Joss Whedeon, getting more canceled by the day

[Mr. Chatywin 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.

[Mr. Chatywin 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.

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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. 

[Mindwalker]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

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?

 

No idea, but quite a few people were upset they killed her off and wold not have liked her to come back as the baddie. Whether that backlash influenced him at all, I don't know.

[Lord Varys]

2 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

No idea, but quite a few people were upset they killed her off and wold not have liked her to come back as the baddie. Whether that backlash influenced him at all, I don't know.

Well, it wouldn't have been Tara but rather the actress playing another character - the First Evil. I mean, a lot of actors came back for the final season - all the guys playing the old big bads, Buffy's mother, Faith, etc. Kind of curious that nobody ever thought that Amber Benson also could play a crucial role there.

And while one is at that - it is also kind of curious that she never made it into the proper cast. She certainly had as much screen time as the proper main cast in season 5-6.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

33 minutes ago, Week said:

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.

This is all agreeable, but it doesn't address the point.

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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. 

Again, I don't disagree, except for the fact that you've probably been as transparent as you've needed to be. 

[Mindwalker]

Ah, I never watched the final season! When they brought in all thes Next Generation slayers, it just wasn't the same for me. 

Wait, what, Faith came back?! Wicked!

[Mindwalker]

6 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

And while one is at that - it is also kind of curious that she never made it into the proper cast. She certainly had as much screen time as the proper main cast in season 5-6.

Agreed. And fans liked her a lot.

Actually, I think she was credited as a regular in her final ep, when they killed her off... THAT didn't go over well. It's all coming back to me! Felt a bit cynical.

 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 2/10/2021 at 3:33 PM, IlyaP said:

More Buffy/Angel alumns speak out.

 

https://io9.gizmodo.com/buffy-star-charisma-carpenter-accuses-joss-whedon-of-ab-1846239305

Her story's been out there a long time, and I always felt bad for her. Not only is Whedon a sexist asshole, but he is a skeezy creep who would run around acting like he was so enlightened. I remember Jonah Ray telling a story once about how he said something like "hey guys" and Whedon was nearby and verbally assailed him for sexist language.

[sifth]

I also wondered why it took so long for Andy Hallett to be listed as a series regular on Angel. He was in a lot of season 2 and by season 3, he was basically in every episode. I think they finally start listing him as a main character towards the end of season 4, after Carpenter left the show. Was it only because they had an opening, I wonder. Though it does feel a bit insulting that Vincent Kartheiser was listed as a main character before him, despite playing what I consider the worst character on the show.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

4 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

I liked the first three seasons of Buffy, when they split Angel off for his own spinoff, the show became meh.  Firefly, the tv show, was ok too.  I never did care for his movies though, his Avengers (1)was ok, but paled in comparison to the Russo brothers’ s Avengers/Captain America movies.  His second Avengers movie sucked.  

Don’t really know how he came to have a reputation for such a big budget film director.  

Right? Every show of his was always teetering on being canceled, or just being canceled. I think he has done a lot of screenwriting in Hollywood though (Alien Ressurection, blegh), so maybe he had contacts? Him going from being canceled, making things that a small (sometimes rabid) fanbase loved but didn't ever catch wider appeal to directing the Avengers feel like I missed something.

[Week]

19 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

This is all agreeable, but it doesn't address the point.

Again, I don't disagree, except for the fact that you've probably been as transparent as you've needed to be. 

It speaks to the broader sense of fairness and justice in our society - capitalist, white, patriarchy that it is.

Anyway, putting a pin in it here for the relative enjoyment of an asshole's art to be debated.

[Mindwalker]

Does this work?

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialElizaDushku/photos/a.447029001982444/3951733291511980/

It's a statement of support for CC, no new info.

[Lord Varys]

46 minutes ago, sifth said:

I also wondered why it took so long for Andy Hallett to be listed as a series regular on Angel. He was in a lot of season 2 and by season 3, he was basically in every episode. I think they finally start listing him as a main character towards the end of season 4, after Carpenter left the show. Was it only because they had an opening, I wonder. Though it does feel a bit insulting that Vincent Kartheiser was listed as a main character before him, despite playing what I consider the worst character on the show.

That is also somewhat curious, but he made that jump - and Benson did not. Perhaps this was something that developed during the writing process for season 3 and wasn't something they had planned - like they did by adding Gunn and Fred immediately to the main cast at the beginning of season 3.

But the reason I asked about that is that it seems there is a pattern there with Tara being written out of the show - like Oz and Cordelia - and one can wonder whether they never made Benson part of the core cast because there were tensions there over a longer period of time.

I mean, there is even that episode in season 5, I think, where they establish very much that Tara is part of the family of the gang. She belongs to them, and breaks with her weirdo abusive birth family.

The fact that the actress never came back - unlike all that stuff with the dead geeks in season 7 and the other dead people showing up there - is pretty curious.

[BigFatCoward]

7 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

While it was on Twitter, Carpenter posted as two images , each consisting of a mulit-character post or mini-article. Certainly not 140 characters.

Yes, but I've made it clear that I'm not a fan of trial by Twitter, I mean this in the broadest sense. This is one very specific example we are talking about. 

Theres no smoke without fire for a significant % of the population, nobody should have their reputation tarnished in this way where it is very difficult to defend yourself (in my opinion). No matter how much money and power you have, no matter how flimsy the evidence, people will beleive. And just because you are rich and need never work again it doesnt make it ok to ruin someone this way.  

Again, if I was forced to bet my own money, in this case the weight of accusers appears quite significant. 

[BigFatCoward]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

That's considerably more disturbing.

Does that read to anyone else like someone had to consume significant alcohol to have the bravery to share?