to get away with his shit. And R. Kelly was pretty fucking blatant but because he was targeting young black girls a lot of people just let it happen and its disgusting. 

All the different kinds of minority statuses play into what I'm talking about by simply saying "power" above, I could have said status and really its a combination of the two and more. The people most subject to actually being cancelled by "cancel culture" are minorities themselves, and it frequently does come from inside the community. That's the actual problem that the concern trolling about cancel culture exploits to make it about something entirely different.

[Tywin et al.]

14 minutes ago, Week said:

It didn't really.

He may still get some work, but it will never be the same for him. He was honestly one of the most recognizable faces in entertainment and his Q score had to be off the charts. Now he's more of a pariah than anything else.

Quote

Even if it did *shrug* -- "And even if some good ones die, fuck it, the Lord'll sort 'em". Seems like a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things considering the mountain of injustice against people without a voice, without any power.

Would you shrug if it was you?

 

[Week]

15 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Would you shrug if it was you?

I've benefitted from immense privilege and good fortune in my life through due to my birth and family. Many people have lived lives scraping by, attacked, denigrated, and passed over despite no fault of their own. A man dies recently in a Texas jail of COVID because he couldn't pay a $100 bond. Whereas a double murderer that violated his bail is living free awaiting a trial (that he'll probably be acquitted or get a slap on the wrist for). Or the two cops that pushed over an old man, cracked his skull, have no repurcussions.

I can't muster giving a shit about a multi-million dollar star taking a 1 year hiatus after, by his admission, shitty behavior. (In the abstract more forcefully - in this instance 100% agree with @karaddin above)

Of course I'll bristle at unfairness in my life. It's my nature as it is for most people. Should I just shrug? Prolly. I haven't always been held accountable for my behavior to the nth degree - though I've been transparent, contrite, and not made the same mistakes. Counseled other men to be better, more honest, more decent.