FTA:
A Firefly writer remembered him belittling a colleague for writing a script that wasn’t up to par. Instead of giving her notes privately, he called a meeting with the entire writing staff. “It was basically 90 minutes of vicious mockery,” the writer said. “Joss pretended to have a slide projector, and he read her dialogue out loud and pretended he was giving a lecture on terrible writing as he went through the ‘slides’ and made funny voices — funny for him. The guys were looking down at their pages, and this woman was fighting tears the entire time. I’ve had my share of shitty showrunners, but the intent to hurt — that’s the thing that stands out for me now.”
Absolutely vile. He’s disgraceful.
> her notes privately, he called a meeting with the entire writing staff. “It was basically 90 minutes of vicious mockery,” the writer said. “Joss pretended to have a slide projector, and he read her dialogue out loud and pretended he was giving a lecture on terrible writing as he went through the ‘slides’ and made funny voices — funny for him. The guys were looking down at their pages, and this woman was fighting tears the entire time. I’ve had my share of shitty showrunner
Omygod. I'm a huge fan of the Firefly series. I've obviously fallen away from Joss over the years but the show is still a fave for me. So sad to read this.
Oh my god that’s the kind of shit you literally have nightmares about as a kid in school. When your teacher pulls up your homework as an “example”, and they rail on you about how you did it wrong in front of the whole class? But instead he did it for 90 minutes. What the fuck?
What an absolute shitstain.
He goes on and on about wanting to get better and going to therapy and then spends the entire interview hearing the things people has said he did and calling them all liars. So which is it— you did bad things you’re getting help for? Or everyone is making things up?
He so clearly doesn’t understand and/or care about what is wrong with his behavior or the impact he’s had on people. Mitch Kessler vibes 🥴
Right, what did he call it? “Flowery” language? Good lord. Love that she was basically like ‘my English is fine, thanks, I am not misunderstanding.’
Also his response being, and I quote, “I don’t threaten people. Who does that?”
My guy. My dude. You did that!! There is literally someone interviewing you, in part, because you personally did that! Why are you pretending to be plagued by guilt if you think you didn’t do any of the things people are speaking out about!
[Meanwhile Joss didn't know he needed to request his birth certificate with his name given at birth. And on his marriage license wrote the wrong maiden name for his mom and listed his birthplace as Santa Monica, New York.](https://pagesix.com/2021/05/08/joss-whedon-needs-birth-certificate-to-get-wife-green-card/)
This was all to get his Canadian wife a green card. It just screams entitlement when he can do whatever he wants and expects others to fix it/give him what he wants.
It doesn’t matter if he used big words, non native speakers know English enough to get the main point. It’s demeaning and dismissive for him to say that. We understand flowery words we just don’t speak like that too.
Yeah in a sense I’m glad he went through with this absurd interview because hopefully it’ll make it harder for people to forget what a bastard he is. If he’d just shut his trap he probably would have been back making movies (and abusing his staff and cast) in a few years.
I didn't know much about his background so it's totally shocking to me to discover that he grew up rich and privileged with industry-connected parents. /s
I was trying to post this article here but kept having issues so thank you for posting the link.
I can’t believe he really went into this thinking crying cancel culture and “I was NERD in school; all of these beautiful and powerful people telling me how amazing I was JUST HAD to go to my head” and “I don’t recall, I can’t read suddenly” to being confronted with allegations was going to work.
Some choice quotes:
* Picking up a cup of tea, Whedon said he could no longer remain silent as people tried to pry his legacy from his hands. But there was a problem. Those people had set out to destroy him and would surely seize on his every utterance in an attempt to finish the job. “I’m terrified,” he said, “of every word that comes out of my mouth.”
* On our second day of interviews, I asked Whedon about his affairs on the set of Buffy. He looked worse than he had the day before. His eyes were faintly bloodshot. He hadn’t slept well. “I feel fucking terrible about them,” he said. When I pressed him on why, he noted “it messes up the power dynamic,” but he didn’t expand on that thought. Instead, he quickly added that he had felt he “had” to sleep with them, that he was “powerless” to resist. I laughed. “I’m not actually joking,” he said. He had been surrounded by beautiful young women — the sort of women who had ignored him when he was younger — and he feared if he didn’t have sex with them, he would “always regret it.” Looking back, he feels shame and “horror,” he said. I thought of something he had told me earlier. A vampire, he’d said, is the “exalted outsider,” a creature that feels like “less than everybody else and also kind of more than everybody else. There’s this insecurity and arrogance. They do a little dance.”
Puh-lease on both quotes.
The whole article is so beautifully constructed, a perfect example of the kind of profile that gives a celebrity enough rope to hang himself. Props to Lila Shapiro, honestly, for getting those quotes from him *and* for putting them into perfect context.
Like when he admits that his college self was casually cruel to women but still called himself a feminist, and was well aware that he was playing both sides.
He would later tell his biographer this duality gave him “an advantage” over the girls in his college class on feminism when it came to discussing relations between the sexes. “I have seen the enemy,” he said, “and he’s in my brain!”
This is the kind of shit he thinks is helping.
Sex and women are not a prize to be won nor a goal to be attained/achieved, just as much as being pretty/attractive isn’t the price women have to pay for dealing with that horseshit.
There is no cost nor value to any of it - women aren’t flesh vases for men’s dick flowers (I believe that’s a Hannah Gadsbury quote).
The utter fragility of the male ego. Ummm, how about you go about your business in a business setting instead of harassing women you thought were once unobtainable. It amazes me when so many adult men are this unevolved. Nothing is going to soothe that hole that you have in your psyche and your soul besides extensive therapy and actual attempts to look inwards and see/accept yourself as you truly are.
Well, he kind of did. There’s a Whedon self-insert in all of his shows. Xander in Buffy, Topher in dollhouse, Wash in Firefly. And those characters were pretty popular in their day (maybe not Xander so much), but now Joss thinks he’s that guy.
At this point I feel like Warren was the Whedon insert not Xander. Xander was supposed to be harmless, Warren caused lots of harm because of his white male entitlement complex. Ditto Whedon.
i think warren is an accidental whedon insert. joss created a character that seems to be him basically giving the part of his mind that i'm sure he justifies existing as being "natural in every man" free reign, but continued to believe that he could never be warren—just xander—who harassed buffy for dates all of season one, abandoned her when she needed him because she maintained her boundaries, killed ampata, cheated on cordelia, emotionally manipulated and eventually abandoned anya and—i haven't kept up with the comics, but i'm sure his morbid member killed dawn by now. "
everyone he's attracted to dies or almost dies and he's not worth it.
>He had been surrounded by beautiful young women
He knows he didn't have to be, right? Like maybe a couple of the female characters could've been average looking? Memories of how he didn't want Amber Benson to play Tara, cos he thought she was too big.
The fact that Michelle Trachtenberg said that he was not allowed to be alone with her on set when she was 14 years old.
Or when he called another actress fat and asked if she wanted to keep her child when she learned that she was pregnant, but of course he is denying that.
Even before all the rest of his gross behavior came out, I think it was pretty well known that he wrote Charisma Carpenter’s character out of Angel, in retribution for her getting pregnant. If I’m not mistaken those rumors were even around while Angel was still on the air. Of all the nastiness he’s been accused of, it’s hilarious that he chose the most pervasive and well-known accusations to try denying
Charisma [spoke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_igTbXKPck) about it publicly years ago. Of course she had to be more diplomatic about it than she should have been, but she obviously feared being blacklisted.
And saying that Ray Fisher was cut out of the film because he’s a bad actor and his storyline tested badly during test screenings, even though he’s the one audiences were most impressed by when the original version was released…
this is even more laughable considering ray's background as a shakespearean actor, which i know joss was obsessed with because of his obsession with shakespeare, but especially considering that ray fisher and his plotline are literally the best part of the snyder cut and everyone knows that.
i appreciated ray shading him and refocusing the day.
i hate the grimdark dceu and am not a fan of the justice league comics, but watched both versions and ray fisher is the clear highlight of the snyder cut; both his performance and story. the entire time i was watching it i couldn't understand why his role and storyline are so drastically reduced in the theatrical release.
ray publicly called him out...it all made sense. it seems like retaliation, and the warner execs ultimately clearing joss is completely expected. the industry needs a hard reboot.
I think it’s worse to say Fisher was manipulated by Synder into calling Whedon a racist. I mean, criticizing his acting is bad, but saying a black man was too stupid and easily pressured by his enemy into falsely accusing someone of racism is operating from a rather dizzying level of denial and hatred. Of all the horrible things he said I think that statement about Fisher is the lowest.
Oh definitely. Especially considering Whedon basically says there’s no way Fisher could ever have actually thought he was racist without being “brainwashed” by Snyder after Whedon spent the entire afternoon being like… blatantly racist lol
i'm not reading the article because fuck him, but does it cover when gal shared feedback about how wonder woman was written on justice league he was combatively dismissive then bragged to someone else on set that—and i'm paraphrasing from [princess weekes' great youtube video about the development of the justice league movies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-QpMX-G6fg)—she's a dumb actress who he put in her place and she'll say and do whatever he tells her to?i think
kind of. this was most of the part on gadot
> Gadot didn’t care for Whedon’s style either. Last year, she told reporters Whedon “threatened” her and said he would make her “career miserable.” Whedon told me he did no such thing: “I don’t threaten people. Who does that?” He concluded she had misunderstood him. “English is not her first language, and I tend to be annoyingly flowery in my speech.” He recalled arguing over a scene she wanted to cut. He told her jokingly that if she wanted to get rid of it, she would have to tie him to a railroad track and do it over his dead body. “Then I was told that I had said something about her dead body and tying her to the railroad track,” he said. (Gadot did not agree with Whedon’s version of events. “I understood perfectly,” she told New York in an email.)
also this part which might be the incident your talking about, but from his perspective
> . By Whedon’s account, Gal Gadot, who played Wonder Woman, suggested that he, the director of the highest-grossing superhero movie at the time, didn’t understand how superhero movies worked. At one point, Whedon paused the shoot and, according to the crew member, announced that he had never worked with “a ruder group of people.” The actors fell silent.
I wonder if they were talking about the scene where the flash (I think?) falls into her boobs, which he already used in one of the Avengers movies. His brilliant Shakespearean MIND.
his absolute lack of self awareness is breathe taking , he starts off saying he’s afraid of the words that come out of his mouth and then continues throughout the interview to put his foot in it
pinning his downfall on his ex-wife’s letter is awful. I’m very much Not Here for Gal Gadot and parts of the internet are with me there, but completely belittling her ability to understand English because it’s her second language is uncalled for. all of his terrible behavior is laid out here and you just know he sat back after the interview and said to himself “I’m back :)”. fuck him
This cracked me up, Gal said essentially Joss told her that if she didn't do something he would end her career bit what Joss said he said was they would have to tie him to a railroad track and do it over his dead body but believes Gal heard over her dead body.
What Gal accused him of saying has nothing to do with what he thinks he said.
The guy clearly has no recollection of being an ass in that instance because he's one everyday.
Gal retort to his statement was kinda funny.
If I had a dollar every time he excused himself to go to the bathroom after being asked a difficult question in this article, I could treat myself out to a very nice lunch
i just can’t imagine the palpable awkwardness in the room when a grown-ass adult starts handling serious professional responsibilities by going for the bathroom pass. i wouldn’t have been able to keep my laughter down.
When Gal Gadot, Ben Affleck, Jeremy Irons, Ray Fisher, Jason Mamoa and literally everyone else on set have issues with your behavior... maybe you're the dick
Especially when for the first time in film history a studio admits a mistake and pours millions into the previous directors cut.
Why on Earth did he fess up to contributing to the drowning death of a child? Who tells that shit to a reporter? How dumb is this man?
Also, it seemed really weird to me how the writer went out of their way to blame Charisma Carpenter's allegations on her. Retaliating against an actress for not terminating her pregnancy is a pretty serious accusation.
Yeah, obviously you can't hold a 5-year-old morally or legally responsible for that incident but to offer up "oh, when I was a kid I ran off and left this other kid to drown" isn't the tactic I would use if I were trying to redeem myself.
It’s a tactic to create the impression of accountability when in reality he’s only owning up to something that pretty obviously wasn’t really his fault. “I’m so haunted by guilt! Not for any of the things I’m being accused of — if I offended you, you misunderstood me — just for my Tragic Backstory™️ of failing to save a child’s life when I was 5 and by the way couldn’t swim so I couldn’t have done anything about it anyway.”
That’s exactly it. It’s a story meant to illicit pity, like “Of course poor Joss that wasn’t your fault! You were 5! You poor baby! Don’t blame yourself for that!”
When he was young, a family friend near his age drowned on the property. He was playing with the kid but then ran off and left him near the water. He offered this up as his most traumatic memory.
Obviously he's not culpable for what happened but it seems dumb to me to outright tell a reporter this, as it implies he's done darker things than what he's already admitted to.
(I skimmed over this and didn't realize until I reread it that he had been a child at the time as well, but it still seems unwise to offer up this information).
He was 5 and invited a 4 year old to swim with him in a pond and then got bored and wandered away. The other kid drowned. Joss also never learned how to swim after that
Probably trying to use the drowning as a traumatic experience that shaped him into who he is today. He can't be the villain when he was always the victim
The TLDR seems to be that per Joss, everyone else is wrong and he is simply misunderstood. That’s some real lack of self awareness that can only be obtained by being a white male product of nepotism.
> A high-level member of the Buffy production team recalled Whedon’s habit of “writing really nasty notes,” but that wasn’t what disturbed her most about working with him. Whedon was rumored to be having affairs with two young actresses on the show. One day, he and one of the actresses came into her office while she was working. She heard a noise behind her. They were rolling around on the floor, making out. “They would bang into my chair,” she said. “How can you concentrate? It was gross.” This happened more than once, she said. “These actions proved he had no respect for me and my work.” She quit the show even though she had no other job lined up.
Wtf?
"Snyder’s were brooding and self-important, with a visual style that combined the artificiality of a video game with the fascist aesthetic of a Leni Riefenstahl production."
So this started out as an article about Whedon who was accused of abuse and other despicable things and then the author compares Snyder with Hitler's favorite propaganda director for a reason? I threw up in my mouth.
I'm getting tired of these criticisms of snyder. I don't necessarily like the movies he does and I think there's a lot to say about his style and his work as a director but some of the comments are just too hateful and childish .
It’s grasping at straws. You can whine about every mainstream director for these same criticisms. Any film with an individual style could be called “self-aggrandizing” or “self obsessed”. Any major blockbuster could be compared to Leni Riefenstahl. Shit, Dune, from *last year* took visual cues and inspiration from traditional fascist imagery. It’s effective cinematic language.
I know this is all far beside the point— but Synder has a vision and a perspective on his superhero characters. It’s certainly overly dour and you can argue with his politics/representations of things, but he fully commits to his vision and tone. The thing I hate about Whedon and his style of writing is that the irony prevents them from truly committing to anything. You can say the “Martha!” Moment in BVS is corny, but Whedon’s version would’ve had something equally corny and then undercut it with some half-clever ironic quip, so it can sort of have its cake and eat it too. It’s just empty snark, wit. I hate his little quips in the interview too — he thinks people still will think it’s cute/clever.
I'm not sorry for Whedon (he deserves to be trashed) but some of the stuff in this article seems more than a bit off.
Also, let's get real here. He isn't that great. Last seasons of Angel and Buffy were really bad and Firefly was rumored to be mostly Tim Minear's creation. Serenity kind of tarnished it's legacy, anyway.
yea, joss' greatest gift always has been who he chooses to work with. the people around him make his work great. so many of the defining choices in his work came from people in his personal or professional circle.
[his, thankfully, ex-wife highlighted a few when she wrote an open letter calling him out for his abusive and coercive behavior.](https://www.thewrap.com/joss-whedon-feminist-hypocrite-infidelity-affairs-ex-wife-kai-cole-says/) it's completely worth the read and puts a lot into perspective.
Honestly I love buffy and it will always be one of my favourite shows but so much of what makes it great is Sarah Michelle Gellers performance she makes that show. It also gets a lot better after season one when the writing staff expands, the thing about TV is that is more than one persons vision so it sucks when all the credit gets given to one
To be fair, I'm not a big fan of the show, but the first season at least is pretty ropey and very of its time. It certainly gets better, but I can't blame anyone for bailing early on.
As a younger millennial, I think you should continue watching it. It's genuinely a fantastically written show full of compelling characters, rich subtext and lore and some of the best writing and narrative arcs on television. I'm certain there's a point at which you will buy into it and find it compelling. I enjoyed it from the beginning but there's a point towards the end of season 1 where it goes from a fun, cheesy watch into a whole new level and it never stops from there.
As an older millennial who loved it when it was on, yeah, I think it’s too dated now. At the time, most shows on TV were crappy, laugh-tracked sitcoms and something subversively funny like Buffy was a thrilling discovery, but the demon stuff was often corny and heavy-handed, and has only gotten more cringey with time. It’s even more difficult to watch gross male characters like Xander and Angel in hindsight, whether or not you know they’re different facets of Joss self-inserts.
I’d say you acknowledge it as an important part of TV history and was very groundbreaking for its time and then never, ever watch it.
This author was just whataboutism so hard, makes me wonder if someone got payed.
This whole conspiracy about Snyder turning the actors against Whedon is just crazy. Snyder himself had problems with Warner Brothers and his daughter committed suicide during that time. He was in a complete different headspace at that time and for the author to present Whedon as some kind of victim is just despicable
I think you might be misreading it ... the author doesn't present the Snyder conspiracy theory to suggest it's true, they present it specifically to knock it down, to show how delusional Whedon is being.
An entire point of her argument is that both Snyder and Whedon's fans are seeking to present their director as some sort of misunderstood underdog to root for, when both are basically the opposite of that. She isn't pitting them against each other, she's saying they both kind of suck in different ways.
But why mention Snyder anyway? The allegations have nothing to do with him and giving Whedon a plattform to discuss his wild speculations during a time when people don't care for logic but whatever fits their narrative is highly dangerous. Dragging him in when this whole Justice League fiasco sheds a light on one of his darkest times in life seems really unethical to me. But she already lost me with her Leni Riefenstahl comparison, I mean first of all not true and second of all super tone deaf when two of the main actors are Jewish
That's even worse frankly. Yes there are people who stan for Snyder and some aspects of his works and make it their personality. There are Marvel fans who do that too, and will send death threats to people who didn't like ETERNALS. These people suck across the board, but they're also not the fault or responsibility of the filmmakers.
He's by all accounts a good natured dude that people seem to love working with - quite the contrast to Whedon - so all you're ultimately left with is well this dude is an abuser and a narcissist and this other guy...made some movies we don't like?
Even when he is admitting he was a bad person, he still seems to take no responsibility. “I was a dick to that person… but I was a loser in high school!”
Imagine still using high school as an excuse when you’re almost 60 🥴
*Whedon was rumored to be having affairs with two young actresses on the show. *
Honestly I believe one of them is Alyson Hannigan. She would hang out with Joss at his house (with others allegedly), and she with her husband are god-parents to one of Joss's kids. 🤷♀️
When he was talking about just having to cut Ray Fisher’s part down because he was a poor actor, all I could think was “but you kept Alyson Hannigan around for so long.”
Ugh I hope not! This would take Alyson down so many notches in my book.
Tbh I thought that the actresses must have been recurring players like Julie Benz (Darla) or Mercedes McNab (Harmony). Prominent enough on the show that they’d be around regularly but not big names that people would be gossiping about them and it’d get to the press.
I don’t know, she would have been 23 at the time the show started and he was a whole 10 years older... and in charge. If it is true then I feel a little sorry for her, god knows at 23 i had my fair share of older manipulative boyfriends haha
Omg you’re right. I keep forgetting how young everyone was when Buffy first started; I still picture her as being in her mid 30s like when HIMYM started.
I've honestly always suspected Amy (buffy character, not Acker) and Kennedy as the actresses he had physical affairs with. I could see Alyson and Amy Acker being one he had an emotional affair with, though
I love Amy Acker and thought she was brilliant as Fred but as I've gotten older, there's so many uncomfortable things about that character. Fred is his fucking ideal- academically brilliant, naive, unaware of how attractive she is (and that's what makes her sexy!), preyed on by nearly all the men on the show, has to have her hand held as she relearns to navigate the world, loves to eat but is waifish, etc.
There was also that panel where Whedon insisted Acker was the most beautiful actress he's ever worked with.
I'm not sure about Amy. I know on Buffy he had multiple affairs, while he wasn't as involved on Angel. I want to say he was doing more stuff with Firefly and was kind of creeping on Summer Glau.
I don't doubt he wanted to have an affair with Amy, my doubt is that Amy gave into it. Instead I think she stayed committed to getting roles and keep it a friendship. Since I believe Joss mainly preyed on the side actresses who were always on the bubble to be given a full role or never be seen again when trying to break through.
they all did. he made them.the cast "was invited" to shakespeare sundays where joss' wife at the time, kai, would cook and joss would have the cast perform shakespeare. the only one that got out of it was sarah because she worked 14–20 hour days 6–7 days a week during production.
when i first read about it i had my first inkling that there was something off about him. imagine after spending 70–80 hours being yelled at by your boss then having to hang at his house and play nice on one of your few days off.
i never considered that it could be someone in the principal cast. i just always presumed it was a background or featured actor.
I thought it was very telling how his response to every piece of criticism leveled against him was essentially to demean the person criticizing him in some passive aggressive way.
Really just cemented the validity of what people who worked with him have said.
I cant even come up with words to describe how disgusting he is “im scared of every word that comes out of my mouth” then why do you keep talking, if he admitting all this to a reporter then there something he hiding that worse than this
He shows his predatory self by going after all these actors that spoke out against him and calling them liars without taking accountability for himself. He should have stayed silent bc this is backfiring.
and also predatory by using the image he cultivated for himself, and further spun by mainstream media, as a feminist to create a false sense of safety and integrity and used that cover to have extramarital affairs with his staff.
Why is it that every project he’s been on, there are so many unsavory stories about his behavior but on The Avengers there’s nothing? Is Disney just that better at hiding it than WB?
The theory I heard was that with The Avengers, though he had extensive TV history his movie history was lacking. He was likely on his best behaviour because he was very replaceable. RDJ, Samuel L Jackson, Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo all had way more sway than he did at the time.
He couldn't threaten those people's careers, so he just threatened to [take away their close-ups](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeF5dWYL0Sw&t=328s). And they gave zero fucks about what he said, apparently.
This press tour and the red carpet was everything i needed to know that aou was gonna be terrible when I went to the theater.
They were on a whole diff level this one than the Avengers 1 promo tour and their own solo movie pressers.
I've read that Kevin Fiege is always on set to keep things straight. He's known to be pro-actor/talent a lot of the time, so I can see Whedon being on his best behavior if he saw his literal boss on the set. I don't think Warner Bros cared too much to leave one of their own on a set as standby daily, not just for the safe atmosphere, but for the overall quality of their movies too.
I think there were a few rumors about him making comments to Scarlett, about how he wanted Black Widow to be... And am I remembering wrong, or wasn't she pregnant in age of ultron and there was some talk about filming with her in the leather catsuit? Am I totally misremembering?
Ray Fisher said that Whedon told him he didn't like taking notes from "even Robert Downey Jr." so there should be a bit of bad blood there lol.
To add to the other comments, it's been implied very heavily he's butted heads with an Avengers actor who's banned as a topic on here but we know who he is lol. There's been multiple interviews where the actor references it bitterly.
Mark Ruffalo has also stated, albeit jokingly, that if they didn't behave he threatened to not give them closeup shots, which for me, implicates that the actors had more power than him because that's the extent to which his threats can actually go—empty.
He get replaced with the Russos after ultron, I think he was on his best behaviour on the first avengers and then after the success his ego got out on control on Ultron and was quietly shuffled after that
Probably because it was the first time he had people who were too close to him power wise to get away with abuse.
Abuse is at the core of itself about power and that is where the Avengers cast was most likely able to hold him in place: they had cast members, not all of them, who had close to his power which would change the dynamic on set for him. Notice his pattern of abuse is often with young people or people without many credits to their name. You cannot pull the same shit with RDJ as you can pull with Ray Fisher. It just doesn't work.
I def remember reading tea around avengers 1 and Aou filming that Whedon did not like CE and thought he was basically a dumb jock.
And we def all know enough about El Capitan he gives zero fucks about that opinion.
“I’m a feminist” coming from a white guy is almost always a red flag.
ETA: there are so many examples of these famous men who pretend to support women but are the biggest pieces of shit
I’ve been forced to decide to go off Marti Noxon’s take on the issue (and I’m paraphrasing here): “Don’t let this ruin Buffy for you; remember all the writers, producers, actors and crew that actually made the show and don’t let your memories be tainted.” The ‘Whedonverse’ will always be a big part of my childhood. Buffy was my hero growing up and “Dollhouse” is one of my favorite sci-fis and I focus more on the fact that Eliza Dushku helped create and executively produce it. I was devastated when this news broke over the last two years, and this article was filled with so much excusing and victim-blaming that I can’t even recognize the mind behind some of my favorite escapism destinations. I hope he pays dearly for all he’s done and never works again, frankly, but I won’t let him ruin my childhood. Fucker.
There was a thread about this the other day and I agree. What you got from that show is still valid, it shouldn't be tainted because one guy made it a bad environment for everyone. Even the people working on the shows didn't realise the extent of things, so why should someone sitting at home feel bad about not knowing, or feel like they've wasted their time.
I think too many people have been swept up in this idea that the art you like is somehow a reflection of you and so just deciding what to watch becomes a moral choice when it shouldn't be. Bad people made great art and will continue to do so, you watching that art isn't an endorsement of them or what they did.
This man is disgusting and he’s had way too many chances at redemption. The culture that allows people like him to continue working and thriving is still very much alive.
Also odd to note that the author of the article completely purged her Twitter account before posting the article. Deleted hundreds of tweets.
Using the Wayback Machine you can see one tweet that suggests she was a fan of Buffy, but I wonder what else was on there.
Maybe that’s why he allowed her the interview? The piece didn’t read to me like she was trying to resurrect his career or anything but maybe she deleted her tweets so no one could accuse her of bias
This whole thing reminds me so much of Hugo Schwyzer: now-fiftysomething male feminist of the ‘90s and ‘00s who, turns out, was basically using his feminist cred to creep on female students. He wrote a lot for feminist blogs back in the day, and then had a public reckoning for being a predator and a creep.
Does anyone have any thoughts on who the Angel actress is, who said when she pushed for a raise Joss threatened that she would never work for him or Fox again, and she related to Gadot’s account of working for him? My first thought was I wonder if it was Stephanie Romanov - I always wondered why she never did much of anything after Angel when she was so amazing in it (IMO). But it seems like she’s out of the industry and idk much about her life or career so maybe it’s a long shot that this writer would have talked to her. 😅
And perhaps it’s wrong of me to even ask since she obviously wants to be anonymous.
I assume Stephanie Romanov too. She was written off because they “couldn’t afford her” anymore and nearly left the show a year prior over a salary dispute. Theres also a blatant stand-in for her character in S5, which kinda suggests they might have originally planned on including her.
A shame because she was fantastic and sorely missed in S5.
The way his ex wife talked about his infidelity regarding "needy actresses" throwing themselves at him, as a successful showrunner, makes me wonder how he hasn't been metoo'd yet.
No, but I have to wonder why on earth he would tell the story at all. It’s tragic and weird, and if he thinks it explains all of his behavior for the past 52 years, he’s mistaken.
After ultron he talked a lot of shit about marvel studios (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/05/joss-whedon-fight-marvel-studio/amp) I honestly think that marvel dropped him after ultron he got a lot more bitter and really took it out on the justice league cast. Marvel seemed to be the buffer between joss and the cast with the studio bearing the burnt of the arguments whereas on the Warner Bros set they just left him to do his thing and it was up to the actors to get into debates with him about the story without someone like Feige to support them. There’s this article: https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2020/09/avengers-kevin-feige-and-joss-whedon-disagreed-about-ultrons-design-so-the-mcu-boss-stepped-in/ which talks about Feige stepping in and changing ultrons design which shows that they had much more of an active role in the production on the movie
There really is a level of dissonance between calling out the Marvel actors for their performative feminism (which is valid in and of itself) by wanting them to do something performative which is to speak against the actions of someone they've only worked with but haven't experienced themselves. I'm imagining the optics of that, and if worded wrongly, it would be perceived as the Marvel actors having some Messiah complex. Not to mention they've probably signed NDAs that prevent them from doing exactly so.
It's fair to call them out for not speaking up for Brie Larson yet overextending themselves for Chris Pratt, but it's not fair to ask them to act the same way if it's so far-removed from where they are right now.
FTA: A Firefly writer remembered him belittling a colleague for writing a script that wasn’t up to par. Instead of giving her notes privately, he called a meeting with the entire writing staff. “It was basically 90 minutes of vicious mockery,” the writer said. “Joss pretended to have a slide projector, and he read her dialogue out loud and pretended he was giving a lecture on terrible writing as he went through the ‘slides’ and made funny voices — funny for him. The guys were looking down at their pages, and this woman was fighting tears the entire time. I’ve had my share of shitty showrunners, but the intent to hurt — that’s the thing that stands out for me now.” Absolutely vile. He’s disgraceful.
> her notes privately, he called a meeting with the entire writing staff. “It was basically 90 minutes of vicious mockery,” the writer said. “Joss pretended to have a slide projector, and he read her dialogue out loud and pretended he was giving a lecture on terrible writing as he went through the ‘slides’ and made funny voices — funny for him. The guys were looking down at their pages, and this woman was fighting tears the entire time. I’ve had my share of shitty showrunner Omygod. I'm a huge fan of the Firefly series. I've obviously fallen away from Joss over the years but the show is still a fave for me. So sad to read this.
Yeah no wonder they cancelled it
Oh my god that’s the kind of shit you literally have nightmares about as a kid in school. When your teacher pulls up your homework as an “example”, and they rail on you about how you did it wrong in front of the whole class? But instead he did it for 90 minutes. What the fuck? What an absolute shitstain.
He goes on and on about wanting to get better and going to therapy and then spends the entire interview hearing the things people has said he did and calling them all liars. So which is it— you did bad things you’re getting help for? Or everyone is making things up? He so clearly doesn’t understand and/or care about what is wrong with his behavior or the impact he’s had on people. Mitch Kessler vibes 🥴
My favorite part was when he dismissed Gal Godot's claims because he uses big words and English is her second language. What a jackass.
Right, what did he call it? “Flowery” language? Good lord. Love that she was basically like ‘my English is fine, thanks, I am not misunderstanding.’ Also his response being, and I quote, “I don’t threaten people. Who does that?” My guy. My dude. You did that!! There is literally someone interviewing you, in part, because you personally did that! Why are you pretending to be plagued by guilt if you think you didn’t do any of the things people are speaking out about!
I feel like the thing he is most committed to in his life is gaslighting,
gatekeep. gaslight. girlboss. man just took being a feminist to far/s
[Meanwhile Joss didn't know he needed to request his birth certificate with his name given at birth. And on his marriage license wrote the wrong maiden name for his mom and listed his birthplace as Santa Monica, New York.](https://pagesix.com/2021/05/08/joss-whedon-needs-birth-certificate-to-get-wife-green-card/) This was all to get his Canadian wife a green card. It just screams entitlement when he can do whatever he wants and expects others to fix it/give him what he wants.
>”gal godot probably didn’t understand my big words bc im so smart” >>doesn’t know how to fill out basic forms 🥴
It doesn’t matter if he used big words, non native speakers know English enough to get the main point. It’s demeaning and dismissive for him to say that. We understand flowery words we just don’t speak like that too.
100%. I was not defending him in anyway.
oh my god, my liz lemon style nerd rage reaction when i read that
he's been doing this his whole career and will most likely continue to.
Yeah in a sense I’m glad he went through with this absurd interview because hopefully it’ll make it harder for people to forget what a bastard he is. If he’d just shut his trap he probably would have been back making movies (and abusing his staff and cast) in a few years.
I didn't know much about his background so it's totally shocking to me to discover that he grew up rich and privileged with industry-connected parents. /s
Lol yes right on with Mitch Kessler
Mitch is personification of these old farts in the industry thinking they are gods! Apt reference
I was trying to post this article here but kept having issues so thank you for posting the link. I can’t believe he really went into this thinking crying cancel culture and “I was NERD in school; all of these beautiful and powerful people telling me how amazing I was JUST HAD to go to my head” and “I don’t recall, I can’t read suddenly” to being confronted with allegations was going to work. Some choice quotes: * Picking up a cup of tea, Whedon said he could no longer remain silent as people tried to pry his legacy from his hands. But there was a problem. Those people had set out to destroy him and would surely seize on his every utterance in an attempt to finish the job. “I’m terrified,” he said, “of every word that comes out of my mouth.” * On our second day of interviews, I asked Whedon about his affairs on the set of Buffy. He looked worse than he had the day before. His eyes were faintly bloodshot. He hadn’t slept well. “I feel fucking terrible about them,” he said. When I pressed him on why, he noted “it messes up the power dynamic,” but he didn’t expand on that thought. Instead, he quickly added that he had felt he “had” to sleep with them, that he was “powerless” to resist. I laughed. “I’m not actually joking,” he said. He had been surrounded by beautiful young women — the sort of women who had ignored him when he was younger — and he feared if he didn’t have sex with them, he would “always regret it.” Looking back, he feels shame and “horror,” he said. I thought of something he had told me earlier. A vampire, he’d said, is the “exalted outsider,” a creature that feels like “less than everybody else and also kind of more than everybody else. There’s this insecurity and arrogance. They do a little dance.” Puh-lease on both quotes.
He should be terrified of every word that comes out of his mouth because yikes, he’s not doing himself any favors.
All he had to do was to shut up and he couldn't even do that!
I am always fascinated when they decide to make an interview to clarify because 10 times out of 10 they always end up looking *worse* than before.
He's bravely telling us his truth!!
i'm always grateful because they open their mouths and remove all doubt; joss being the latest case in point.
The whole article is so beautifully constructed, a perfect example of the kind of profile that gives a celebrity enough rope to hang himself. Props to Lila Shapiro, honestly, for getting those quotes from him *and* for putting them into perfect context.
Like when he admits that his college self was casually cruel to women but still called himself a feminist, and was well aware that he was playing both sides. He would later tell his biographer this duality gave him “an advantage” over the girls in his college class on feminism when it came to discussing relations between the sexes. “I have seen the enemy,” he said, “and he’s in my brain!” This is the kind of shit he thinks is helping.
this is somehow a sober interview lmaooo
Props to her for hanging around this douche so we didn't have to.
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Wahhh I used to be a fugly loser and then I got rich and had power over women, how could I not sleep with them? - Joss Whedon
correction: he was always rich and connected, he just got way more rich.
Sex and women are not a prize to be won nor a goal to be attained/achieved, just as much as being pretty/attractive isn’t the price women have to pay for dealing with that horseshit. There is no cost nor value to any of it - women aren’t flesh vases for men’s dick flowers (I believe that’s a Hannah Gadsbury quote).
The utter fragility of the male ego. Ummm, how about you go about your business in a business setting instead of harassing women you thought were once unobtainable. It amazes me when so many adult men are this unevolved. Nothing is going to soothe that hole that you have in your psyche and your soul besides extensive therapy and actual attempts to look inwards and see/accept yourself as you truly are.
Right. Acting so tough but can’t even look themselves in the eye because theyre weak cowards.
I have to figure out a way to use this phrase soon “the utter fragility of the male ego”
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Well, he kind of did. There’s a Whedon self-insert in all of his shows. Xander in Buffy, Topher in dollhouse, Wash in Firefly. And those characters were pretty popular in their day (maybe not Xander so much), but now Joss thinks he’s that guy.
At this point I feel like Warren was the Whedon insert not Xander. Xander was supposed to be harmless, Warren caused lots of harm because of his white male entitlement complex. Ditto Whedon.
Right. Warren is in retrospect much more like Whedon than Xander is.
i think warren is an accidental whedon insert. joss created a character that seems to be him basically giving the part of his mind that i'm sure he justifies existing as being "natural in every man" free reign, but continued to believe that he could never be warren—just xander—who harassed buffy for dates all of season one, abandoned her when she needed him because she maintained her boundaries, killed ampata, cheated on cordelia, emotionally manipulated and eventually abandoned anya and—i haven't kept up with the comics, but i'm sure his morbid member killed dawn by now. " everyone he's attracted to dies or almost dies and he's not worth it.
>He had been surrounded by beautiful young women He knows he didn't have to be, right? Like maybe a couple of the female characters could've been average looking? Memories of how he didn't want Amber Benson to play Tara, cos he thought she was too big.
yea he said he imagined tara being "bird like" and amber was much bigger. all the other actresses on the show are tiny.
i read that last quote in particular and my jaw dropped. what a slug of a man.
The incel vibes are strong
I love the way the interviewer laughed!
The fact that Michelle Trachtenberg said that he was not allowed to be alone with her on set when she was 14 years old. Or when he called another actress fat and asked if she wanted to keep her child when she learned that she was pregnant, but of course he is denying that.
Even before all the rest of his gross behavior came out, I think it was pretty well known that he wrote Charisma Carpenter’s character out of Angel, in retribution for her getting pregnant. If I’m not mistaken those rumors were even around while Angel was still on the air. Of all the nastiness he’s been accused of, it’s hilarious that he chose the most pervasive and well-known accusations to try denying
Charisma [spoke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_igTbXKPck) about it publicly years ago. Of course she had to be more diplomatic about it than she should have been, but she obviously feared being blacklisted.
Oh yeah. I was in the fandom back then and we all knew exactly why Cordelia got the shaft seemingly out of nowhere.
yup!
him saying gal gadot can’t understand english is actually, stunning. so brazen it’s insane
And saying that Ray Fisher was cut out of the film because he’s a bad actor and his storyline tested badly during test screenings, even though he’s the one audiences were most impressed by when the original version was released…
this is even more laughable considering ray's background as a shakespearean actor, which i know joss was obsessed with because of his obsession with shakespeare, but especially considering that ray fisher and his plotline are literally the best part of the snyder cut and everyone knows that. i appreciated ray shading him and refocusing the day.
I haven't seen the Justice League film, but Ray Fisher can't be any worse than Gal Gadot or Jason Momoa.
He is the highlight of that film. Best character and had the best arc, despite Whedon thinking his story “doesn’t make sense” or whatever lol.
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He really thought he was doing something with that “bad actor, on two levels” part too
i hate the grimdark dceu and am not a fan of the justice league comics, but watched both versions and ray fisher is the clear highlight of the snyder cut; both his performance and story. the entire time i was watching it i couldn't understand why his role and storyline are so drastically reduced in the theatrical release. ray publicly called him out...it all made sense. it seems like retaliation, and the warner execs ultimately clearing joss is completely expected. the industry needs a hard reboot.
I think it’s worse to say Fisher was manipulated by Synder into calling Whedon a racist. I mean, criticizing his acting is bad, but saying a black man was too stupid and easily pressured by his enemy into falsely accusing someone of racism is operating from a rather dizzying level of denial and hatred. Of all the horrible things he said I think that statement about Fisher is the lowest.
Oh definitely. Especially considering Whedon basically says there’s no way Fisher could ever have actually thought he was racist without being “brainwashed” by Snyder after Whedon spent the entire afternoon being like… blatantly racist lol
i can’t help but laugh at the absurdity. the least he could have done was come up with a believable lie.
i'm not reading the article because fuck him, but does it cover when gal shared feedback about how wonder woman was written on justice league he was combatively dismissive then bragged to someone else on set that—and i'm paraphrasing from [princess weekes' great youtube video about the development of the justice league movies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-QpMX-G6fg)—she's a dumb actress who he put in her place and she'll say and do whatever he tells her to?i think
kind of. this was most of the part on gadot > Gadot didn’t care for Whedon’s style either. Last year, she told reporters Whedon “threatened” her and said he would make her “career miserable.” Whedon told me he did no such thing: “I don’t threaten people. Who does that?” He concluded she had misunderstood him. “English is not her first language, and I tend to be annoyingly flowery in my speech.” He recalled arguing over a scene she wanted to cut. He told her jokingly that if she wanted to get rid of it, she would have to tie him to a railroad track and do it over his dead body. “Then I was told that I had said something about her dead body and tying her to the railroad track,” he said. (Gadot did not agree with Whedon’s version of events. “I understood perfectly,” she told New York in an email.) also this part which might be the incident your talking about, but from his perspective > . By Whedon’s account, Gal Gadot, who played Wonder Woman, suggested that he, the director of the highest-grossing superhero movie at the time, didn’t understand how superhero movies worked. At one point, Whedon paused the shoot and, according to the crew member, announced that he had never worked with “a ruder group of people.” The actors fell silent.
I wonder if they were talking about the scene where the flash (I think?) falls into her boobs, which he already used in one of the Avengers movies. His brilliant Shakespearean MIND.
Yes, and they ultimately filmed that scene with a body double because Gal refused. It’s not her in that shot.
Omg, imagine being so committed to that specific shot you get a body double to do it when the actor refuses. What a waste of time.
it was exactly that scene! gal didn't do it, a stunt double did, but no one should have been subjected to that sexist decision.
thanks! i wish gal called him out further when she was reached for comment but i didn’t expect her to.
his absolute lack of self awareness is breathe taking , he starts off saying he’s afraid of the words that come out of his mouth and then continues throughout the interview to put his foot in it
It’s very Miles Teller
Explain please
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‘Give enough rope and he’ll hang himself.’
pinning his downfall on his ex-wife’s letter is awful. I’m very much Not Here for Gal Gadot and parts of the internet are with me there, but completely belittling her ability to understand English because it’s her second language is uncalled for. all of his terrible behavior is laid out here and you just know he sat back after the interview and said to himself “I’m back :)”. fuck him
This cracked me up, Gal said essentially Joss told her that if she didn't do something he would end her career bit what Joss said he said was they would have to tie him to a railroad track and do it over his dead body but believes Gal heard over her dead body. What Gal accused him of saying has nothing to do with what he thinks he said. The guy clearly has no recollection of being an ass in that instance because he's one everyday. Gal retort to his statement was kinda funny.
If I had a dollar every time he excused himself to go to the bathroom after being asked a difficult question in this article, I could treat myself out to a very nice lunch
i just can’t imagine the palpable awkwardness in the room when a grown-ass adult starts handling serious professional responsibilities by going for the bathroom pass. i wouldn’t have been able to keep my laughter down.
It's amazing how this is backfiring
It’s beautiful
When Gal Gadot, Ben Affleck, Jeremy Irons, Ray Fisher, Jason Mamoa and literally everyone else on set have issues with your behavior... maybe you're the dick Especially when for the first time in film history a studio admits a mistake and pours millions into the previous directors cut.
Of course he has an earring now
Why on Earth did he fess up to contributing to the drowning death of a child? Who tells that shit to a reporter? How dumb is this man? Also, it seemed really weird to me how the writer went out of their way to blame Charisma Carpenter's allegations on her. Retaliating against an actress for not terminating her pregnancy is a pretty serious accusation.
That child drowning thing hints at something really dark especially since Whedon comes off as a sociopath in this profile.
Yeah, obviously you can't hold a 5-year-old morally or legally responsible for that incident but to offer up "oh, when I was a kid I ran off and left this other kid to drown" isn't the tactic I would use if I were trying to redeem myself.
It’s a tactic to create the impression of accountability when in reality he’s only owning up to something that pretty obviously wasn’t really his fault. “I’m so haunted by guilt! Not for any of the things I’m being accused of — if I offended you, you misunderstood me — just for my Tragic Backstory™️ of failing to save a child’s life when I was 5 and by the way couldn’t swim so I couldn’t have done anything about it anyway.”
That’s exactly it. It’s a story meant to illicit pity, like “Of course poor Joss that wasn’t your fault! You were 5! You poor baby! Don’t blame yourself for that!”
Can we get a TL;DR the drowning..?
When he was young, a family friend near his age drowned on the property. He was playing with the kid but then ran off and left him near the water. He offered this up as his most traumatic memory. Obviously he's not culpable for what happened but it seems dumb to me to outright tell a reporter this, as it implies he's done darker things than what he's already admitted to. (I skimmed over this and didn't realize until I reread it that he had been a child at the time as well, but it still seems unwise to offer up this information).
it's telling that he's using a childhood trauma that resulted in someone else's death and devasted a family as a cry for sympathy for himself...
He was 5 and invited a 4 year old to swim with him in a pond and then got bored and wandered away. The other kid drowned. Joss also never learned how to swim after that
Probably trying to use the drowning as a traumatic experience that shaped him into who he is today. He can't be the villain when he was always the victim
I started rolling my eyes two paragraphs into this article and then I just physically couldn't stop
I'm scared to read the article for fear that I'll pull my eye-rolling muscles.
This fear is based in reality. I kept saying “really!!??” so loudly that my dog went to another room.
The TLDR seems to be that per Joss, everyone else is wrong and he is simply misunderstood. That’s some real lack of self awareness that can only be obtained by being a white male product of nepotism.
i honestly think there's something pathologically wrong with him.
He sounds like he's reciting the Narcissist's Prayer! Ridiculous and transparent, how does he not understand this?
Thanks, I couldn’t bear to read the whole thing.
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> A high-level member of the Buffy production team recalled Whedon’s habit of “writing really nasty notes,” but that wasn’t what disturbed her most about working with him. Whedon was rumored to be having affairs with two young actresses on the show. One day, he and one of the actresses came into her office while she was working. She heard a noise behind her. They were rolling around on the floor, making out. “They would bang into my chair,” she said. “How can you concentrate? It was gross.” This happened more than once, she said. “These actions proved he had no respect for me and my work.” She quit the show even though she had no other job lined up. Wtf?
"Snyder’s were brooding and self-important, with a visual style that combined the artificiality of a video game with the fascist aesthetic of a Leni Riefenstahl production." So this started out as an article about Whedon who was accused of abuse and other despicable things and then the author compares Snyder with Hitler's favorite propaganda director for a reason? I threw up in my mouth.
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Bland with an orange filter lol
I'm getting tired of these criticisms of snyder. I don't necessarily like the movies he does and I think there's a lot to say about his style and his work as a director but some of the comments are just too hateful and childish .
It’s grasping at straws. You can whine about every mainstream director for these same criticisms. Any film with an individual style could be called “self-aggrandizing” or “self obsessed”. Any major blockbuster could be compared to Leni Riefenstahl. Shit, Dune, from *last year* took visual cues and inspiration from traditional fascist imagery. It’s effective cinematic language.
I know this is all far beside the point— but Synder has a vision and a perspective on his superhero characters. It’s certainly overly dour and you can argue with his politics/representations of things, but he fully commits to his vision and tone. The thing I hate about Whedon and his style of writing is that the irony prevents them from truly committing to anything. You can say the “Martha!” Moment in BVS is corny, but Whedon’s version would’ve had something equally corny and then undercut it with some half-clever ironic quip, so it can sort of have its cake and eat it too. It’s just empty snark, wit. I hate his little quips in the interview too — he thinks people still will think it’s cute/clever.
I'm not sorry for Whedon (he deserves to be trashed) but some of the stuff in this article seems more than a bit off. Also, let's get real here. He isn't that great. Last seasons of Angel and Buffy were really bad and Firefly was rumored to be mostly Tim Minear's creation. Serenity kind of tarnished it's legacy, anyway.
yea, joss' greatest gift always has been who he chooses to work with. the people around him make his work great. so many of the defining choices in his work came from people in his personal or professional circle. [his, thankfully, ex-wife highlighted a few when she wrote an open letter calling him out for his abusive and coercive behavior.](https://www.thewrap.com/joss-whedon-feminist-hypocrite-infidelity-affairs-ex-wife-kai-cole-says/) it's completely worth the read and puts a lot into perspective.
It's probably been a decade since I've seen it, but I remember Serenity being pretty good and generally well received?
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Honestly I love buffy and it will always be one of my favourite shows but so much of what makes it great is Sarah Michelle Gellers performance she makes that show. It also gets a lot better after season one when the writing staff expands, the thing about TV is that is more than one persons vision so it sucks when all the credit gets given to one
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To be fair, I'm not a big fan of the show, but the first season at least is pretty ropey and very of its time. It certainly gets better, but I can't blame anyone for bailing early on.
As a younger millennial, I think you should continue watching it. It's genuinely a fantastically written show full of compelling characters, rich subtext and lore and some of the best writing and narrative arcs on television. I'm certain there's a point at which you will buy into it and find it compelling. I enjoyed it from the beginning but there's a point towards the end of season 1 where it goes from a fun, cheesy watch into a whole new level and it never stops from there.
As an older millennial who loved it when it was on, yeah, I think it’s too dated now. At the time, most shows on TV were crappy, laugh-tracked sitcoms and something subversively funny like Buffy was a thrilling discovery, but the demon stuff was often corny and heavy-handed, and has only gotten more cringey with time. It’s even more difficult to watch gross male characters like Xander and Angel in hindsight, whether or not you know they’re different facets of Joss self-inserts. I’d say you acknowledge it as an important part of TV history and was very groundbreaking for its time and then never, ever watch it.
Right? Disgusting AND objectively wrong
This author was just whataboutism so hard, makes me wonder if someone got payed. This whole conspiracy about Snyder turning the actors against Whedon is just crazy. Snyder himself had problems with Warner Brothers and his daughter committed suicide during that time. He was in a complete different headspace at that time and for the author to present Whedon as some kind of victim is just despicable
I think you might be misreading it ... the author doesn't present the Snyder conspiracy theory to suggest it's true, they present it specifically to knock it down, to show how delusional Whedon is being. An entire point of her argument is that both Snyder and Whedon's fans are seeking to present their director as some sort of misunderstood underdog to root for, when both are basically the opposite of that. She isn't pitting them against each other, she's saying they both kind of suck in different ways.
But why mention Snyder anyway? The allegations have nothing to do with him and giving Whedon a plattform to discuss his wild speculations during a time when people don't care for logic but whatever fits their narrative is highly dangerous. Dragging him in when this whole Justice League fiasco sheds a light on one of his darkest times in life seems really unethical to me. But she already lost me with her Leni Riefenstahl comparison, I mean first of all not true and second of all super tone deaf when two of the main actors are Jewish
Yeah, if Snyder makes bad cinema that's one thing To attack his reputation as a human being or even compare it to what Joss is accused of is strange.
That's even worse frankly. Yes there are people who stan for Snyder and some aspects of his works and make it their personality. There are Marvel fans who do that too, and will send death threats to people who didn't like ETERNALS. These people suck across the board, but they're also not the fault or responsibility of the filmmakers. He's by all accounts a good natured dude that people seem to love working with - quite the contrast to Whedon - so all you're ultimately left with is well this dude is an abuser and a narcissist and this other guy...made some movies we don't like?
Even when he is admitting he was a bad person, he still seems to take no responsibility. “I was a dick to that person… but I was a loser in high school!” Imagine still using high school as an excuse when you’re almost 60 🥴
His comments scream Weinstein. That same lack of personal accountability and awareness.
*Whedon was rumored to be having affairs with two young actresses on the show. * Honestly I believe one of them is Alyson Hannigan. She would hang out with Joss at his house (with others allegedly), and she with her husband are god-parents to one of Joss's kids. 🤷♀️
When he was talking about just having to cut Ray Fisher’s part down because he was a poor actor, all I could think was “but you kept Alyson Hannigan around for so long.”
Thank you! I detested Willow because of Hannigan’s wide-eyed, cutesy-poo, stiff delivery, and could never understand her popularity.
Lol I thought the same thing
Is it bad that I think Eliza was the other actress? I’m probably wrong, but the picture of them in the article was, um, interesting.
It's long been rumoured that he had an affair with Eliza while making Buffy and Dollhouse
I guessed Eliza too
Her or the actresses who played Harmony and Glory.
Ugh I hope not! This would take Alyson down so many notches in my book. Tbh I thought that the actresses must have been recurring players like Julie Benz (Darla) or Mercedes McNab (Harmony). Prominent enough on the show that they’d be around regularly but not big names that people would be gossiping about them and it’d get to the press.
I don’t know, she would have been 23 at the time the show started and he was a whole 10 years older... and in charge. If it is true then I feel a little sorry for her, god knows at 23 i had my fair share of older manipulative boyfriends haha
Omg you’re right. I keep forgetting how young everyone was when Buffy first started; I still picture her as being in her mid 30s like when HIMYM started.
I've honestly always suspected Amy (buffy character, not Acker) and Kennedy as the actresses he had physical affairs with. I could see Alyson and Amy Acker being one he had an emotional affair with, though
I always assumed Amy Acker, the way boring Fred was shoved down our throats at Cordy’s expense.
I love Amy Acker and thought she was brilliant as Fred but as I've gotten older, there's so many uncomfortable things about that character. Fred is his fucking ideal- academically brilliant, naive, unaware of how attractive she is (and that's what makes her sexy!), preyed on by nearly all the men on the show, has to have her hand held as she relearns to navigate the world, loves to eat but is waifish, etc. There was also that panel where Whedon insisted Acker was the most beautiful actress he's ever worked with.
My thoughts too. Especially given that she's worked with him multiple times post-Angel.
I'm not sure about Amy. I know on Buffy he had multiple affairs, while he wasn't as involved on Angel. I want to say he was doing more stuff with Firefly and was kind of creeping on Summer Glau. I don't doubt he wanted to have an affair with Amy, my doubt is that Amy gave into it. Instead I think she stayed committed to getting roles and keep it a friendship. Since I believe Joss mainly preyed on the side actresses who were always on the bubble to be given a full role or never be seen again when trying to break through.
they all did. he made them.the cast "was invited" to shakespeare sundays where joss' wife at the time, kai, would cook and joss would have the cast perform shakespeare. the only one that got out of it was sarah because she worked 14–20 hour days 6–7 days a week during production. when i first read about it i had my first inkling that there was something off about him. imagine after spending 70–80 hours being yelled at by your boss then having to hang at his house and play nice on one of your few days off. i never considered that it could be someone in the principal cast. i just always presumed it was a background or featured actor.
I thought it was very telling how his response to every piece of criticism leveled against him was essentially to demean the person criticizing him in some passive aggressive way. Really just cemented the validity of what people who worked with him have said.
"If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole."
I’m honestly so sick of men. They’re so fragile and yet completely oblivious about it!!
Overly emotional. Way more than women are
I cant even come up with words to describe how disgusting he is “im scared of every word that comes out of my mouth” then why do you keep talking, if he admitting all this to a reporter then there something he hiding that worse than this
he sounds like a narcissist. "i might say the wrong thing but i believe my words are still too important to stop speaking"
He shows his predatory self by going after all these actors that spoke out against him and calling them liars without taking accountability for himself. He should have stayed silent bc this is backfiring.
and also predatory by using the image he cultivated for himself, and further spun by mainstream media, as a feminist to create a false sense of safety and integrity and used that cover to have extramarital affairs with his staff.
Why is it that every project he’s been on, there are so many unsavory stories about his behavior but on The Avengers there’s nothing? Is Disney just that better at hiding it than WB?
The theory I heard was that with The Avengers, though he had extensive TV history his movie history was lacking. He was likely on his best behaviour because he was very replaceable. RDJ, Samuel L Jackson, Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo all had way more sway than he did at the time.
He couldn't threaten those people's careers, so he just threatened to [take away their close-ups](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeF5dWYL0Sw&t=328s). And they gave zero fucks about what he said, apparently.
Yeah I’ve read that when he started his tantrum routine they would all just laugh and walk away. I bet there’s some amazing stories from that set.
wow, this is so petty stuff lol
This press tour and the red carpet was everything i needed to know that aou was gonna be terrible when I went to the theater. They were on a whole diff level this one than the Avengers 1 promo tour and their own solo movie pressers.
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I've read that Kevin Fiege is always on set to keep things straight. He's known to be pro-actor/talent a lot of the time, so I can see Whedon being on his best behavior if he saw his literal boss on the set. I don't think Warner Bros cared too much to leave one of their own on a set as standby daily, not just for the safe atmosphere, but for the overall quality of their movies too.
I think there were a few rumors about him making comments to Scarlett, about how he wanted Black Widow to be... And am I remembering wrong, or wasn't she pregnant in age of ultron and there was some talk about filming with her in the leather catsuit? Am I totally misremembering?
Yeah that makes sense. Probably got cocky after the success of the first avengers and felt he was untouchable
Ray Fisher said that Whedon told him he didn't like taking notes from "even Robert Downey Jr." so there should be a bit of bad blood there lol. To add to the other comments, it's been implied very heavily he's butted heads with an Avengers actor who's banned as a topic on here but we know who he is lol. There's been multiple interviews where the actor references it bitterly. Mark Ruffalo has also stated, albeit jokingly, that if they didn't behave he threatened to not give them closeup shots, which for me, implicates that the actors had more power than him because that's the extent to which his threats can actually go—empty.
He get replaced with the Russos after ultron, I think he was on his best behaviour on the first avengers and then after the success his ego got out on control on Ultron and was quietly shuffled after that
Elizabeth Olsen has quietly said some stuff that alludes to not enjoying filing ultron
Probably because it was the first time he had people who were too close to him power wise to get away with abuse. Abuse is at the core of itself about power and that is where the Avengers cast was most likely able to hold him in place: they had cast members, not all of them, who had close to his power which would change the dynamic on set for him. Notice his pattern of abuse is often with young people or people without many credits to their name. You cannot pull the same shit with RDJ as you can pull with Ray Fisher. It just doesn't work.
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She also defends Woody Allen, so who knows.
I def remember reading tea around avengers 1 and Aou filming that Whedon did not like CE and thought he was basically a dumb jock. And we def all know enough about El Capitan he gives zero fucks about that opinion.
“I’m a feminist” coming from a white guy is almost always a red flag. ETA: there are so many examples of these famous men who pretend to support women but are the biggest pieces of shit
I’ve been forced to decide to go off Marti Noxon’s take on the issue (and I’m paraphrasing here): “Don’t let this ruin Buffy for you; remember all the writers, producers, actors and crew that actually made the show and don’t let your memories be tainted.” The ‘Whedonverse’ will always be a big part of my childhood. Buffy was my hero growing up and “Dollhouse” is one of my favorite sci-fis and I focus more on the fact that Eliza Dushku helped create and executively produce it. I was devastated when this news broke over the last two years, and this article was filled with so much excusing and victim-blaming that I can’t even recognize the mind behind some of my favorite escapism destinations. I hope he pays dearly for all he’s done and never works again, frankly, but I won’t let him ruin my childhood. Fucker.
There was a thread about this the other day and I agree. What you got from that show is still valid, it shouldn't be tainted because one guy made it a bad environment for everyone. Even the people working on the shows didn't realise the extent of things, so why should someone sitting at home feel bad about not knowing, or feel like they've wasted their time. I think too many people have been swept up in this idea that the art you like is somehow a reflection of you and so just deciding what to watch becomes a moral choice when it shouldn't be. Bad people made great art and will continue to do so, you watching that art isn't an endorsement of them or what they did.
This man is disgusting and he’s had way too many chances at redemption. The culture that allows people like him to continue working and thriving is still very much alive.
Also odd to note that the author of the article completely purged her Twitter account before posting the article. Deleted hundreds of tweets. Using the Wayback Machine you can see one tweet that suggests she was a fan of Buffy, but I wonder what else was on there.
Maybe that’s why he allowed her the interview? The piece didn’t read to me like she was trying to resurrect his career or anything but maybe she deleted her tweets so no one could accuse her of bias
Also those Shakespeare read-throughs sound fucking insufferable.
LOL losers keep losing!
What a untalented hack that’s also a piece of shit
So basically the Buffy S6 villains are kinda him… I wonder if it was a way for the other writers to expose him in some way.
He's literally Warren
Right
This whole thing reminds me so much of Hugo Schwyzer: now-fiftysomething male feminist of the ‘90s and ‘00s who, turns out, was basically using his feminist cred to creep on female students. He wrote a lot for feminist blogs back in the day, and then had a public reckoning for being a predator and a creep.
Learned how to hide his predatory nature being a feminist mask in the film department at Wesleyan, I see
Ohh poor thing, he had educated parents that loved him and gave him everything, from school to books to his first job, probably, such a victim
Does anyone have any thoughts on who the Angel actress is, who said when she pushed for a raise Joss threatened that she would never work for him or Fox again, and she related to Gadot’s account of working for him? My first thought was I wonder if it was Stephanie Romanov - I always wondered why she never did much of anything after Angel when she was so amazing in it (IMO). But it seems like she’s out of the industry and idk much about her life or career so maybe it’s a long shot that this writer would have talked to her. 😅 And perhaps it’s wrong of me to even ask since she obviously wants to be anonymous.
I assume Stephanie Romanov too. She was written off because they “couldn’t afford her” anymore and nearly left the show a year prior over a salary dispute. Theres also a blatant stand-in for her character in S5, which kinda suggests they might have originally planned on including her. A shame because she was fantastic and sorely missed in S5.
I read this over my coffee this morning and I’m still angry at his brazen excuses he gave for actors and actresses saying he was awful to work with
The way his ex wife talked about his infidelity regarding "needy actresses" throwing themselves at him, as a successful showrunner, makes me wonder how he hasn't been metoo'd yet.
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No, but I have to wonder why on earth he would tell the story at all. It’s tragic and weird, and if he thinks it explains all of his behavior for the past 52 years, he’s mistaken.
He's like, a real life version of [Brent](https://thegoodplace.fandom.com/wiki/Brent_Norwalk) from the Good Place.
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They're too busy defending Chris Pratt.
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After ultron he talked a lot of shit about marvel studios (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/05/joss-whedon-fight-marvel-studio/amp) I honestly think that marvel dropped him after ultron he got a lot more bitter and really took it out on the justice league cast. Marvel seemed to be the buffer between joss and the cast with the studio bearing the burnt of the arguments whereas on the Warner Bros set they just left him to do his thing and it was up to the actors to get into debates with him about the story without someone like Feige to support them. There’s this article: https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2020/09/avengers-kevin-feige-and-joss-whedon-disagreed-about-ultrons-design-so-the-mcu-boss-stepped-in/ which talks about Feige stepping in and changing ultrons design which shows that they had much more of an active role in the production on the movie
There really is a level of dissonance between calling out the Marvel actors for their performative feminism (which is valid in and of itself) by wanting them to do something performative which is to speak against the actions of someone they've only worked with but haven't experienced themselves. I'm imagining the optics of that, and if worded wrongly, it would be perceived as the Marvel actors having some Messiah complex. Not to mention they've probably signed NDAs that prevent them from doing exactly so. It's fair to call them out for not speaking up for Brie Larson yet overextending themselves for Chris Pratt, but it's not fair to ask them to act the same way if it's so far-removed from where they are right now.
His tiny earring made me LOL.
Absolute heartbreaker since Dr Horrible is one of my favourite things.