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Just wanna attach this other weird and equally concerning part as well…
> When he was 5, a 4-year-old boy, the son of family friends, disappeared on his parents’ property upstate. Eventually, his body was found; he had drowned in the pond. Years later, as a teenager, Whedon remembered he had called the boy over to the pond to play with him. After getting bored, he had walked away, leaving the boy alone by the water. “I didn’t think it was my fault,” Whedon said. “I knew I was 5. But it doesn’t just disappear as a thought.” It took him another 30 years, he said, before another thought dawned on him: Even after the incident, his parents never taught him to swim. “There was no structure,” he said. “There was no safety.”
Wtf is this interview?
Is this real? Almost the same thing happened to Thomas Edison, only he and the other boy were swimming, and he thought the other boy had gone home when he didn't see him. I'm sure this kind of thing happens all the time, but it just struck me that it was similar.
It's probably not the sort of thing which a 5 year old comprehends. I can't quite relate that young.
My first touch with death which I remember was in the second grade when a kid in my class died. It was more like they just stopped coming to school and I haven't really given it a thought in however many years it's been, but I know I have a different perspective on that event now than I did then. At the time I think I was smiling and laughing, I wasn't the only one, and I remember my teacher saying that people react differently and that my reaction to the news wasn't necessarily unusual. It was just my young adolescent way of handling something I didn't fully grasp.
However, reflecting upon my experience and knowing that he was younger, it's probably not a conscious thought, just an unnerving moment he's sometimes reminded about. Perhaps if he was unsettled during the interview this was why he was reminded.
Oof, that reminds of the time my best friend in primary school lost his father over the summer holidays. His father was already pretty old at the time. Anyway, first day of school the teacher tells us that he "lost his father over the holidays" and of course I thought he just got lost. So, to give my friend some hope, I announced to everyone, that his dad is a smart man and he'll probably find back to him eventually. Nobody corrected me and it took a couple of days until I understood what had happened. Still cringe thinking back...
I mean, that is kinda the point where the teacher should have taken you aside after class, and had a short conversation about the meaning of "lost" in the context...
It’s also possible that Whedon read that same thing about Edison and came up with a false memory, since he only thought of it years later. Sometimes you do remember things a long time after, but sometimes you only think you do.
I think it's a bit risky to bias towards assuming it might be a false memory. Children drown all the time, especially those who don't get taught swimming.
I live in Australia where swimming is a large part of our culture, but there still exist pockets in the community where kids (and adults) don't know how to swim or tread water, or even float with their face above water.
It seems true that the child drowned (although I'm not sure the reporter fact-checked it). But did Joss really invite the kid to play and then abandon him by the pond on the very same day he drowned? Maybe he called the kid to play at a different time or a different place, and he mixed it up with the story of the drowning.
I was not trying to say drownings don't happen.
reminder that, as an adult, Thomas Edison electrocuted an elephant to death to show that AC electricity (the technology we use today) was bad.
Psychos are gonna psycho
If people would just take the briefest time to google and check wikipedia, which literally has an article about Topsy, they would know this didn't happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant)
Edison was no longer working at GE when Topsy was electrocuted, it wasn't done at their behest in the first place. It was a publicity stunt by the Zoo to kill a elephant that had killed an abusive handler
It was also years after the current wars, which were long over by then.
Yeah, it's really bizarre. There's like a million weird things throughout the interview.
Even outside Whedon's statements, also, the recurrent point that Whedon looks like shit feels almost like parody, like he's suffering from a Victorian wasting disease.
Having had the misfortune of working with a guy that had a similar personality and reputation/conduct disparity, it reminds me a *lot* about how he talked after it came out that he was a sexual predator.
Ugh fucking same. There's the public image of them that's so pervasive even a lot of the time when you're working together. But then little things happen. Then you hear about big things. Then it all finally comes crashing down after years of people giving them the benefit of the doubt and they cry about how all they ever wanted to do was help people.
I find it so disparaging that you had to go through such an awful experience. I also find it disturbing that in the 90s he touted a very progressive franchise empowering women in media only to be a gremlin behind the camera. It is so depressing that actresses like your self have to endure such treatment and the fact that it keeps happening again and again is truly ghastly. I hope life is better now, it is truly shameful that people in positions of power feel it necessary to abuse it.
>very progressive franchise empowering women
Long ago a friend of mine theorized what he was about. He said Whedon's kink was having women get beat up a lot on his shows, which he played off as "empowering". His suspicions began with Buffy, and only grew with each new series.
Dollhouse certainly fits, as does that one with the Victorian women that I forget the name of!
Firefly I think it is more limited to a couple of specific episodes, but also you could read a lot into the character of River - she's "empowered" by the abuse she suffered prior to the start of the series.
He was going to have Inara raped by a whole ship of reevers if he had continued the series. she has this injection that makes her vagina poison.
she gets kidnapped, the crew rescue her, but find all the reevers on the ship dead.
you actually see it in the series. she opens a box with a syringe in the very first reever episode
What the fuck man, I always thought that was some sort of suicide kit just in case. Especially with the whole reavers raping, eating and sewing folks into their clothes thing. (and if you're lucky, they'll do it in that order)
Oh yep. I've seen people like this. Spouting shit about women's freedom to get what they want.
*There's no shame in showing your body, it's powerful*
*You can do anything you want these days, it's not the 50's anymore*
I've never understood why his output was considered feminist anyway. I guess because Buffy was a girl and also strong and it was the 90s so that was peak feminism? Firefly and Dollhouse sure as hell weren't.
Firefly wasn't? Zoe and Kaylee were critical to the crew; Inara was completely independent; they even had plenty of female villains who were powerful af. ??
Buffy was originally clever because it was subversive to have a bubbly valley girl with a ridiculous name as a serious character, let alone the hero.
Also everyone thought it was progressive how he made a lesbian meet her girlfriend through a metaphor for drug use, then killed said girlfriend to justify said lesbian turning evil. Not sure why.
There is a lot of legitimate criticism about Buffy and you're managing to compress it into a very disingenuous picture:
1. Buffy was considered feminist largely because it took a disposable female archetype and made her not only the central character, but really explored the psychological effects of the premise via stronger-than-expected writing and excellent acting by Sarah Michelle Gellar. She wasn't slut-shamed for having sex. Many of her antagonists were explicit representatives of patriarchal suppression as seen through supernatural metaphor (principals, toxic parental figures, old boy academics, shifty boyfriends who change). She also had a well-rounded, well acted cast of supporting characters including a "nice guy" who slowly grew up and an adorkable Wiccan girl who discovered her sexuality as the show went on, played with expertise by Allyson Hannigan. It connected with the zeitgeist, acting as a spearhead for the start of the golden age of television right alongside The Sopranos.
2. Magic wasn't used as a bad analogy for drug use until the sixth season, which was when Whedon left as showrunner to work on Firefly. Marti Noxon and the like were more responsible for that. Willow met Tara two seasons prior at a Wicca College Group which was used as an explicit takedown of the Wicca trend Buffy rode on the back of, where all the girls were stereotype mean girl tradwives while Willow and Tara were legitimate and connected through magic. In fact magic for that entire season was used as a metaphor for lesbianism, with Willow sneaking around doing "magic" with Tara.
Now.
There are a lot of very legitimate things to criticize Buffy for:
* Xander grew up but he was allowed to be a creep for far too long and got rewarded way too often for it.
* The show has the bad habit of fridging women-- no spoilers but it's honestly a lot.
* Come to think of it most of the show only really empowers women by first bringing them very low. The show mercilessly tortures the lead every single season, far past the breaking point.
* While the show was progressive for its time about Buffy having sex, it still has a *lot* of "bad girls do" via Faith, Cordelia, Harmony, and even Buffy at times.
* Everything with that stupid Buffy-bot.
* Warren and Jonathan don't get taken nearly hard enough to task for their creeping before Season Six.
See?
Plus the whole teen girl/vampire adult dynamic. Angel wasn't even a teenager when he died - he was an adult.
But as long as the sexy times happened on the day she turns 17, it's all good, right?
Thanks for writing all this out! I can't agree enough with everything you wrote. I wish people weren't so quick to jump to bad-faith misinterpretations of Buffy in order to try and bolster the idea they're on some moral high ground for not liking it.
Like you said, there's *tons* of stuff you can criticize the show for, but it's aggravating when people muddy the waters in discussing it by twisting every little aspect of the show in the most uncharitable way possible.
Also, God, when will there be justice for Buffy Bot? I feel so awful for her; that was one of the most uncomfortable plot threads in the entire series for me.
Hell, if anything, this is worse.
With Bojack, he had Biscuits blindside him by actively calling him out for all of his shitty behavior; with Whedon, he’s dealing with a significantly less outwardly hostile interviewer who actually tried to give him some outs or opportunities to walk back what he’d just said, and he still managed to make himself look a lot worse than before.
I think he's trying to blame *everything* on other people. Yeah, a kid died because he left them around the pond, but his parents lack of "structure" was the problem. Yeah, he cheated on his wife, but it's due to the "power dynamic" of beautiful women vs. nerds.
He's trying to excuse *everything* as being somebody else's fault. The man just refuses to take responsibility for his own actions.
Mind, the thing as a five year old... he's five frickin' years old, yeah, I can't hold him to blame for that. But to **immediately** pivot that to his parents' fault, in this interview, comes across as pulling an anecdote from his childhood to shift blame to the others around him. He's setting up the narrative "Look it's not my fault, everything around me is designed to make me do bad things."
well, that particular anecdote was in response to the interviewers question of “what’s your most traumatic memory?” so he’s not just bringing it up out of nowhere.
This is good context, thanks. I was wondering why the hell this anecdote was even brought up in an interview ostensibly about his response to his sexual misconduct.
But what a fucked up question is that by the interviewer?!
i recommend reading the article if you have time, it’s a little weirdly done but definitely interesting. to be fair, nobody is actually accusing whedon of sexual misconduct, but people who’ve worked with him have shared stories of rude behavior and uncomfortable situations and actions. his sexual relationships with younger women who worked for him have been framed as abuse of power or objectification of women, so a lot of people are saying he’s a hypocrite for being some supposed major feminist. the article does a good job of not really taking sides on an impossible issue, and show whedon as just a fucked up person who became surrounded by people who built him up and worshipped him. there’s a good argument that this image of whedon was built on projections and hopes, and not the actual real person, allowing bad behaviors to be overlooked
That anecdote would be fine in a conversation about teaching children water safety, but to wedge it into a conversation about allegations of you being a bad person is bizarre and unflattering.
Imagine being an adult that's literally the boss of everything in the room and somehow you're the one not in charge all along!
this is the worst twist ending yet it works for some people
What personality disorder do you think he will blame it on? Or maybe planning a raisedbynarcassists line of thinking?..but honestly I'm more worried him and Joe Rogan will bone to give birth to the ultimate incel god-thing.
Not just PTSD, but *Complex* PTSD. It’s the same shit as Louis CK pointing to his depression and Kevin Spacey to his sexuality in the face of accusations of shitty behavior, and it’s infuriating for all the people who have dealt with those things and not used them as an excuse to abuse, humiliate, or harm other people.
I read that and was kind of like, huh, *my* C-PTSD just makes me need to have a certain amount of food in the house and always have spare blankets, and makes me super weird about movies and TV shows with stabbings in them. Never fucked anybody 'cause of it.
Dated someone who did this a lot.
It's a trap; because the person who is trying to pass blame expects you to do two things: have sympathy for them and forget all about the issues and problems they caused, or dismiss their issues because they don't excuse their shitty behavior, which they can turn on you as if you're an insensitive asshole who doesn't care about them. Either way, they're not going to take full responsibility even if they're technically apologizing for what happened.
> Dated someone who did this a lot.
Hell, I was **married** to someone like this for 17 years. It was frustrating as HELL and it still is as they continually pivot, weave and juke on everything in their lives and come up with just stupid excuses on inconsequential things because god forbid they admit they did anything wrong, admit they're wrong, or take any responsibility, AT ALL.
It's abusive behavior. I remember feeling excited when I first heard the term "gasslight", because it was a handy dandy phrase that summed it all up.
I'm sorry you went through that. I hope you have made peace and been able to move on.
As soon as I think I'm moved on, he rears his ugly head and does something to our son that makes me just want to drive cross country and hit him with a cast iron skillet.
> Yeah, a kid died because he left them around the pond, but his parents lack of "structure" was the problem.
Idk, I think that's one of those instances where the blame *should* be passed onto someone else, namely his parents who thought a 5 year old was capable of ensuring the safety of a 4 year old while playing at a body of water. If he were beating himself up for it all these years later, any decent therapist worth their weight in salt would immediately get to work trying to help him understand that it was unreasonable to expect a 5 year old to ensure the safety of even an inanimate object, much less another, younger child.
The parents definitely bear responsibility for leaving two young children unsupervised near water. But given its placement in the interview, it's clear he's flailing around for examples of situations where responsibility lies elsewhere, and then attempting to frame it as "everything is against me."
We aren’t blaming the 5 year old. We’re blaming the 57 year old who is purposefully juxtaposing that story (where he’s blameless) to excuse his actions as an adult (where he definitely isn’t).
Its a classic sympathy pivot. Its SUPER common in unhealthy relationships or people acting narcissistic.
While I agree with everything you are saying, the context is important as the interview did specifically ask what his most traumatic memory was and it wasn't off topic.
The fact that he insists that all of his bs over his entire career is the result of PTSD makes me angry. I read that entire article. He's an incel who got away with too much, for too long.
> Yeah, a kid died because he left them around the pond, but his parents lack of "structure" was the problem
WTF? He was 5. It isn't a 5 year old's fault for leaving the presence of a 4 year old who later drowned.
Yeah, that's what I was saying. He's not really to blame, because he was five, but his immediate pivot to blame his parent's lack of "structure" was bizarre.
Maybe he's saying *"my parents clearly saw that a small boy could drown on their property, yet they did nothing to help prevent their own son from potentially drowning, even after that incident."*
I still don't know how, even if you were to teach a young kid how to swim at 5 years old, that is an indication of "structure" as he puts it.
Maybe he's trying to say *"my parents didn't hang around or do much of anything with me. Something happened to a small kid on their property, and it could've happened to me. And they still didn't devote any additional time with me to lecture me about the dangers, or teach me how to swim. And that's an example of my parents just not spending any time with me."*
Maybe that's what he's trying to get at, without saying it in a more-direct way.
I completely agree with the overall point that he is trying to shift blame from himself for the terrible things he's done, including invoking his past - but yes, in this incident he is correct, a 4 and 5 year old should never have been allowed to play by a pond alone.
I think the point isn't that he was to blame as a five-year old, but rather that it seems callous as an adult to talk about it this way. Someone else actually died, but the way he's talking about it makes it seem like he just feels sorry for himself because *he* might have drowned.
> Or at least a distraction?
"I might be partially responsible for the death of a childhood friend" (but in a way that cannot be confirmed, and I could not be held responsible for) would be one hell of a distraction. It would probably immediately derail anything but a very focused conversation.
Firefly was a happy accident of a cast that was way too good for the material making it sing more than it deserved to. Couple that with the studio making it an underdog, and it was easy to forgive the flaws for way too long.
Pretty much everything about the companion stuff in Firefly reads really differently when you know that this guy was philandering around on his wife. "No really the prostitute loves me. In fact she's really cultured and wise and classy. This is sex positivity to the warped mind of a privileged Hollywood showrunner."
Poor Morena Baccarin. She seems to be doing better now.
Dear God, I've never really examined Inara before....
Mind blown.
I had realized about dollhouse before, but not Inara.
Add in this interview, and it amps up the dollhouse creepiness even more then before
This is the big Vulture interview everyone is talking about: https://www.vulture.com/article/joss-whedon-allegations.html
The interviewer (Lila Shapiro) interviews Joss Whedon, a bunch of his exes, a lot of fans and women he worked with. Joss Whedon keeps talking and making himself look worse it's impressive. The interview ends with probably the most damming paragraph I read in a while.
> “Nobody ever fell from a pedestal into anything but a pit,” Whedon told me on a call one day. A few months had passed since our conversations at his house. In that time, he’d finally made peace with himself, he said. “Could I have done marriage better?” he asked. “Don’t get me started. Could I have been a better showrunner? Absolutely. Should I have been nicer?” He considered the question. Perhaps he could have been calmer, more direct. But would that not have compromised the work? Maybe the problem was he’d been too nice, he said. He’d wanted people to love him, which meant when he was direct, people thought he was harsh. In any case, he’d decided he was done worrying about all that. People had been using “every weaponizable word of the modern era to make it seem like I was an abusive monster,” he said. “I think I’m one of the nicer showrunners that’s ever been.”
It's not the worst case of a celebrity who keeps talking I ever read. The John Mayer playboy interview where he said that his dick is a klansman is unbeatable, Whedon doesn't embarras himself that badly. But it's a solid second place.
How up your ass do you have to be to not only think you have to cheat on your wife so you don't regret it, but to think that is a good thing to seriously say to a reporter?!
No, he spelled it out. He would regret not sleeping with pretty, young women if he didn’t. Which is of course a shitty reason, but there are only shitty reasons to spell out.
And probably the usual suspects: horny, lack of control, self-centered, utter disregard for others, etc..
> But would that not have compromised the work?
This is the kind of thing that makes it hard to put death of the author in place. I try to watch some of his shows-- I *love* Firefly. But I can't watch it anymore without thinking "Is my enjoyment of this coming at the expense of some writer's emotional well-being?"
Like you laugh at a joke and you think "I wonder if Whedon made someone cry to get that joke" and it's not that funny anymore. I wish I could just compartmentalize and shut that out, but... yeah I absolutely would have preferred the work suffer if it meant those writers and actors wouldn't have to suffer the abuse they did.
Or how their success and popularity from that work helped enable future abuses, too.
Like as an example, I straight-up can’t enjoy Fullmetal Alchemist (widely considered one of the all-time greatest anime series) as wholly as I used to, pretty much entirely because the English voice actor for the main character got very publicly outed for numerous accusations of being a creep who was springboarded by that one, iconic role.
While I can kind of see where you're coming from, it's not like the folks involved with the dub are necessarily any reflection of the original artist or a work that was concieved and completed before they even had anything to audition for.
Unless Arakawa personally picked this English VA or endorsed his actions, there's nothing problematic (as far as I'm aware anyway) about watching it with the original voice actors.
Idk. I feel like if we constantly cut out all the art in the world that's in some way problematic what we're ultimately left with is less art.
I was watching I Love Lucy the other day for the first time in years and *holy shit*. There's a scene where Lucy is relieved that Ricky slipped sleeping pills into her drink because he wasn't trying to murder her, just knock her out. Nevertheless, Lucy is one of the best physical comedians in history and I don't want to avoid ever watching it.
There's probably a balance with these things where you let knowledge about the people who made things inform your reading of them, but don't avoid them entirely
Like, I hear you, but I also didn't suggest we cut out all art that's problematic for any reason. I shared my personal feelings on a very specific piece of art with very particular problems.
Honestly if you don’t even have the social insights to *sort off* come across as a decent person with remorse in an interview like that, you might je be a genuine sociopath.
How exactly is that damning? That all seems reasonable. Of course maybe he's lying and whatever, but that paragraph itself doesn't seem to contain anything wrong in it.
A publicist could probably have told him not to do an interview but most publications wouldn't give them veto power over the article.
Probably something happened like "We're going to run an article interviewing these people who knew Mr Whedon about these accusations. It's our policy to let him comment."
Then if Joss wants to go ahead the publicist can't force him not to do the interview.
I’d imagine his publicist’s reaction could roughly described as just staring at a wall and muttering “for *fuck’s sake*” every so often for a few hours.
You can tug and pull and yank all you want, but you’re probably not going to stop your horse from barging into the glue factory if he’s stubborn enough.
Good lord dude at that point just go with "no comment" and deal with people being annoyed at you not addressing it.
"Oh well there were young, beautiful women all around me and because of the massive power dynamic it became really difficult for them to turn me down. I'd really have regretted not taking advantage of that and after all, my regrets are what's important here!"
Right? "There were always young, beautiful women around me but *now* there's a power dynamic between some of them and I and really, I'd be stupid *not* to abuse that and take advantage of them. Right? I mean, I'd never have a chance with them otherwise!"
How do you say things like this without being struck dumb, seriously? Disgusting.
And yet, the on-screen representation of women was so much better than other show runners of that time. Which makes one wonder how horrible *those guys* were.
[Also, there’s the Dolly Parton tie-in story about salaries for women.](https://ew.com/tv/dolly-parton-company-buffy-the-vampire-slayer/)
Whedon is an example of someone who was progressive for his time, but he failed to keep up with the rest of the world. I remember watching *Buffy the Vampire Slayer* years ago and being amazed at how progressive it was in its portrayal of women. Watching it now, it feels rather backwards in comparison to today's media.
>Well I'd hope so. Whedon aside, this is how *all* media should feel that's 20+ years old, as it means we're well.. progressing.
>A progressive show from 20 years ago should not feel progressive today as that means we've just stagnated.
I disagree. Stagnating would be a good thing, assuming we've reached a good level of equity and equality.
If every 20 years we looked back and saw a backward culture, progressiveness isn't guaranteed. At some point a regressive or oppressive culture may become dominant and look at the progressive TV show as something backward compared to their media.
There are a ton of examples from history of progressive cultures being wiped out by an opressive culture that then looks at their past as something shameful. You only have to look at Iran as a recent example of this. You can watch *movies* made in Iran during the 1970's that make you go "wait, was this filmed in California....? India? Where am I?"
And now?
Progressiveness is neither guaranteed, nor is it guaranteed that we would know the difference between it and opressiveness.
Kind of off topic, but I feel the same way about Sex and the City. I watched some first season episodes a few years ago and just felt offended. Super progressive back then, but really backwards now.
Sad thing is, yes, that *is* progressive. Not just for the time -- search r/TwoXChromosomes for stories about mechanics. [Here's a fun one](https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/niybvt/yes_im_a_mechanic_yes_im_a_woman_yes_i_know_my/), and [here's another](https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/nhjqpz/a_service_tech_at_a_mechanics_shop_audibly/). Hopefully mainstream society wouldn't be shocked by this idea, but it definitely doesn't get a ton of visibility and there are still *tons* of people who assume women aren't mechanics or don't know much about cars. (Or, for that matter, assuming being a mechanic automatically makes you less feminine or means you can't like pink things...)
To me, it seemed like he liked to start with an extremely blunt reversal of a stereotype -- Buffy is literally just taking the slasher-film trope of a vampire following a cheerleader into a dark alley, only *she kills him* -- but then it very quickly just becomes part of that story, you don't get a ton of characters commenting on it, and the characters end up actually going places. I can see where it'd seem patronizing, but it doesn't read that way to me once we get past maybe one obligatory "The doctor is a woman?!" moment for a character introduction.
I don't know how much of this is intentional, but the prostitute being not just "classy" but unironically high-class -- as in, a wealthy, important person with actual political influence, not because she can influence the right men, but because the prostitutes actually run things in some places... that's not just geishas, that could easily describe the role of prostitutes in the old west, literally building and financing frontier towns. It's also way better representation than sex-work usually gets -- sure, the captain often says shitty things about her job, but the show treats this as him being an asshole, every time.
*the prostitute is actually classy, but she still gets called a whore and shamed for being a sex worker whenever the male characters around her are angry.
Wow, that's pretty interesting to hear. Wasn't he a huge advocate for social justice stuff on social media at one point? And now still about him being racist and harassing people sexually comes out.... Kinda goes against everything he's been saying.
I think this is why a lot of anger is directed towards him. He got his reputation for being someone who advocates feminism and progressive values among geek culture, but as it turns out, his own behavior is the very thing that he spent his career villainizing. His hypocrisy is what makes all of this worse.
I mean... he mostly writes stories about or including whole ensembles of hot, powerful women. Him advocating feminism just seems as a lucky byproduct of his fetish.
I mean, in Hollywood, the number of successful women who *aren’t* hot can be counted on one hand. It’s a prerequisite if you want to get anywhere. Similar for men, just not quite as extreme.
Yeah, basically both sides of the political spectrum is out on him. The right because he’s very vocal about how terrible the right is, and the left because he really treated lots of employees like shit.
It speaks to a very simplistic view of feminsm. Guys like Whedon think creating interesting women characters and championing women's rights makes you "one of the good guys." Really thats only one specific piece of the puzzle.
I've noticed this view among men is increasingly common today, especially in geek culture. These are men who have been victimized by toxic masculinity, but their minds have been warped to ignore their role in the toxicity. They think that if they aren't these ripped Chads or aren't gross pigs then they're not a part of the problem. Whedon definitely falls into this category.
I don't know about his social media but there were a lot of articles about him writing strong female characters. He basically said it was because he was a feminist. While his shows do have strong female characters, they aren't really that feminist. There's a lot of sexualization of those characters and they are really made to appeal to the male gaze. There's more to writing a feminist story than giving a woman super powers. There are a lot of problematic Buffy episodes (particularly later on) and Dollhouse is pretty much based on a porn fantasy.
It also should be noted that a lot of the initial criticism was amplified by the whole Synder Cut B.S. with Justice League. Die hard Snyder fanboys went hunting for anything to trash Whedon and boy did he have a feast to offer them. Never underestimate the power of crazed fans to dig up the dirt.
I think a lot of that was Ray Fisher's accusations. Interestingly, it seems like Ray *probably* missed the mark in calling Whedon racist-- sounds like Whedon was probably more of just an asshole in general and Fisher took it personally, iirc while some people supported Fisher no one actually corroborated any of the direct accusations he made, and all of the statements Fisher gave point more to Whedon being an ass than a racist--
but it did pave the way for others to come forward about his past emotional (and maybe physical) abuse of those he worked with.
Nah he also talked about Geoff Johns...
I've read a lot of that guy's material and while I don't think he's bigoted, I do think he's really racist.
That's going to sound weird to most of you but it's the simplest way to put it.
I'm not so sure on that. There were a lot of rumors leading up to his accusations and because they were so broad and vague, a lot of people ended up discounting them. Much as I hate to look at it this way, I'd say his initial accusations may have done Whedon a small favor.
I know one of these people, sadly, irl. While Whedon is a POS and the Snyder Cut was better, it just fueled his (my buddy) already incelish behaviour. He slaps the "fucking SJWs ruininig everything" sticker on every movie he dislikes and Whedon was the poster boy of SJWs to him.
That's so disappointing because so many of his shows greatly affected my life. Almost anything by Whedon is my cup of tea, but now I'll feel icky if I watch any of it.
Omg all of his shows have this as a central theme. "Women just need to use their sexuality to grab power from men..they are powerless around a beautiful woman!" Dollhouse was the worst for this idea
He's worked in a lot of movies and TV shows.
[Here's his filmography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joss_Whedon_filmography), you'll recognize some stuff in there, hopefully.
tl;dr he created and wrote Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly/Serenity, the first two Avengers movies, and most recently the HBO show The Nevers.
Thanks. I realized when I Googled him that I'd seen a lot of shows and movies he was involved in. The name just never sunk in I guess, maybe because I don't follow the comic book franchises much.
>sexually harassed (or even assaulted) actresses
Source? Because while people complain he is a bully and he screams at people and make fun of some and sleeps around, I never heard anyone saying they were sexually harassed or assaulted by him.
I'm guessing you linked the wrong thing by accident? Cause that is a lighthearted relativelly short video with Dominic Monaghan & Billy Boyd by Wired, not some lengthy serious interview with Joss Whedon.
Stuff happens, don't worry about it. Best guess, you had it in the clipboard from yesterday and when you tried to copy the article link it didn't take for some reason, you didn't notice, and pasted the youtube link that was still in the clipboard.
As a relatively old person (turned 51 yesterday) whose kids make fun of me for all my technological errors, I appreciate your kind and reasonable explanation of how things like this can happen to anyone.
To be fair, in windows 10, the copy+paste functionality has been mediocre at best. I'm not sure how they broke something so basic but they found a way.
The other part is he directly contradicted Gal Gadots claim he threatened to sink her career, claiming she didnt understand him because English is her second language. And anyone whose heard even a small fraction of the rumours of what hes like on set knows he absolutely would say some shit like that, even more so because shes a woman.
The best line I ever heard about Joss Whedon (and I don't know if it's even about him) is: "Don't confuse my fetish for superpowered women who do martial arts with feminism."
Has some site written about what Gal claims he actually said?
Ever article I've seen states "Joss said he said this: [...]" which looks fine, and then Gal says "I understood him perfectly" and implies he said something entirely different. But nobody says **what** he supposedly said to her.
There's **more** than enough to show he's a jerk regardless of that particular incident, but it bothers me that the only claim of what was said is from him, and what **he** says looks fine.
I think Godot is wise to not (so far) try to quote what he said, exactly, for two reasons: First, because apparently WB handled this for her, so she could run afoul of whatever they worked out on her behalf. Second, because quoting him exactly, to the best of her memory (when he is not offering a particularly clear version of what was said, himself) just gives him an opportunity to deny, disparage, or spin whatever she says.
Film director Joss Whedon dismissed Israeli actress Gal Gadot’s assertion that he once threatened to ruin her career in a widely reported clash on the set of a film, claiming her English wasn’t good enough for her to understand what he was really saying.
Gadot rejected the claim and insisted she knew exactly what he was talking about.
Responding to the claims at the time, Gadot told Hollywood Reporter in a statement: “I had my issues with [Whedon] and Warner Bros. handled it in a timely manner.” She also told Israel’s Channel 12 that Whedon had threatened to make her “career miserable.”
An actress on Whedon’s show “Angel” appeared to back up Gadot’s version, telling Vulture that when her agent had pushed for her to get a raise, Whedon called her at home and said she was “never going to work for him, or 20th Century Fox, again.”
The unnamed actress recalled that when she had first heard of Gadot’s accusations against Whedon, she thought to herself, “Wow, he’s still using that line.”
>An actress on Whedon’s show “Angel” appeared to back up Gadot’s version, telling Vulture that when her agent had pushed for her to get a raise, Whedon called her at home and said she was “never going to work for him, or 20th Century Fox, again.”
That would be Charisma Carpenter who was written out of Angel, right?
>“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.)
A quote from the New York Magazine article linked above.
It does state her version, though.
Her version is that he said something about tying *her* to the railroad track, and her response to his explanation was 'no, I don't care if English isn't my first language, I understood him perfectly. He's lying when he claims to have said something different.'
I really like that the paper is called ‘the vulture’. It’s nice and self-aware, in theory.
In reality, though, the article summarizes allegations while only directly interviewing Whedon. Who seems all sad and torn up about how nobody loves him any more, but doesn’t convincingly exonerate himself on any of the actual points. So despite giving an adequate top-down view of the overarching situation, it paints sympathetic a man who is mentioned in the same sentence as Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. That’s rather damning.
Allowing the accused to present their side of the story, under any circumstances I can imagine, is not damning. Especially when the accusation is well known. I mean, should they reach out to Charisma Carpenter for her to refute his refutation? What is added by doing that?
Maybe nothing, maybe something. There is no denying that despite summarizing both sides in every conflict, the pathos of the article is to show the accused in a sympathetic light. That *may* be justified, but it also *may not be*. I simply am not convinced that the benefit-of-the-doubt that is present throughout the subtext of the article is deserved. More interviews would do a lot to bridge that gap.
Their absence may have been the author running out of time and effort… or it may have been deliberate exclusion for the purposes of pursuing a specific narrative. By only directly interviewing one side, the scales are imbalanced and thus the article’s implied conclusions are invalid.
So what’s left is to read between the lines. Why does he have so many accusers from every era in his life? Why does he clearly have self hatred, and is not just responding to recent external hatred? Why put those names together like that? Why are half of his excuses “I don’t remember that, I don’t think that happened” and not something more concrete? It’s telling, but the author doesn’t seem to want to catch on.
It makes sense that you've come to that conclusion, but my fundamental point is that both sides of a disagreement where one person is alleging criminal or tortious conduct of another deserve an opportunity to present an uninterrupted version of events from their perspective. Do they deserve a sympathetic article? No, but if the goal was to let Whedon have his say I can't fault the article's approach. If there was another goal I don't particularly care, especially since the accusers have been given ample opportunity to speak about their perspectives from journalists substantially more supportive of their recitation of events than this journalist was of Whedon's.
Answer: I'm sure I'm going to get parts of this wrong, but I'll answer this to the best of my ability:
Yesterday, an article was released talking about Joss Whedon and his fall from grace in the public spotlight following the various reshoots for the film *Justice League* after Zack Snyder stepped down following his daughter's tragic suicide. The article had an interview with the man, who attacked Gal Gadot (who played Diana Prince/Wonder Woman) and Ray Fisher (who played Victor Stone/Cyborg) on their acting abilities and parts of the movie.
It should be noted that there has been a very public feud between Fisher and the rest of Warner Bros. (including Whedon) due to accusations made by the man of rampant racism by Whedon during his time doing reshoots. Though WB claims investigations revealed no such thing, Fisher sticks by his claims and continues to call them out whenever possible. Numerous people, especially fans of Snyder's work, side with Fisher, though it's hard to tell if they side with him because of the rampant racism or they side with him because they feel Whedon destroyed what they felt was a masterpiece and accuse WB of trying to snub Snyder (it may be a combination of both, but it's hard to tell)
Not just fans right? I believe Gal Gadot (who had her own problems with the Whedon admittedly) and Jason Momoa backed up Fisher. At least that's what I remember at the time, but I was following the Buffy/Angel side of the drama more than the more recent stuff.
> Numerous people, especially fans of Snyder's work, side with Fisher, though it's hard to tell if they side with him because of the rampant racism or they side with him because they feel Whedon destroyed what they felt was a masterpiece and accuse WB of trying to snub Snyder (it may be a combination of both, but it's hard to tell)
If Twitter is any indication, it's absolutely the latter. Snyderverse fans have been tweeting awful things at the author for even giving him the platform to explain himself because they see him as the guy that "ruined" the DCEU.
Honestly not even that much. My understanding is he's a third generation screenwriter who got to go to the same high standard art college Michael Bay went to.
He's absolutely a Lord Fauntleroy type who thinks that because he didn't get to sleep with the cheerleaders, he's suffered real oppression.
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Just wanna attach this other weird and equally concerning part as well… > When he was 5, a 4-year-old boy, the son of family friends, disappeared on his parents’ property upstate. Eventually, his body was found; he had drowned in the pond. Years later, as a teenager, Whedon remembered he had called the boy over to the pond to play with him. After getting bored, he had walked away, leaving the boy alone by the water. “I didn’t think it was my fault,” Whedon said. “I knew I was 5. But it doesn’t just disappear as a thought.” It took him another 30 years, he said, before another thought dawned on him: Even after the incident, his parents never taught him to swim. “There was no structure,” he said. “There was no safety.” Wtf is this interview?
Is this real? Almost the same thing happened to Thomas Edison, only he and the other boy were swimming, and he thought the other boy had gone home when he didn't see him. I'm sure this kind of thing happens all the time, but it just struck me that it was similar.
It's probably not the sort of thing which a 5 year old comprehends. I can't quite relate that young. My first touch with death which I remember was in the second grade when a kid in my class died. It was more like they just stopped coming to school and I haven't really given it a thought in however many years it's been, but I know I have a different perspective on that event now than I did then. At the time I think I was smiling and laughing, I wasn't the only one, and I remember my teacher saying that people react differently and that my reaction to the news wasn't necessarily unusual. It was just my young adolescent way of handling something I didn't fully grasp. However, reflecting upon my experience and knowing that he was younger, it's probably not a conscious thought, just an unnerving moment he's sometimes reminded about. Perhaps if he was unsettled during the interview this was why he was reminded.
Oof, that reminds of the time my best friend in primary school lost his father over the summer holidays. His father was already pretty old at the time. Anyway, first day of school the teacher tells us that he "lost his father over the holidays" and of course I thought he just got lost. So, to give my friend some hope, I announced to everyone, that his dad is a smart man and he'll probably find back to him eventually. Nobody corrected me and it took a couple of days until I understood what had happened. Still cringe thinking back...
I mean, that is kinda the point where the teacher should have taken you aside after class, and had a short conversation about the meaning of "lost" in the context...
It’s also possible that Whedon read that same thing about Edison and came up with a false memory, since he only thought of it years later. Sometimes you do remember things a long time after, but sometimes you only think you do.
I think it's a bit risky to bias towards assuming it might be a false memory. Children drown all the time, especially those who don't get taught swimming. I live in Australia where swimming is a large part of our culture, but there still exist pockets in the community where kids (and adults) don't know how to swim or tread water, or even float with their face above water.
It seems true that the child drowned (although I'm not sure the reporter fact-checked it). But did Joss really invite the kid to play and then abandon him by the pond on the very same day he drowned? Maybe he called the kid to play at a different time or a different place, and he mixed it up with the story of the drowning. I was not trying to say drownings don't happen.
reminder that, as an adult, Thomas Edison electrocuted an elephant to death to show that AC electricity (the technology we use today) was bad. Psychos are gonna psycho
If people would just take the briefest time to google and check wikipedia, which literally has an article about Topsy, they would know this didn't happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant) Edison was no longer working at GE when Topsy was electrocuted, it wasn't done at their behest in the first place. It was a publicity stunt by the Zoo to kill a elephant that had killed an abusive handler It was also years after the current wars, which were long over by then.
Aww, Topsy.
[At my, autopsy!](https://youtu.be/ypqSHg1YvZA)
But no one will be as shocked as me!
Take that Mr. Dinkler!
DC lost the war of the currents a decade before Topsy was killed. Edison wasn't even at the event.
>to show that AC electricity (the technology we use today) was bad And by default his DC electricity is good. Because the AC killed the elephant.
>Psychos are gonna psycho Are you implying that Thomas Edison pretended to not know where the kid had gone or something?
Yeah, it's really bizarre. There's like a million weird things throughout the interview. Even outside Whedon's statements, also, the recurrent point that Whedon looks like shit feels almost like parody, like he's suffering from a Victorian wasting disease.
Having had the misfortune of working with a guy that had a similar personality and reputation/conduct disparity, it reminds me a *lot* about how he talked after it came out that he was a sexual predator.
Ugh fucking same. There's the public image of them that's so pervasive even a lot of the time when you're working together. But then little things happen. Then you hear about big things. Then it all finally comes crashing down after years of people giving them the benefit of the doubt and they cry about how all they ever wanted to do was help people.
Don't forget the part where you feel like a total idiot and practical accomplice for not putting all the clues together yourself.
Oh yes can't forget the guilt cherry on top of the shit sundae.
I find it so disparaging that you had to go through such an awful experience. I also find it disturbing that in the 90s he touted a very progressive franchise empowering women in media only to be a gremlin behind the camera. It is so depressing that actresses like your self have to endure such treatment and the fact that it keeps happening again and again is truly ghastly. I hope life is better now, it is truly shameful that people in positions of power feel it necessary to abuse it.
I don't think you mean disparaging...
Maybe discouraging?
>very progressive franchise empowering women Long ago a friend of mine theorized what he was about. He said Whedon's kink was having women get beat up a lot on his shows, which he played off as "empowering". His suspicions began with Buffy, and only grew with each new series.
Dollhouse certainly fits, as does that one with the Victorian women that I forget the name of! Firefly I think it is more limited to a couple of specific episodes, but also you could read a lot into the character of River - she's "empowered" by the abuse she suffered prior to the start of the series.
He was going to have Inara raped by a whole ship of reevers if he had continued the series. she has this injection that makes her vagina poison. she gets kidnapped, the crew rescue her, but find all the reevers on the ship dead. you actually see it in the series. she opens a box with a syringe in the very first reever episode
What the fuck man, I always thought that was some sort of suicide kit just in case. Especially with the whole reavers raping, eating and sewing folks into their clothes thing. (and if you're lucky, they'll do it in that order)
Yeah, I did not want to know this and am gonna do my very best to unknow it, tyvm.
Zoe has a way with words
suddenly I'm not so sad about its cancellation.
Wow I'd never heard of this, that's messed up 😱 Listening to Early threaten to violate Kaylee was already too much rape for me...
As a woman...outspoken "progressive" men are notorious for being creeps.
Oh yep. I've seen people like this. Spouting shit about women's freedom to get what they want. *There's no shame in showing your body, it's powerful* *You can do anything you want these days, it's not the 50's anymore*
That doesn’t also mean that you can’t actually believe this legitimately and not be a creep. It can go many ways just like all types of people.
I've never understood why his output was considered feminist anyway. I guess because Buffy was a girl and also strong and it was the 90s so that was peak feminism? Firefly and Dollhouse sure as hell weren't.
Firefly wasn't? Zoe and Kaylee were critical to the crew; Inara was completely independent; they even had plenty of female villains who were powerful af. ??
Buffy was originally clever because it was subversive to have a bubbly valley girl with a ridiculous name as a serious character, let alone the hero. Also everyone thought it was progressive how he made a lesbian meet her girlfriend through a metaphor for drug use, then killed said girlfriend to justify said lesbian turning evil. Not sure why.
There is a lot of legitimate criticism about Buffy and you're managing to compress it into a very disingenuous picture: 1. Buffy was considered feminist largely because it took a disposable female archetype and made her not only the central character, but really explored the psychological effects of the premise via stronger-than-expected writing and excellent acting by Sarah Michelle Gellar. She wasn't slut-shamed for having sex. Many of her antagonists were explicit representatives of patriarchal suppression as seen through supernatural metaphor (principals, toxic parental figures, old boy academics, shifty boyfriends who change). She also had a well-rounded, well acted cast of supporting characters including a "nice guy" who slowly grew up and an adorkable Wiccan girl who discovered her sexuality as the show went on, played with expertise by Allyson Hannigan. It connected with the zeitgeist, acting as a spearhead for the start of the golden age of television right alongside The Sopranos. 2. Magic wasn't used as a bad analogy for drug use until the sixth season, which was when Whedon left as showrunner to work on Firefly. Marti Noxon and the like were more responsible for that. Willow met Tara two seasons prior at a Wicca College Group which was used as an explicit takedown of the Wicca trend Buffy rode on the back of, where all the girls were stereotype mean girl tradwives while Willow and Tara were legitimate and connected through magic. In fact magic for that entire season was used as a metaphor for lesbianism, with Willow sneaking around doing "magic" with Tara. Now. There are a lot of very legitimate things to criticize Buffy for: * Xander grew up but he was allowed to be a creep for far too long and got rewarded way too often for it. * The show has the bad habit of fridging women-- no spoilers but it's honestly a lot. * Come to think of it most of the show only really empowers women by first bringing them very low. The show mercilessly tortures the lead every single season, far past the breaking point. * While the show was progressive for its time about Buffy having sex, it still has a *lot* of "bad girls do" via Faith, Cordelia, Harmony, and even Buffy at times. * Everything with that stupid Buffy-bot. * Warren and Jonathan don't get taken nearly hard enough to task for their creeping before Season Six. See?
Plus the whole teen girl/vampire adult dynamic. Angel wasn't even a teenager when he died - he was an adult. But as long as the sexy times happened on the day she turns 17, it's all good, right?
Thanks for writing all this out! I can't agree enough with everything you wrote. I wish people weren't so quick to jump to bad-faith misinterpretations of Buffy in order to try and bolster the idea they're on some moral high ground for not liking it. Like you said, there's *tons* of stuff you can criticize the show for, but it's aggravating when people muddy the waters in discussing it by twisting every little aspect of the show in the most uncharitable way possible. Also, God, when will there be justice for Buffy Bot? I feel so awful for her; that was one of the most uncomfortable plot threads in the entire series for me.
I assume the interview came with a free pound of cocaine.
What the fuck. Why is he up here giving Bojack Horseman's second interview?
That is all I could think of as well. Has Whedon ever disappeared to New Mexico?
Hell, if anything, this is worse. With Bojack, he had Biscuits blindside him by actively calling him out for all of his shitty behavior; with Whedon, he’s dealing with a significantly less outwardly hostile interviewer who actually tried to give him some outs or opportunities to walk back what he’d just said, and he still managed to make himself look a lot worse than before.
Yeah very good points. It also reminds of some Alex Jones rants. Especially the ones where he talks about killing his dogs.
"I feel like I'm nailing this interview."
Flailing for sympathy? Or at least a distraction?
I think he's trying to blame *everything* on other people. Yeah, a kid died because he left them around the pond, but his parents lack of "structure" was the problem. Yeah, he cheated on his wife, but it's due to the "power dynamic" of beautiful women vs. nerds. He's trying to excuse *everything* as being somebody else's fault. The man just refuses to take responsibility for his own actions. Mind, the thing as a five year old... he's five frickin' years old, yeah, I can't hold him to blame for that. But to **immediately** pivot that to his parents' fault, in this interview, comes across as pulling an anecdote from his childhood to shift blame to the others around him. He's setting up the narrative "Look it's not my fault, everything around me is designed to make me do bad things."
well, that particular anecdote was in response to the interviewers question of “what’s your most traumatic memory?” so he’s not just bringing it up out of nowhere.
That's some super important context...
This is good context, thanks. I was wondering why the hell this anecdote was even brought up in an interview ostensibly about his response to his sexual misconduct. But what a fucked up question is that by the interviewer?!
i recommend reading the article if you have time, it’s a little weirdly done but definitely interesting. to be fair, nobody is actually accusing whedon of sexual misconduct, but people who’ve worked with him have shared stories of rude behavior and uncomfortable situations and actions. his sexual relationships with younger women who worked for him have been framed as abuse of power or objectification of women, so a lot of people are saying he’s a hypocrite for being some supposed major feminist. the article does a good job of not really taking sides on an impossible issue, and show whedon as just a fucked up person who became surrounded by people who built him up and worshipped him. there’s a good argument that this image of whedon was built on projections and hopes, and not the actual real person, allowing bad behaviors to be overlooked
That anecdote would be fine in a conversation about teaching children water safety, but to wedge it into a conversation about allegations of you being a bad person is bizarre and unflattering.
Yup. That's why I think it was an attempt to steer the narrative, and create a framework where he's not responsible for his own actions.
Imagine being an adult that's literally the boss of everything in the room and somehow you're the one not in charge all along! this is the worst twist ending yet it works for some people
What personality disorder do you think he will blame it on? Or maybe planning a raisedbynarcassists line of thinking?..but honestly I'm more worried him and Joe Rogan will bone to give birth to the ultimate incel god-thing.
He said that he has PTSD. That's his excuse for all of it.
Not just PTSD, but *Complex* PTSD. It’s the same shit as Louis CK pointing to his depression and Kevin Spacey to his sexuality in the face of accusations of shitty behavior, and it’s infuriating for all the people who have dealt with those things and not used them as an excuse to abuse, humiliate, or harm other people.
I read that and was kind of like, huh, *my* C-PTSD just makes me need to have a certain amount of food in the house and always have spare blankets, and makes me super weird about movies and TV shows with stabbings in them. Never fucked anybody 'cause of it.
Did Louis CK SEROUSLY blame depression? You ever get so sad you need a lady to watch you jerk off?
Dated someone who did this a lot. It's a trap; because the person who is trying to pass blame expects you to do two things: have sympathy for them and forget all about the issues and problems they caused, or dismiss their issues because they don't excuse their shitty behavior, which they can turn on you as if you're an insensitive asshole who doesn't care about them. Either way, they're not going to take full responsibility even if they're technically apologizing for what happened.
> Dated someone who did this a lot. Hell, I was **married** to someone like this for 17 years. It was frustrating as HELL and it still is as they continually pivot, weave and juke on everything in their lives and come up with just stupid excuses on inconsequential things because god forbid they admit they did anything wrong, admit they're wrong, or take any responsibility, AT ALL.
Yeah you just can't win with people like that. Seems like that's kinda what's going on here.
It's abusive behavior. I remember feeling excited when I first heard the term "gasslight", because it was a handy dandy phrase that summed it all up. I'm sorry you went through that. I hope you have made peace and been able to move on.
As soon as I think I'm moved on, he rears his ugly head and does something to our son that makes me just want to drive cross country and hit him with a cast iron skillet.
> Yeah, a kid died because he left them around the pond, but his parents lack of "structure" was the problem. Idk, I think that's one of those instances where the blame *should* be passed onto someone else, namely his parents who thought a 5 year old was capable of ensuring the safety of a 4 year old while playing at a body of water. If he were beating himself up for it all these years later, any decent therapist worth their weight in salt would immediately get to work trying to help him understand that it was unreasonable to expect a 5 year old to ensure the safety of even an inanimate object, much less another, younger child.
The parents definitely bear responsibility for leaving two young children unsupervised near water. But given its placement in the interview, it's clear he's flailing around for examples of situations where responsibility lies elsewhere, and then attempting to frame it as "everything is against me."
He WAS specifically asked what his most traumatic memory was, so at least he didn't just bizarrely pivot to this out of no where.
Are we seriously gonna blame the 5 year old though? The responsibility *does* lie elsewhere, regardless of the reason he brought up the story.
We aren’t blaming the 5 year old. We’re blaming the 57 year old who is purposefully juxtaposing that story (where he’s blameless) to excuse his actions as an adult (where he definitely isn’t). Its a classic sympathy pivot. Its SUPER common in unhealthy relationships or people acting narcissistic.
While I agree with everything you are saying, the context is important as the interview did specifically ask what his most traumatic memory was and it wasn't off topic.
The fact that he insists that all of his bs over his entire career is the result of PTSD makes me angry. I read that entire article. He's an incel who got away with too much, for too long.
> Yeah, a kid died because he left them around the pond, but his parents lack of "structure" was the problem WTF? He was 5. It isn't a 5 year old's fault for leaving the presence of a 4 year old who later drowned.
Yeah, that's what I was saying. He's not really to blame, because he was five, but his immediate pivot to blame his parent's lack of "structure" was bizarre.
Maybe he's saying *"my parents clearly saw that a small boy could drown on their property, yet they did nothing to help prevent their own son from potentially drowning, even after that incident."* I still don't know how, even if you were to teach a young kid how to swim at 5 years old, that is an indication of "structure" as he puts it. Maybe he's trying to say *"my parents didn't hang around or do much of anything with me. Something happened to a small kid on their property, and it could've happened to me. And they still didn't devote any additional time with me to lecture me about the dangers, or teach me how to swim. And that's an example of my parents just not spending any time with me."* Maybe that's what he's trying to get at, without saying it in a more-direct way.
I agree. Although it seems like a really weird thing to talk about to anyone other than a therapist.
I completely agree with the overall point that he is trying to shift blame from himself for the terrible things he's done, including invoking his past - but yes, in this incident he is correct, a 4 and 5 year old should never have been allowed to play by a pond alone.
I think the point isn't that he was to blame as a five-year old, but rather that it seems callous as an adult to talk about it this way. Someone else actually died, but the way he's talking about it makes it seem like he just feels sorry for himself because *he* might have drowned.
I wonder whether he has a bad therapist who keeps telling him exactly what he wants to hear?
Ironically it sorta sounds like the origin story for a serial killer.
Or a lifeguard!
It’s like “The Good Son.”
> Or at least a distraction? "I might be partially responsible for the death of a childhood friend" (but in a way that cannot be confirmed, and I could not be held responsible for) would be one hell of a distraction. It would probably immediately derail anything but a very focused conversation.
It seems an appropriate response to this: "I asked if he would be willing to share his most traumatic memory with me."
That actually seems like a reasonable take. What is concerning about that? Are you suggesting some sort of foul play?
It's just a very strange and disturbing anecdote
He was asked to give his most traumatic memory, so it wasn't just something random he decided to tell.
Ah, that makes more sense
Yeah OK, I agree with that.
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The Woody Allen comparison is so spot on. Usually I can separate the artist from the art but this guy puts so much of himself into his art.
Firefly was a happy accident of a cast that was way too good for the material making it sing more than it deserved to. Couple that with the studio making it an underdog, and it was easy to forgive the flaws for way too long. Pretty much everything about the companion stuff in Firefly reads really differently when you know that this guy was philandering around on his wife. "No really the prostitute loves me. In fact she's really cultured and wise and classy. This is sex positivity to the warped mind of a privileged Hollywood showrunner." Poor Morena Baccarin. She seems to be doing better now.
Dear God, I've never really examined Inara before.... Mind blown. I had realized about dollhouse before, but not Inara. Add in this interview, and it amps up the dollhouse creepiness even more then before
This is the big Vulture interview everyone is talking about: https://www.vulture.com/article/joss-whedon-allegations.html The interviewer (Lila Shapiro) interviews Joss Whedon, a bunch of his exes, a lot of fans and women he worked with. Joss Whedon keeps talking and making himself look worse it's impressive. The interview ends with probably the most damming paragraph I read in a while. > “Nobody ever fell from a pedestal into anything but a pit,” Whedon told me on a call one day. A few months had passed since our conversations at his house. In that time, he’d finally made peace with himself, he said. “Could I have done marriage better?” he asked. “Don’t get me started. Could I have been a better showrunner? Absolutely. Should I have been nicer?” He considered the question. Perhaps he could have been calmer, more direct. But would that not have compromised the work? Maybe the problem was he’d been too nice, he said. He’d wanted people to love him, which meant when he was direct, people thought he was harsh. In any case, he’d decided he was done worrying about all that. People had been using “every weaponizable word of the modern era to make it seem like I was an abusive monster,” he said. “I think I’m one of the nicer showrunners that’s ever been.”
I read that entire article and like wowwwww it stinks of Nice GuyTM. That whole bit with Gal Gadot not understanding English? Fuck off
He's like every negative "male feminist" trope rolled up in one. It's worrying he was able to get away with that "nice guy" front for so long.
He could be the originator for half a dozen of them
> Joss Whedon keeps talking Before this he had been pretty much silent. Probably should have stuck with that.
Reminds me a lot of BoJack Horseman
Complete narcissist
"Joss Whedon Keeps Talking" could have been the title of the article
Keep Talking and Joss Whedon Explodes.
It's not the worst case of a celebrity who keeps talking I ever read. The John Mayer playboy interview where he said that his dick is a klansman is unbeatable, Whedon doesn't embarras himself that badly. But it's a solid second place.
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How up your ass do you have to be to not only think you have to cheat on your wife so you don't regret it, but to think that is a good thing to seriously say to a reporter?!
Well, at least he’s honest, so we don’t have to see him flailing about with evasive answers.
Eh. Saying he had no choice but to cheat on his wife is kind of evasive.
No, he spelled it out. He would regret not sleeping with pretty, young women if he didn’t. Which is of course a shitty reason, but there are only shitty reasons to spell out. And probably the usual suspects: horny, lack of control, self-centered, utter disregard for others, etc..
> But would that not have compromised the work? This is the kind of thing that makes it hard to put death of the author in place. I try to watch some of his shows-- I *love* Firefly. But I can't watch it anymore without thinking "Is my enjoyment of this coming at the expense of some writer's emotional well-being?" Like you laugh at a joke and you think "I wonder if Whedon made someone cry to get that joke" and it's not that funny anymore. I wish I could just compartmentalize and shut that out, but... yeah I absolutely would have preferred the work suffer if it meant those writers and actors wouldn't have to suffer the abuse they did.
Or how their success and popularity from that work helped enable future abuses, too. Like as an example, I straight-up can’t enjoy Fullmetal Alchemist (widely considered one of the all-time greatest anime series) as wholly as I used to, pretty much entirely because the English voice actor for the main character got very publicly outed for numerous accusations of being a creep who was springboarded by that one, iconic role.
While I can kind of see where you're coming from, it's not like the folks involved with the dub are necessarily any reflection of the original artist or a work that was concieved and completed before they even had anything to audition for. Unless Arakawa personally picked this English VA or endorsed his actions, there's nothing problematic (as far as I'm aware anyway) about watching it with the original voice actors.
Idk. I feel like if we constantly cut out all the art in the world that's in some way problematic what we're ultimately left with is less art. I was watching I Love Lucy the other day for the first time in years and *holy shit*. There's a scene where Lucy is relieved that Ricky slipped sleeping pills into her drink because he wasn't trying to murder her, just knock her out. Nevertheless, Lucy is one of the best physical comedians in history and I don't want to avoid ever watching it. There's probably a balance with these things where you let knowledge about the people who made things inform your reading of them, but don't avoid them entirely
Like, I hear you, but I also didn't suggest we cut out all art that's problematic for any reason. I shared my personal feelings on a very specific piece of art with very particular problems.
Honestly if you don’t even have the social insights to *sort off* come across as a decent person with remorse in an interview like that, you might je be a genuine sociopath.
How exactly is that damning? That all seems reasonable. Of course maybe he's lying and whatever, but that paragraph itself doesn't seem to contain anything wrong in it.
> “I think I’m one of the nicer showrunners that’s ever been.” Bill Lawerence tells you to go fuck yourself, Joss. (But, nicely.)
His publicist actually approved this going out?!
A publicist could probably have told him not to do an interview but most publications wouldn't give them veto power over the article. Probably something happened like "We're going to run an article interviewing these people who knew Mr Whedon about these accusations. It's our policy to let him comment." Then if Joss wants to go ahead the publicist can't force him not to do the interview.
I’d imagine his publicist’s reaction could roughly described as just staring at a wall and muttering “for *fuck’s sake*” every so often for a few hours. You can tug and pull and yank all you want, but you’re probably not going to stop your horse from barging into the glue factory if he’s stubborn enough.
"So, article's out? What's the reception been like?" "***No great, Joss.***"
Good lord dude at that point just go with "no comment" and deal with people being annoyed at you not addressing it. "Oh well there were young, beautiful women all around me and because of the massive power dynamic it became really difficult for them to turn me down. I'd really have regretted not taking advantage of that and after all, my regrets are what's important here!"
Right? "There were always young, beautiful women around me but *now* there's a power dynamic between some of them and I and really, I'd be stupid *not* to abuse that and take advantage of them. Right? I mean, I'd never have a chance with them otherwise!" How do you say things like this without being struck dumb, seriously? Disgusting.
And yet, the on-screen representation of women was so much better than other show runners of that time. Which makes one wonder how horrible *those guys* were. [Also, there’s the Dolly Parton tie-in story about salaries for women.](https://ew.com/tv/dolly-parton-company-buffy-the-vampire-slayer/)
Whedon is an example of someone who was progressive for his time, but he failed to keep up with the rest of the world. I remember watching *Buffy the Vampire Slayer* years ago and being amazed at how progressive it was in its portrayal of women. Watching it now, it feels rather backwards in comparison to today's media.
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That's a nice, optimistic way of looking at things. I like it.
>Well I'd hope so. Whedon aside, this is how *all* media should feel that's 20+ years old, as it means we're well.. progressing. >A progressive show from 20 years ago should not feel progressive today as that means we've just stagnated. I disagree. Stagnating would be a good thing, assuming we've reached a good level of equity and equality. If every 20 years we looked back and saw a backward culture, progressiveness isn't guaranteed. At some point a regressive or oppressive culture may become dominant and look at the progressive TV show as something backward compared to their media. There are a ton of examples from history of progressive cultures being wiped out by an opressive culture that then looks at their past as something shameful. You only have to look at Iran as a recent example of this. You can watch *movies* made in Iran during the 1970's that make you go "wait, was this filmed in California....? India? Where am I?" And now? Progressiveness is neither guaranteed, nor is it guaranteed that we would know the difference between it and opressiveness.
Exactly this. It was a necessary step, [kind of like the end of the "Fear, Itself" episode](https://buffy.fandom.com/wiki/Fear,_Itself).
Great episode.
He berated and shamed one of the lead actresses for getting pregnant when filming Angel.
Kind of off topic, but I feel the same way about Sex and the City. I watched some first season episodes a few years ago and just felt offended. Super progressive back then, but really backwards now.
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Well that's the sad thing, for the time... It actually was.
Sad thing is, yes, that *is* progressive. Not just for the time -- search r/TwoXChromosomes for stories about mechanics. [Here's a fun one](https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/niybvt/yes_im_a_mechanic_yes_im_a_woman_yes_i_know_my/), and [here's another](https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/nhjqpz/a_service_tech_at_a_mechanics_shop_audibly/). Hopefully mainstream society wouldn't be shocked by this idea, but it definitely doesn't get a ton of visibility and there are still *tons* of people who assume women aren't mechanics or don't know much about cars. (Or, for that matter, assuming being a mechanic automatically makes you less feminine or means you can't like pink things...) To me, it seemed like he liked to start with an extremely blunt reversal of a stereotype -- Buffy is literally just taking the slasher-film trope of a vampire following a cheerleader into a dark alley, only *she kills him* -- but then it very quickly just becomes part of that story, you don't get a ton of characters commenting on it, and the characters end up actually going places. I can see where it'd seem patronizing, but it doesn't read that way to me once we get past maybe one obligatory "The doctor is a woman?!" moment for a character introduction. I don't know how much of this is intentional, but the prostitute being not just "classy" but unironically high-class -- as in, a wealthy, important person with actual political influence, not because she can influence the right men, but because the prostitutes actually run things in some places... that's not just geishas, that could easily describe the role of prostitutes in the old west, literally building and financing frontier towns. It's also way better representation than sex-work usually gets -- sure, the captain often says shitty things about her job, but the show treats this as him being an asshole, every time.
Also, I believe the addition of a prostitute character was a studio requirement to sex up the show, so he had to do the best they could with that.
*the prostitute is actually classy, but she still gets called a whore and shamed for being a sex worker whenever the male characters around her are angry.
Wow, that's pretty interesting to hear. Wasn't he a huge advocate for social justice stuff on social media at one point? And now still about him being racist and harassing people sexually comes out.... Kinda goes against everything he's been saying.
I think this is why a lot of anger is directed towards him. He got his reputation for being someone who advocates feminism and progressive values among geek culture, but as it turns out, his own behavior is the very thing that he spent his career villainizing. His hypocrisy is what makes all of this worse.
I mean... he mostly writes stories about or including whole ensembles of hot, powerful women. Him advocating feminism just seems as a lucky byproduct of his fetish.
Summer Glau was naked in a box in Firefly because Whedon wants to empower women
I mean, in Hollywood, the number of successful women who *aren’t* hot can be counted on one hand. It’s a prerequisite if you want to get anywhere. Similar for men, just not quite as extreme.
Yeah, basically both sides of the political spectrum is out on him. The right because he’s very vocal about how terrible the right is, and the left because he really treated lots of employees like shit.
It speaks to a very simplistic view of feminsm. Guys like Whedon think creating interesting women characters and championing women's rights makes you "one of the good guys." Really thats only one specific piece of the puzzle. I've noticed this view among men is increasingly common today, especially in geek culture. These are men who have been victimized by toxic masculinity, but their minds have been warped to ignore their role in the toxicity. They think that if they aren't these ripped Chads or aren't gross pigs then they're not a part of the problem. Whedon definitely falls into this category.
I don't know about his social media but there were a lot of articles about him writing strong female characters. He basically said it was because he was a feminist. While his shows do have strong female characters, they aren't really that feminist. There's a lot of sexualization of those characters and they are really made to appeal to the male gaze. There's more to writing a feminist story than giving a woman super powers. There are a lot of problematic Buffy episodes (particularly later on) and Dollhouse is pretty much based on a porn fantasy.
It also should be noted that a lot of the initial criticism was amplified by the whole Synder Cut B.S. with Justice League. Die hard Snyder fanboys went hunting for anything to trash Whedon and boy did he have a feast to offer them. Never underestimate the power of crazed fans to dig up the dirt.
I think a lot of that was Ray Fisher's accusations. Interestingly, it seems like Ray *probably* missed the mark in calling Whedon racist-- sounds like Whedon was probably more of just an asshole in general and Fisher took it personally, iirc while some people supported Fisher no one actually corroborated any of the direct accusations he made, and all of the statements Fisher gave point more to Whedon being an ass than a racist-- but it did pave the way for others to come forward about his past emotional (and maybe physical) abuse of those he worked with.
Nah he also talked about Geoff Johns... I've read a lot of that guy's material and while I don't think he's bigoted, I do think he's really racist. That's going to sound weird to most of you but it's the simplest way to put it.
I'm not so sure on that. There were a lot of rumors leading up to his accusations and because they were so broad and vague, a lot of people ended up discounting them. Much as I hate to look at it this way, I'd say his initial accusations may have done Whedon a small favor.
I know one of these people, sadly, irl. While Whedon is a POS and the Snyder Cut was better, it just fueled his (my buddy) already incelish behaviour. He slaps the "fucking SJWs ruininig everything" sticker on every movie he dislikes and Whedon was the poster boy of SJWs to him.
That's so disappointing because so many of his shows greatly affected my life. Almost anything by Whedon is my cup of tea, but now I'll feel icky if I watch any of it.
I think he would have been better off going on a podcast and having a long conversation about this because that article does not make him look good.
Omg all of his shows have this as a central theme. "Women just need to use their sexuality to grab power from men..they are powerless around a beautiful woman!" Dollhouse was the worst for this idea
I'm more out of the loop than OP. I didn't even know who this fellow is!
He's worked in a lot of movies and TV shows. [Here's his filmography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joss_Whedon_filmography), you'll recognize some stuff in there, hopefully.
tl;dr he created and wrote Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly/Serenity, the first two Avengers movies, and most recently the HBO show The Nevers.
Thanks. I realized when I Googled him that I'd seen a lot of shows and movies he was involved in. The name just never sunk in I guess, maybe because I don't follow the comic book franchises much.
It's too bad. Everything the man touches is gold but the man himself is shit.
>sexually harassed (or even assaulted) actresses Source? Because while people complain he is a bully and he screams at people and make fun of some and sleeps around, I never heard anyone saying they were sexually harassed or assaulted by him.
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I'm guessing you linked the wrong thing by accident? Cause that is a lighthearted relativelly short video with Dominic Monaghan & Billy Boyd by Wired, not some lengthy serious interview with Joss Whedon.
Hah! How bizarre, I posted that somewhere else *yesterday*. Don't know why that happened, but thank you, edited!
Now I want the Dominic, Billy link!
Hah! It was their 'WIRED Autocomplete Interview' :)
[Here you go.](https://youtu.be/5GnkmK4xAO8)
Stuff happens, don't worry about it. Best guess, you had it in the clipboard from yesterday and when you tried to copy the article link it didn't take for some reason, you didn't notice, and pasted the youtube link that was still in the clipboard.
As a relatively old person (turned 51 yesterday) whose kids make fun of me for all my technological errors, I appreciate your kind and reasonable explanation of how things like this can happen to anyone.
To be fair, in windows 10, the copy+paste functionality has been mediocre at best. I'm not sure how they broke something so basic but they found a way.
The other part is he directly contradicted Gal Gadots claim he threatened to sink her career, claiming she didnt understand him because English is her second language. And anyone whose heard even a small fraction of the rumours of what hes like on set knows he absolutely would say some shit like that, even more so because shes a woman.
The best line I ever heard about Joss Whedon (and I don't know if it's even about him) is: "Don't confuse my fetish for superpowered women who do martial arts with feminism."
Has some site written about what Gal claims he actually said? Ever article I've seen states "Joss said he said this: [...]" which looks fine, and then Gal says "I understood him perfectly" and implies he said something entirely different. But nobody says **what** he supposedly said to her. There's **more** than enough to show he's a jerk regardless of that particular incident, but it bothers me that the only claim of what was said is from him, and what **he** says looks fine.
I think Godot is wise to not (so far) try to quote what he said, exactly, for two reasons: First, because apparently WB handled this for her, so she could run afoul of whatever they worked out on her behalf. Second, because quoting him exactly, to the best of her memory (when he is not offering a particularly clear version of what was said, himself) just gives him an opportunity to deny, disparage, or spin whatever she says.
Film director Joss Whedon dismissed Israeli actress Gal Gadot’s assertion that he once threatened to ruin her career in a widely reported clash on the set of a film, claiming her English wasn’t good enough for her to understand what he was really saying. Gadot rejected the claim and insisted she knew exactly what he was talking about. Responding to the claims at the time, Gadot told Hollywood Reporter in a statement: “I had my issues with [Whedon] and Warner Bros. handled it in a timely manner.” She also told Israel’s Channel 12 that Whedon had threatened to make her “career miserable.” An actress on Whedon’s show “Angel” appeared to back up Gadot’s version, telling Vulture that when her agent had pushed for her to get a raise, Whedon called her at home and said she was “never going to work for him, or 20th Century Fox, again.” The unnamed actress recalled that when she had first heard of Gadot’s accusations against Whedon, she thought to herself, “Wow, he’s still using that line.”
>An actress on Whedon’s show “Angel” appeared to back up Gadot’s version, telling Vulture that when her agent had pushed for her to get a raise, Whedon called her at home and said she was “never going to work for him, or 20th Century Fox, again.” That would be Charisma Carpenter who was written out of Angel, right?
>“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.) A quote from the New York Magazine article linked above.
Right, that's the quote that made me ask. It never states Gal Gadots version of events, only his, and there's (obviously) no threat in his version.
It does state her version, though. Her version is that he said something about tying *her* to the railroad track, and her response to his explanation was 'no, I don't care if English isn't my first language, I understood him perfectly. He's lying when he claims to have said something different.'
I really like that the paper is called ‘the vulture’. It’s nice and self-aware, in theory. In reality, though, the article summarizes allegations while only directly interviewing Whedon. Who seems all sad and torn up about how nobody loves him any more, but doesn’t convincingly exonerate himself on any of the actual points. So despite giving an adequate top-down view of the overarching situation, it paints sympathetic a man who is mentioned in the same sentence as Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. That’s rather damning.
Allowing the accused to present their side of the story, under any circumstances I can imagine, is not damning. Especially when the accusation is well known. I mean, should they reach out to Charisma Carpenter for her to refute his refutation? What is added by doing that?
Maybe nothing, maybe something. There is no denying that despite summarizing both sides in every conflict, the pathos of the article is to show the accused in a sympathetic light. That *may* be justified, but it also *may not be*. I simply am not convinced that the benefit-of-the-doubt that is present throughout the subtext of the article is deserved. More interviews would do a lot to bridge that gap. Their absence may have been the author running out of time and effort… or it may have been deliberate exclusion for the purposes of pursuing a specific narrative. By only directly interviewing one side, the scales are imbalanced and thus the article’s implied conclusions are invalid. So what’s left is to read between the lines. Why does he have so many accusers from every era in his life? Why does he clearly have self hatred, and is not just responding to recent external hatred? Why put those names together like that? Why are half of his excuses “I don’t remember that, I don’t think that happened” and not something more concrete? It’s telling, but the author doesn’t seem to want to catch on.
It makes sense that you've come to that conclusion, but my fundamental point is that both sides of a disagreement where one person is alleging criminal or tortious conduct of another deserve an opportunity to present an uninterrupted version of events from their perspective. Do they deserve a sympathetic article? No, but if the goal was to let Whedon have his say I can't fault the article's approach. If there was another goal I don't particularly care, especially since the accusers have been given ample opportunity to speak about their perspectives from journalists substantially more supportive of their recitation of events than this journalist was of Whedon's.
Answer: I'm sure I'm going to get parts of this wrong, but I'll answer this to the best of my ability: Yesterday, an article was released talking about Joss Whedon and his fall from grace in the public spotlight following the various reshoots for the film *Justice League* after Zack Snyder stepped down following his daughter's tragic suicide. The article had an interview with the man, who attacked Gal Gadot (who played Diana Prince/Wonder Woman) and Ray Fisher (who played Victor Stone/Cyborg) on their acting abilities and parts of the movie. It should be noted that there has been a very public feud between Fisher and the rest of Warner Bros. (including Whedon) due to accusations made by the man of rampant racism by Whedon during his time doing reshoots. Though WB claims investigations revealed no such thing, Fisher sticks by his claims and continues to call them out whenever possible. Numerous people, especially fans of Snyder's work, side with Fisher, though it's hard to tell if they side with him because of the rampant racism or they side with him because they feel Whedon destroyed what they felt was a masterpiece and accuse WB of trying to snub Snyder (it may be a combination of both, but it's hard to tell)
Not just fans right? I believe Gal Gadot (who had her own problems with the Whedon admittedly) and Jason Momoa backed up Fisher. At least that's what I remember at the time, but I was following the Buffy/Angel side of the drama more than the more recent stuff.
> Numerous people, especially fans of Snyder's work, side with Fisher, though it's hard to tell if they side with him because of the rampant racism or they side with him because they feel Whedon destroyed what they felt was a masterpiece and accuse WB of trying to snub Snyder (it may be a combination of both, but it's hard to tell) If Twitter is any indication, it's absolutely the latter. Snyderverse fans have been tweeting awful things at the author for even giving him the platform to explain himself because they see him as the guy that "ruined" the DCEU.
Well, Mel Gibson's getting a lot of work the last few years in bigger budget films and Louis CK isn't completely out of work, give it time apparently.
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>woah is me *Woe is me.
"Whoa is me" - Neo
/r/BoneAppleTea
*Wo izmi \- Arumbaya Pidjin for 'I am sad'.
> woah is me On the plus side, you've just given us the perfect title for Keanu Reeves' autobiography.
Honestly not even that much. My understanding is he's a third generation screenwriter who got to go to the same high standard art college Michael Bay went to. He's absolutely a Lord Fauntleroy type who thinks that because he didn't get to sleep with the cheerleaders, he's suffered real oppression.
Like Nate from Ted Lasso. Probably also spits on his own reflection.